Saturday, August 21, 2010

Compilations: Terrorizer Fear Candy 82

Partway through the drive to our vacation destination last week, I lamented the fact that I did not bring a metal magazine with me. I had intended to pick one up prior to the trip but never got around to it as the preparations were fairly hectic. My fiancee also wanted to pick up a horse magazine, so we found a Hastings in Bozeman, Montana and each grabbed our magazines, a book each, and I picked up the Bonded by Blood and Defeated Sanity CDs. The magazine I bought was the newish Terrorizer with Grand Magus on the cover. Here's the sampler runthrough:

KILLING JOKE: "END GAME"
I kind of like Killing Joke. I had one of their albums a long time back, that I no longer listen to and probably got rid of. They are not a metal band, but rather a hardcore band from the early 1980's that experimented with some industrial elements. They are so old that Metallica covered them on one of their cover EPs in the 1980's. This song is okay, but does not make me want to try to find my old Killing Joke album.

GRAND MAGUS: "I, THE JURY"
Hey, I like the title. I have my first jury trial coming up soon. Probably. I really want to find this album but none of the stores I have been to recently have carried it. It's possible that it is not out in the U.S. yet I suppose. Grand Magus is a great band, sounding like old doom metal bands. A great retro-sounding traditional metal band. I am very much looking forward to this one. Their last album was my album of the year in 2008.

OCTOBER FILE: "ISOLATION"
This sounds a bit like Motorhead with a death metal singer. It's not too bad actually. I like the riffs and the vocals sound pretty good along with it. It's pretty catchy. I may check into this band a little bit.

DANZIG: "ON A WICKED NIGHT"
I already own this album and found it to be something of a return to form for Danzig. This is not one of my favorite songs from the new album, but it is a good one. It's a bit slower, but Danzig's voice sounds really good on this track.

DEAD BEYOND BURIED: "FUNERAL OF THE CURSED MEN"
This is modern death metal with lots of blasting. Modern death metal has suffered some in recent years. The band sounds like they're trying to sound like Apophis, a criminally-underrated death metal band, but does not quite pull it off. It's a little too extreme.

DEMIURG: "LIFE IS A COMA"
I'm drawing a blank here. I'm pretty sure this is a side project or something from Sweden. Possibly involving Dan Swano. Because he's involved in everything. Anyway, this is melodic death metal in the vein of older In Flames or Dark Tranquillity, before they became too pop-oriented, with a little Dismember/Entombed thrown in. It's pretty good and I will have to check into them more.

WHITECHAPEL: "THE DARKEST DAY OF MAN"
One of the better deathcore bands, which doesn't mean I actually like them that well. Deathcore is built on excessive brutality. This band is no exception, but they are still interesting enough to not be totally unlistenable.

SOILWORK: "TWO LIVES WORTH OF RECKONING"
I know Kelly over at Full Metal Attorney is a big Soilwork fan and I like some of their material too. But nothing after Figure Number Five. This actually sounds a little better than the Peter Wichers-less version of the band. Still not interesting enough for me to go back to the band though.

LIMBONIC ART: "CRYPT OF BEREAVEMENT"
Limbonic Art is a black metal band. Plain and simple, nothing much more to it. The production on this song is terrible, I had to turn it way up to hear what was going on. But the music is good, they're actually from the second wave, I think. They still have that sound too, which is rare.

OLD CORPSE ROAD: "THE WITCH OF WOOKEY HOLE"
That's a terrible song name. Hopefully that's actually a legend or something, because if the band came up with that on their own, they should be shot. The music is actually really good, black metal with death influences. The vocals sound good too. I actually really like this song after hearing it. It's a little like Ancient, with some of the same absurdities that band is known for. The title is still fucking dumb though.

KVERLERTAK: "MJOD"
Kelly loved this band, so I am glad I have a chance to hear a sample. It's definitely sludge metal which I always thought of as an American phenomenon. Damn Europeans copying us. Just kidding. This sounds pretty good. After enjoying Baroness so much, I may look into these guys.

NEKROMANTHEON: "DEVOLUTIONARY STORMS"
Fast, modern thrash metal. Nothing too terribly interesting here and instantly forgettable.

ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST: "MOOTZ OV OPHEN"
It was only a matter of time until that name was used by a metal band. The music is pretty good though, some kind of crossover-style music. The song is kind of fun and infectious.

EMINENT SCUM: "FASCIST FASHION"
I'm pretty sure this is a woman screaming. The vocals are terrible. It makes the song unlistenable. I can't even describe the music, because the vocals completely take the attention away. It's mercifully short though.

CHRONOCIDE: "DROWNING THE INNOCENT"
Essentially hardcore with some metal influences. I don't care much for this at all.

SHRAPNEL: "WARHEAD"
With a name like this, I was definitely expecting some thrash metal. Thankfully I got it. It's a great way to close this album out with a strong song. Excellent old school thrash vibe here.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the Old Corpse review, thankfully you won't need to shoot us regarding the title LOL ; it is a legend :-)

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  2. Hey, that's cool. I haven't had a band member comment on my blog yet, though Kvelertak must have linked my review on their Facebook page (I've gotten A LOT of hits on that post from Facebook). I'm glad you like them so far, but I think sludge metal is a vast oversimplification. It is the sludgiest thing out of Europe I've ever heard, but the black metal and hardcore influences are there too.

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  3. I've had a couple of band members comment in the past. I have also had bands reach out and ask me to review their stuff. Warbeast linked to my page on facebook once as well. I really consider the above as an honor. It always makes me feel pretty good when band members take the time to comment.

    The track I heard from Kvelertak did not have much black metal influence, but I have only heard one track so far. As for the hardcore influences, I think that's somewhat clear by referring to them as sludge metal since the style was born out of a mix of doom metal and hardcore. Your review was quite detailed and good, I will be interested in hearing more from them.

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