Possessor: Stay Dead (2015)

I am approaching this band in reverse order apparently.  I have previously covered their 2019 album and yesterday, did their 2017 album.  This is an EP the band released early on in their existence from 2015. 

As this release is so early in the band's history, it reflects a much more raw sound.  The songs are mostly short and simple, revolving around one primary riff.  Only one song lasts longer than three and a half minutes, that being the closer "Lights Out/Crypt of the Sorceror", which is kind of two songs combined anyway.  The group's penchant for memorable, rocking riffs is present, even this early in the band's history. 

The EP, while very short, is a pretty good indicator of what Possessor would sound like later on.  Though it does not match the quality of their 2019 album, it is nevertheless an intriguing listen to a group that is just getting under way.

Possessor: The Ripper (2017)

After being thoroughly impressed by UK stoner doom metal band Possessor's 2019 release, Gravelands, I sought out a couple of their earlier releases.  This is their 2017 album, their third overall album.  At this point in time, the band was a duo with one member playing drums and the other doing everything else.  For their most recent album, they added a full-time bassist.

Possessor stands out a bit from other bands in the genre with their ability to mix in thrash metal influences with the rumbling, rollicking rhythms.  This is especially evident on tracks like "Conjure and Possess" and "Guillotine".  Otherwise, the songs rock hard with catchy riffs and hooks that make it easy to headbang along to.  The lyrics generally deal with horror themes and there is the occasional sample back that up.  The songs do tend to run together at times and it becomes somewhat difficult to tell which song is which.

This is a fun album to listen to.  I was not quite as impressed by it as I was by Gravelands, mostly due to the lack of a real standout track.  Gravelands has "Breathe Fire", which is just a great song and really grabs the listener's attention.  This one does not have that one killer track that brings me back for more.  It is still a very good album, just not quite exceptional.

High Power: High Power (1983)

Ah, the 80's.  Only that decade could have produced such an atrocious album cover.  I am not even sure what is going on here.  Is this a man transforming into a were-leopard-like creature?  I have no idea, but this cover is just laughably bad.  Of course I had to check it out.

High Power is a French metal band whose sound seems rooted in the NWOBHM style taking over Europe in the late 1970's/early 1980's.  This is their first album, which is something of a forgotten gem that has recently been unearthed.  The music is fairly typical for the era, high-energy, raucous riffs, catchy hooks and soaring vocals.  It sounds largely like a mix between Accept and Judas Priest.  A sound that was fairly popular at this time period.

So why is this album so forgotten?  This album likely had a very limited market, even though it could have caught on with the trend in music at the time.  The reason for this is quite simple: all the lyrics and song titles are in French.  Something like that simply would not have attained mainstream success at that point in time.  There have been the occasional mainstream foreign language songs, but they were often treated as a novelty and not had much staying power.  So High Power likely would not have been able to reach mainstream success unless they started playing in English, they could have attained more of a following.  Alas, they never did, and after a follow-up album in 1986, disbanded.

This album is something of a curiosity, a band who could have done a little more if not for one detail.  It is a fun album to listen to, due to the high energy of the performances, particularly if in the mood for early 1980's-style metal.  Unless lyrics are important. 

Isole: Dystopia (2019)

Isole is yet another one of those bands that I checked out when I was living alone after starting my first job and found myself bored and flush with extra money, then never followed up afterwards.  I enjoyed album Bliss of Solitude, though it was very slow-paced.  They are a doom metal band after all.  But whether it was due to not having the magazine Metal Maniacs around after they closed up (which was where I found a LOT of new music) or just narrowing my focus, I never realized the band was still active and releasing albums.  I came across this one randomly on a label website and grabbed it since I remembered that I did like the band once upon a time.

This is at least the third album in my collection named Dystopia.  Of course that is a fairly stereotypical name for a metal album.  The other bands have been Megadeth and Iced Earth.  The Megadeth album is probably their best album in years.  The Iced Earth album was the band's first with Stu Block on vocals.  But enough about those, I just thought that fact was kind of interesting.

Isole is a Swedish epic doom metal band, incorporating stunning musicianship and majestic melodies into their sound.  The songs are grandiose and powerful, and they are quite long, none of them being less than six minutes in length.  This album is also heavier and darker than the other album I had heard by them.  That is at least partially due to the subject matter being so dark, dealing with several more negative emotions, depression and disillusionment.  The melodies are thus very somber and solemn, conveying the hopelessness of the lyrics well.

The highlight of the album, just as it has been with Isole is the incredible vocal performance of Daniel Bryntse.  Particularly powerful on "Written in the Sand", he can alternate easily between a deep yearning sound to a higher-pitched pained howl.  He remains the primary focal point throughout the album and with good reason.

I will try to remember this band from now on.  The vocals really are incredible and the album, though being slow, is quite powerful.  It is somber, yet beautiful.     

Cryptopsy: The Book of Suffering - Tome I and II (2018)

Similar to Morbid Angel, Cryptopsy is a death metal band whose material without their original lead singer, I have been reluctant to investigate thoroughly.  Lord Worm's vocals were such a major part of what made the albums Blasphemy Made Flesh and None So Vile so appealing.  It was not the only thing, just an important part of it.  So coming into this year, I had never heard anything by Cryptopsy with either Mike DiSalvo or Matt McGachy.

McGachy, in particular, was a singer whose work with the band I was reluctant to listen to much at all due to the rather poor reception the band received for his first album with them, The Unpsoken King.  That album veered a little to closely to deathcore and I did hear a couple of the songs and was certainly not impressed by them.  But, I decided to give this compilation a chance to see if the band had redeemed themselves.  It appears they have.

