I’m a fan of Pharaoh, have been since their 2003 debut After the Fire. These Philly fanatics are the present and future of the new retro wave of traditional heavy metal (NRWOTHM) and over their short but solid career, they’ve fused retro ideals with prog and enough thrash sensibility to kick the required ass quotient.
My oh my, doom is getting more and more epic (read as long-winded) and it seems the genre is increasingly stricken with chronic Metallica-itis (inability to edit or cull songs). With bands such as Pilgrim and Swallow the Sun releasing albums loaded down with mega-long, droning numbers, attention spans everywhere are being tested and found wanting.
We all have those bands we’re aware of for years but never make an effort to hear. I’m not even talking about bands you’re pretty sure you’ll hate (i.e. Korn). I’m talking about the bands you hear about, make a mental note to check out, only to be distracted by something shiny. The U.K.’s Orange Goblin is one of those bands for yours truly. I’ve heard of ’em forever, heard mostly good things, but just never got up the gumption to track down their stuff.
Life (and death) can certainly be strange. How else do you explain one of 2011’s most unfortunate events giving rise to 2012’s most unusual listening experience.
Holy shite, this is a feisty and fiery one! One of the most successful “project” bands in recent memory, Goatwhore has come roaring back, filled with piss, bile and cayenne peppers on album five, Blood for the Master. This is nasty, blackened death/thrash from the most stagnant bayou of the Big Easy and it’s the musical equivalent of a gator attack.
Wolfen. Never did I hear of them. As the album title suggests, they have three prior releases, yet the mighty Eye of Steel Druhm (like Sauron’s but more bloodshot) never spied them as they skulked through the Germanic underground. I don’t like that, since stealth wolfens are my least favorite kind of wolfen.
Is lumbering, elephantine doom your thing? Well, it had better be if you plan on spending quality time with Rhode Island doom-sayers, Pilgrim. That’s because their Misery Wizard debut serves up six ginomous slices of crawling, droning, monolithic doom with all the subtlety of a steel cage wrestling match. Do you think Saint Vitus and Reverend Bizarre are slow? Pilgrim is slower. Think Cathedral has some huge sounding riffs? Pilgrim has bigger ones. In a doom pissing contest, these chaps are mellow yellow. To help explain their sound, I’ve compiled a short list of things that move faster than Pilgrim. These include: octogenarians with bad knees, glaciers, evolution and innovation in black metal. Yep, Pilgrim is mighty slow. For a power trio, they make a lot of racket and stay true to the old school style of Sabbath-infused dirgery. They aren’t innovative or particularly dynamic and at times, they can get rather tiresome and tedious, even for a doom fanboy like Steel Druhm. Because of that last factoid, Misery Wizard is an album intended only for tried-and-true doom-hounds who don’t suffer from the slightest trace of ADD [I’ll be over here, looking at moss. – AMG]. If your mind tends to wander, or drone makes you snooze, skip this release, or patience you’ll lose (HA! I waxed poetic).
Historically speaking, I think the main reason our esteemed AMG hired me, the ever humble Steel Druhm, as a reviewer/minion [I prefer the term “bitch,” actually – AMG] was to make me the resident power and traditional metal nerd (my amazing prose and rugged good looks didn’t hurt none either). While I’m predisposed to drool over most old school stuff (cause I’m old), I’m actually quite the elitist snob when it comes to power metal. There’s some good in that genre, but there are way more generic, bad and monumentally awful things lurking in the ether. Case in point, I’ve had a love/hate/meh relationship with Iron Fire over the years. Their Thunderstorm debut was decent and moderately rabble rousing, but things have been inconsistent since then and their discography reads like the good, the bad and the WTF? After being unmoved by their past few releases, I hoped for more from their seventh release, Voyage of the Damned. Turns out, I heartily appreciate the new lyrical slant toward outer space themes, as it’s a nice diversion from the usual “dragon ate my wizard’s maiden” schtick. It’s also safe to say, this is much better than expected and it slowly won me over, despite initial doubts. Roping in elements of Gamma Ray, Stratovarius, Grave Digger and Metalium, this features some highly enjoyable Euro-power with some surprisingly heavy moments. It also delivers far less generic freight than past Iron Fire shipments. While not exactly a “must hear” album, Voyage ends up being a solid release from a band with a spotty track record.
Sweden this, U.S.A. that. Its always the same countries churning out the metal that lands on the cluttered desk of Steel Druhm. Sure, every now and then a Middle Eastern or Asian act tosses a spiked glove in the ring, but it’s predomiantly Europe and the Americas tasked with carrying the metal standard these days. That’s why its such a treat when we get a promo from someplace new and exotic. Nothnegal clearly qualifies, since they hail from the tiny Maldive Islands, way out in the Indian Ocean (their location is actually listed as an atoll, which counts as mega-exotic). Decadence is their first full length and its all about modern melodic death with loads of keys, bells and whistles. They take the basic melo-death concept and mix in semi-industrial Fear Factory-like riffing, loads of electronic effects, keys and even synthesized guitars. The big mystery is how this remote isle act wrangled drum services from Kevin Talley (Six Feet Under, ex-Hate Eternal, ex-The Black Dahlia Murder) and keys by Marco Sneck (Poisonblack, ex-Kalmah, ex-Charon). Sounds interesting so far, right? Well, it may be interesting, but sadly, it ain’t too good. Despite the endless array of interesting keyboard noodling and effects, things never really work out and Decadence quickly sinks below the waves of mediocrity. This is a real shame, since there are some interesting ideas on hand and some talented folks involved. But, as the saying goes, no band is an island (sorry, island jokes are rough going).
It comes as exceptionally sad news that Mark Reale, founder/guitarist of New York metal legends Riot, passed away last night after being stricken by severe complications related to Crohn’s Disease. Riot was an enormously influential band and their Thundersteel album was, IMO, one of the best pure metal albums ever released. Riot had just reformed […]
