Compilations: Metal Maniacs Sept. 2008

Onward we march.

VOLBEAT: SAD MAN'S TONGUE
Kelly really likes this band. This song is a little too Elvis-like for my taste at the beginning. I understand the band is going for a metal-meets-1950's rock vibe here, but it's a little too weird for me. Maybe with repeated listens I could get into it. Not now though.

ASCEND: AMPLE FIRE WITHIN
This is more of an ambient/black metal track. It's eerie and uncomfortable, but there's nothing really here to grab the attention. Pass.

MOTORHEAD: ROCK OUT
Good old Motorhead. This band has not changed much at all since they formed in the 1970's. This is another, good old-fashioned metal beatdown. If you've heard anything by Motorhead at all, you know what to expect here. But, that's the band's charm.

CESSATION OF LIFE: NECROPOLIS
Kind of a thrash/crossover-sounding band. I have not heard of this band before. They are not too bad, probably a very amateur band. Nice guitar tone.

UNLEASHED: BLACK HORIZON
The Editor's Pick this month. Unleashed is like Motorhead in that they have changed very little over the course of their careers. Unlike Motorhead, they play Swedish death metal with Viking-inspired lyrics. I enjoy this band and own this album. Nothing much more to say than that.

SATAN'S HOST: THRONE OF BAPHOMET
I'm planning a post on Satan's Host as they are truly an enigma. This is one of their more groove-oriented tracks, but it still has thrash metal riffs running through it. The band is more concerned with creating an atmosphere on this track. It's not one of my favorite Satan's Host songs, but even the band's mediocre songs are interesting.

STONECREEP: KISS OF THE NORTHERN SKY
This is metalcore with some melodeath influences and heavy use of clean vocals. Nothing new.

THE WAKING: SORRY
I'm pretty sure this was on last week's compilation. I don't think I liked it then, why the hell would I like it now?

VII ARCANO: BLOODLUST DEFICIT
This is pretty competent death metal with thrash influences. I kind of like it. Much better than the last two pieces of crap.

YOUNG WIDOWS: OLD SKIN
Stoner/doom. This is pretty decent, I do tend to like a good stoner/doom song. I'm not sure what to think about a bunch of guys naming their band "Young Widows" though. Baroness has always confused me as well though.

HARKONIN: LOST CAUSE
More competent, amateur death metal. The rumbling riffs are pretty good, but it's tough to hear what's actually going on musically. There's an occasional technical guitar shred in here as well.

AGAINST THE PLAGUES: WAR AGAINST THE PLAGUES
And to finish things off, we have symphonic blackened death? It's okay, but this should have better production to really catch listeners' attentions.

Compilations: Metal Maniacs August 2008

Time for another compilation album. I'm trying to do one of these a week, if you couldn't tell, until I run out of them. Compilations, not weeks.

SATAN'S HOST: AVE LUCIFER
I really enjoy Satan's Host although I wish they would just stick to writing catchy songs on their albums, instead of all this Satanic invocation crap they always do. When they want to, they put out some amazing songs, this is one of those moments. Pat Evil is an amazingly talented guitarist. I have this album, so no need to praise it further.

GIGAN: STILL IMAGE SYMPHONY
Technical death metal. It definitely shreds and it does sound a little better than some of the other soulless stuff. I am not a huge fan of this genre though. I have some bands I really like, but I don't go out of my way to find it. Those into this sort of thing, one in particular, should check this out.

ARKONA: SHROUDS OF CELESTIAL SAGE
Pagan folk metal from Russia, with a great opening thrashy riff. This features a very strong female lead singer who is equally adept at clean and extreme vocals. This is one of those that I was so impressed by that I eventually bought the album. It was a little uneven, but still pretty damn good.

WHITECHAPEL: THIS IS EXILE
This is awful.

COMBAT: CORRUPT DESTRUCT
It's hardcore, or crossover, or something. I don't really care for it personally. I will pass.

DARK MIRROR: UNHOLY CRUSADE
This is a band that sounds like they are trying to catch that Mercyful Fate/King Diamond vocal sound and couple it with some almost Thin Lizzy-sounding guitar riffs. I have no idea what this is supposed to be. But hey, at least they're trying something here.

TEMTRIS: DARK MESSIAH
Another song I was so impressed with that I had to find the album. This is an Australian traditional metal band featuring beauty and beast vocals. The female vocalist is the lead vocalist and the male only contributes occasionally. But this is catchy and vastly overlooked.

KALMAH: HOLY SYMPHONY OF WAR
Kalmah is probably the best band from those Finnish power/melodeath bands that include Children of Bodom and Norther. Unfortunately, COB gets all the love for some ungodly reason. Kalmah is a much better band and continues to put out great releases, including this one. COB has gone down in flames faster than In Flames.

WAR OF AGES: THROUGH THE FLAME
I thought metalcore was on the way out? This band offers nothing that hasn't been done a thousand times before. They sound like an All That Remains ripoff. No thanks.

CHAOS WITH A SMILE: FOR SHEEP, THE SHEPHERD
This sounds like a blend of nu-metal and metalcore. What an unholy mix of shit.

TRANSCENDING BIZARRE?: IRREVERSIBLE
Bizarre is the operative word here. We have some industrial/electronic elements and death metal elements. This is really strange. It works pretty well though. I would be interested in hearing more from these guys.

VAMPIRE VANE: SUNSET, MOONRISE
I have reservations about any band with the word "Vampire" in their name, thanks to the awful Twilight bullshit and Kelly's least favorite band Vampires Everywhere!. This band though is not too bad, it captures the gritty and evil spirit of what vampires once were in movies. It's more of a doom/gothic metal band. Not bad at all.

RAPE PILLAGE & BURN: SERVED COLD
I expected an old school-sounding death metal band and that's exactly what I got. I think these guys are on Ibex Moon now, one of my favorite underground labels, because of their amazing death metal releases. This is a terrific song, I am definitely looking into this band.

THE WAKING: SORRY
More metalcore. At least this is a better song than the last couple of metalcore songs on this thing. Still though, this is a dying sound. Thankfully.

VENOMOUS CONCEPT: WATER COOLER
The Editor's Pick for the month is a hardcore supergroup featuring a bunch of people, the only one of whom I can remember is Shane Emsbury of Napalm Death. I'm sure Dan Lilker is involved too, because between the two of them, they have been in every band ever. That's probably a little exaggerated. Anyway, this is definitely an homage to old school hardcore, a genre I care very little about. So, pass.

Compilations: Metal Maniacs June/July 2008

This was the first time Metal Maniacs started including CDs with their magazines. Ihsahn is the featured artist.

IHSAHN: "MISANTHROPE"
This was off the Emperor mainman's second solo album and features more progressive elements and unconventional metal structures than the previous release. Ihsahn is a very gifted instrumentalist and keeps things very interesting on this one. I own this album, so, of course I enjoy this song.

DROID: "THE RESURRECTION"
Simple groove metal. Not terribly interesting stuff, but it's okay if you think metal reached its height with Pantera. Interesting fact: Droid's music was featured in an episode of the TV show "Bones" when they were investigating a band for murder, thet they referred to as a death metal band, but had the stage show and image of a black metal band. A major facepalm.

DAYLIGHT DIES: "A PORTRAIT IN WHITE"
Melodic and solemn death/doom metal. Daylight Dies is an incredibly underrated band. I own this album as well, so I won't need to say much more than that about it.

MENTAL RESTRAINT: "WATERLINE"
I'm not sure what this is, some kind of hardcore with some metal influence. It's just terrible. The vocals are really bad, the riffs are nothing special, and it's fucking annoying.

TYR: "GATU RIMA"
Viking metal from the tiny Faroe Islands in Northern Europe. This band focuses more on folk elements, melody, and clean vocals than their counterparts who are offshoots from black metal. It's drinking music. I'm not a big fan of these guys, so I would have to hear more to decide my interest in picking up an album.

BORIS: "STATEMENT"
Boris is kind of a weird band. Sometimes drone, sometimes stoner metal, sometimes pscyhedelic rock, they really have no set sound. This is one of their more stoner doom tracks, but the vocals and grating guitar kind of kill it for me. It's better than drone, but I'll pass.

VISIONS OF THE NIGHT: "HUMAN FAILURE"
These compilations provided tracks by several new bands without label deals. This is one of those bands, a fairly competent death metal band. I would like better production values to be able to hear the vocals, but this is okay. Let's see what this band can do in the future.

HEMLOCK: "BACKSTABBER"
I think this band was on a previous compilation. I remember not feeling overly impressed with them then. That has not changed. Groove/thrash metal in the vein of mid 90's Slayer. Eh.

IMPENDING DOOM: "SILENCE THE OPPRESSORS"
Christian deathcore. I don't mind the Christian themes, it's just that deathcore is tiring. Constant brutality gets annoying after awhile.

SAXORIOR: "JOHANN SIEGMUND OF LIEBENAU"
The best thing about these compilations is discovering new bands. I loved this track so much that I hunted down the album by this German melodic black metal band with folk elements. It's a great song and a great album. Good stuff.

HEXEREI: "EYE FOR A LIFE"
Another new band, it's some sort of groove/metalcore outfit. Not too bad, but again the production is not terribly great. Everything is kind of murky and the drums are too high in the mix.

FACEBREAKER: "BURNER"
Death metal kind of in the vein of Immolation and Incantation. It does not have the occult, sickening sound of those bands, but it's deep and doom-laden. This is pretty decent actually.

DOL THEETA: "MUD"
Okay, this is just weird. Very ethereal, at times with beautiful female vocals, occasionally bordering on techno. I have no idea why this is here.

MIDNIGHT REIGN: "THE HOLLYWOOD RX"
This sounds like Marilyn Manson with a more glam metal sound. No thanks.