This is a compilation of the two The Book of Suffering EPs, one from 2015 and the other from 2018.  Cryptopsy has not released a full-length album since 2012, which I was unaware of.  I had not heard anything from the band since the 2008 debacle The Unspoken King.  I cannot speak for their last full-length, but these EPs appear to be a return to the form that made Cryptopsy one of the most influential bands on the technical brutal death metal sound. 

The riffs themselves are fairly technical, but where the band really shines, as usual, is in the rhythm section between band stalwart drummer Flo Mounier and bassist Olivier Pinard, who has only been with the group since 2012.  Mounier is one of the best drummers in the genre and for very good reason.  Pinard has built up a reputation quickly and is also currently in Cattle Decapitation.  The vocals too are much more impressive.  McGachy is not as incomprehensible as Lord Worm was, but has come around to a nice deep guttural roar.  He does tend to get a little closer to a more deathcore-sounding style on occasion, but those moments are few and far between.  He has improved significantly. 

Checking this release out has convinced me to check out more of Cryptopsy's work with DiSalvo.  This is a nice return to form for the band and hopefully we will have a new full-length soon in line with this improvement.

Deströyer 666: "The Dragon" (2002)

Okay, I am doing a weird thing here.  I am reviewing a single song.  Now the reason for that is that I reasonably picked up a newer physical format version of the absolute classic Cold Steel...for an Iron Age that had a bonus track added to the end.  I had not heard "The Dragon" before, but had some thoughts about its inclusion at the end of such a classic album.

First of all, my view on bonus material has evolved over the years.  I used to be all for it early on in my fandom because it was MORE material.  Over time though, I have found most bonus material superfluous and unnecessary.  Even moreso because it really disrupts the way that the album was supposed to be heard.  Instead of ending naturally and intentionally, there are new songs added on, many of which do not truly fit at the end of an album.  I figured I would try to look past that apprehension when approaching this new track.

The song itself is great, fitting in well with the band's sound on this album.  It sounds like a mix between "The Calling" and "Savage Pitch".  It would fit in well toward the end of the album, but "Shadow" is pretty much the perfect example of a closing track, so adding a song on to the end of the album like this takes away from the feeling of completion with "Shadow".  Personally, if they were going to add a bonus song, maybe it would have fit in well in the latter half of the album, but then it might have disrupted the flow of the album as I knew it.

Crowbar: Time Heals Nothing (1995)

Merry Christmas!  Time to celebrate with this incredibly uplifting album!

After seeing Crowbar live earlier this year and being absolutely blown away by their performance, I decided it was probably time to get into some of their classic material.  For whatever reason, I never really did before.  My early experiences with them may have had something to do with that.  I remember them appearing on Beavis and Butthead a couple of times and the duo mercilessly mocking them.  So I got the impression they were sort of a joke.  But Kirk Windstein was a member of Down soon thereafter, which started the change in my position.  I had a couple of their later albums and a compilation that featured a number of tracks from various early releases, but never had any of their earlier full-lengths.  I tracked down this one because I had a decent idea of what to expect.

As would be expected for one of the progenitors of the sludge metal genre, this album is deliberately paced with devastatingly heavy riffs.  The riffs are not the only thing that is devastating however.  Crowbar's lyrics have often centered around personal pain and strife, and that is no exception with this album.  Songs like the title track, "Through a Wall of Tears" and "Embracing Emptiness" are musical exercises in futility.  The minor keys and bluesy sound of the riffs add to the overall misery seeping through each song.  This is some very dark stuff.

No discussion of Crowbar would be complete without discussing the work of its only permament member, Windstein.  His vocals are painful, adept at expressing frustration, sadness and anger all at once.  He is truly a one-of-a-kind vocalist who many have attempted to emulate but have not come close. 

This is one of the classic Crowbar releases, and for damn good reason.  Every song is powerful and the band members play off each other quite well.  This is one of the better examples of sludge metal that focuses more on the doom metal side of things.  This is a genre-defining classic.

Gravehammer: Primordial Principles | Fundamental Forces (2019)

I'm pretty sure the title of this EP is actually longer than the EP itself.  This is the third and, thus far, most recent release by the German band.  It is made up of four songs and lasts just under 17 minutes.

This release takes on more of a death/doom vibe, with opening track "White Void" sounding like something that Asphyx or Autopsy would have produced.  The release mostly continues along that vein, eschewing the catchiness of the previous two releases in favor of a heavier, more aggressive sound.  The doom metal influences are also much more prominent on this release.  Gravehammer occasionally slows things way down to a crawl, something they did not do often on the previous releases.  "Solum Aeternum" still possesses most of the characteristics of the previous releases, but by and large this one sounds quite different.  The vocals have also changed, taking a much more gruff approach most of the time, but adding some blackened rasps as well.

This release finds Gravehammer evolving into more of a death/doom sound.  Most of the black metal elements have been erased, with the exception of the occasional vocal, and a lot of the rumbling catchiness is also gone.  What is left is a band very much in the vein of the aforementioned Asphyx and Autopsy.  This is not a bad thing, but I wonder if the band has lost some of their identity here.

Gravehammer: Nine Days Deep (2017)

Here we have the second release from the subject of yesterday's post, the death/doom band Gravehammer.  I talked about the band's first release, in particular their rumbling and downright catchy riffs.  This release is mostly more of the same.

The first half of the release is the second EP.  All of the songs are new here and the band built on the foundation set on their first release.  If anything, the riffs and songs on this release are even more likely to get stuck in the head.  Most of the tracks are built around one or two riffs and are quite short, other than the seven minute epic last track.  The songs are much more stripped-down and raw.  The vocal style has changed somewhat, taking on more of a clean tone, but with a sinister edge.  The vocals are more of an angry bark than the more death metal-style vocals on the first release.  Some of the songs seem more influenced by a group like Carnivore than any doom metal band, particularly "Friday Night - Coffin Ride", which at what point stops and the singer yells out "Because dead chicks don't say no!"  Very Peter Steele-esque.

