F.A.G.’s tolerance for thrash and Mick Jagger have reached critical mass. Will this be the review to send him over the edge into a meltdown of Chernobyly portions??
Dan Swanö
Torture Division – Through the Eyes of a Dead Review
For those of you not familiar with Torture Division, you obviously haven’t been reading this here blog for very long. Shame on you. For the rest of you, you’ll probably be happy to hear that Torture Division is back with another three track downloadable EP (that you should donate for downloading because diamond studded swimming pools don’t grow on trees). While the thing is called Through the Eyes of a Dead, some of us over here at Angry Metal Guy suspect that the title was “Through the Eyes of the Dead” largely because that’s what the song is called when you download it, but then there’s the deathcore band from the US and that would’ve been awkward. So, Through the Eyes of a Dead it is.
Crow Black Sky – Pantheion Review
One of the things that people have been lamenting about the dawn of the Internet and how it will affect the future of music is that localized scenes no longer get localized sounds, and Crow Black Sky is definitely an example of this. Or more specifically, the South African metal scene seems to be a great example of this. See, Crow Black Sky is a melodic death metal band, whereas the other two bands that I’ve heard from South Africa (Heathens and A Walk with the Wicked) are black metal/black n’ roll and old school death metal. Due to access to music and information worldwide, it sorta kills that homogenization effect that gigging together, hanging out together and shopping at the same record store seemed to cause. Is it possible that the black metal scene from Oregon is the last cohesive scene we’re going to ever see? Well, that’s not actually relevant to this review. What is relevant to this review is that despite (or because of) the lack of homogeneity in the South African scene every single one of these bands that I’ve heard has been really very good. Crow Black Sky being no exception.
Demiurg – Slakthus Gamleby Review
When I was doing my interview with Ed Warby last November, I reached the end of the review and he mentioned that I hadn’t asked about Demiurg. Embarrassed, I admitted that I hadn’t heard Demiurg and was quickly informed as to its nature. To paraphrase Warby (who plays drums in this band, in case you didn’t know that) this is the “Rolls Royce” among vocalist Rogga Johansson’s bands and a real juggernaut of Swedish death metal. He hooked me up with a copy of The Hate Chamber, the band’s second record, and I was duly impressed. The band, made up of Rogga (Bone Gnawer, Paganizer, Ribspreader, The Grotesquery), Dan Swano (maybe you’ve heard of him), Johan Berglund (This Haven, The Grotesquery) and Ed Warby (The 11th Hour, Gorefest, Hail of Bullets, and more), has come back in 2010 with a new take on their already well-developed and unique sound.
Barren Earth – Curse of the Red River Review
Barren Earth took me completely by surprise. As a rule I do not post reviews of records from labels that do not send me promos of them. I think it’s a disincentive for them to do so and generally bands don’t deserve the promotion. However, sometimes bands come onto the radar that I can’t ignore, as is what happened when I picked up this new Barren Earth record on a total whim. In fact, I didn’t even know that this band had ex-members from Amorphis, the drummer from Moonsorrow, the guitarist from Kreator or the vocalist from Swallow the Sun involved, or that it was mixed by Dan Swano. I guess I should have expected that this would be a great record…
Ed Warby / The 11th Hour Interview
To say that The 11th Hour’s Ed Warby has done a couple of things in his musical career would be a pretty major understatement. From his early days in legendary Dutch death metallers Gorefest to his current band Hail of Bullets and exceptional doom metal project The 11th Hour, to being prog legend Arjen Lucassen’s […]