DIMENTIANON: "NETZACH"
Blackened death metal. This is pretty good, but again some bad production values hurt it, though not as much. I would be interested in checking this band out further.

SHACKLES: "FER-DE-LANCE"
Shackles is an Australian blackened death metal band. This song came out before the album that I own, but since I have an affinity for this style of music from Australia and own an album by this band, you can tell how I feel about it. Pretty decent stuff and the band has a gift for an epic feel to the music, which is rare for this style.

Compilations: Metal Edge Nov./Dec. 2007

This one is slightly better than the last trainwreck of a Metal Edge sampler. Onwards.

MONSTER MAGNET: "WALL OF FIRE"
I always enjoyed Monster Magnet, particularly their spacy, drugged-out stuff of the mid 1990's. Dopes to Infinity is a great album, but then they became just another stoner rock band. There's not much to really distinguish them from Queens of the Stone Age anymore to be honest. They still write some catchy stuff, but the magic is gone. This song does not change my opinion.

HELLOWEEN: "PAINT A NEW WORLD"
This was the best song off of the newest Helloween album, which I own. For a brief moment, they have made a return to their speed metal days. Their last album was a magnificent return to form for the band and quite possibly their best since the Keeper of the Seven Keys albums. I already own this album.

SEETHER: "FMLYHM"
I hate Seether with every fiber of my being. There I said it. They are the worst of the Nickelback clones, unoriginal and fucking boring. This acronym apparently stands for "Fuck me like you hate me". I do hate you Seether, but no, just no. NFM.

OM: "UNITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GODHEAD"
The other band that formed out of the ashes of Sleep, High on Fire is the other. Om is much more drawn-out and experimental than High on Fire. Om is a stoner doom metal band that specializes in slow dirges. It's not as slow as funeral doom however. It's an interesting song, and I do love stoner doom, but this one is not quite good enough to get me to check the band out further yet.

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: "WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE"
I own this album. The song title is a reference to a Castlevania NES game. TBDM often get unfairly lumped in with the metalcore scene, since they are from America and tour with a lot of those other bands, but their sound is clearly At the Gates-inspired melodeath. This is a great example. Very good band that I wish people would listen to before writing them off. I was guilty of it once too, but I figured it out.

MOTORHEAD: "R.A.M.O.N.E.S."
A Motorhead tribute to The Ramones. I like Motorhead quite a bit but don't really care for The Ramones. It's an okay song, but I'll pass.

POLKADOT CADAVER: "WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?"
What a stupid band name. It starts out standard death metal with some keyboards but then this bizarre almost polka section starts. I'm not kidding. It's truly the most awful thing I have ever heard. This song blows. NFM.

SCUM OF THE EARTH: "I AM MONSTER"
Metal Edge was really pushing this album by Rob Zombie's former guitarist. My apathy is palpable. NFM.

DEMON HUNTER: "FADING AWAY"
I don't care for Demon Hunter. It's not the Christian thing, not at all. I have mentioned several Christian bands I enjoy in the past. It's the fact that they saw it as a wise decision to blend nu-metal with metalcore. Seriously. What the fuck were they thinking? NFM.

ELECTRIC WIZARD: "DUNWICH"
Probably the greatest stoner doom metal band ever. This is a fantastic, mesmerizing song, pulled out of an H.P. Lovecraft album. EW provides just the kind of slow, lumbering, horrifying music to fit the doom and gloom of the original story. I own this album. The band has a new one coming out soon, looking forward to it.

CIRCUS MAXIMUS: "WITHER"
This is a progressive metal band in the vein of Dream Theater. This song is pretty decent. The choruses are definitely a highlight and feature some Queensryche-esque vocals. I actually like this quite a bit.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH: "THE BLEEDING"
This is another terrible band that is inexplicably popular in the mainstream. I never understood it either. They're like a retro nu-metal band, a thing which I keep hoping does not come back but, against the wishes of us all, seems determined to do so. NFM.

CURSE OF DISOBEDIENCE: "CARVED IN STONE"
Totally nondescript Nickelback clone. I was expecting something decent with the band's name, but this is worthless. NFM.

BLACKLIST UNION: "EVERYTHING YOU NEED"
This is just terrible. I don't even want to describe it. I finally hit the skip button. NFM.

S.E.X. DEPARTMENT: "REVENGE OF VAMPIRES"
Oh lord. See above. I'm done, twenty seconds into this. NFM.

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.

Compilations: Metal Edge Oct. 2007

To make up for the fact that this will be my last post until I get back from vacation midweek next week, I have decided to satiate the sadists out there and torture myself by doing a compilation post on a Metal Edge CD. I received two issues of Metal Edge soon after subscribing to Metal Maniacs because they couldn't figure out that I actually subscribed to Metal Maniacs. I made two angry phone calls each time I received this magazine. For those unfamiliar with Metal Edge, it's a metal magazine for people who have never heard that there is music out there other than the shit they show on MTV. So there you go.

OVERKILL: "SKULL AND BONES"
Okay this is a good start. I love Overkill, but I get the feeling that the only reason this song is here is because of the guest vocalist, Randy Blythe of Lamb of God. Overkill does not really fit for this magazine, but Lamb of God certainly does. Anyway, I have this album so I don't feel the need to comment further.

12 STONES: "ADRENALINE"
The only thing I knew about this band before hearing this was that the singer was the male growler on that Evanescence song. After hearing this, I long for better days. NFM, Nickelback wannabe, but they're Christian. The only thing that makes Nickelback redeemable at all is the dirty songs. I'm guessing 12 Stones doesn't even do that.

DETHKLOK: "BLOODROCUTED"
You can tell you're in for a bumpy ride when one of the best songs on the album is by Dethklok. I am not saying anything negative about it, it's just weird. I actually really like the vocals, especially the rhythms. It's competent, but nothing mind-blowing.

BLACKLIST UNION: "AFTER THE MOURNING"
There's been a minor retro-glam movement in recent years. This band is an example. The retro-glam movement is terrible. Thereby the transitive property, this band is terrible. Take that, logic. NFM.

H.I.M.: "KISS OF DAWN"
Lame, lovesick gothic rock for vapid Hot Topic girls. No thanks. NFM.

SCUM OF THE EARTH: "BOMBSHELL FROM HELL"
Rob Zombie's onetime guitarist formed his own band and named it after a Rob Zombie song. Sounds basically like watered-down Zombie too. No thanks. NFM.

LIZZY BORDEN:"APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH"
I've never been a fan of Lizzy Borden, but neither have I really minded them. They're pretty over-the-top glam metal, but it's not bad, and it's certainly better than most of the rest of the bullshit on this thing. Essentially, this is Twisted Sister playing speed metal with some Nitro thrown in. The vocals get a little annoying.

BOBAFLEX:"THAT OLE SPEED"
If Boba Fett raped a SoloFlex and it had a child? What does the name mean? More importantly, what the hell is this terrible music? It's a retro nu-metal band of all things. The world is coming to an end. NFM.

STILL REMAINS: "STAY CAPTIVE"
Semi-competent metalcore band. This is an okay song, and sounds great next to the rest of the crap on here. The vocals are obnoxious and this is certainly nothing I haven't heard a thousand times before by better bands, but it's still better than that Bobaflex bullshit.

WITCHCRAFT: "IF CRIMSON WAS YOUR COLOUR"
Doom metal in the vein of early Pentagram. This is some good shit. Wow, I'm surprised I found a band to check out in this mess. This is old school stuff, very melodic and they even got the organ sound right. Wow.

OF HEARTS AND SHADOWS: "SLEEPLESS UNDER THE CITY"
Ugh, emo-sounding shit. Raping my ears. NFM.

HEMLOCK: "MY EYES ITCH"
Try pouring salt in them. This actually is not too bad. They're more of a groove metal band in the vein of Machine Head or Pantera. It's not at all original but it's not a total travesty either.

N3V3R 3NOU6H: "70 7H3 8O77OM"
Seriously? What the fuck is this shit, write like a normal person you text-message-obsessed, pointy-headed fuckface. The music is just as awful, possibly pre-dating the screamo crunk cancer that swept over the U.S. recently. Awful stuff, seriously.

OH THE HORROR: "HOW TO FUCK A MODEL"
Something these guys will never do. This is basically just a hardcore band with some very minor metal influences, and it fucking sucks. NFM.

That's it kids, see you in a week.

Compilations: Terrorizer Fear Candy 65

Okay, I'm pumped and ready. Let's do this bitch.

TRIGGER THE BLOODSHED: "THE GREAT DEPRESSION"
Surprisingly competent deathcore. I'm not a big fan of the genre but this is brutal enough that I wouldn't mind listening to it. Even moreso than Through the Eyes of the Dead, a deathcore band I do like.

COBALT: "ARSONRY"
Already own the album and think it's brilliant. No need to go into detail.

GENERAL SURGERY: "NECROTICISM"
Obviously by the name of the song, this is pure Carcass worship. I like Carcass so I enjoy this a little bit. Probably not quite enough to check it out, since I can always listen to Carcass.

INSECT WARFARE: "MANIPULATOR"
Pure grindcore. Not my cup of tea in general. Not bad though.

SPOONFUL OF VICODIN: "PAVED PARADISE"
This song could not be more annoying if it tried. Starting off with a sample from "Spoonful of Sugar" and leaping into grindcore. At least it's only 47 seconds long.

SAMAEL: "BLACK HOLE"
This is Samael's return to black metal and it's awesome. I already own this album, so I don't need to say much more than that.

SVARTTJERN: "CODE HUMAN"
I had never heard of this band before, but man this is a good song. It's blackened death with some thrash metal and really primal vocals. I was expecting folk metal, this is better. I may have to try to find this.