The second part of my release is a live recording.  This is only on the physical copies of the release and not on the digital copy.  The live recording sounds decent, but it does sound like a very small crowd.  There are times you can almost hear conversations happening around the recording equipment.  Ultimately the live recording is not essential listening. 

It is a little surprising that Gravehammer went in this direction on this release.  They went for a rawer and more simplistic sound.  I think I prefer the first demo, but this is decent enough.

Gravehammer: Gravehammer (2016)

There are two bands on the Metal Archives named Gravehammer.  One is a Swedish group that released a couple quick demos and then changed their name to Ensnared.  The other is this group, a German band active since 2015.  Somehow, I ended up with all of their recordings to date.  Both of the Gravehammers combine death and doom metal and generally sound somewhat similar.

This is Gravehammer's first demo, a six-song affair that lasts less than half an hour.  The ideas are still raw and developing at this point, but the songs are generally short with rumbling riffs, a lot of bass and gruff, throaty vocals.  Most of the songs have a heavy groove that makes nodding along (or headbanging) pretty easy to do.  The riffs are pretty damn catchy. 

This is a very good demo and a decent foundation for this band to build on.  As I said, I have their other recordings as well, and will be taking a look at how Gravehammer evolved from here.   

Dream Tröll: Second to None (2019)

Dream Tröll is one of my favorite bands that I have discovered this year.  That is mostly based on the strength of The Witch's Curse EP, though their first full-length, The Knight of Rebellion, is a fantastic release as well.  So, of course I was excited about their new release.

The first four songs on this release are awesome, and insanely catchy.  The choruses in "Steel Winged Warrior", "I Will Not Die Today" and "Chrome Skull Viper" in particular are absolute ear-worms.  Where the songs really succeed is in their ability to combine power metal with 1980's style arena rock.  And the infectious hooks and choruses are just a part of that.  This combination is particularly prevalent on "Checkmate...Annihilate!" which has several moments, such as the climax, that would make Van Halen proud.  The song genuinely starts off sounding like Bon Jovi.

The album is driven by incredibly strong performances on guitar, vocals and keyboards.  Dream Tröll comes damn close to synth-rock in several places and there are multiple shredding keyboard solos.  If that is what you would call such an instrumentally-proficient solo. 

If there are any negatives, the major one would be that the album is quite long and some of the songs tend to overstay their welcome.  "Chrome Skull Viper" is a great song, but it could have easily been just a four or five minute song, instead of the over seven minutes that it lasts.  The chorus repeats more often than it really needs to.  The only other quibble is that after the awesome first half, the second half kind of disappoints.  The best songs are all on the first half and could have been placed in a better sequence.  But these are fairly minor quibbles.

This is the third release I have picked up from Dream Tröll this year and each one has been very impressive.  I still do not think that it quite matches the incredible EP that I mentioned before, but I do like it better than the debut full-length.  This is a band that I am vowing to follow as they continue to put out music. 

Grave Miasma: Endless Pilgrimage (2016)

I covered Cruciamentum a couple of months ago, a U.K.-based death metal band, which is not a remarkably common thing.  Grave Miasma is very similar, in that they are a death metal band from the U.K. and their sound is very similar.  The band was previously formed under the name Goat Molestör, because of they did.  The drummer even spent time in Cruciamentum.  And so now we have Grave Miasma.

This is the band's fourth release, and three of them have been EPs.  As mentioned, Grave Miasma's sound is similar to Cruciamentum.  It is based in old school occult death metal bands like Incantation and Immolation, featuring jagged, disgustingly grimy riffs and guttural roaring vocals.  The big highlight is the rumbling bass that is often playing counter-rhythms to the main riffs.  Grave Miasma also incorporates some interesting instrumentation, including a sitar in EP opener "Yama Transforms to the Afterlife". 

This is an excellent EP and a short introduction to the band.  There's just five songs here, but they are longer with a lot of twists and turns.  Grave Miasma definitely shows promise.

Accept: Restless and Wild (1982)

Accept, to me, is a band that has not really gotten its due as an extremely important band in the history and evolution of metal.  They were possibly one of the first metal bands to truly touch on speed metal and are a major step from Judas Priest and the NWOBHM to Helloween and Blind Guardian.  In addition, Accept's first frontman Udo Dirkschneider should be more recognized for being such an important and influential singer.

This is Accept's fourth full-length album and is the jumping off point for most speed metal bands.  That is thanks to the title track and, of course, "Fast as a Shark".  Pay no attention to the rather ridiculous song title, this is a balls-to-the-wall (see what I did there?), rip-roaring track that spawned an entire subgenre.  There are some slower tracks on the album, such as "Neon Nights", but "Fast as a Shark" is the song that most remember from this release. 

The band is in terrific form throughout the album, crafting an absolutely perfect representation of what it meant to be a metal band in the early 1980's.  The riffs were heavy and loud, Udo's vocals were powerful, despite the fact that he is not close to what I would consider a GOOD singer.  His rough, gruff tone fit the music exceptionally well though.  Accept takes the sound that Judas Priest really perfected and runs with it.

Accept really should be more renowned than they are.  They were a very impressive early 1980's metal band that had a big impact on the speed metal genre.  Unfortunately Accept kind of gets the short end of the stick, not getting their proper mention along with groups like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.  This album should be a metal classic.

