Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 2

ARTIST:  Metallica
ORIGIN:  San Francisco, CA (United States)
TITLE:  ...And Justice for All
LABEL:  Elektra
YEAR:  1988
GENRE:  Thrash Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "One"
NOTES:  My second metal album.  I remember buying this at Target and having to return it once because there was a problem with the tape.  I lost the album insert a long time ago.  This is the album that put Metallica on the map from a mainstream sense due to the massive success of the epic video for "One", which is still one of my favorite music videos.  It would have been even better if you could hear the damn bass.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 1

ARTIST: Metallica
ORIGIN: San Francisco, CA (United States)
TITLE: Ride the Lightning
LABEL: Elektra
YEAR: 1984
GENRE: Thrash Metal
FAVORITE SONG: "For Whom the Bell Tolls"
NOTES: This is the first metal album I ever owned.  My grandmother bought it for me for my birthday when I was 13 years old.  I remember that I convinced her that Metallica did not use bad language, which was important to her.  So I lied.  This is still my favorite album of all time, partly due to the fact that it was my first.  I still have the cassette that I got way back then and it still plays well.  I also bought the reissue on vinyl a couple of years ago.

Initial Impressions: Voivod: Infini

Wrapping things up for my recent Voivod pickups is the band's latest album, which was released in 2009.  This was rumored to be the final Voivod album.  It was the second release after the death of longtime guitarist and founding member Denis "Piggy" D'Amour.  The album, like its predecessor, uses original recordings that Piggy recorded prior to his death from cancer.  It is something of an innovative idea and allowed Voivod to live on for a couple of albums.

It was recently announced that Voivod has a new album coming early in 2013 with a new guitarist.  This is the last recording Piggy will likely appear on but the band has found a way to keep going.

Well enough of that, how is the album?

It is certainly a catchy album.  Many of the songs stick after listening to it.  Like the prior album, it feels very stripped down, but this makes sense given the cut-and-paste nature of the recording.  It is impressive that the band was able to make this work.  The songs are all simple and straightforward without any of the progressive noodling that Voivod has used in the past.  Again, given the nature of the recording none of this is at all surprising.

Like the rest of Voivod's recent material, this is a grower.  I did not care for it much the first time I heard it, but it has grown on me.  Perhaps their self-titled will as well with time.

Initial Impressions: Voivod: Voivod

Continuing on with my recent Voivod kick, comes this album.  This is Voivod's tenth full-length album and their first one with former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted.

This is a very stripped-down album.  Most of the spacey riffs and sci-fi weirdness that typically accompany Voivod albums has been taken away.  What is left is still obviously Voivod, and I think that most people familiar enough with the band would be able to identify it as such.  But it is missing a lot of what made the band interesting in the first place.

This was a highly anticipated release at the time.  It was the first album with Snake back in vocals and there was a sense of excitement with Newsted coming aboard.  And there are definitely some good moments on this release.  All of the songs have a hard-driving feel to them and many of the riffs are very impressive.  Piggy has always been a terrific riff-writer and that ability shines through on this release.  The songs are definitely catchy.

The problems are as mentioned earlier, that there is a dearth of what made Voivod truly special on this release.  The riffs still have the typical Voivod feel but the band feels like a shell of its former self.  It feels more like a band trying to be Voivod than Voivod itself.

This is by no means a bad album, but it does not hold a candle to Voivod's first five albums.

FMA Reviews: Tiamat: The Scarred People

Originally reviewed here.

It was with great trepidation that I started listening to this album. My experiences with Tiamat have been inconsistent to put it lightly. I absolutely loved The Astral Sleep. It was a terrific album of atmospheric death metal and sounded quite unlike anything else I had heard to that point. I became aware that the band altered their sound drastically but checked out A Deeper Kind of Slumber anyway. That one bored me into a coma. So this is only the third full-length album that I have listened to by Tiamat. I guess we will see where this comes in.

Well this is gothic rock. There is the occasional metal influence but for the most part there is little to no aggression present in these songs. At the same time it is not as ethereal and dream-like as Slumber. The songs are slower paced with a lot of melody. There are guitar leads weaving around the mostly keyboard-driven melancholic music. The vocals are typically delivered in a dry, soothing baritone sounding similar to the vocals of Moonspell's Fernando Ribeiro.

If you are looking for atmospheric death metal, do not look here. This sounds like a completely different band than the one that recorded Astral Sleep. There are some metal influences present such as the driving force of the opening track and "Love Terrorists", but even those moments are fleeting. For the most part this is fairly straightforward gothic rock. The songs do grow old after awhile and I had a hard time retaining interest in it.

This is a perfectly acceptable release if you like this sort of thing. I however do not. There is a little bit more musically going on than on Slumber but I still will likely not listen to this very often, if at all.

FMA Reviews: Havok: Point of No Return

Originally reviewed here.