CATTLE DECAPITATION: "A BODY FARM"
Everyone's favorite vegetarian grindcore heroes return with another satiric look at humanity. Is it odd that I'm more offended by vegetarian/PETA members than I am by any given Satanic black metal band or the vaguely racist Arghoslent? Anyway, decent music though.

THE FACELESS: "COLDLY CALCULATED DESIGN"
The Faceless emerged out of the murky deathcore scene to grab people's attention for their technical mastery. They are quite good at that. Not my favorite type of death metal, but it's okay. I'd still rather listen to Origin, Decrepit Birth, Necrophagist, or Mithras though.

TRIBULATION: "CURSE OF RESURRECTION"
Already own this one. Three words: Swedish death metal. Awesome band.

MANTIC RITUAL: "ONE BY ONE"
I already own this one too. One of the neo-thrash metal bands. They're pretty good and are trying to emulate Metallica and Testament more than any other bands.

DYSCARNATE: "FUELLING THE IGNORANCE"
Pretty lo-fi death metal. The production mars what is otherwise a pretty decent-sounding song. Too bad.

NEKROSIS: "ONLY THE DEAD"
Some decent slam/brutal death metal going on here. I like this pretty well. Not terribly familiar with Nekrosis though.

IGNOMINIOUS INCARCERATION: "DEEDS OF DAYS LONG GONE"
This is somewhat technical death metal with lots of guitar sweeps. It also has some melodeath moments. It's okay, but nothing really special. I would need to hear something else before deciding whether to check them out.

TORTURE KILLER: "I BATHE IN THEIR BLOOD"
Finnish death metal band that uses some occasional thrash metal riffs. They used to be fronted by ex-Cannibal Corpse growler Chris Barnes. That has since changed and it's good that the band is trying to forge it's own identity. This is pretty good old school stuff.

CRIMFALL: "WILD FIRE SEASON"
Excellent folk metal of the more Eastern European variety. This is catchy and really good. It features a lot of string arrangements as well. I may have to check this band out.

DAY OF THE BEAST: "PREDATOR'S PATH"
This is some more old school-sounding death metal. Always a good thing. I am intrigued.

KONKHRA: "RELIGION IS A WHORE"
That's quite the song title. This is more of a modern death metal song with some very heavy groove elements. It's pretty decent and definitely gets the blood pumping. I kind of like it.

MY SILENT WAKE: "CRUEL GRAY SKIES"
I can't really tell. It started off with a long sample and then seemed to move into stoner metal. Then it delved into gothic metal territory. The guitar melodies often have a post-metal sound to them. I guess after fully listening, they sound like a cross between My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost. Not bad, just a lot to digest.

ZOMBI: "SPIRIT ANIMAL"
And we finish things off with a mostly ambient track. No thanks.

Various Artists: Fear Candy 69

I have a stack of sampler CDs sitting around collecting dust. As such, I have many more various artists compilations posts in the coming weeks.

This is Terrorizer's Fear Candy #69.

OBITUARY: "LIST OF DEAD"
I was not totally impressed with the latest album by Obituary, but this is the best song on it. Still has that dirty groove that Obituary is known for. Great song. I own the album.

ARTILLERY: "10,000 DEVILS"
I own this album too. Artillery's return was one of the best comebacks from the 1980's thrash wave. This song is great and the album is better.

BONE GNAWER: "CANNIBAL COOKOUT"
Bone Gnawer is the band formed by Kam Lee after leaving Denial Fiend. Lee has one of the best voices in death metal and he brings it to this intense death metal band. This song seriously sounds great. I would pick up this album.

ANAAL NATHRAKH: "THE LUCIFER EFFECT"
Easily one of the most intense bands in metal today. Anaal Nathrakh performs industrialized black metal and they play fast as fuck. Strangely I have not really done much checking into this band. That should probably change soon.

: "THE RATTLE OF BLACK TEETH"
I'm not totally sure what to describe this as. It seems to have some hardcore elements, some death metal elements, and some other stuff. It features good cop/bad cop vocals, and I don't think I particularly care for it.

NECROPHOBIC: "LA SANTISMA MUERTE"
Dirty, raw, and occult death metal. I love this stuff. Necrophobic has been on my list to check out for awhile. Here's the reason why.

ARGHARUS: "PLEISTAS"
I already own the album by this Lithuanian raw pagan black metal act. Good song, better album. This is easily the best song off of the album.

DEVOURMENT: "FED TO THE PIGS"
A little slam in this thing. I already own this album too, but this song is one of the best off of it.

INGESTED: "SKINNED AND FUCKED"
More slam, excellent. This band is more of a borderline band though between slam and more ordinary brutal death metal. No complaints here. The ever-present blast beats sound great. This is a decent song, I may look into them some more.

BLEED FROM WITHIN: "SERVANTS OF DIVINITY"
This sounds like a band combining hardcore with The Black Dahlia Murder. The riffs are okay, but not something we haven't heard before. The vocals sound exactly like The Black Dahlia Murder. I would prefer TBDM personally.

KORPIKLAANI: "VODKA"
More drinking metal from the masters. They've taken a step beyond beer on this one. The folk metal band sounds a little like Ensiferum, but more fun. Kind of like Finntroll. Not bad at all. Good drinking music, excellent for a wedding...

SWASHBUCKLE: "CRUISE SHIP TERROR"
Two self-described pirate metal bands emerged in the last few years. Swashbuckle is a little better musically, if only because I much prefer thrash to power metal. Funny stuff.

VIATROPHY: "SEAS OF STORM"
This is almost mechanical-sounding death metal. I was actually somewhat surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Especially as it seemed to meander towards metalcore in the later moments. Still not too bad.

AFTER ALL: "MY OWN SACRIFICE"
Definitely metalcore. No thanks.

MENA BRINNO: "COURT ME"
I was very surprised by this one too. It has a traditional metal sound and is driven by fantastic guitar leads and solos. It also features a sweetly-voiced female singer. The proceedings under the singer are a little more gothic-tinged, but this is still a decent enough song. I would need to hear more before making a decision.

Compilations: Now That's What I Call Slam

First things first, yes that is a mock reference to the Now compilations that were huge a few years ago and now barely register a blip on the market because of downloading. Yes, it's an old joke and not terribly funny. Moving on.

Well as I said in my post on the new Pathology album, I've been in a bit of a slam mood. For those not familiar with the genre, slam death metal takes the early sound of Suffocation and other similar groups and focuses on the slower groove parts. It's offensive as hell, but that's part of its charm(?). Just look at some of these song titles. It's not music to be taken seriously, it's just mindless fun. As long as you're not easily offended anyway.

This is a compilation thrown together by Sergeant D. of Metal Inquisition and put up for download on Invisible Oranges. It's a pretty good introduction into the twisted world of slam metal. I'm pretty late to this party as this was posted nine months ago originally and I was vaguely aware of it then, but only downloaded it this week. I'm not going to discuss each song in depth, as most of this sounds pretty similar and it would be pointless saying the same thing over and over again, but here we go anyway.

1. Devourment: Babykiller: This is the only band on this compilation that I currently have an album from (I have three). Devourment are probably the first real slam band, and this song is a perfect example of the genre.
2. Gorevent: Extinction: Japan has become a leading exporter of slam and many of the bands share members. Gorevent, Rest in Gore, Infernal Revulsion, and Glossectomy are all Japanese bands.
3. Cephalotripsy: Sanguinary Misogynistic Execration: This is what most modern slam bands sound like. The vocals are extremely guttural.
4. Repudilation: Fall of Oppression: An older band that helped define the genre more from Devourment's take on it.
5. Rest in Gore: Gutrectomy: Absolutely filthy vocals.
6. I Declare Goddess: I Declare Goddess: This is a collaboration between the singers of deathcore band I Declare War and slam band Disfiguring the Goddess. It does not feature a lot of the weirdness notable in Goddess's work, although there are some strange moments.
7. Infernal Revulsion: Rot in Peace: This is a bit more melodic than most other slam. It's more closely related to Suffocation. This is probably my favorite track on this.
8. Putrid Pile: Dead: This one is incredibly fast and sounds great.
9. Guttural Secrete: Reek of Pubescent Despoilment: Different guitar tone. This one also sounds like brutal death with some nice riffing along with the slams.
10. Disconformity: Endocranial Cast: This one's a bit slower with some very sick vocals.
11. Condemned: Habitual Depravity: Absolutely inhuman vocals on this track. I'm not sure those are even words.
12. Human Rejection: Infernal Hostility: These vocals sound like a bullfrog is grumbling into the mic. The whole song is basically one long slam.
13. Glossectomy: Unknown: This one flies by in the blink of an eye. It's also essentially a two minute slam.
14. Pyrexia: Sermon of Mockery: Pyrexia emerged around the same time as Suffocation and really are not that dissimilar. Fans of Suffocation should also enjoy Pyrexia, although their breakdowns are much more severe.
15. The Dark Prison Massacre: My Cock is the Truth: Charming.

Yes the music is offensive as hell. However, it's kind of fun to listen to sometimes.

Compilations: Metalhit.com Sampler

Recently, when I won a contest on Metal Maniacs' website, I received two CDs from Lithuanian black metal bands. Also included in the usual mess of promotional materials for various small, underground labels was a gift card for a free download of sampler tracks from Metalhit.com. Not being one to turn down free stuff, I downloaded the album, thinking maybe it will convince me to pick up a few of the albums.

ALDAARON: "NIRNAETH ARNOEDIAD PT. 1"
Melodic black metal with a heavy use of tremolo riffing. I actually really like this. The vocals could stand to be a little higher in the mix, but the tremolo riff is very interesting and catchy. The blasting drums behind it is a little stereotypical, but sounds pretty good. There's a slower interlude that keeps things from becoming boring. Definitely interesting.

CARDIAC ARREST: "HAUNTED REMNANTS"
This one is good old-fashioned death metal. The song is absolutely filthy and raw. It truly sounds nasty. The band is on Ibex Moon Records which is a very trustworthy label for death metal. This is the way that death metal should sound. I will definitely have to get this one.