Paradise Lost: Shades of God (1992)

Paradise Lost holds a special place in my history of becoming a metal fan, and this time of year is appropriate to be talking about it.  They were one of the earliest non-mainstream metal bands I ever heard.  I remember seeing a review of their album Draconian Times in a music magazine and had heard "Once Solemn" on an underground metal radio show.  I was interested enough that their album was on a list that I gave my family when they asked for Christmas ideas.  Someone got it for me, and I fell in love with it immediately.  Unfortunately, in those pre-internet days, their albums were really hard to find.  It has taken several years, but I have gradually been checking out most of their older releases, as well as their newer stuff.

Shades of God was Paradise Lost's third album and it features the kind of rumbling mixture of doom metal and death metal that most of their earlier material was known for, as well as touches of the gothic sound that they had a hand in creating.  This album though is a little heavier on the doom metal than the other albums by the band around the same time.  But it is doom metal in the vein of groups like Candlemass and Trouble, rolling riffs and infectious hooks.  There are a few faster tracks to really get the blood pumping like "Pity the Sadness", one of my favorite Paradise Lost tracks.

One change the band made on this album was to lengthen the songs somewhat and use more progressive song structures.  The change showed a band that was maturing and becoming more confident in their abilities, but sometimes the tracks tended to meander a bit longer than necessary.  The band deserved credit though for attempting to expand their horizons, and they never went way too far out there.

This album is a great combination of the melodic and aggressive sides of the band coming together.  It should be held up as a classic by the band, but seems to be one of the more overlooked albums.  Paradise Lost remains a favorite band of mine, and discovering some of these lost albums has certainly helped keep them there.

Antichrist: Sinful Birth (2017)

I have always been open about how much I enjoy thrash metal.  It is likely my favorite metal subgenre, and certainly the one that originally got me into metal.  I have done posts before looking at thrash metal bands from around the world, yet one country's scene has somewhat eluded me all this time.  There are so many genres Swedish metal bands do well, but I have not been able to really discover their thrash metal scene beyond a few bands who do fusion genres or who exist on the borderline between thrash and death metal.  In my Worldwide Thrash Metal post, I mentioned The Crown, who are more of a death/thrash metal band, and Guillotine, a side project.  Then there is The Haunted and Witchery, both of whom have other influences beyond thrash in them.  I just have not really been able to find too many straight thrash metal bands from Sweden yet.

Antichrist is one such band, although since they are relatively new, they are not a great example of what the Swedish thrash metal scene would have originally sounded like.  In fact, it seems to me that Antichrist's major influence is not a Swedish band at all.  There is a lot of Possessed influence here, from the album cover, to the music.  In fact, some tracks sound almost as if they were lifted directly from Seven Churches.

The songs here are generally fast-paced with frenetic, balls-to-the-wall riffs and steamroller drumming.  The drums are probably the highlight here, doing some insane fills and cadences that really capture the listener's attention.  I have long said that the only real times that the drums in metal bands are truly noticed are when they are really fucking good or really fucking bad.  This is definitely the former.  The vocals have the kind of sinister, evil edge to them to fit in quite well with the rest of the music, which captures every bit of the atmosphere of the legendary Possessed album referred to above.

This is an album that kind of slipped by unnoticed a couple of years ago, which is a shame.  Obviously, Antichrist does not really do anything brand new, but their brand of Possessed worship is infectious.  I am looking forward to hearing more, though I still have not really scratched the surface of real Swedish thrash metal yet.

Ultar: Kadath (2016)

Honestly, any time there is an album and band that makes this many references to H.P. Lovecraft is going to grab my attention.  Especially when the references are a bit more obscure than the typical Cthulhu/Azathoth/Nyarlathotep references.  So when I came across this Russian post-black metal band with an album named after the dream city home of The Ancient Ones that Randolph Carter visits on his dream quest, I figured it would be worth checking out.  Unfortunately, I was not as impressed by the album as I had hoped.

I will start with the negatives here.  The biggest problem here is the production.  It is extremely muffled.  The drums and bass are pretty high in the mix, but the guitars and vocals come across flat and lifeless.  The other issue is that the music does not really match the lyrical content.  The music does not come across as hopeless and desolate as one would expect for songs based on cosmic horror.  In fact, some of the music sounds almost hopeful and light.  I have found that the funeral doom albums by Catacombs and Tyranny have captured the atmosphere of Lovecraft most effectively.

I do not mean to imply the album is really bad.  It just does not really meet my expectations.  The music is decent enough, and the title track does actually hit the right atmosphere.  That track does revert to a lighter section, but it matches the story line, which ends on a more positive note, surprisingly enough.  There are some definite high points in the album and overall, it is decent enough.  I am not closing off the idea of checking out anything else by the band.

Mysticism Black: Return of the Bestial Flame (2019)

I should really start a label for albums that I picked up primarily because I liked the album artwork.  It would be an oft-used tag I suspect.  This is yet another one of those releases.  I had never heard of Mysticism Black before but saw the artwork and that they are a black metal band out of the Pacific Northwest with members that have spent some time with Abigail Williams and decided to take a flyer.  The band seems to be more of a one-man project who has enlisted the help of someone to play drums, more than a true band.

The music of Mysticism Black reminds me a lot of Ancient.  It is extremely melodic black metal, with a lot of keyboard flourishes, particularly in "My Lord", which is not an especially Christian song, despite the name.  Atmosphere is important on this release, and it is accomplished most often through the use of keys, but also in other percussion instruments.  The breathtaking opening to "The Blade Unsheathed" is a terrific example of the band building suspense before hammering home a colossal riff.  It is also the best song on the album, being a microcosm of the album as a whole.  It features a lengthy lilting section with clean vocals, that serve to further the occult sound of the song, then crushes the light with another dark riff. 