Havok is yet another retro-thrash metal band. They are often overlooked in the mountain of similar bands that have popped up over the years, but that is a little unfair. Havok has a way of showing off their influences but still making music that sounds fresh and vital. Unlike a lot of the retro thrash metal groups, Havok has not picked one particular style of thrash to try to emulate. Influences from the Bay Area, East Coast, Germany, South America, and the almighty Slayer can all be heard. As such, they are one of the more interesting retro thrash metal bands and one that I try to check out whenever they release something new.

Coming off a well-received full-length, Havok offers this short EP as a holdover until they can get a new full-length onto shelves. The EP features two original songs and two covers. The originals do a fantastic job of showcasing what Havok is all about. The opening title track is fast and furious with a throbbing bass line propelling the song forward. It has an almost Overkill-esque quality with its menacing sneer and use of gang vocals. "Cradle to the Grave" features the kind of frenetic energy that Anthrax was well-known for along with more use of gang vocals.

The final two tracks are covers of major influences on the band, Sepultura and Slayer. Both songs have been covered frequently so there may be some temptation to write them off and skip them. Havok does a nice job with them though. They capture the anger of "Arise" by Sepultura almost perfectly. The complaint that I have about "Postmortem/Raining Blood" is that it is kind of silly to combine them into one track. "Raining Blood" has always been a standalone classic in the genre. To combine it into one track with "Postmortem" is kind of a slap in the face.

Overall this is hardly a necessary release. It is a nice showcase of an impressive band, but an EP is almost never a can't-miss release. This is the case here as well.

Initial Impressions: Voivod: Katorz

I have been on a bit of a Voivod kick again lately which lead to the purchase of three of their newer albums. This was probably stirred by news of the band's upcoming album, but I do not really know for sure.

Katorz is Voivod's eleventh full-length album and was released in 2006.  To say that the band had changed somewhat since their heyday in the 1980's to this album is a bit of an understatement.  I was previously mostly familiar with the band's first five albums, although I had heard the sci-fi progressiveness of Negatron as well.  This was really one of my first forays into their later material and what I heard was kind of surprising to me.  I did not expect the same sound that the band perfected in their earlier material, but this was quite a bit different than I expected.

There is definitely still a weird science fiction vibe carrying through most of the material on this album.  The riffs in particular sound almost mechanical, which is something that Voivod had been doing for years.  For the most part though this a much more stripped-down version of Voivod.  Gone are most of the progressive metal meanderings and in their place are some just straightforward rock/metal/punk songs.  The riffs are heavy and feature a lot of groove and the vocals have a dirty rock sound to them.

This is kind of a grower, but I found myself enjoying it more and more with each listen.  The first song definitely captures attention early on and the rest of the songs really do nothing to lose it.  Do not go into this expecting Nothingface or Dimension Hatross and this will be an enjoyable album.

Happy Halloween: Here's Some Lovecraftian Album Art

I love the works of H.P. Lovecraft.  I know that I am not alone among metalheads in that.  So here is some cover art clearly influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft.  Some of these are obviously Lovecraft's creatures, others just have the same feel.

Proposed "Best Of" Lists

There was a thread on the Metal Archives recently where the original poster asked the following:

Pick out one of your favorite bands, famous or not, and create your own “Best Of” out of ten to twelve songs; link it to YouTube and say a little something about why you chose the songs. I think this could be awesome for people who want to get into a band, or who are just curious to what regular fans think of a bands output.

Here was my response:

For me, the band I would pick to do a best-of would be Amorphis. In particular, I picked later-period Amorphis with Tomi Joutsen singing. While I like their early death metal material, their later progressive material is what I find myself coming back to again and again. I would have loved to have Amorphis played at my wedding last year because I believe that a lot of their songs while not explicitly romantic, certainly carry with them a romantic and emotional feel. Many of the songs below capture that perfectly. I chose to start out with "House of Sleep" because that is the song that I believe best captures this feeling. I still find myself listening to Amorphis frequently when I am in a melancholic mood.

1. "House of Sleep" - Eclipse
2. "Her Alone" - Silent Waters
3. "Silver Bride" - Skyforger
4. "My Sun" - Skyforger
5. "Course of Fate" - Skyforger
6. "You I Need" - The Beginning of Times
7. "Mermaid" - The Beginning of Times
8. "Reformation" - The Beginning of Times
9. "Leaves Scar" - Eclipse
10. "I of Crimson Blood" - Silent Waters

Any thoughts?

FMA Reviews: Necroven: Worship of Humiliation

Originally reviewed here.

Occult death metal is a style that has remained underground out of necessity. To say that the style is extreme is a massive understatement. Though it formed from the music of Morbid Angel, Incantation, and Immolation, it has progressed beyond even those dark and sinister boundaries that those bands pushed. This is evil music.

