Swedish Metal

Morbus Chron – Sleepers in the Rift Review

By Steel Druhm on September 12, 2011 in 2011, Death Metal, Pulverised Records, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Death Metal, 11 comments

As I listen to this unheralded piece of nasty, morbid, old school death, one word comes to mind: Spewage. That’s the best way to describe what you’ll be getting here. Morbus Chron is a Swedish band playing filthy death metal like Autopsy, Death and Massacre. This breaks the current trend of following in the footsteps of legendary countrymen Entombed, Dismember. It’s still plenty retro but not the typical Swedish retro. Basically, their raucous debut Sleepers in the Rift sounds like something spewing from the underground in the late 80’s and it’s wonderfully repellant, low-fi, non-techy and makes you feel like you need to be disinfected and vaccinated. It’s underproduced, muddy, discordant and vile all the way but somehow manages to be catchy. What more could one ask for? Nothing.

FullForce – One Review

By Steel Druhm on July 14, 2011 in 2.5, 2011, Power Metal, Progressive Metal, Reviews, SPV, Swedish Metal, Heavy Metal, Power Metal, 5 comments

Well, here’s a release I can easily see falling through the Angry Metal Cracks. One is the first (and maybe last) release by a supergroup of sorts led by Michael Andersson, vocalist for Swedish melodic metallers Cloudscape and featuring members of such renowned acts as Dream Evil, Hammerfall and Yngwie Malmsteen. Now, we all know supergroups can be very iffy propositions and Fullforce is no different. It seems whenever a group of talented musicians get jammed into a room to write and record, disaster is as likely to result as triumph. So where does this one fall? Pretty much exactly in the middle of the two extremes. There’s some top notch, super melodic metal here and some rather generic, boring duds. What makes this album of particular annoyance to Steel Druhm is how good the good stuff is. With some real winners on display, its a total buzz kill to have roughly half the album fizzle out and fail to keep the momentum going Fullforce (yeah, you knew it was gonna happen at some point). OK, it’s time for your slightly bitter host to examine One in a non-bitter fashion.

Draconian – A Rose for the Apocalypse Review

By Steel Druhm on June 23, 2011 in 2011, 4.5, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Napalm Records, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal, 23 comments

It’s Angry Metal Confession time kiddies. Steel Druhm has many things he should confess but for now, lets focus on aspects of the metal scene I’ve grown weary of. First up has to be symphonic black metal. Its been done, overdone, redone and ultimately, undone. Another very overused gimmick is beauty and the beast vocals (death metal vox paired with soaring, usually operatic, female vocals). Since Theatre of Tragedy came out with Velvet Darkness They Fear, every gothic metal band under the moon tried their hand at the style and while it can be amazing, it’s been overblown in a major way. Because of the staleness in this approach, only the very best practitioners leave any impression on me. Draconian is one such expert unit and while I liked their early material, I LOVED their 2008 release Turning Seasons Within. That opus managed to balance heavy doom with ethereal gothic sensibilties and they made the beauty and beast approach work magnificently. Now with A Rose for the Apocalypse, these Swedish glumsters have done it yet again and offer a top quality gothic-doom/death album brimming with emotion, intensity and dark atmosphere. Its good enough to make me rethink my position on the entire paradigm and its a real slobberknocker of a metal album.

Rev 16:8 – Ashlands Review

By Steel Druhm on June 17, 2011 in 2.5, 2011, AFM Records, Black Metal, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Black Metal, 2 comments

For today’s selection, we have the up and coming Swedish black metal act Rev 16:8 (formely known as both Bloodshed and Scythe). Ashlands is their second release and up until I got the promo I’d never heard a thing about them under any of their numerous names (of all of them, the new one is the pits). They play what could be called modern black metal and Ashlands is loaded with rough, ugly black metal mostly played at blasting speeds. While they don’t exactly reinvent the wheel or bring anything very new to the genre, they execute well and some of the material shines with potential and talent. In a field that has grown increasingly overloaded with copycat acts and stagnation, do they have what it takes to rise above the black masses and stand out? Well, not yet but maybe soon.

Lake of Tears – Illwill Review

By Steel Druhm on June 13, 2011 in 2011, 3.5, AFM Records, Doom Metal, Gothic Metal, Heavy Metal, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Doom Metal, Heavy Metal, Progressive Metal, 5 comments

In the Whack-A-Mole game that is genre pigeonholing, Lake of Tears pop up all over the board, defying you to anticipate their next move. These Swedes have been around a very long time and have always defied easy answers as to what style they actually play. Generally described as gothic metal, they’ve wandered between psychedelic doom, goth-rock, quasi-thrash and pseudo-death over the years. Each album had its own unique flavor and approach while always keeping the distinctive LoT sound. Here on Illwill, their eighth album, they keep the guessing game alive while delivering a strange mix of styles, but it all hangs together somehow and works well. With parallels to Paradise Lost, Cemetary, Charon and Type O Negative to name a few, they run all over the place but it’s always dark in tone and plenty melodic.

