“In recent years, euro-thrash veterans Soilwork have reached near-Megadeth levels of member turnover and failure to live up to expectations. After bursting out of the gate with now-classic albums like The Chainheart Machine and Predator’s Portrait, Soilwork softened with age, and produced a few albums of increasingly slick melodeath-by-numbers.” What’s got 12 legs, 88 keys, and a double album that puts me to sleep? You got it.
“Yay! Lament all you want, but your pricey earphones are going to be under-utilized by yet another primitive-sounding, one-man black metal project (why the heaven do these anti-social cavemen never go away? [Because FUCK YOU that’s why! – AMG]). Happy Metal Guy loves seeing people’s expensive listening gear go to waste on these pesky black metal records, but due to his nonexistent contract with Angry Metal Guy, he’s not really obliged to provide some kind of justification for why people ought to avoid this record.” By giving away that he already hates this record Happy Metal Guy has killed any possible suspense we could have built by blurbing him. I guess the best part of all of this was finding out that there’s a record company called Merdumgiriz Productions. Say that one five times fast.
“In the sea of mediocre re-thrash that was 2012, the unheralded debut by Canadian upstarts Mortillery was one of the few life rafts of quality. Murder, Death, Kill was tongue-in-cheek fun and had all the flavor of the second wave of ’80s thrash while incorporating just enough traditional metal and punk elements to keep things interesting. You could feel the youthful exuberance and hunger in the band’s music and they greatly benefited from the exception vocals of Cara McCutchen and the axe slinging acumen of Alex Scott and Alex Guitierrez.” Steel Druhm happily trotted out the skull tank of rethrash for 2012s Mortillery debut, and now they’re back with a follow-up! Will that tank start up again after sitting all year?
“As both the original vocalist for Testament and Paul Baloff’s (R.I.P.) replacement in Exodus, Steve “Zetro” Souza was certainly a big player in the original Bay Area thrash explosion. After leaving and rejoining Exodus several times and churning out a few Dublin Death Patrol albums with Chuck Billy, Zetro is finally in a band of his own and back to rethrash us like it’s 1986 all over again.” Want a bonus Exodus album? What about a really good Exodus album? Here it is. You’re welcome.
“Thyrfing might be one of Swedish metal’s ‘best kept secrets,’ an unfortunate moniker for any band. Having been around since the late ’90s and having released 6 full-length records through 2008, these Viking metallers have a history and deep respect in the scene – but not a ton of notoriety. As anyone who’s listened to pop radio should be aware, there is no direct correlation between notoriety and talent; while the former is great for those involved, the latter is better for fans and Thryfing produced 3 very well-respected records between 2000 and 2005 before going astray with 2008’s Hels vite following the departure of vocalist Thomas Väänänen. The band’s sound during that time developed, getting darker and less… well, let’s be frank about those keyboards… fruity.” Now that the band is releasing their second record with new vocalist Jens Rydén, Angry Metal Guy tells you whether or not these Swedish warriors have righted their longship.
My esteemed colleague, Angry Metal Guy himself, wondered aloud if Darkthrone’s recent output was perhaps an attempt at trolling the entire metal community. It certainly does take a sick sense of humor to subject black metal fans to something like The Underground Resistance, and the band has made it increasingly clear that they’re not exactly taking this seriously. But beyond the shits and giggles, it’s clear that Darkthrone exists in a bizarre musical utopia, a world where Bathory, Amebix, Motorhead and Manilla Road are all of equal merit and metal cred. And if you’re unable to summon that kind of open-mindedness within yourself, then perhaps the joke truly is on you.
“Eternal Tears of Sorrow is an exceptionally fruity band name. The mere mention of it conjures images of a self-serious, black-garbed goth band (see photos) with a sultry, pouty femme fatale as front woman. If the name was keeping you away, you missed out on a quality band that blended black metal with melodic death, goth rock and symphonic power metal with good to great results. While I enjoyed all their albums, their crowning achievement was 2009’s Children of the Dark Water, which hit on the perfect combination of bombast, dark atmosphere, extremity, beauty and song writing that was shockingly good from stem to stern. At times it sounded like Cradle of Filth at their most symphonic mixed with early Cemetery, with traces of Kalmah, Insomnium and Amorphis added for good measure. After waiting over three years for a follow-up, we finally get Saivon Lapsi and with the long wait after such a great album, expectations were unavoidably high.” So… does this live up to those great expectations, or is it more of a bleak house? Get it? [YOU’RE FIRED! – AMG]
When one thinks about black metal, the image that probably comes to mind is that of the pine barrens and frozen desolation of Norway, the extreme cold only briefly warmed by burning churches dotting the landscape. Scotland, on the other hand, is not usually the landscape that one imagines, but rather than the icy fjords of Scandinavia, Cnoc An Tursa hail from Falkirk.” Scottish metal just sounds tough, doesn’t it? Well, Cnoc An Tursa is obsessed with scottish poetry about battles and death, which is clerarly tough. Natalie Zed will tell you if they’re good as well as tough.
“Steven Wilson coming up with a new album in 2013; it’s pretty much a progressive affair. As simple as that. There is nothing here that manages to stretch itself out of the canons of such a well-defined genre. On the contrary, the music on The Raven that Refused to Sing (and Other Stories) revolves around what has made prog rock what it is today: complex dynamics, a wide range of styles harmoniously compressed to form a variegated compound and digressions; lots of them.” Alex Franquelli wanders through the maze that is the new Steven Wilson release and tries not to take too many digressions himself.
“It’s old news to loyal readers that I really took to the last Omnium Gatherum opus (as did AMG himself). Though I appreciated their prior album The Redshift a lot, I certainly wasn’t expecting the monumental slab of Finnish melo-death mixed with mega-melodic Euro-power metal that was New World Shadows. It’s one of those rare albums that has the perfect mix of atmosphere, melody, hooks and power, and it was my album of the year in 2011. I was pretty sure Omnium Gatherum would be unable to equal or top it, and when Beyond appeared in my promo bin, it was just of question of how close they could could get to the ridiculous quality of NWS.” So, how close DOES this get to New World Shadows? Steel Druhm busts out his slide rule and does some scientific measurements, so you don’t have to.