This album has a dark, mysterious atmosphere to it that the band, or rather the one member, accomplishes well.  It is pretty and eerie at the same time, at least when the riffs are now crashing down around the listener and the vocalist is shrieking.  But this is a fairly interesting listen, even if it is not exactly original.  It is worth a shot.

Thrawsunblat: Great Brunswick Forest (2018)

Okay, this one is a little bit different.  It is not at all what I expected it to be.  Not that that is always a bad thing.  In fact, despite just how different this one is, I found that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Thrawsunblat features three former members of Woods of Ypres, so I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect when I bought it.  Not even close.

First of all, Thrawsunblat is an anagram of "narwhal butt".  That is completely meaningless, but I figured I would point it out.

Now on to the music.  Woods of Ypres is a thoroughly depressing doom metal band and Thrawsunblat was described as a melodic black/folk metal band.  I do not know what the other Thrawsunblat albums sound like, but this one is much closer to folk rock.  For starters most of the songs are entirely acoustic, with guitar, bass, drums and even fiddle.  Even those songs that do feature some electric guitar, are primarily acoustic.  That being said, the music is clearly black/folk metal at its foundation.  There are obvious tremolo riffs, just played by an acoustic guitar.  And most of the songs are downright catchy.  The vocals are clean and while not conventionally well-performed, they really do match the music.

This is not the most metal of releases, but it does have a few moments.  The best song on the album is "Via Canadensis", with an absolutely infectious riff and is one of the few songs featuring distortion.  Other highlights include "Song of the Summit" and "Dark Sky Sanctuary".

Sometimes something entirely different is a good thing.  The metal foundation is pretty obvious here, but most of the music is acoustic.  That being said, I find myself circling back to this album frequently.  It surprised me twice, the first time upon hearing how far from my expectations it was, and the second by how much I enjoyed it.

Destruction: Born to Perish (2019)

Destruction is one of the Big Three of German thrash metal, however they have generally been my least favorite of the three.  That is not to say that I do not enjoy them.  Release from Agony is a fantastic album and their first three albums are absolute classics from the scene.  It is just that I have typically preferred Kreator and Sodom over Destruction.  All that being said, Destruction's later albums have been the best of the three bands.  That is certainly true when comparing each band's most recent album.

This is the band's fourteenth full-length album of original material (they did release two albums of re-recorded tracks).  And very little has changed in the band's sound.  Founding members bassist/vocalist Schmier and guitarist Mike Sifringer remain with the band, forming the backbone and crafting the sound that has served Destruction well for almost forty years.  So what have here is typical for the band: rampaging riffs, blazing leads and sneering vocals.

Destruction has once again released an album full of catchy-as-hell songs.  Tracks like "We Breed Evil", "Butchered for Life" and the title track are bound to get stuck in listeners' heads.  The only real complaint I can make is that there is not much variation between the tracks and the band has basically released this exact same album every time for the last fifteen years.  That being said, Destruction knows what they are doing and they do it quite well. 

I always enjoy a new Destruction album.  While they do not really ever reinvent the wheel these days, they still pack a wallop in each new release and they have been amazingly consistent over the years.  This is unlikely to rate on my top albums list, but there is something to be said for some good, old-fashioned thrash metal.

Morbid Angel, Watain and Incantation in Omaha: December 6, 2019

This is likely the last concert of the year for me, and I saved one of the best ones for last.  Morbid Angel is headlining the USA Sickness tour with support from Watain and Incantation for some absolutely family-friendly, Christmas-themed mayhem.  That description may have been a bit facetious.  The venue was The Waiting Room.

INCANTATION

Incantation are pioneers in their own brand of murky, doom-laden, occult death metal.  And that style was on full display here as the band pulled from their impressive 30-year legacy.  They played a fairly short set, but it featured a number of the band's most well-known tracks, including "The Ibex Moon" and "Rites of the Locust".  Incantation proved equally adept at grinding, slow-paced, colossal riffs as faster-paced steamroller riffs.  

WATAIN

The Swedish black metal throwbacks had a rough start to the tour as guitarist Pelle Forsberg was forbidden from entering the U.S.  But Watain has risen above that and stole the show at the concert.  It helps that they were the most theatrical, decorating the stage like a macabre abattoir, draping animal bones all over every single surface, including sticking some animal heads on tridents stationed near the microphone.  They also used torches and incense on stage to add to the atmosphere.  But more than that, they simply laid waste to everything with their massively intense setlist.  Watain was the band I was most interested in seeing at this concert and they delivered in every way.  My wife was not able to stay and watch, due to a sensitivity to the incense.  She missed out.

MORBID ANGEL

Over the last couple of years I have been developing an appreciation for Steve Tucker's work with Morbid Angel.  Previously I had avoided that era, choosing instead to focus on the David Vincent work.  But after checking out Gateways to Annihilation and being blown away, I have been picking up more and more of the Tucker albums.  It helps that the band revitalized their career after reuniting with Vincent and releasing Kingdoms Disdained.  Morbid Angel played mostly songs from the Tucker era, which makes sense, but also meant that classics like "Chapel of Ghouls" and "God of Emptiness" were not played.  They did play "Unholy Blasphemies" and a few other songs from Blessed are the Sick though.  They were impressive, but after the amazing show by Watain, Morbid Angel's more restrained performance was a bit of a letdown.

This was one of the more intense concerts I have been to in some time, and the circle pit extended out to my area of the crowd, which was not real great.  I was splashed with some alcohol and run into by a couple of out of control moshers.  Other than that, it was a HELL of a good time.

Leviathan: Unfailing Fall into Naught (2018)

This is the last of the string of posts on Leviathan.  This release was not part of the set I picked up but the label I purchased it from also had this release, so I grabbed it as well.  This is also a compilation of a couple of earlier releases, so despite the 2018 release date, the music dates back to significantly earlier.

