My Favorite Metal Band from France: Yyrkoon

I had a little bit of a tough time deciding my favorite metal band from France. I do not listen to a lot of bands from the country very much and, in fact, there is not a single band from France that I have more than one album from. So, it basically came down to which album is my favorite and that went to Yyrkoon's album, even over Deathspell Omega, Gojira, and the LLN albums. Yyrkoon is a vastly underrated death metal band that has really not built up much of a following at all. Which is very unfortunate. I almost never see any mention of this band anywhere. I can't be the only one who has heard of them. So, death metal fans, do yourself a favor and check out Yyrkoon.

NOTABLE SCENES: Les Legions Noires

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Belketre
Deathspell Omega
Gojira
Mutiilation
Nightmare
Vlad Tepes

Underrated Death Metal Albums Pt. 1 of 2

This is the series I hinted at last week. I went through my collection and pulled ten albums from the five major subgenres in metal: power, doom, black, thrash, and death metal. Each of these albums does not receive the attention that I feel they deserve. Some of them may be fairly well-known in underground metal circles, but I tried to avoid even that. These are albums that I love that I do not think enough people have heard. Some of these have been mentioned before on my blog. If you like the descriptions, please check these bands out. It has always been my goal on this blog to turn people on to new metal music.

I want to start with death metal, because this is the genre that I first thought of.

APOPHIS: HELIOPOLIS
Every bit as melodic and brutal as Amon Amarth, Apophis's lyrical focus is mostly on Egyptian themes, on this album anyway. They are not too narrow. This album features some amazing riffwork, incredible solos, and catchy songs. The only problem, and it is a very small problem, is that the vocals are pretty much the same all the way through. But, these vocals really match the music. This album by the German band is the first death metal album I heard that the thought came to me that other people should be listening to this band.

THORNAFIRE: EXACERBATED GNOSTIC MANIFESTATION
Chile's Thornafire take old-school death metal influences like Death, Incantation, Immolation, and Morbid Angel, and put a modern spin on them. Twisted and murky riffs abound throughout the album. This is one dark and forbidding-sounding death metal album. It's true occult death metal in the vein of the early masters listed above. Their follow-up was not quite as good, but this was one incredible album.

CENOTAPH: SAGA BELICA
Cenotaph may have been one of the first melodic death metal bands, playing stuff in Mexico that bands like At the Gates would play later on. However, on this album, the band has streamlined their approach. This is just a purely angry and aggressive album with some of the most psychotic-sounding vocals I have ever heard. The word "rabid" comes to mind most frequently upon hearing these vocals. The music is incredibly infectious, but those vocals steal the show.

VOMITORY: REDEMPTION
Somehow lost in the Swedish death metal scene is the band that is probably the most consistent. Grave, Dismember, and Entombed have all released some subpar albums, but Vomitory never has. Continually brutal and unrelenting, this is the band's best album in my opinion. It features some truly brutal and dark moments, but retains the ability to keep listeners coming back for more time after time. Yes, it features the typical guitar sound for the scene.

YYRKOON: OCCULT MEDICINE
France has produced some truly great metal albums, with groups like Deathspell Omega, Gojira, and more. Yyrkoon is another example of a quirky band from the country. The band started out as a thrash metal band, but then by this album was completely death metal. This is one of the catchier death metal albums I have heard and it is a concept album about H.P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator.

Lyrics: H.P. Lovecraft

I am a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft's work. Every major horror author of the last 75 years owes a debt to Lovecraft. Many times his influences are obvious in the works of Stephen King and Clive Barker, as well as others. His influence can also be strongly felt in the lyrics of many heavy metal songs. That's why we're here today.

ADVENT: "SHUB-NIGGURATH"
Where the stones lain,
thou will call his name

If thou know the Signs,
If thou know the Words.

When the Sun
Enter in the Ram,
And darkness are fallen,
Turn thy face
To the Northern Wind

Iah! Shub-Niggurath!

...Heaven can wait...
Great Black Goat of Woods
Worldly pleasures
I call thou!
...Waiting another day...

The sign of Voor
Rise in the sky
The seal is broken
The sign of Kish
Appear in the circle
The Gates are open
The Sign of Koth,
Elder thou watching,
Seals what was unfolded

Return on the Earth again!
Wordly pleasure!
Great Black Goat of Woods!