COLONIZE THE ROTTING: "REGURGITATED CARRION"
This is off an album called Composting the Masticated. So yeah, if you guessed slam death you're right. Somewhat interesting band. There really are not a ton of really good slam death bands out there, but this one sounds moderately interesting. I can see why this wouldn't be everyone's thing but slam death is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine.

DIABOLIC: "HELLISH WORLD"
Another great old school-sounding death metal song. This one sounds a little closer to groups like Morbid Angel and Immolation. That is, very heavy, with sick riffs and dessicated vocals. It's also very fast, eschewing the sludgy feel of their influences, but keeping the same downtuned guitars. Very interesting indeed.

GRAVES OF VALOR: "LOCUSTA"
I was expecting some type of deathcore. While the band certainly does have deathcore elements (breakdown about halfway through), they're not quite as bad and obvious about it as some of their contemporaries. It's still definitely deathcore, but it's a little better than groups like Suicide Silence and Arsonists Get All the Girls. The guitar tone is interesting. Listenable, but not much more.

HAIL OF BULLETS: "WARSAW RISING"
Already familiar with this band, the project of members of Asphyx and Thanatos. Already a huge fan. Don't need to listen to this song to further prove that. I will just say Martin Van Drunen is one of my favorite death metal vocalists, if not my favorite, and Thanatos is very underrated. Great to hear a new song from them, even if it is just from an EP.

NOMINON: "KEVORKIAN EXIT"
I'm also already familiar with this Swedish death metal band and already enjoy them. This is off their newest album and this thing sounds like it will be awesome. This is another backward-looking band, focused on the early 1990's sounds of Grave, Nihilist, Carnage, and Nirvana 2002 among others.

ORTHRUS: "AGENTS OF ASSYRIAN WIND"
This one surprised me. I was expecting black metal, but what I got was a frenetic coupling of black and thrash metal. Blackened thrash being a particularly favorite subgenre of mine, I really enjoyed the hell out of this. Definitely interested in hearing more from these guys.

PENTAGRAM: "BUZZSAW"
Quite possibly the U.S.'s oldest metal band, forming in 1971, Pentagram still plays fuzzed-out doom metal with heavy riffs and sleazy vocals. For some reason, I have not looked too much into Pentagram. One of these days, that will change. This is off their 2001 album that was recently reissued.

REVOCATION: "DISMANTLE THE DICTATOR"
I am familiar with this new technical thrash outfit. I loved last year's album and this track comes from that album. So I'm already ahead of the game on this one.

SACRILEGIOUS IMPALEMENT: "MARCH OF DOOM"
This is black metal with something of a dark, epic feel to it. The whole thing sounds like the sound of a particularly harsh winter. It's angry and cold and blustery. Not bad at all. My curiosity is piqued.

SECTIONED: "LONLIEST MAN"
This is kind of interesting modern death metal. I'm not sure they've quite got everything together. The guitar riffs are very fast, but the vocalist kind of lumbers through the lyrics, holding individual words for quite awhile while the music blasts away. It's a little disorienting. The music is good, the vocals just need to match them. This is a fairly raw recording too, the guitars could use a little boost in the production. A decent start, but needs improvement.

THE CRINN: "SYZYGY"
I don't know what that word is. This is uber-technical shredding, without any coherent ideas. I'm not even sure if it's metal or not, there don't seem to be any discernible riffs or structure, it's just shred after shred. Fans of The Dillinger Escape Plan may be interested. I am not such a fan, so no, I don't care at all for it.

VULVECTOMY: "GANGRENOUS TESTICULAR DEFORMITY"
I bet these guys are a blast at parties. Apparently they have something against both male and female genitals. From their album Post-Abortion Slut Fuck, this is more slam death, this time from Italy. This one has a thicker production than the last band, but the vocals are unfortunately kind of buried in the mix. The drums are higher, which are usually the more interesting feature of slam death, so this is a good thing. I don't know if I would look further into this band or not. Possibly if I have another desire to get some more slam soon. I haven't done that for a little while.

WATAIN: "REAPING DEATH"
Hell yes. I really enjoy Watain so I am really looking forward to their new album. This song is great. Very fast and chaotic black metal with a dark atmosphere. Watain has often been called the heirs to Dissection's throne, while I still don't believe that's possible, they have quickly become one of the leading black metal bands. I will definitely check this out.

WORMROT: "EXTERMINATE"
Wormrot has created a bit of a stir lately. The grindcore band from Singapore was signed to Earache immediately after one of the label's heads heard a sampler download from the site Invisible Oranges. This is very interesting death/grind. One I may have to check out. The song is extremely short, fast, and angry. No wonder this band is making waves.

Compilations: The Hard and the Heavy

I remember vaguely buying this compilation. Hard rock was enjoying a resurgence. MTV was playing a special music video block called "Return of the Rock" and this CD was released. I think I liked it okay at the time, but man, there are not a lot of good tracks on here.

So, to torture myself the morning after an all-day trial, here we go.

INTRODUCTION
Spoken word into from Dave Wyndorf of Monster Magnet. Skippable.

KID ROCK: "I AM THE BULLGOD"
This is some weird mix with random keyboard effects. This is one of Kid Rock's better rock-oriented tracks, which isn't saying all that much really as most of his stuff is terrible. He's proven to be quite the chameleon, at this time he was mostly associated with hard rock, whereas now he's mostly associated with country and southern rock. NFM.

MONSTER MAGNET: "GIMME DANGER"
I always liked this band really. This is kind of a smoky-sounding seductive song. Interesting, but not one of the stoner rock band's best. NFM.

POWERMAN 5000: "SON OF X-51"
Rob Zombie's little brother Spider hit it big with this album, made another one like it that was never released in the U.S., freaked out that all his stuff was sounding the same (it was), and changed his entire sound, for the worse (if possible). I was shocked when I saw this band was still around. NFM.

SEVENDUST: "BLACK"
I have a soft spot for this band too, despite not being a metal band. This was the first band I officially saw in concert. This is a live version of their first "hit", if you can call it that. It's not bad. Lajon Witherspoon has a very good voice. NFM though.

MINISTRY: "BAD BLOOD"
Well, only six tracks in and we have the first metal band. This is when the band was experimenting with equal parts industrial metal and thrash metal. This is one hell of a song. It's like an organized chaos attacking the ears. Decent, but not one of the band's better songs.

FU MANCHU: "OVER THE EDGE"
Here we come to the stoner rock portion of the album. Each of the next two tracks fall under this genre. These guys were supposed to open for Sevendust when I saw them, fell through though. It's not terrible, NFM though.

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE: "AVON"
Guitarist Josh Homme, formerly of Kyuss, decided to form a new band after the aforementioned band split up. He wanted to make it different though. It had to be terrible, less-talented, and more mind-numbingly boring. Sometimes that's difficult for stoner bands. But Josh Homme, through intensive effort, passed with flying colors. We all applaud him with a collective yawn. NFM.

P.O.D.: "HOLLYWOOD"
I nearly forgot about this band. Just your average bunch of San Diego multi-ethnic, rastafarian Christian rap-rockers. And yes their music is as awesome as that description. Even for them, this song is terrible. NFM.

ONE MINUTE SILENCE: "STUCK BETWEEN A ROCK AND A WHITE FACE"
I have no idea who this band is (was?). After hearing this song, I don't fucking care. NFM.

FEAR FACTORY: "EDGECRUSHER"
This is some weird trance/hip hop version of the Fear Factory song from their Obsolete album, an album I loved in high school. And yes, it's as weird as it sounds.

MACHINE HEAD: "FROM THIS DAY"
I've made my feelings on this band known. At this time, nu-metal was popular, thus Machine Head was a nu-metal band, complete with semi-rapped vocals. *Sigh*

PUYA: "FAKE"
Puya was a minor phenomenon for about six weeks back in 1999 or 2000. Blending rap rock with latin jazz music was something not many bands contemplated before. With good reason. Mixing Spanish with English lyrics makes this one schizophrenic mess of a song. NFM.

SEPULTURA: "CHOKE"
This is off Sepultura's first album without Max Cavalera. Derrick Green provides the grunting this time around. Altogether, not a bad song, definitely sounds a lot like the band's last album with Max though.

NEUROSIS: "UNDER THE SURFACE"
I never got into this band. Now that I hear this song again, I'm not surprised. It's eerie sounding, but that's about the best I can say about it. This band is all about the atmosphere, and they do a good job with that. I just can't say it's particularly metal and I really don't hear enough to get me to check out an album.

NEVERMORE: "I AM THE DOG"
Excellent song. This is the best song on the entire two-disc compilation. Not difficult competition though. It still took me quite awhile to get into this unique power/thrash/progressive metal band. How they turned up on this compilation, I will never understand.

LIMP BIZKIT: "COUNTERFEIT"
What the fucking hell? NFM.

ROB ZOMBIE: "LIVING DEAD GIRL"
I think this song was on literally every movie soundtrack for awhile. I think it might have even been on the soundtrack for Waiting to Exhale. I could be wrong though and I don't have time to verify that. NFM.

COAL CHAMBER: "BIG TRUCK"
Big truck huh? This band sounded exactly like Korn at this time. How we got DevilDriver out of this, I will never truly understand. NFM.

STAIND: "RAW"
This is a rare faster track for the mostly somber, woe-is-me rockers. Proving that they can't play fast convincingly either and that Aaron Lewis really cannot sing at all, Staind should have probably given it up awhile ago. But, what fun would that have been? NFM.

SLIPKNOT: "SPIT IT OUT"
This is Slipknot at its rap-rock best (worst?). Still, surprisingly one of their better songs. You can tell I like Slipknot can't you? NFM.