The first five tracks are from an EP called The Blind Wound which was released in 2006, shortly after the release of A Silhouette in Splinters.  These tracks are like night and day from that release though as the songs from the EP are much more aggressive, riff-based black metal tracks, which is still the side of Leviathan that I prefer.  Furthermore, this was from close to the time period of Leviathan's debut when Wrest's song-writing was at its peak.  These are worthy tracks from the same period as the height of Leviathan's career.

The last two tracks are from Leviathan's legendary split with Xasthur, which is still one of the most important U.S. black metal releases of all time.  One of these days I am going to track down a copy, but this is one of the next best things.  These are much slower-paced, melancholic songs than the angrier earlier tracks, though they stay on the black metal side of things instead of going in the more ambient direction, with the exception of the closing strains of "Unfailing Fall into Naught".  The second song, "The Remotest Cipher", is also slower-paced but is easily one of the more dynamic songs Leviathan has recorded.

I really enjoy this release.  Sometimes, these kinds of releases are the best because they take shorter, more focused releases and combine them.  What we get then is absolutely no filler.  Each track on this release is top-notch.  This is one of the more intriguing Leviathan releases for that reason.   

Leviathan: Massive Conspiracy Against All Life (2008)

Here we have the fifth Leviathan review in a row.  Almost done here.  Wrest took a rest for a few years, not releasing any full-lengths in 2006 or 2007.  He did release a few splits in 2006 but did not release any new Leviathan music in 2007 at all.  After a couple of lackluster releases, Leviathan returned with a vengeance in 2008.

This was apparently originally set to be a Lurker of Challice recording, another project of Wrest's, but instead it was turned into what was intended to be the final Leviathan album.  Wrest was in a very dark place at this point in time, having suffered the death of his girlfriend and his own suicide attempt at the same time.  These dark emotions bleed through into the music on this release.  While it is still an aggressive form of black metal, there is a painful sadness and somber tone that manages to leak through all the while.

I have discussed Wrest's musical abilities at length in the previous posts, so I am not going to rehash that here.  Suffice to say that this is a different-sounding album than some of the previous ones, but it is devastating in its own way and the musicianship remains top-notch.  The one issue that I have is that the vocals are significantly different.  They are buried lower in the mix and are more of a deep-throated roar than the raspy vocals on the previous albums.  It is a different take on black metal vocals that comes across significantly different than what Wrest has done before. 

If there is a downside to this album, it is that the second half is a little slow.  That seems to be a bit of a thing with Leviathan, as I had the same complaint with Tentacles of Whorror.  Much of the second half also tends to run together a bit, with a lot of tracks that generally sound the same.

After a couple of lackluster releases, Leviathan came back in a big way with this release.  It does not rise to the level of the first two Leviathan releases, but it is significantly better than A Silhouette in Splinters and Howl Mockery at the Cross.  I will also say Scar Sighted is better than this one as well, but it is a little closer.

Leviathan: Howl Mockery at the Cross (2005)

Continuing on with my trek through a bunch of Leviathan releases is this compilation released the same year as yesterday's subject.  Howl Mockery at the Cross was also the name of one of Leviathan's 2002 demos.  This, however, is a collection of a bunch of demo tracks and some previously unreleased material put together for a limited release, possibly to alleviate the concerns of those believing Leviathan was headed in an ambient direction. 

It starts off in kind of an interesting way, with the majestic sound of horns heralding the onset of the album, followed shortly thereafter by an imposing spoken word section from Wrest.  But far from being a light and melodic song as might be thought from the intro, the opening track is as raw as raw black metal can be.  The first few songs are pretty decent, being an accurate prelude to what Leviathan would sound like on their first album. 

Unfortunately, not every song on this is as impressive as the first few songs.  Leviathan is celebrated for their ability to craft memorable songs that are unique and well-crafted and that are unlike other traditional black metal bands.  But some of the songs here are highly reminiscent of bands that have come before.  "Liar of Nazareth" is a pretty good song, but it has a distinctly Scandinavian sound to it, sounding like something that would be released by Satyricon or Gorgoroth.  Other songs sound like out-takes that were rejected from inclusion on an album or ideas that were not fully formed.  "S.W.O.L. 2001" is slow and mostly boring, being something in between black metal and ambient.  And then there is the Death in June cover, a song that sounds completely out of place on a Leviathan release.  It's not that it is bad, it just does not fit.

This is far from an essential release by Leviathan.  There are not many must-hear tracks and there are a lot of rather mediocre ones.  I can only recommend this to fans of the band and it absolutely should not be a starting point for Leviathan.

Leviathan: A Silhouette in Splinters (2005)

One of the only albums I have bought that I truly regretted was a release by a group called Tribes of Neurot.  The album really was not at all musical, it cannot even be said to be an ambient album.  It was much more of a harsh noise release.  So why did I pick it up?  Well, it was on Relapse Records, a label that had never steered me wrong and the description referenced an association with Neurosis, at the time a group I had little experience with other than appearing on a compilation.  And hey, I liked that song.  So I picked it up, and hated it.  It was apparently meant to be played at the same time as one of the Neurosis albums, which I never picked up. 

What does this have to do with Leviathan?  Well, the third Leviathan album is unlike any of the other releases I will be covering.  This is a purely ambient album, with very little sign of the caustic black metal that has garnered Leviathan so much attention.  Now, I did not pick this album out myself, most of the Leviathan albums I have picked up were as part of a box set and this one came with it.  I probably would not have grabbed it myself, had I a choice in the matter.  That being said, this is decent for what it is.