In Solitude – The World. The Flesh. The Devil. Review

By Steel Druhm on June 2, 2011 in 2011, 4.0, Heavy Metal, Metal Blade, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Heavy Metal, 1 comment

Steel Druhm likes his old Mercyful Fate. Yep, those first two albums and the early EPs were pure metal magic and some of the best stuff the genre every coughed up. Needless to say, I support the sudden wave of Mercyful Fate influenced retro metal that’s been popping up of late. We have Ghost, Hell and now you can add In Solitude to this heady witch’s brew with their second release The World. The Flesh. The Devil. Along with fellow Swedes Ghost, these gents are shamelessly robbing the graves of the Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath albums and trying to bring some of that ancient black magic into 2011. While Ghost took elements of the Fate sound and added poppy, catchy hooks, In Solitude stays much closer to the source material. They actually sound A LOT like the great Fate as they trot our their own tales of demons, devil worship and all things malevolent. So, does their similarity to a Mercyful Fate tribute band necessarily mean I love them too? In this case, yes, yes it does. I love them and I’m man enough to admit it!

Falconer – Armod Review

By Angry Metal Guy on June 1, 2011 in 2011, 5.0, Folk Metal, Heavy Metal, Metal Blade, Power Metal, Record o' the Month, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Folk Metal, 14 comments

hate Falconer. Okay, that’s not really true, but I have never liked Falconer, let’s put it that way. I first got wind of these guys with the publication of their second album Chapters of a Vale Forlorn and I was very unimpressed. Since then I’ve heard a things here and there, and nothing convinced me away from my previous conviction. I didn’t think what I heard was particularly good, nor did I think it was particularly interesting. In spite of the fact that I’m a huge fan of guitarist Stefan Weinerhall and drummer Karsten Larsson’s previous project Mithotyn (an absolutely underrated band), the power metal tinged Falconer never did anything for me at all.

That is, until I heard Armod.

Arch Enemy – Khaos Legions Review

By Steel Druhm on May 25, 2011 in 2011, 3.0, Century Media, Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Power Metal, 13 comments

Looks like the Amott brothers are back in town. That town being Gothenburg (as in the “Gothenburg style”) and their band is the long running Arch Enemy, purveyors of slick, polished, (and some would say soulless) melodic death. Khaos Legion is their eighth full length and the first since 2007’s Rise of the Tyrant (not counting their 2009 re-recording of material). I was a supporter during their early years but with the Wages of Sin album, things took a turn and never felt the same. Although I gave subsequent releases a spin or two, by and large I wasn’t interested in their overly clinical, sterile and generic brand of death metal for the unwashed masses. With this track record of vaguely condescending ambivalence, I approached Khaos Legions with low expectations and much to my surprise, this isn’t all that bad. It’s certainly going to raise some eyebrows though because its much more melodic, mellow and restrained. While there are a few “heavy” songs, this is almost like a power metal album at times (albeit with death vocals). While there’s nowhere near enough death here to satisfy most fans of that genre, the more family friendly approach results in some enjoyable, lightweight quasi-power metal that will amuse some (while royally pissing off many).

Shining – VII: Född förlorare Review

By Angry Metal Guy on May 13, 2011 in 2011, 4.0, Black Metal, Reviews, Spinefarm, Swedish Metal, Black Metal, 6 comments

>Shining is about as hip as it gets among so called “underground” black metal bands, though really at this point, what with being signed to Spinefarm now, I guess they’re not super underground anymore. But whatever, success does not make a band sucky by its very nature—no, it’s Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™ that does that. And with the anticipation building around VII – Född förlorare (English: Born Loser[s]) due to the myriads of issues that surfaced in the process of recording, mixing and getting the album even out, it pretty much should go without saying that I’ve really been looking forward to this record. Haven’t you been looking forward to it? Damn straight.

HammerFall – Infected Review

By Within Darkness on May 6, 2011 in 2.0, 2.5, 2011, Heavy Metal, Nuclear Blast, Power Metal, Reviews, Swedish Metal, Heavy Metal, Power Metal, 16 comments

Radiation clouds, torn limbs, zombies on the loose, Armageddon closing in, Aaah! In other words, heaven on Earth for horror maniacs such as myself. Just the perfect cliche plot to fit your favorite movie in the genre or some random Left4Dead-ish first-person zombie shooter which despite all plot holes always provides a lot of fun and action. And I really wish I was reviewing something of this sort, but well, life’s a bitch. What I’m actually whining about is the mere fact that we’re talking about HammerFall’s newly born record, Infected, which will not entertain you even nearly as much.