STATIC-X: "WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP"
I always had a soft spot for this band too, even though they really only play industrial rock. I won't complain too much about this song. NFM.

MEGADETH: "ANARCHY IN THE U.K."
This song was nearly 15 years old when this was released. What the hell caused them to dig out a Megadeth song from their third fucking album? And a bad punk cover too.

ORANGE 9MM: "WHEN YOU LIE"
I don't remember this band at all either. Maybe I'll block this back out after today. Some things should never be remembered. NFM.

VIDEODROME: "TY JONATHAN DOWN"
This is ridiculously awful. How did bands like this get record deals? It sounds like an unholy mix of Marilyn Manson and Korn, and I think Korn's singer is moaning in the background. What the fuck? NFM.

SPINESHANK: "DETACHED"
Another industrial rock band. I don't have much of a problem with them. Their singer has since formed Silent Civilian, a groove metal/metalcore band thus going over to the dark side. This is NFM though.

SOULFLY: "EYE FOR AN EYE"
This song was everywhere too. This is Max Cavalera's first big song after leaving Sepultura. It's mostly nu-metal at this point. NFM.

GRIP INC.: "ISOLATION"
Kind of a weird side project for the drummer of Slayer and the guitarist for little-known German band Despair, a progressive thrash metal band I covered earlier. This is definitely groove metal. It's fairly decent too, although I would probably not pick up an album by these guys, I'm not too big on groove metal.

MOTORHEAD: "OVERNIGHT SENSATION"
Ah Motorhead. You know exactly what to expect out of this band and they never fail. I'm not sure this group has ever written a bad song or album. Great band.

NOTHINGFACE: "BREATHE OUT"
How dare this band soil the name of the great Voivod album. For shame. NFM.

AMORPHIS: "DIVINITY"
At least this thing ends on a high note. I saw this video on MTV at some point. That same day, I rushed out and picked up the album. Great move as Amorphis is still one of my favorite bands.

Well, that's it. Thankfully. Now I can listen to something decent.

Compilations: Metallurgy

This is an album released by Metallurgy magazine, a short-lived metal/hard rock magazine in the 1990's, I think. Honestly I have no idea. I remember finding the CD at Best Buy, and it was cheap and there were a few bands I liked on it. So, I bought it. Now, I hardly ever listen to it. Many of the tracks are demos or unreleased, or live. Very few of them are really worth the purchase of the compilation. There's also a lot of crap on it.

The nice thing about it is the 192 page booklet that comes with it. It features interviews and writeups of the bands involved as well as various other stuff. There's a list of the ten heaviest albums, which features metal artists Black Sabbath, Metallica, and others as well as other artists like Public Enemy (what the fuck?). There's a look at the then-upcoming Down album as well and some humorous jabs at well-known metal musicians. The booklet probably makes the album worthwhile, but that's about it. I still have it somewhere, but I haven't seen it in a long time. Perhaps when I find it, I will take a closer look at it.

There was a second and third volume of this released. I never picked those up though because this one really wasn't all that great and I don't think I liked the bands on the other ones as well.

Here's a look at the songs:

SEPULTURA: REFUSE/RESIST (LIVE)
Well, this is the best song on the album. It's an absolutely punishing live version of one of the best songs off of the band's Chaos A.D. album. This was the first time I had heard an original Sepultura song. I was blown away and very soon after became a big fan of the band. This is a great song. I now own an EP with this same version on it.

ELEVEN PICTURES: EP TWO
I can not find much information about this band. This sounds like some sort of heavier alternative rock. Very similar to groups like Jane's Addiction, Stone Temple Pilots, and other bands. It's an okay song, just not one I'm all that interested in. Also, NFM.

GZR: DRIVE BOY, SHOOTING (DEMO)
Ah yes, the Geezer Butler project. This came at a time when Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi were having an argument over the Black Sabbath name. Geezer formed his own band to capitalize on a style he was interested in playing. This is industrial-tinged groove metal, and boy are Geezer's riffs heavy as fuck. Burton Bell of Fear Factory supplies the vocals. I picked this album up pretty much immediately after hearing this. Unfortunately GZR put out a couple more very lackluster albums after this one.

YOUNG GODS: KISSING THE SUN
Young Gods is an early industrial rock band. This is just basically some industrial sounds with vocals attached. I really did not care for this track. And this came when I was still very interested in industrial rock. NFM.

THE DAWN: SECOND SUN
This seems to be some sort of psychedelic/stoner rock. It's not too bad, it's slow-paced and very heavy. I like this stuff sometimes. They sound a little bit like Fu Manchu and Monster Magnet, groups that were becoming popular at the time. NFM though.

STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT: YOU'RE THE VULGARIAN
This, I don't like. This is just some hardcore band. I suppose the riffs are okay, but the vocals are horrible and I really don't like hardcore much at all. It sounds like a more hardcore version of Green Day from this time period, which will probably REALLY piss these guys off. NFM.

FAITH NO MORE: ENGOVE (CAFFEINE)
I love Faith No More, but I have no idea what the fuck this track is. This is like the slow buildup to a song that could be pretty good, but it never comes. There are no vocals, it's just the music building into nothing. At one point we have what sounds like it could be some pretty heavy riffs, but it doesn't last long. I think it's really the instrumental track to one of their songs. Why put that here? I first heard that Faith No More broke up in the accompanying booklet.

KYUSS: SHINE
This one was even more disappointing. It's also just an instrumental track, but it's longer. Also, I had not heard Kyuss before this album and because I did not care much for the band, I still have not picked up a Kyuss album, despite enjoying stoner doom and hearing that they were very good. Some day I will get over that, but yeah this compilation had that effect. Listening to it now, it's really an okay track, it just is not good enough to be a showcase for the band. Hard to belive Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age was in this band.

HELMET: STREET CRAB (LIVE)
Helmet isn't a band I have ever been a big fan of. Nothing against them, other than the fact that they had a big influence on the rise of nu-metal. They themselves are more of an alternative/metal band. They have heavy metal riffs, but not really the attitude. This is an okay track but I never got into the band.

FEAR FACTORY: NEW BREED (REMIX)
This is a remix of the Fear Factory track that can be found on the special edition of their Demanufacture album. I already owned that album at the time I got this. It's a good track, and that's all I really have to say about it because I already had it.

STANLEY: SPREADER
More hardcore. More yawns. NFM.

SKYSCRAPER: PLEASE DON'T HURT ME
This is again some sort of alternative rock with hardcore influences. I am not a big fan of this either. Next. NFM.

QUICKSAND: SHOVEL
What's with the hardcore bands on this thing? NFM.

NAPALM DEATH: GREED KILLINGS (DEMO)
This is another track that put me off checking out the band in any sort of real fashion. It's a demo track and it's just not very heavy. I mean, all the elements are there, except the distortion. So yeah, I did not check out Napalm Death further for several years after this album. It's a shame, I have a lot of catching up to do.

CHOCOLATE: SUGAR FREE PROMISE/MR. PEEPER/BULLY BARS/HOW AND WHEN/SERIOUS LOSS OF DOWN
Do we really need five songs from these guys? Hardcore shit. NFM.

Compilations: Trustkill Records (Before I Throw the Damn Thing Away)

I don't know why in the hell I decided to do this. Maybe it was my masochistic side showing through. Maybe I needed a challenge. Maybe I just wanted to rip into something. For whatever reason, I have decided to listen to my Trustkill Records compilation that I got attached to a recent In Flames album (or was it Bleeding Through?). This is a metalcore/hardcore label with only a couple of bands that are clearly more metal than core. I think I may have listened to it once before and it was so bad that it's been in storage for some time. Now I have dug it out for all of you people to enjoy. I'm not sure why I just didn't trash the damn thing.

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE: "SUFFOCATING UNDER WORDS OF SORROW"
You see, here's one of my problems with metalcore. The stupid-ass song names. This doesn't even make sense. It's a frail attempt to be poetic and sensitive. Musically, this band sounds exactly like Avenged Sevenfold, which is to say really fucking bad. This band has been making a lot of noise lately which is terrifying. That's all we need is more watered-down bullshit. NFM.

THROWDOWN: "SPEAK THE TRUTH"
One of the few metal bands on this thing, Throwdown is a really poor Pantera clone with some Hatebreed thrown in. I like Pantera fine, but not many of their copycats. And I really dislike Hatebreed. I'll pass, thanks. Still, it's better than most of the crap on this thing.

HOPESFALL: "BREATHE FROM COMA"
I don't think I can make it through this thing. You go on without me. Apparently, my CD player hated it too and stopped suddenly in the middle of the song. Having been rejuvenated, I will move on to the next song. Oh, NFM, some post-hardcore/emo shit.

IT DIES TODAY: "FREAK GASOLINE FIGHT ACCIDENT"
This is another metal band with melodic death metal influences mixed in with some hardcore. This song sounds great, but maybe I'm just thinking that because of how bad the last track was. The clean vocals are a little overdone though, and the breakdown is pretty bad as well.

FIGHT PARIS: "100 PROOF WOMAN"
I can't even find this band on Wikipedia. Bad sign. This is really bad. My head hurts. NFM. Skip button please, I can't handle this.

ROSES ARE RED: "300 MOTION PICTURES"
AHHH! What the fuck is this?! NFM.

BEDLIGHT FOR BLUE EYES: "EPHEMERAL ADDICTIONS"
What the fuck kind of name is this? This is some sort of emo shit. I hate emo shit. Skip button. NFM.

MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD: "SHARK ETHIC"
Okay, this one starts out really cool, with one hell of a buildup, but then goes exactly nowhere with it. It's all eerie and powerful but then we just have a typical metalcore song. NFM. At least this song is listenable and I made it through more than a minute of it. The vocals are awful though.

OPEN HAND: "CROOKED CROWN"
My head hurts really badly right now. This is just pathetic. NFM.