Kneeled thy body
By Archon of the Night,
Scent on the fire
The Seal of Blaesu
is tracing

I'll have their power
Becoming as a god
My soul is strong
I feel their stream
Growing within;
Black Horrors of the Night
Will kneel to me
I'll take their forces
and I'll order
Over them...

ZARIATNATMIX, JANNA, ETUTNAMUS,
HAYRAS, FABELLERON, FUBENTRONTY,
BRAZO, TABRASOL, NISA,
VAR-SHUB-NIGGURATH ! GABOTS MEMBROT!

Ancient creatures
Who sleep beyond the time
Appear through mist and fire
Without shape,
Out of cosmic void

Is my soul condemned
From here to eternity?

Now that I open the Gates
I see the horror
That come out of time and space...

The Horror... The Horror...

DEATH BREATH: "FLABBY LITTLE THINGS FROM BEYOND"
Vile beyond conception
Floating in the air
Made visible by science
They're around you everywhere

In loathsome profusion
Archaic and arcane
These jellyish monstrosities
Are fucking with your brain

Confused to a state of repulsion
You stare at the unnamable spawn
Keep still - Don't move or they'll get ya
These flabby little things from beyond

Beyond aesthetic standards
Fouler than the night
Paralyzed you're screaming
As they're going for a bite

With a malignant purpose
Too unholy to be grasped
You slowly start to fathom
That this is your final gasp

Lo and behold the abominations
You try telling yourself you've been conned
But as they pierce your flesh you acknowledge
The flabby little things from beyond

With your preternatural eye
You watch before you die
Sights so vastly profane
You've gone beyond insane

Confused to a state of repulsion
You stare at the unnamable spawn
Keep still - Don't move or they'll get ya
These flabby little things from beyond

ELECTRIC WIZARD: "DUNWICH"Dunwich child,
You know not your fathers' name.
Dope numbs the pain,
Ascend dark wooded hills to kane.
Your mothers' witches,
Burnt at the stake for sorcery.
You were conceived,
Upon the altar, rites obscene.

Child of Dunwich rise
You have your fathers' eyes
Child of Dunwich rise
End the world that you despise

Dunwich child,
Of whispered past now they'll learn.
High on the hill,
Black clouds gather now they'll burn
Bay at the stars.
"Why was I born at all?"
Hear voice of doom,
From other worlds your fathers' call.

Our time has come,
The end has begun...

SEPTICFLESH: "LOVECRAFT'S DEATH"
The cold comes
The rats in the walls break
The deadly sound of silence
As time decays
You try to name the unnamable
A whispererer in darkness

Our hound smells you
The haunter of the dark
Will come to take you to our realm
Your life, your books
March in front your closing eyes
Beyond the walls of sleep

Lovecraft in the realm of the dead

Obsessed with Necronomicon
The Arab's wicked dream
You found a path to Azathoth
And walked the Dagon's realm

Your friends were haunted too
Do you remember Charles?
Or haven't you heard
The music of Erich Zann
The call of Cthulhu we disguised
With notes and raving rhythms
To spread the seed of lurking fear
Into the heart of man

Lovecraft in the realm of the dead

Your time is out you saw too much
You used the silver key
You know too well that minds like yours
Can never rest in peace

You stared at the abyss
You'll never rest in peace

You'll never rest in peace

METALLICA: "THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE"
Messenger of Fear in sight
Dark deception kills the light

Hybred children watch the sea
Pray for Father, roaming free

fearless Wretch
insanity
He watches
lurking beneath the sea
great Old One
forbidden site
He searches
Hunter of the Shadows is rising
immortal
in madness You dwell

Crawling Chaos, underground
cult has summoned, twisted sound

Out from ruins once possessed
fallen city, living death

fearless Wretch
insanity
He watches
lurking beneath the sea
timeless sleep
has been upset
He awakens
Hunter of the Shadows is rising
immortal
in madness You dwell

Not dead which eternal lie
stranger eons Death may die

drain you of your sanity
face The Thing That Should Not Be

fearless Wretch
insanity
He watches
lurking beneath the sea
great Old One
forbidden site
He searches
Hunter of the Shadows is rising
immortal
in madness You dwell

Metallica also had an instrumental song called "The Call of Ktulu".