This is a shorter release for Leviathan and contains just six songs.  It is primarily instrumental, with some very distorted screaming at times.  The music is mostly slow-paced with some melody.  There are a few harsher moments but it never really makes it close to the black metal present on the previous albums.  Despite this, it is still an incredibly dark release.  This is definitely not happy music here.  Leviathan has long been able to portray dark emotions in their music and still pulls it off here without the need for the harsh hatred of raw black metal.

I did find this release interesting.  It is likely not going to be one I revisit often when I want to listen to Leviathan and it is definitely far down on my list of my favorite Leviathan releases, but Wrest really does pull this off.  I will still listen to it far more often than Tribes of Neurot though.  At least it has that going for it.

Leviathan: Tentacles of Whorror (2004)

As I stated in yesterday's post, I am going to be going through a bunch of the Leviathan albums in the coming days.  Yesterday's post was the band's debut album, which is largely, and rightfully, considered a classic in United States black metal.  Just one year later, Wrest was at it again, releasing his follow-up, Tentacles of Whorror.

Given that only one year had elapsed since the release of Leviathan's debut, it should come as no surprise that the formula for the sophomore album was not really changed up all that much.  This album is still densely atmospheric with sections that are far more black metal-oriented and ambient interludes.  One thing that appears to have changed is that the harsh black metal parts seem almost harsher and angrier.  The previous album was far more inwardly painful while this album seems to project that anger outwards.  It is simply an angrier and more hateful release whereas the previous one was much more devastatingly emotional.

Wrest is a fantastic musician and his talents are on full display once more with this release.  His guitar riffs are fairly complex for raw black metal and he makes use of keyboards to provide a suitably eerie atmosphere in places.  One thing that is incredibly impressive is his ability to craft intriguing bass riffs underlying the guitar riffs and keyboard melodies.  His vocals are also impressive on this release, carrying on in the typical black metal rasp, but conveying a lot of emotion for the genre.

The downside to this album is that the second half tends to be a little more heavily focused on the ambient songs at the expense of the black metal ones.  Now Wrest does an excellent job with those tracks, but I am typically more interested in the heavier stuff than the ambient songs.  So, the second half tends to drag a little too much for my taste.

This album is a worthy successor to Leviathan's legendary debut.  It is very much a continuation of the ideas presented on that album, with some things improved, while others declined.  While I do not believe it quite lives up to the standard Leviathan set with their debut, it is a damn fine album in its own right.

Leviathan: The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide (2003)

Buckle up, the next several posts will be covering various releases from Leviathan.  Leviathan is one of the most important bands in United States black metal.  The band is the project of tattoo artist Wrest, who plays all of the instruments and provides the vocals.  Leviathan is one of the quintessential one-man black metal projects, an act that rose from obscurity to become a leading band in the scene.  And though Wrest has had his issues (legal and otherwise), the band has continued to have a last impact on the black metal scene in the U.S. as well as the so-called depressive black metal scene.

The Tenth Sub Level of Suicide was also the name of an early demo by Leviathan, but this is Leviathan's debut album.  It is also largely considered the band's masterpiece.  It is easy to see why this is.  The album is the sound of complete and utter hatred.  It is an ugly and horrifying album, building an absolutely suffocating atmosphere that never lets up for its entire 71-minute run-time.  That is insane.

From the very beginning of the album it is easy to see that this is going to be a dark and twisted time.  It begins with the eerie introductory track which leads into the fast-paced "Fucking Your Ghost in Chains of Ice", which is one of the heaviest tracks on the album, but also features one of the catchiest riffs, with its groove-laden break.  The next track "Sardoniscorn" features the first real hint of Leviathan's ability to delve into ambiance without losing any of the threatening quality that characterizes most of the band's releases.  Wrest manages to keep things interesting throughout by balancing the harsh and hateful parts with just enough melody that not every song feels utterly hopeless and nihilistic.  "Mine Molten Armor" is another track that is simply incredible with one of the greatest riffs on the album.  The last track, "At the Door to the Tenth Sub Level of Suicide" is a microcosm for the entire album, being one of the bleakest black metal songs I have ever heard.  It is utterly devastating.

One thing that truly sticks out to me in this release is just how amazing Wrest's vocals can truly be.  I use the term "blood-curdling" a lot in describing various metal vocalists, but Wrest's vocals truly live up to that description.  They are so filled with hatred and pain that the listener can feel it creeping up the spine and chilling the blood. 

If there is any real complaint about this album, it is due partially to the run-time.  71 minutes is a very long release and there are moments that feel like filler.  "Submersed" is a three-minute ambient track that really never does much other than break up some of the flow and could easily have been cut for example.

The debut release from Leviathan is absolutely worthy of the lofty esteem in which it is held.  It is a masterful example of raw black metal and one of the darkest albums I have ever heard.  This is an absolutely essential release.

Bölzer: Soma (2014)

This is now the third release from the Swiss genre-defying band Bölzer.  I have previously covered their first full-length from 2016 and their first EP from 2013.  So, I have definitely taken a weird sequence to get to their second EP, which actually came before their first full-length.  It kind of makes exploring their evolution a little difficult.

This is a two-song EP, and each of the songs is somewhat long.  The sound most closely resembles the previous EP instead of the later full-length.  The songs are generally built around a few ridiculously heavy, grinding riffs with swirling leads and some of the harshest vocals I have heard from the band.  This is possibly the heaviest release I have heard from the band.  I can only imagine  how much of a shock it was for the band to go from this sound to the much lighter and catchier Hero.

So I guess it is time to ask the same question I asked when I reviewed Aura.  Which release is better?  I guess I could rank them.  I actually prefer Soma to Aura personally.  I was not sure which of the releases between Aura and Hero was better previously, stating that it depended entirely on whether I was in the mood for something heavy or catchy.  I have since come around to preferring Hero and I still think I like it the best out of the three.  

