Okay, last one of these for awhile. I do not have any more to review. This one was attached to the latest God Dethroned album that I bought at F.Y.E. Somehow I can imagine several of the words in the title are going to be misleading.
DIO: "HOLY DIVER" (LIVE)
Well, we already all know this song. This is included in order to pay tribute to the legendary Ronnie James Dio and is one of his best songs from his solo career. No qualms here. R.I.P.
HOLY GRAIL: "MY LAST ATTACK"
I have this album. Holy Grail is a traditional metal band that formed from some cast-offs from White Wizzard. Pretty impressive stuff actually.
DANZIG: "THE REVENGEFUL"
I have this album as well. Danzig came out with one of the greatest comeback albums of the year last year. He is basically back to the sound that made his first few albums so good. It's good to have Evil Elvis back.
THE CHARIOT: "THE CITY"
Oh lord, this is awful. Sounds like an unholy mix of deathcore and some sort of Converge-wannabe hardcore. Holy shit.
CEPHALIC CARNAGE: "ABRAXAS OF FILTH"
Colorado's own deathgrind goofballs return for some more "hydrogrind", their term not mine. This is more weirdness from the band featuring a variety of styles thrown together.
THE ACACIA STRAIN: "JONESTOWN"
Hardcore band. I never understood the praise this band gets. They are okay for modern hardcore, but I really do not like modern hardcore.
TARJA: "DARK STAR"
Tarja Tarunen is of course Nightwish's former vocalist with the operatic voice. This song also features Phil LaBonte of All That Remains. It's better than I thought it would be but Marco Hietala's songwriting is missed. Of course Nightwish is terrible now too.
CARNIFEX: "SORROWSPELL"
Carnifex is a decent deathcore band with a strong melodeath and brutal death influence. Not to say they're good, but they're listenable.
MUSHROOMHEAD: "COME ON"
I had no idea this band was still around. This is absolutely terrible too. I used to be okay with this band, owned a couple of their albums, but this is so much worse than I remember them being. I think they're challenging me to a fight.
WRETCHED: "CIMMERIAN SHAMBALLA"
More deathcore. This thing is loaded with it. This band actually sounds pretty good for the genre, not overly flashy or image-conscious, just some death metal mixed with hardcore. See, not all deathcore is completely terrible, just most of it.
KINGDOM OF SORROW: "BEHIND THE BLACKEST TEARS"
They have been mentioned before here, the side project of Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed and Kirk Windstein of Crowbar sounds exactly like you would expect: Crowbar riffs and Hatebreed vocals. It's not as bad as I thought, but I am not clamoring to buy the album.
SKELETONWITCH: "REPULSIVE SALVATION"
Skeletonwitch is a great newer band. I have this album as well. Just a great mix of black and thrash metal. I will continue to buy Skeletonwitch stuff for the foreseeable future. Terrific band.
ILL NINO: "AGAINST THE WALL"
I had no idea these guys were still around either. Are all the nu metal bands lying in wait to try to make a comeback? Or did they never leave? Anyway, these guys suck, always have, always will.
SYSTEM DIVIDE: "THE APEX DOCTRINE"
This is a metalcore band featuring Miri Milman who provides session female vocals on Orphaned Land's material as well as Belgian death metal titan Sven de Caluwe of Aborted. The vocals sound very good, unfortunately the music otherwise is fairly forgettable. I am somewhat impressed though.
HELLOWEEN: "ARE YOU METAL?"
I like Helloween and yes this song is cheesy as hell, but the German power metal pioneers can write some damn catchy hooks. This should be a fucking anthem.
WITHIN THE RUINS: "FEAST OR FAMINE"
More lifeless deathcore, although the band did attempt to add some technical elements. It's just kind of boring and predictable.
DAWN OF ASHES: "CONJURATION OF THE MASKIM'S BLACK BLOOD"
Despite enjoying quite a bit of melodic black metal, I have never really looked into this band. Unfortunately, this doesn't really convince me to seek them out. Sorry.
NONPOINT: "FRONTLINES"
Again, really? Nonpoint still exists? I remember them having a terrible song and a rap cover medley several years ago. This is also terrible.
CHELSEA GRIN: "THE HUMAN CONDITION"
Inexcusably bad deathcore. I have run out of things to say.
THE AUTUMN OFFERING: "BORN DEAD"
And we close things out with yet another tired metalcore band. This is just terrible.
I owned most of the decent stuff on here. The only bands I would even consider looking into more are Wretched, System Divide, and I suppose Dawn of Ashes. Otherwise, this is awful.
Oddly, I had never listened to Skeletonwitch until I moved to my current town. They are from here, though so they're kinda of the big local celebrities (and it's not a huge town, so I know people here who went to highschool with those guys).
ReplyDeleteYour comment on Mushroomhead is interesting to me. I too was kind of a fan of them in the past, and I recently re-listened to some of their older stuff and found I still like it. There are plenty of mainstream bands from the late 90's / early 00's whose older material still interests me, but when I listen to their newer stuff I don't like it. I keep wondering whether I changed, and I only like the old stuff because of sentimental/historical reasons, or they started sucking. In any case, I haven't looked up the newer Mushroomhead stuff, even if Decibel did follow them through Cleveland.
ReplyDeleteOn Nonpoint, I was also surprised to find out they still exist. When I worked at Target they had a spot on the video in electronics, with a pretty decent original song (from their debut). I then bought the album and found I hated the rest of it. And that's when I was still into nu metal. I did like their "In the Air Tonight" cover on their second album, but never bought that one. Why a crappy nu metal band is still around is a mystery.
I liked them reasonably well when I was into nu-metal, hell I had a t-shirt that I wore in law school. I haven't listened to them lately and am not sure I still have any of their stuff, I purged a lot of nu-metal in the last couple of years. So, I don't know if I would still like them or not. I really have not liked much of the old nu-metal stuff in years, with the only possible exception being Static-X.
ReplyDeleteI see why you picked Static-X, but I think that has more to do with them not really being a nu metal band (Machine being a possible exception). They're pretty clearly industrial metal, but because of their accessibility and bad timing they got lumped in with nu metal. Or maybe it was good timing, at least financially for them.
ReplyDelete