Angry Metal Guy

Liberteer // Better to Die on Your Feet than Live on Your Knees
Rating: 4.5/5.0 — Battle Metal, USA-style
Label: Relapse Records 
Websites:  liberteer.bandcamp.com
Release Dates: EU: 2012.02.12 | US: 01.31.2012

Liberteer is the brainchild of one Matt Widener, who the more grind-minded among you might remember as the bassist for San Jose sickos Cretin. Cretin’s lone album, 2006’s Freakery, received high praise at the time, but they’ve been laying low since then while their singer goes through some changes. During his new-found free time, Widener has put together Liberteer on his own, playing all instruments on this album, including guitars, drums, and… banjo? [Hey, if Høst can do it, so can Widener - AMG] Continue reading

Biohazard // Reborn in Defiance
Rating: 3.5/5.0 — A Defiant Rebirth *Cough*
Label: Nuclear Blast [EU | US]
Websites: facebook.com/biohazardDFL
Release Dates: Out Now!

Oh man. Biohazard were one of those bands that really broke me into heavy music when I was just a tyke. While the band’s debut—which oddly enough was largely edited verbally—never did much for me, Urban Discipline, State of the World Address (I still have the version with the orange gel case somewhere), and the much maligned Mata Leao were all albums that dug into my 10 to 14 year old soul and left permanent impressions. Those records were tough, heavy slabs of machismo that with Type O Negative, Life of Agony and Sepultura paved the way towards the heavier side of tracks. Unfortunately, I grew away from these guys and—I’m going to be frank—their records really started going downhill in quality (turns out I *wasn’t* down for life). So, when I saw that the original lineup had reunited for a new record (before Evan Seinfeld left the band), I gotta say: I was interested in spite of myself. Continue reading

Here’s a seriously under the radar piece of nasty, blackened death that seems to have been widely overlooked since its May release (including by us sadly). Devastate is the debut by Finland’s Decaying and it’s a real work of grim badassery. Available through Hellthrasher Productions, it features a scant six songs of brutal death but its not a short album since four of the tracks are over ten minutes long. That’s right, you get some lengthy, epic death metal tuneage with one song over fourteen minutes in length! That’s longer than “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and brutal and ugly all the way through. Honestly, not many bands can write death metal that remains interesting over so long a period of time. The reason why this album is getting space here is because Decaying can and did just that. Despite the length of the tracks, the writing and energy keeps things engaging until the bitter end. Continue reading

Cavalera Conspiracy // Blunt Force Trauma
Rating: 2.0/5.0 — Not the Sepultura record you’ve been waiting for…
Label: Roadrunner
Websites: myspace.com/cavaleraconspiracy
Release Dates: EU: 2011.03.28 | US: 03.29.2011

It is unfortunate, but reasonable, that I should start this off by saying the obvious: this is not the Sepultura record you’ve been waiting for. While the Cavalera brothers have been reunited in the band named after them, this is not Beneath the Remains II or hell, even Roots II, this is something different and if you hadn’t figured out that this was going to be the case by now, then you are a naïve and probably very easily disappointed person. While I respect your optimism, I think that optimism becomes stupidity if you hold out too long. And I think we’ve all held out too fucking long. Continue reading

Claustrofobia - I See Red
Rating: 2.5/5.0 – Drop the scale runs and make it shorter, and this would be a better album
Label: Candlelight
Website(s): myspace.com/claustrofobia
Release Date(s): EU: 19.10.2009 | USA: Release date unclear

Anyone who’s ever been a guitarist knows that guy who shames you.  Well, maybe not everyone, ’cause sometimes you are that guy who shames people, but for the most part, we all know that guy.  He’s really good, I mean.. really good. He basically runs circles around the competition, he makes even your best work look like totally sloppy shit and if he doesn’t have a seriously out of control ego, you probably are trying like a madman to get him into your band, even though you’re embarrassed by how bad you are compared to him.  Of course, what I never understood when I was younger was why so many of these guys worked at Guitar Center.  Sure, these guys can play anything that you play back at you, but they can’t write.