Forgotten Tomb: Hurt Yourself and the Ones You Love (2015)

That is quite the emo-sounding title, but that is something that not really unusual for Forgotten Tomb.  The band is one of those who I checked out a long time ago when I was living alone but had kind of forgotten about.  I liked the band, and their take on blackened was certainly unique.  But as I became busy with other things, I was not able to keep up with each and every band anymore.  That changed recently when I picked this one up along with a number of other releases.  This was not the primary target, but I decided to check the band out once again.

Forgotten Tomb is an Italian band that now combines black metal, doom metal and gothic metal into an unholy concoction that is as likely to depress the listener as it is to be blasphemous.  Their sound does appear to have evolved over the last several years since their previous release that I have heard.  For one thing, they have tightened up the songs considerably.  That album, Negative Megalomania, had just five songs and all but one were considerably longer than ten minutes in length.  Not one of these songs makes it to that length.  The songs here are much more straightforward without as much instrumental meandering.

The music here is probably closer to gothic doom than black metal, the only remaining black metal elements being the harsh, raspy vocals and the occasional tremolo riff.  This is slow-paced, massively heavy metal with a claustrophobic atmosphere.  Even the lighter moments feel suffocating and evil.  The problem is that most of the songs end up going at about the same pace with little differentiation between songs.  The album as a whole tends to drag as a result without anything clearly compelling happening.  The title track is the exception as the keyboard melodies toward the end are terrific and helps build that song into the most memorable on the album.

Forgotten Tomb have evolved in their sound significantly, but I cannot help but feel that they seem to have lost some of what made that previous album so interesting.  At this point, they sound like any number of other bands.  They used to have a unique quality that seems to have either left their sound entirely or become too commonplace in other bands that Forgotten Tomb no longer stands out.  That is a shame.

Aggravated Nuisance: Deadly Forces (2019)

Despite the fact that I have long considered myself a thrash metal fanatic, I have been very slow to get into crossover.  Crossover is of course thrash metal with an extra dosage of hardcore punk.  Suicidal Tendencies was a band that I discovered early on, but then it took many years before I started really getting into the genre, focusing on groups like Nuclear Assault, Municipal Waste and the earlier works of Corrosion of Conformity.  Of course the band that really spurred this renewed interest in the genre was Power Trip.  And with Power Trip's success recently, it was just a given that some other new bands would start popping up.

Enter Aggravated Nuisance.  The band is from Oklahoma City, just a three hour drive from Power Trip's hometown of Dallas, Texas.  It is not so shocking then that just a short distance away, there are bands popping up obviously influenced by Power Trip.  This is Aggravated Nuisance's debut release, a seven song EP that clocks in at under fifteen minutes, an incredibly short and fast release.

As stated, this is a crossover release, relishing in angry bursts of riffs and shouted vocals.  The hardcore punk influences show in the usage of gang vocals and infectious choruses.  The songs are all short and in-your-face.  The drums and bass impress just as much as the guitars and there are some damn good solos.  Only one song here lasts longer than three minutes and the band is somehow able to pack in a lot of riffing during such short songs.  The release is actually over before you really know it, flying by in the blink of an eye. 

This is a massively impressive debut for a genre that seems to be attempting a comeback.  I am looking forward to a full-length.

Underrated Albums: Slayer: Show No Mercy

Show No Mercy is my personal favorite Slayer album.  Not Reign in Blood, Not South of Heaven, not Seasons in the Abyss.  Show No Mercy stands out as completely unlike any other Slayer album, mostly because the band had not truly found the sound that would eventually define them.  So while it is the least Slayer-like album, that quality is what actually makes it so damn good.

This album is Slayer's debut and their sound here is much closer to the evil, chaotic NWOBHM sound that was crafted by Venom.  The sound is much more melodic, yet retains the same dark and malevolent atmosphere that the band later became so well-known for.  What is missing from this album that later became the band's trademark is their kind of warlike, mechanical and precise riffing style.  This album feels much more human and raw.

The other difference with this album is the significantly more melodic vocal style used by Tom Araya.  He exhibits some terrific range and unleashes some truly blood-curdling shrieks here, something became increasingly rare as the band continued to release albums.  In fact, Araya's vocal style became decidedly one dimensional as time went on.

Slayer did play the title track to this album at the concert last week, but that was the only one from it.  It is likely that Araya simply cannot do justice to the vocals anymore and this is not close to the band's most popular album.  But it is still their best in my opinion.

Velm: Orkan (2015)

I just covered Velm yesterday, so this post might be somewhat short.  The fact is that the band did not change up the formula from their debut full-length all that much, so there is not really a ton to talk about here without repeating myself a lot.  That is something I would prefer not to do as much as possible.

To date, this is Velm's last release.  I do not know whether the duo has broken up, but the fact remains that they were somewhat active from 2012 to 2015, releasing at least one recording, but more often two, each year.  And they have not released anything since.  So it is quite likely that Velm is done. 

If that is true, they released their best album last.  All of the high points from their debut are here and expanded upon.  The band even fixes a couple of the detracting elements from the debut.  For instance, while the band continues to have keyboard-driven instrumental tracks, they are fewer and are mixed in with the traditional black metal tracks instead of comprising the second half of the album.  Some of the vocals are performed in a clean, melodic style, contrasting sharply with the black metal rasp.  The effect is something similar to what ICS Vortex brought to Dimmu Borgir.  Finally, the penultimate track "Song of Autumn" is simply incredible, effectively mixing the keyboard melodies with the more typical black metal style.  This is what the band was capable of all this time.  This is what I was hoping for.

If this is indeed the last of Velm, they went out on a high note.  They reached their potential on this album, even if it was just for one track.