MORBID ANGEL: "THE ANCIENT ONES"
Locked deep beyond the gate
Lost within the stars
Realm of the ancient ones
Malignant ones
Against the light
Power of the blackened sky
Hateful spawn "We are the chasm depths"

Come forth ancient ones, Tiamat Kutulu
Rise, greet the cursed with your wrath
My enemies are yours
Twist their minds with your spells
Crush their souls
With your infernal grasp

A scorn from the Absu
Kutulu snaps his jaws
Cauldron burns and receives
Crushing the voice of the tyrants
Raise the horns in blasphemy

YYRKOON: "OCCULT MEDICINE"
Through the universal needles
The official healing knowledge spreads itself
Here in some dark and hidden places
Humans dedicate themselves
To morbid discoveries
Morbid experiments
And sleeps the occult... medicine

Studying the art of death to feel a morbid thirst
Old as the beginning of time
Mutilation creation of misery into the cave of hell
Into this diabolic place
And sleeps the occult... medicine

Steel instruments shine in
A lively light of green substance
Dead or alive
Bodies and souls are waiting for the contact with these macabre tools
They are only creations made alive

This is just a small sample. There are tons more.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 8: Yyrkoon: Occult Medicine

I really do not remember why I decided to pick this album up. I remember that I was placing an order with The End Records, the main purpose of which was to pick up a couple of Rotting Christ re-releases as well as some other black metal releases by 1349 and Melechesh. I think the Yyrkoon album was on clearance and I threw it in there. Boy, was I glad that I did though, because this one hell of a good album.

Yyrkoon (pronouned ear-koon, I think) is a French death metal band. The band started out as more of a melodic death metal band but trimmed those influences down to old school death metal bands like Obituary and Morbid Angel and some groove metal influences. The band has one riff from "Trapped Into Life" that sounds lifted from Pantera's "Rise".

Occult Medicine is a concept album revolving around H.P. Lovecraft's tale "Herbert West-Re-Animator" or at the least the incredibly campy, yet enjoyable, movie starring Jeffrey Combs. It essentially tells the tale of a doctor experimenting with raising the dead, to disastrous results.

The music is highly competent death metal that is at once muddy and razor-sharp. The band used keyboards earlier in their career, but those have completely disappeared by this album. The album is a testament to old-school death metal and is performed in that style, with the types of riffs and vocals one would expect of the genre. But, it's incredibly infectious and fun. Which makes this a quality release.

In Honor of Halloween: Horror Concept Albums

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I have never been able to fully explain why, perhaps it is my fascination with things that are dark and disturbing (witness: my love of heavy metal and horror movies). Indeed, I believe it started with my fascination with horror movies as a kid. Of course, around Halloween, horror movies are shown all the time. I spent most of the weekend flipping channels between SyFy (Flu Bird Horror, Splinter, Snakehead Terror (which my fiancee lovingly recorded for me, thanks baby) and other atrocious films) and AMC's Fearfest (Return of the Living Dead, Alien movies, Dracula, etc.). I will probably watch over a dozen horror movies over the course of the week leading up to Halloween. Not all of them will be good, in fact the majority will not. Bad horror movies are almost as much fun as good horror movies I have found.

Where does that leave us here? Well, heavy metal has often found a way to deal with horror in its lyrical themes. Death metal is sometimes about slashers or zombies or some other such thing, black metal deals with the occult, even groups like Metallica and Iron Maiden have fashioned songs about horror subject matter. Sometimes, bands will choose to record entire albums devoted to horror. As seen yesterday, this may take the form of a tribute album to horror movie monsters. Other times, in a far more creative way, bands will formulate their album ideas around one central theme and essentially write their own horror story in the form of an album.

These concept albums are the topic of discussion here. I'm going to look at several such albums and explain what the storyline is. I will not look at the master of concept horror albums, King Diamond, choosing instead to devote an entire post to him alone.

CRADLE OF FILTH: DUSK...AND HER EMBRACE

Cradle of Filth probably deserve their own post as well, but I decided to not drag this out too much. The topic of discussion this time around is vampires, although they are often not mentioned by name. Most of the references are heavily inspired by gothic literature, a staple in Cradle of Filth's lyrics.