Claustrofobia‘s guitarist is one of these guys.  This guy is good.  Actually, he’s not just good, he’s great.  This man is one of those guys that you want in your band.  I mean, the dude can seriously play.  But does that make Claustrofobia‘s new record, and Candlelight debut, I See Red worth picking up?  No.  Instead, proving the rule of why guys who play like this work at Guitar Center, I See Red is an exercise in mediocrity.

Claustrofobia has basically thrashy death metal in the vein of old Sepultura and Vader.  Death metal as you know it, and not much more, is what you get from I See Red.  The approach is mildly novel at points, relying on good technical riffs to interrupt what would normally be pretty straight forward thrash riffing.  The sound is thick and the band is talented, and a markedly old school production (but still clean) brings out the drums in a way that doesn’t make them sound fake and over-produced, giving this record a good thickness that a lot of modern metal lacks.

On the other hand, this record is filled with riffs that don’t leave an impression and solos that are pretty much just any guitar teacher’s ideas of scale-runs.  While tracks like “Tira de Meta” stand out, tracks like “Discharge,” “Our Blood” and “Warstomp” underwhelm the listener with their re-hashed riffs and prepackaged solos. The record does get markedly stronger as it goes on.  But the guitar work that is supposed to impress and be interesting, is often just chromatic scales and intentionally dissonant approach for the sake of dissonance that doesn’t seem to serve any purpose or really fit into the particular idiom that the band has set themselves in.

There are definitely high points on this album and were this record half the length of what they released, I think it would be a much stronger album.   To be honest, I was excited for this album when I first hear the technical approach that they were using at certain parts.  But over time it began to blend together, and I was so distracted by the guitar work and unimpressed with the writing, that I think I lost that excitement.

Claustrofobia could be a markedly better band, if they would wander further into the technical side of things, and use each part of the song to their advantage.  With players like they have, and a keen understanding of good rhythm, they could produce something that is far more unique than what I See Red offers.  This band has practically unlimited potential, but unfortunately this album doesn’t showcase it.

OK, so the first album that I did in my “classic albums” section was Type O Negative, which of course, was one of my favorite bands at the time. But they also turned me onto Roadrunner Records, which for those of you too young to remember, was kind of one of the few places even putting out metal in the US during the 1990s. Sure, in retrospect, a lot of that stuff wasn’t that great. But there were a few bands on that label that put out some good records. Sepultura had Chaos AD which I loved, and one band that stands out for me to this day, and that I really loved as an angsty teenager, was Life of Agony.

Life of Agony was one of those precursors to nu-metal that should have implied the trend was on the move, but still were a lot heavier and better musicians than any of the bands that followed them. While they weren’t exactly the worlds best musicians, they were able to make a really groovy album that spoke to everything that pissed me off as a kid. Singing along to choruses like “You got time but you ain’t got time for me! Got time but you ain’t got time for me!” and empathizing with the main character in the whole story whose life just sucks.

The whole band was perfect for the moment, and really Life of Agony never put out a good record after River Runs Red. But this album is a classic, in my book. Sure, your average death metal guy probably wouldn’t be big into it, but if you like doom metal at all. Or groovy metal with clean vocals, this record is fantastic. The vocals are deep and powerful, the lyrics are dark and anguished and the groove is so thick you could cut it with a knife. In many ways, these guys had a similar sound to Type O, but they took themselves a lot more seriously and weren’t funny or tongue in cheek at all. On the contrary, they were serious dudes producing a serious album that seriously kicked ass.

Listening to the album again, the only thing on here that I don’t really like now are the story pieces with the bitchy lady screaming and the fighting. The dude killing himself at the end is a little bit more painful to listen to now then it was then. But, the music stands the test of time in my opinion. Its down-tuned hooks still grab me, and the lack of solos doesn’t bother me, and I still love the vocals and lyrics. Incidentally, I also have always been a huge fan of concept albums, and this one was no different. Apparently something about a story in the music just grabs me and pulls me in.

Of course, one man’s nostalgia is another man’s pain (See: Queensryche). There’s no guarantee that anyone who didn’t grow up on that record would really dig it. But if you want to get an idea of what metal was like in the US before nu-metal hit, before bands like At The Gates broke the ocean barrier and blew young death metal fans away and before a lot of the labels that are huge today started really setting down their roots (Century Media, for example), then take a listen to Life of Agony. Let the groove and teen angst wash over you.