TERROR: "KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT"
Okay, I can handle some tough-guy hardcore right now. This is much pretty than the crapfest that was the last song. This band sounds exactly like Hatebreed. NFM.

WALLS OF JERICHO: "THERE'S NO I IN FUCK YOU"
I wonder if Helloween can sue for defamation based on this horrible hardcore band naming themselves after one of their albums? I doubt it. Anyway, hardcore band + female vocalist = instant record deal, despite considerable lack of talent. NFM.

BLEEDING THROUGH: "SWEET VAMPIROUS"
Only the third band on this thing that I would classify as metal. Bleeding Through mixes black metal, melodic death metal, and some hardcore influences. They have a distinctive riffing style that is very heavy and is often accompanied by keyboard flourishes. They do have lots of breakdowns, but are generally not terrible. In fact, I like Bleeding Through okay. Not enough to go out and buy their albums all the time, but enough to be able to listen to them.

THIS IS HELL: "MOVING TARGETS"
Hardcore punk. NFM. Go the fuck away.

CRASH ROMEO: "DIAL M FOR MURDER"
BRAIN HURTS BRAIN HURTS BRAIN HURTS BRIAN HRSIT SAJKLNAKLFMWLAOKLNLANKFKNLKLNNVS

FIRST BLOOD: "NEXT TIME I SEE YOU, YOU'RE DEAD"
My doctor says I can no longer listen to this. In the trash it goes.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 42: Hard Music Vol. 1

I bought this somewhere in Canada. I don't even remember where. It was at this music store in kind of an outdoor shopping center, possibly near Edmonton. I don't remember. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff on here. There's some good stuff, some great stuff, and some wretchedly horrible stuff (I'm looking at you Clawfinger). This is also noteworthy because it is the first time I heard Slayer and Ministry.

That Canada trip was fairly important in my formation as a metalhead. I bought several random cassettes during the trip, including the ever popular (mystifyingly enough) Quiet Riot. I also bought this cassette, the Sepultura Roots CD, my first metal t-shirt (also Sepultura which I have since lost), and my first issue of Metal Maniacs. This is probably when I stopped being a casual fan of the genre and became much more.

Anyway, enough sidetracking, on to the compilation!

MOTLEY CRUE: "SMOKE THE SKY"
This was a single off of the band's first release after Vince Neil was kicked out. John Corabi is actually a pretty decent vocalist and he lent a harder edge to the band's sound. The riffs had a heavier bottom end and were more powerful as well. Of course people didn't listen to the Crue because they were heavy so the album flopped. It's a decent song though and highly underrated.

ANTHRAX: "AUF WIEDERSEHEN"
This is a cover of a Cheap Trick song done when John Bush took over on vocals. I don't like Cheap Trick so I don't have anything good to say about this song. This was only available on the Japanese release of Sound of White Noise.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS: "SEX TYPE THING"
NFM. But, this is my favorite song by Stone Temple Pilots. It wasn't long before Wieland descended into major drug addiction and completely flaked out. I like this song quite well even though it is a major grunge ripoff.

PANTERA: "THE BADGE"
This is another cover song, this time of the hardcore group Poison Idea. They actually pull this off quite well. Dimebag's riffs are razor-sharp as always and Anselmo's voice seems to fit the style. It's fast, nasty, and aggressive. I like this quite a bit better than I thought I would.

MINISTRY: "JUST ONE FIX"
I first heard Ministry on this song right here and what a mindfuck. This song is an absolute juggernaut. It features inhumanly precise riffs, pounding drums, and shrieking vocals. This was a great introduction to the band. For some reason though, I have never really looked much into them further.

SLAYER: "SEASONS IN THE ABYSS"
Also, this tape was the first time I ever heard Slayer. This song is not the most representative of the band's output, as it's a longer song and considerably more melodic. However, it got me hooked. I picked this album up very quickly and soon picked up everything else by the band.

DANZIG: "MOTHER"
This song single-handedly drew me to listen to Danzig. But, I had heard it some time before. I already knew this song well by the time I got this compilation.

CANDLEBOX: "CHANGE"
Grunge rip-off band. NFM. Don't care for it at all.

SKID ROW: "SLAVE TO THE GRIND"
Skid Row came out in the last few years of the hair metal/rock scene. They were never as irritating as their contemporaries of the time and were in fact, a whole lot more metal. This song is a blistering testament to that. This is a great song.

DREAM THEATER: "PULL ME UNDER"
This is my favorite track by Dream Theater. I had taped this song off the radio at some point and always enjoyed it. For some reason, I don't own the album this came from. I only ever bought one Dream Theater album.

HAREM SCAREM: "NO JUSTICE"
This is the opposite of the Skid Row song above. The verse parts are okay, but my god, the chorus is obnoxious. No thanks.

KING'S X: "BLACK FLAG"
King's X is a difficult band to pin down. Existing somewhere in the realm between heavy metal, hard rock, punk, and psychedelia, the band plays with a variety of influences. The one thing they could always do is play amazing songs. This is no exception.

FAITH NO MORE: "MID-LIFE CRISIS"
Faith No More was an early band that helped me get into metal. My older brother and some of his friends loved the band. This helped influence me. This is one of their better songs, which I already had on cassette prior to this compilation.

MY SISTER'S MACHINE: "ENEMY"
This is some sort of mix of funk, metal, and alternative rock. I don't particularly care for it.

CLAWFINGER: "TRUTH"
Awful mix of hard rock with rap vocals. This is just fucking terrible. Plus it's the edited version so we get "fucker" replaced with "sucker" throughout. Embarassingly bad.

BLACK SABBATH: "PARANOID"
Well, obviously this is one of Sabbath's best songs. Hard to believe that it nearly didn't get recorded at all. How different metal would have been.

Compilations: Terrorizer Fear Candy 78

This was the free CD sampler included with the most recent issue of Terrorizer with Varg Vikernes on the cover. This is the first chance I have had to listen to it. They did things differently this time, combining the signed bands and the unsigned bands on one CD. Interesting idea. I guess we're supposed to vote for our favorite unsigned band too.

ABSCESS
I don't know a lot about this band yet. Every time I see their name though, there is some mention of Autopsy, so members of that band must be involved here. Musically, this sounds like Autopsy, doom-laden, dirty and raw death metal with punk influences. This is really good. I will have to check this band out further. According to Wikipedia, yes members of Autopsy are involved and the band has been around for quite awhile. Not sure how I slept on that one.

UNLEASHED
I already own this album and love it. I do not have anythign to add. Unleashed is a great Swedish death metal band.

IMMOLATION
I also already own this album and like it even more than the Unleashed album. Nothing more to add.

KRUGER
This is an odd track that combines a variety of influences from hardcore, sludge metal, stoner rock, and death metal. It's kind of like Maston meets Death. It's not too bad really. I would be interested in hearing something more from the band before making up my mind though.

NOCTIFERIA
With a name like that, this has to be black metal. It is, sort of. There are also some major folk influences involved here. It's very raw. I don't know how to feel about this. I don't think I like it much. Apparently they're from Slovenia. Interesting.

ABADDEN
First of all, fire your sound guy. I had to turn this way up to hear it. What I heard was old-school sounding death/thrash metal. The musicians are all very good and the vocals are impressive. This band sounds a lot like older Possessed with a little more distortion and some Exodus thrown in for good measure. It's quite good, if you can hear it.

CARACH ANGREN
This band has made a little bit of a name for themselves recently. They play melodic black metal in the vein of Dimmu Borgir's early work. There's a lot of backlash against this genre lately. I don't mind it when it's done right. These guys all seem like capable musicians. I like this pretty well. The symphonic parts do tend to overload the sound a little and it does kind of lose things at the end, but those are the only negatives.

AT THE SOUNDAWN
I don't care much for this. It's post-rock/metal I suppose, sounding like Neurosis, Isis, and all of their copycats. I don't have much use for this style of music.

Now we get to the unsigned bands. Who's deserving of a record deal? Who's deserving of being an unsigned band? The gripping conclusion in a few paragraphs. I bet you can't wait.

THE UNSIGNED EDITION
DAYLIGHT MISERY
Prediction: death/doom. I appear to be correct. Very slow, melodic, but with death metal-style vocals. There are even some gothic metal elements. This is pretty decent. When I was in my Tristania/Nightwish phase, I would have fucking loved this. Now, I like it okay. It's interesting enough to hold the attention. I'm not sure I would buy an entire album like this, but the band is worth looking into.

BLODSGARD
Prediction: black metal. I'm two for two. The band seems very influenced by Dissection and other groups of their death metal-influenced black metal ilk. The drums pound away while the guitars are playing a slower circling riff. I like stuff like this. I would like to hear more.

UNHOLY RITUAL
Prediction: blackened death metal. We have tremolo riffs, pounding drums, and deep growled vocals. Yep, I'm three for three. This is actually fairly melodic, with frequent keyboard passages to calm things down from the harsh vocals. I like it quite well.

MORGUE ORGY
Prediction: death/grind. Well it's definitely death metal, not so much grind though. We'll call it 3.5/4.0. This sounds like a less well-produced Deicide without some of the speed. It even has similar layered vocals. It does have lots of keyboard parts which sound a little off. Not bad, work on the production and this could be pretty good.

HERE LIES AFFLICTION
Prediction: deathcore. This was predicted based on the really stupid band name. And correct again. The problem I have with deathcore is there is just not much originality in it. All the bands pretty much sound the same. I can't tell if this is good deathcore or bad deathcore. The breakdown is pretty annoying.

ORAKAI
Prediction: blackened folk metal. Damn, I missed one. This is apparently industrial-tinged metalcore. Think Scar Symmetry with more core influences. The industrial influence is really, really minor and mostly consists of random keyboard effects. Nothing else is captivating enough to hold interest.

