2.0

Halford – Made of Metal Review

By Steel Druhm on October 11, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, Heavy Metal, Metal God Records, Heavy Metal, 5 comments

This will come as an unwelcome surprise to Angry Metal folks everywhere, but the new Halford album Made of Metal isn’t angry and is only partly made of metal. Despite the deceptive title, Halford’s third solo album is a diverse but confusing mix of awkward, mostly flawed metal anthems, cheesy love songs with a metallic edge and poppy bubble gum metal/rock. Amid this confusion, only a few quality metal moments can be found. With all due respect to one of the founding fathers of heavy metal and a living legend to many (myself included), the results here are wildly inconsistent and just flat out disappointing.

Shadowgarden – Ashen Review

By Angry Metal Guy on September 22, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, Napalm Records, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Gothic Metal, 5 comments

Shadowgarden is a side project of Draconian mainman Johan Ericson which is aimed at creating gothic rock of a different variety than his well-loved goth metal project. Breaking away from the beauty and the beast style and heading towards a much more commercially viable rock sound, the band has produced 10 new tracks of music for the consideration of all metal types out there to be released via Napalm records at the end of August (yeah, so this review is a tad late, but read on).

InTensity – Times Review

By Angry Metal Guy on July 15, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Unsigned Bands, Progressive Metal, Progressive Rock, 0 comments

You may have noticed that AMG doesn’t actually really do a lot of unsigned band reviews. Partially this is ’cause we don’t get a lot of unsigned demos, and partially it’s ’cause when we do they tend to be poorly delivered with little promo info and so forth. So I was pleased to get this promo from the Greek progressive modern rock band InTensity who delivered it to me via BandCamp, this is a highly recommended way of doing this, unsigned bands. Times is a four track EP that was self-produced by the vocalist/guitarist Ilias Iovis and is available digitally throughout the world today with future, physical versions to be announced.

Equilibrium – Rekreatur Review

By Angry Metal Guy on June 15, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, Nuclear Blast, Reviews, Folk Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Power Metal, 0 comments

Equilibrium hit the world right in the face when Sagas was released a couple years ago and they really became a folk metal (pagan metal, viking metal, whatever the fuck you want to call it) sensation. And sensational is really how many people experienced that record. It was like a cross between Finntroll, Ensiferum, Turisas and Rhapsody of Fire: unceasingly melodic, over-the-top, ridiculously happy and engaging as hell. In 2010, now, this elite German act is returning with a follow-up to what is already considered to be a classic in the genre, with their third record entitled Rekreatur. How could it possibly live up to all the expectations?

Circle of Dead Children – Psalms of the Grand Destroyer Review

By Steel Druhm on June 14, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, American Metal, Candlelight, Death Metal, Reviews, Grind, 3 comments

Here at Angry Metal Guy Industries ©®, staff is small [by which he means “little people” – Ed.], deadlines are many and mercy is neither asked for nor granted. Therefore, we of the reviewer caste don’t always get to cherry pick bands or genres we love. Because of this ugly truth, sometimes a review must be done for something outside our musical wheelhouse. That is the very dilemma facing yours truly with a review of Psalms of the Grand Destroyer by Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s own Circle of Dead Children. Album number four by these purveyors of inhuman deathgrind is sick, twisted, chaotic and brutal for brutality’s sake, but is it good? That is a mighty tricky question.

Annihilator – Annihilator Review

By Steel Druhm on June 10, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, American Metal, Canadian Metal, Earache Records, Reviews, Thrash Metal, Thrash Metal, 7 comments

No metal band has managed to frustrate and baffle me as consistently as Annihilator has over their long career. Their 1989 debut album Alice in Hell was a classic in the thrash genre and showed a band brimming with talent and energy. Founder, lead songwriter and guitarist Jeff Waters was hailed as a rising star and someone to watch closely. Since then, Annihilator has struggled mightily to live up to the hype garnered by their debut, and their subsequent albums have come nowhere near that level of quality. In fact, many of those albums were either complete disasters (Refresh the Demon, Remains, All for You) or near disasters (Set the World on Fire, Metal). Each time a new Annihilator release was set to drop, I would pray for greatness and a return to form but mostly get mediocrity. Now it’s 2010 and we get their thirteenth album, simply titled Annihilator, and again the goods are not delivered.

Diabulus in Musica – Secrets Review

By Angry Metal Guy on June 4, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, Metal Blade, Power Metal, Reviews, Death Metal, Gothic Metal, 1 comment

Diabulus in Musica is a band that you’ve heard before dozens of times in different forms. There was a while when like every single band on Napalm Records sounded like them, but it is not a sound that is terribly popular in the year 2010. So while the band could be commended for releasing an album that sounds like Theatre of Tragedy or Epica in 2010 because they’re bucking the trend and doing their own thing, they could also be heavily criticized for sounding exactly like Theatre of Tragedy or Epica (more the latter than the former). I’m sure that the members of Diabulus in Musica are sick of being compared to Theatre of Tragedy and Epica, if they’re sick of that they should probably not read this review, because I am about to launch into a 500 word diatribe about how there has to be something new that can be done with the chick in a metal band thing, but that no one seems to be doing it.

Helfahrt – Drifa Review

By Lord Doom on April 28, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, Black Metal, Folk Metal, Reviews, Trollzorn/SMP Records, Folk Metal, 0 comments

Folk and pagan metal seem to be the new melodic death these days, where every band with a fiddle or flute and a fondness for Renaissance Faires can produce “epic” songs of long-forgotten lore and jump on the bandwagon that trails behind genre leaders like Finntroll and Moonsorrow. After the recent whirlwind success of fellow Germans, Equilibrium, I had high hopes for Helfahrt and their third full-length album Drifa. Yes, the band’s name reads “Hell Fart” in English (though the english translation is roughly “the journey to Helheim and the land of the dead”). Now that that’s out of the way we can continue. You in the back, stop sniggering!

Ruined Soul – My Dying Day Review

By Angry Metal Guy on April 23, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, Death Metal, Reviews, Suicide Records, Swedish Metal, Death Metal, 2 comments

Ruined Soul is a one-man project firmly based in the Gothenburg scene. Johnny Johansson apparently missed the scene because of his age, but having learned from the best (and right in his backyard, as it were) he has produced a record that wouldn’t have been out of place in 1999, released alongside Colony by In Flames or Projector by Dark Tranquillity. With a whole slough of big named guests from the Swedish scene and one Andy La Roque as the prodcer, it’s hard to imagine how a record like this could go wrong. Right? .. Right!?

Those Who Lie Beneath – An Awakening Review

By Angry Metal Guy on March 30, 2010 in 2.0, 2010, American Metal, Deathcore, Metal Blade, Reviews, Death Metal, Deathcore, 0 comments

A wise man once told me that you should never, ever refuse to do something just because someone else has done it before you and done it poorly. I think that this is very good advice. It’s advice that really counts when it comes to breakdowns, for example, which have been considered to be the death knell for deathcore and metalcore since they became irritating and out of fashion in the underground. An Awakening is the debut record from the Portland, Oregon based Those Who Lie Beneath and they have certainly not shied away from the standards of the deathcore scene, something that has been has done very badly before them.