CRADLE OF FILTH: CRUELTY AND THE BEAST

The band's sound is a little closer to gothic metal than the black metal that was heavily present on their previous works. This album deals mostly with the legend of Elizabeth Bathory, even featuring guest narration by Ingrid Pitt who portrayed the Countess in an old horror movie by Hammer films about her. Bathory, it is said, bathed in the blood of young virgin girls to remain youthful and was convicted for the murder of 80 people, with some estimates closer to 600. She is one of the inspirations for Dracula.

CRADLE OF FILTH: MIDIAN

See what I mean? I am not even discussing a couple of the concept albums by this band. Midian is inspired by Clive Barker's novella Cabal, in which a man seeks answers to why he is drawn to a mythical city beneath a cemetary and the dark creatures that inhabit it. It's complicated, but it's typical for Barker stories.

IRON MAIDEN: SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON

Not a concept album per se, but all of the songs revolve around the theme of being able to see into the future and other psychic abilities.

MACABRE: DAHMER

This should be self-explanatory. Macabre, an early death metal/goregrind band, created this album based entirely around the life of Jeffrey Dahmer, noted serial murderer. It begins when Dahmer is a young man and extends to the controversy about what to do with the deceased Dahmer's brain. It's strange, unnerving, occasionally humorous, and utterly in bad taste. It's perfect for Macabre.

NEVERMORE: DREAMING NEON BLACK

This album by progressive power/thrash metal band Nevermore is supposedly based on Warrel Dane's own experiences. Supposedly, Dane had a girlfriend who left to join a religious cult, who he never heard from again. However, Dane had dreams of her reaching out and screaming for help from him as she drowned. The album takes this backdrop and features a man descending into insanity after his girlfriend dies.

OPETH: MY ARMS, YOUR HEARSE

Opeth is another band that has made a career out of doing elaborate concept albums. The storyline of this album revolves around a man who has died and become a ghost. The ghost becomes agitated when he starts to believe that his girlfriend did not genuinely grieve when he died. The girlfriend feels his presence and refuses to accept that he actually has passed.

OPETH: GHOST REVERIES

This is a rather simple concept album. Opeth depicts a man in constant turmoil after he killed his own mother.

YYRKOON: OCCULT MEDICINE

This album is based on the movie Re-Animator starring the immortal Jeffrey Combs, in which a young doctor has discovered how to raise the dead. The movie is loosely based on an H.P. Lovecraft story along the same storyline. The album sticks closer to the cheesy movie, although it is significantly more serious.

Strange Album Art Pt. 4: Horror Continued Again

Okay, trying to push through this once again.

LORD BELIAL: NOCTURNAL BEAST

Here is Lord Belial with their second entry in this list, the amazing cover to Nocturnal Beast. This is one of my all time favorite covers as it shows some demonic entity ripping someone's chest open. Pretty gruesome.

HYPOCRISY: VIRUS

Hypocrisy is one of the better straightforward death metal bands from Sweden. They also have a lot of sci-fi lyrical themes as shown by several of their album covers including this one. An amazing piece of artwork, it is even more impressive upon closer inspection. This is Hypocrisy's comeback album after a couple of subpar albums.

PHAZM: HATE AT FIRST SEED

Phazm is a pretty decent black metal band out of France, of all places. This album is something of a concept album about trees coming to life and killing people. The album cover reflects this theme. Musically, Phazm plays a genre that has become known as black 'n roll, with classic rock structures invading their black metal riffs.

YYRKOON: OCCULT MEDICINE

Yyrkoon is another band from France. Yyrkoon though plays a style of death/thrash metal. This album is a concept album based on the cult horror classic Re-Animator based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft. The album cover looks like something out of House on Haunted Hill or something like it. An excellent, underrated band.

SWALLOW THE SUN: THE MORNING NEVER CAME

This is probably my absolute favorite album cover, and boy does it match the music. I picked this one up randomly and was absolutely struck by the oppressive sorrow and brutality the album packed. It's an amazing cover and an amazing album. Swallow the Sun is one of the better death/doom bands in the scene today.