ALUNAH
Prediction: folk metal. Damn, missed another one. This is actually sludge/stoner doom. There is a female vocalist, but I am not a big fan of these vocals. Not sure why, they just don't do it for me. The riffs are heavy and interesting, but I don't like the vocals enough. Still not bad though.

I think my vote will go to Blodsgard on this one. No offense to everyone else.

Compilation: Contaminated Vol. 6

Relapse Records has been releasing a series of compilations called Contaminated. These compilations feature most of their major recording artists and are usually pretty cheap. I got Vol. 6 in an ebay lot which included some CDs I wanted by Overkill, Venom, and other bands. For some reason I have only listened to this once before, despite owning it for nearly three years now. So, this will be like an Initial Impressions. I am also not real well-familiar with many of these bands. Relapse has been much more of a grindcore and stoner rock label over the years. Many of these bands are not metal. Although, there are some exceptions.

DISC 1
BURNT BY THE SUN: "FORLANI"
This is some sort of metalcore band with stoner doom/sludge-like riffs. It's surprisingly not that bad. I don't think that I would pick anything up by this band, but this isn't terrible. It could have been a lot worse.

MASTODON: "WHERE STRIDES THE BEHEMOTH"
Obviously Mastodon is a huge name now. This song though came off the band's full-length debut when they were just starting to make noise. This is the Mastodon that I prefer. The much more metal riffs and harsh vocals are superior in my mind to the progressive meandering of their later material.

BURST: "SCULPT THE LIVES"
Burst is widely regarded as a major influence on groups like Converge and The Dillinger Escape Plan. I don't like either of those two bands and I don't like this either. NFM. Next.

NILE: "EXECRATION TEXT"
Ah, here we go. I love Nile. I love their obsession with Egyptian mythology and some of the most down-tuned riffs and deep guttural vocals in death metal. This is an earlier song and Nile used to play really fast. This is the best stuff by Nile, they've gotten a little sludgy in recent years, but this was right at the height of their abilities.

DYSRHYTHMIA: "AND JUST GO"
This band is kind of odd. They're a progressive metal band from Brooklyn who combine unusual musical elements into their heavy metal. They are an instrumental band and have no vocals, so that's a little strange too. This is a bit of a slow-burning track. It takes a while to get going, and then never really goes anywhere. Pass.

THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN: "43 PERCENT BURNT"
I think I have made my feelings on this band clear on this blog. NFM. Next.

UNSANE: "SCRAPE"
Noise rock, another scene I don't get. NFM. Next.

SKINLESS: "FROM SACRIFICE TO SURVIVAL"
I wouldn't say I am a Skinless fan, but I enjoy them on occasion. Especially after the last few tracks on this. The band combines old school death metal with slam metal, it's pretty decent. I own the album this song is from.

HIGH ON FIRE: "RAZOR HOOF"
High on Fire is quite possibly the next huge metal band. They have been gaining steam for some time now and their most recent album was a big success. This is from their second album. The thrash influences were not as prominent as the stoner doom influences (leader Matt Pike was in Sleep), but this is still a very good song. I haven't gone back to get much of this band's back catalog, maybe it's time to do so.

EXHUMED: "MATTER OF SPLATTER"
Exhumed is a death/thrash/grind band with very gory lyrics and imagery. This song is typical of the band's style, which is to say, I rather enjoy it.

DISFEAR: "ARROGANT BREED"
This is a Swedish hardcore band. As I am not much of a fan of hardcore, this song does not really appeal to me. It's pretty heavy and all, but it just doesn't do much for me. The song does feature Tomas Lindberg of At the Gates on vocals. I suppose that's at least semi-interesting.

NEUROSIS: "SUN THAT NEVER SETS"
I've never really understood the popularity of Neurosis and other bands like them. This song is very slow and meanders around a whole lot for a long time. I can still say that I don't understand. This post-metal stuff just isn't for me.

ALCHEMIST: "FIRST CONTACT"
Alchemist is a band from Australia that combines several different styles of metal along with tribal rhythms and other disparate musical influences. This is a very unique sound and the song is actually quite good. I may have to look into this band a little further.

DYING FETUS: "ONE SHOT, ONE KILL"
Ah, Dying Fetus, one of the most influential bands on the slam death genre. Slam death is one of my guilty pleasures, so I quite enjoy most things related to the genre. Dying Fetus themselves are probably not a slam band any longer, but they still absolutely crush it musically. This is a typical representation of the band.

CEPHALIC CARNAGE: "LUCID INTERVAL"
I don't know what to say about this band. I own one of their albums and they are all over the place. Grind, doom, death, thrash, black metal elements all mix in. They are a mindfuck. Some chemicals are probably involved, the legality of which I won't speculate. This song is pretty decent though, a bit more straightforward than most.

NASUM: "SCOOP"
Nasum is a grindcore band with little to no metal influences. I prefer my grindcore with a healthy dose of death metal. Therefore, this song has little appeal to me. It's pretty much just noise. NFM.

TODAY IS THE DAY: "DESCENT"
More noise rock. More boredom. More NFM. Next.

27: "MATER"
This is boring and annoying. It's bornoying. NFM.

I'm starting to realize why I don't listen to this compilation much. There's not enough good music on it. Let's hope the second disc is better.


DISC 2
PIG DESTROYER: "TERRIFYER"
For some reason I always get Pig Destroyer and Cattle Decapitation mixed up. I want to start a band and call it Goat Mutilator or Chicken Filleter or Turkey Desecrator or Sheep Dismemberer. The grindcore band Pig Destroyer isn't bad, there's enough metal influences to keep me interested, but they don't do a whole lot for me.

THE END: "OF FIST AND FLAME"
This is a band very similar to The Dillinger Escape Plan. Draw your own conclusions about how I feel about The End.

SUFFOCATION: "SUBCONSCIOUSLY ENSLAVED"
Suffocation is an excellent band. I started listening to them after receiving this compilation. I now own five albums by them, including an EP, and a t-shirt. This song is just more high-quality work from the pioneering death metal band.

ZEKE: "KILL THE KING"
NFM, hardcore punk. Don't care. Next.

BONGZILLA: "HASHDEALER"
Sometimes, based on a band's name and song title, you can just tell what kind of music they play. Enter stoner doom (surprise, surprise) band Bongzilla. It's heavy, distorted Sabbathian riffing. Hey, that's stoner doom for you. Not bad at all.

UPHILL BATTLE: "WRECK OF NERVES"
This is probably an early example of deathcore. This band combines metalcore with grindcore, it's not too bad really. An interesting take on a genre, metalcore, that is usually very cliched.

CRYPTIC SLAUGHTER: "LOWLIFE"
This, I like. Cryptic Slaughter plays crossover thrash. The band reunited prior to this compilation being put together. This song appeared on the band's EP released in 2003. Then they broke up again. The vocals are tough to get used to, but the music rocks. Sometimes, that's all you need.

PENTAGRAM: "MUCH TOO YOUNG TO KNOW"
Pentagram is possibly the U.S.'s longest running metal band. The band dates back to the early 1970's. They play doom metal very influenced by Black Sabbath. This is definitely a band to check out.

AGORAPHOBIC NOSEBLEED: "SPREADING THE DISEASE"
Pure grindcore with little to no metal influence, and incredibly short. It took me as long to type this as to listen to the song. Slight exaggeration. NFM.

MANDIBLE CHATTER: "TANGLE IN DELIRIUM"
What the hell is this ambient crap? NFM, that's what.

ALABAMA THUNDERPUSSY: "OL' UNFAITHFUL"
Southern metal can sound pretty good sometimes. Think newer Corrosion of Conformity, Down, etc. This is another band in that vein. They sound pretty decent. Later on, Kyle Thomas of Exhorder would front the band, I would be very interested in hearing that. This song is pretty decent though. What a name. Just rolls off the tongue.

GADGET: "CRESTFALLEN"
What a stupid name, but man does this sound good. Very fast death metal/grindcore. I'm impressed, despite having never heard of the band before.

HARVEY MILK: "I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE"
More noise rock. This song is just really annoying and I don't see the appeal of the band. NFM.

SOILENT GREEN: "THEY LIE TO HIDE THE TRUTH"
I enjoy Soilent Green quite a bit. Mostly that's because of the presence of Ben Falgoust (Goatwhore). They play a mix of sludge, death, and grindcore. It's an eclectic mix of styles, but they pull it off pretty well. Overall, it just feels dirty. That's alright though. Plus, Soilent Green is made of people.

BENUMB: "BREATHING LIFE INTO PREDESTINED FAILURE"
More superfast grindcore with no metal elements. NFM.

GENOCIDE SS: "HATESTOMP"
This is some sort of punk/rock side project group featuring members of various grindcore bands. I don't particularly care for it.

ADRENALIN O.D.: "POPE ON A ROPE"
Hardcore punk, NFM. Next.

REGURGITATE: "WAGING WAR ON BENEVOLENCE"
Sloppy-sounding goregrind band. It's pretty much all noise and filth. Surprisingly decent.

DAYLIGHT DIES: "LINE THAT DIVIDES"
Finally another song by a band I genuinely like. Daylight Dies is a very good death/doom metal band out of the U.S. Extremely melodic and melancholic. This music is very powerful musically and very emotional. This song comes from a time when they used more harsh vocals. A great song.

VIDNA OBMANA: "SKIN STRIP"
This is just ambient noise and twiddling knobs on a keyboard. NFM. Next.

HALO: "FILLING THE EMPTY SPACES WITH CASH"
This is just droning noise. I don't understand drone and I don't consider it metal. Next.

Oh, that's it. That's fine then. I can see why I don't listen to this very often. For every one good song, there's several that are bad. Awful.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 41: Monsters of Rock Vol. 3: Molten Metal

I actually got this one before I got Vol. 3. If I had gotten Vol. 2 first, I probably never would have picked this one up. But, this one was significantly better.

KISS: "UNHOLY"
You wouldn't know that from the first track though. I have never been much of a Kiss fan. This is a better song by the group, but it's not exactly good. I always preferred the songs Gene Simmons sang on than those by Paul Stanley. Not sure why. NFM.

L.A. GUNS: "DIRTY LUV"
Blech. Another glam rock song. Just terrible. NFM.

MOTORHEAD: "I'M SO BAD (BABY I DON'T CARE)"
Ah, that's more like it. Yes, Motorhead has been releasing the same stuff over and over again, but when it rocks like this, it doesn't fucking matter. This is just Lemmy being Lemmy and it's great.

WHITE ZOMBIE: "BLACK SUNSHINE"
Amazing song from a great album. I already owned this album so not much more to add. This was always one of my favorites from White Zombie.

MUDHONEY: "SUCK YOU DRY"
NFM. Nevertheless, this is pretty decent grunge rock by one of the better bands from the genre. I grew up with grunge so it doesn't bother me much. This isn't bad, it's just not metal.

FLOTSAM & JETSAM: "THE MASTER SLEEPS"
Absolutely no complaints here. I really enjoy F&J and this was one of the first times I heard their particular brand of power/thrash metal. Great song, very fast and aggressive. I need to find the album on which this song appears.

FEAR FACTORY: "SCAPEGOAT"
This song is off of Fear Factory's first album on Roadrunner. It's much more death metal-inflected than their later material. It's a great song and I did pick up this album later on.

BIOHAZARD: "PUNISHMENT"
NFM. The hardcore band has had a major influence on metalcore and nu metal due to their frequent collaborations with rappers. I don't particularly care for Biohazard, but this song is okay.

AVERSION: "LET IT GO"
This song is fast. I have not heard anything more on this band for some reason, but I am definitely interested. This is easily my favorite song on the album but they're not a well-known band. Shame.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 40: Monsters of Rock Vol. 2: Metal Masters

I don't even remember how I ended up with this. I went through a phase where I picked up a lot of compilation albums. I think I got Vol. 3, which I kind of liked, then picked this up. With a couple of exceptions, this one is pretty terrible. I guess it wouldn't be if I loved the hair metal/rock scene, which I don't. I like some bands, but not many. Very few of these bands are any good.

KISS: "I JUST WANNA"
Kiss was terrible and embarrassing when they did the facepaint thing. Then they took it off and somehow managed to get worse. This song is excruciatingly bad. No redeeming qualities. NFM.

SCORPIONS: "ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE"
Ah, this song I like. I have always loved this song. This might have been one of the reasons I picked this album up. Sure it's cheesy but this song is great.

KROKUS: "MIDNITE MANIAC"
Krokus used to be good. They were not good on this song, sounding like an unholy cross between AC/DC and Poison. Ugh.

ACCEPT: "BALLS TO THE WALL"
This is another great song. An early German metal band that had a major influence on power metal. This is the route mainstream metal should have taken, instead of the awful hair metal scene.

VIXEN: "EDGE OF A BROKEN HEART"
Okay, this song is supposed to be some hard-rocking song by a group of women. It's supposed to be sign that women could rock just as hard as men. Yet, it was written by Richard Marx. Enough said. NFM.

The whole second side of this is terrible, schlocky 1980's hair rock. I won't go into detail. Here's the track list. I hate all four of them. All four are NFM.
WARRANT: "MACHINE GUN"
FIREHOUSE: "HOLD YOUR FIRE"
TRIXTER: "GIVE IT TO ME GOOD"
STEELHEART: "I'LL NEVER LET YOU GO (ANGEL EYES)"

So, two worthwhile tracks on the whole thing. Metal Masters, indeed. Blech. I almost never listen to this anymore for good reason. Next Dusting Off a Cassette will feature Vol. 3 of this series which is a hundred times better.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 39: Metal Mayhem

This was another tape compilation I bought early on in my formative metal years. It was another favorite of mine due to the diversity of the bands and songs. I bought several of these compilations by Priority Records. This was among the best.

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM: "IRON TEARS"
This was the first time I had heard Flotsam and Jetsam and I was very impressed. The thrash/power metal band has a distinctive sound and vocalist and this song blew me away. It would still be several years before I picked up this album. It was tough to find at that time. I own it now though, as well as another album by the group. This band is notable for being the band Jason Newsted was in prior to Metallica. He does play bass on this track.

SUICIDAL TENDENCIES: "NOBODY HEARS"
A rare serious song by this otherwise humorous band. This one deals with teenage angst. It's also slower to accentuate the lyrics. Still a killer song. I already owned one album by this band prior to this compilation.

PRONG: "PROVE YOU WRONG"
This is off of Prong's album of the same name which is much more of a crossover album than most of the rest of the band's output. It's one of Prong's better early songs. The drumwork in particular is incredible. I own three albums by this band, including the one on which this song appears.

BANG TANGO: "SOUL TO SOUL"
This song is weird. It's not a metal song. It's more of a glam rock song meets jazz funk. I'm not kidding. There's even a saxophone part in it. It's a weird song but a decent listen. I never really checked this group out further. I don't intend to.

GWAR: "BLACK & HUGE"
Surprisingly one of the first times I had heard Gwar. I was familiar with them. They were on Beavis and Butthead frequently (ah the world I grew up in). A goofy, fun song by a weird group. I own one Gwar album.

WARRIOR SOUL: "THE WASTELAND"
I have no idea what this song is. I don't care for it at all. The vocals are annoying and the music fails to grab me. Pass.

VOIVOD: "ASTRONOMY DIVINE"
Kind of a weird one to put on this as this is a cover of a Pink Floyd song. Still an accurate representation of the science fiction, spacey weirdness this band become well-known for. Always a very creative band. This came right at the height of their careers. I have two albums from this band now, including this one.

PRO-PAIN: "FOUL TASTE OF FREEDOM"
This band was one of the early influences on the burgeoning tough-guy hardcore scene that was perfected (?!) with Hatebreed. It's defiant, angry, and aggressive. Pro-Pain always had quite a bit of metal influence, being more of a groove/hardcore band. This is their best song. I picked this album up.

MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE: "RITE OF SHIVA"
Industrial rock bands had such long, weird names. This song helped me in my desire for more industrial music. But, it's not really all that great looking back on it now. Pass.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 38: Skullcrushers Compilation

I recently dug out some of my old tapes that were compilations. I bought this some time in either my eighth or ninth grade year. It was one of the first exposures to death metal I ever had. It blew me away and was a favorite tape in my collection. I have not listened to it for a long time, so this was pretty fun.

MEGADETH: SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN
I was very familiar with Megadeth already. This song is originally off of the band's debut album. It's fast and aggressive and really sets the tone for this compilation. Dave Mustaine's banshee wail at the beginning of the song is an absolute classic. I did pick up this album after hearing this song on the compilation. I also have all of Megadeth's full-length albums and a couple of their compilation albums.

EXODUS: THE TOXIC WALTZ
I knew the name Exodus but had not heard the band. This song is a tribute to the apparently quite crazy shit that fans did at their shows. Pre-dating moshing by several years and other pit madness. This is one of my favorite tracks off of this compilation and surprisingly I have not picked up this album by the band. I do have a couple of their other albums though.

NUCLEAR ASSAULT: CRITICAL MASS
From the pure thrash of the prior two tracks, we dive into a few tracks of hardcore-inspired metal. This song from the crossover greats Nuclear Assault is an extremely heavy tour de force. I am not sure why I have not gone further into this band's catalog. This remains the only song I have actually heard.

PRONG: BEG TO DIFFER
Prong has been pretty hit or miss with me. I own three of their albums, but even on those albums, they have great songs and some filler. This is a good song, but it doesn't match the power of some of their later material. It's a lot more simple than some of the stuff the band would come up with later. Still, a decent song. It's just no "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck".

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY: LOSS FOR WORDS
This one surprised me. I had two albums by C.O.C. already, so I thought I knew what to expect. To be fair, I was only in my early teens. C.O.C. started out with much more hardcore influences and changed singers a few times. The albums I owned were more sludge metal and traditional metal. This is one hell of a song though.

DEATH: PULL THE PLUG
This is it, the first real death metal song I ever heard in its entirety. And what a great first song it was. Obviously the first thing to take notice of is the extreme vocals, which are a little tame by today's standards. The music on this song is more of an ultra heavy thrash sound. That's what death metal was in the beginning though. I own four albums now by this band, including this one.

VOIVOD: KILLING TECHNOLOGY
Voivod is weird. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what their sound is as it contains influences from thrash, hardcore, and progressive rock. Quite an eclectic mix. This song also features a lot of keyboard effects and strange vocal effects. Still, it made an impression. I own two albums by this band.

CELTIC FROST: ETERNAL SUMMER
Hard to believe that this was the first time I heard this band. The guitar tone is what really grabs the listener. That and the crushing riffs and ramming speed. This is one of the better Celtic Frost songs. Tom Warrior's vocals are terrific on this track. I now own three albums by this band, one double album by their predecessor Hellhammer and one by their successor Triptykon.

OBITUARY: INFECTED
The vocals on the Death track were extreme, but these put them to shame. John Tardy has always sounded like he gargled with a glass of battery acid before singing. This song was shocking for a young teenager to hear. I now own four albums by this band, including the album from which this track came.

SUICIDAL TENDENCIES: YOU CAN'T BRING ME DOWN
Finishing things off on a lighter note, but by no means a slower one, is this Suicidal Tendencies track. This is the only other band I owned an album from prior to getting this compilation, but this track blows all of their other stuff out of the water. It's fast, complex, and metal as fuck. Plus, it's a rare song of triumph and hope in an otherwise bleak genre. What a great song and message.