Necroven is an occult death metal band in the vein of Drawn and Quartered, Angelcorpse, Nox, Lecherous Nocturne, and other much more underground bands. The riffs are jagged and distorted. The drumming is typically blastbeat-driven though not entirely. The production is fairly murky but not to the extent that the music can not be heard. A lot of other occult death metal bands make the mistake of having too muddy of production and it all sounds like a sloppy mess. This is not pristine, but at least everything can be heard. It is the kind of production that sounds best with this music. The vocals are incredibly deep.

There are some issues with this though, which are somewhat common issues with occult death metal. There is not a lot of melody, which is to be expected, but going along with that is that there are not too many truly memorable moments. The songs tend to run together as well. Most of them do not feel like complete ideas, rather some riffs thrown together with some vocals over them that just sort of end at some point.

The music is certainly filthy and once in a while I am in the mood for some good occult death metal. The positives outweigh the negatives, but this is by no means a great album.

One and Done? Pt. 11: Sothis: De Oppresso Liber

I had a subscription to Metal Maniacs in 2008.  This was the year that the magazine eventually folded.  For several months the magazine was running advertisements for Sothis's debut full-length.  Lots of different advertisements.  There was quite simply a lot of hype leading up to this album's release.  Well at the time I had a lot of disposable income so I figured what the hell I will give them a shot.

Sothis is a U.S. symphonic black metal band.  Yes such things actually exist.  And of course you can imagine how well this sounded.  Somewhere along the veins of Emperor, Dimmu Borgir, and Limbonic Art, but nowhere near as impressive.  For the most part, this was just kind of a boring release without a whole lot going for it.  Well, I do enjoy "Defiance" quite a bit.  That song alone makes this somewhat interesting.  But nothing else really grabs me.

Well all the hype did not really do Sothis too many favors as the album was not well-received when it was actually released.  It's now been more than four years since that release and I have not heard anything about a new one.  Maybe the deflated egos have lead to the inability to come up with a follow-up.  Maybe the band is trying hard to come up with something decent.  Whatever the reason, four years is a long time for a sophomore album.

FMA Reviews: Ataraxy: Revelations of the Ethereal

Originally reviewed here.

I had previously pointed out that some death metal just has such an intense, filthy, otherworldly quality that makes it a ton of fun to listen to. I then pointed out a number of groups who had this unknown quality to just put out some amazing death metal. Well add Ataraxy to that list. This is the debut album for the Spanish death metal band and they truly do an amazing job on this release. Ataraxy will definitely be a band to continue watching.

I suppose the best point of reference for a sound is The Chasm along with Asphyx. The guitar tone here is incredible. It is crunchy and gives off a sinister and evil atmosphere. This is definitely an old-school death metal sounding album but at the same time, it sounds fresh. It is not stale, cookie-cutter death metal at all. Ataraxy do their best to craft their own sound, one not done thousands of times before.

As I mentioned, the best points of reference are probably The Chasm and Asphyx. This is due to the unusual song structure and general sound. The songs do not follow a standard death metal progression, opting to evolve naturally and without any real constraints. They flow well too. They utilize a lot of slower, doomy riffs as well to keep the atmosphere claustrophobic and eerie. The vocals sound very much like Martin Van Drunen's possessed wailing and that is definitely a plus in my book.

There has been a lot of talk about old-school death metal bands popping up and becoming a major trend. I will say that if bands sound as impressive as Ataraxy, I have no problem with it.

One and Done? Pt. 10: Catacombs: In the Depths of R'lyeh

I have covered this album before here.  Last night I was on kind of a funeral doom kick and since this is one of the few funeral doom albums I have, along with a couple by Ahab, I started thinking about the band a lot. Well, band is probably not the correct term as Catacombs is made up of Xathagorra Mlandroth, a Lovecraftian name if I have ever seen one.  He performs all of the instruments and all of the vocals on the album.  He also does the same for several other projects, such as Hierophant, Inimical, Origin of Darkness, and Sect.

But Catacombs is the only project I am familiar with.  It released an EP in 2003 and this album in 2006.  Catacombs is the only Mlandroth project that has released a full-length album.  The other projects have released EPs, demos, or splits, but no proper albums.  Catacombs is still listed as active though Origin of Darkness is the only project that has released anything in the last several years since this full-length.

So what is going on?  Is Catacombs still active?  Is Xathagorra Mlandroth still making music?  I have no idea.  I hope so, because this album is incredible.  As I mentioned, I do not really have all that much funeral doom, but I really enjoy the stuff I have.  And this guy makes some damn good funeral doom.  This album perfectly captures the dread and cosmic horror of Lovecraft's stories.  I would like to hear more.

Initial Impressions: Dawn of Demise: Rejoice in Vengeance

I saw this wonderfully disturbing piece of artwork staring at me from the CD racks in Hastings Bookstore and decided it was just disgusting enough to give a shot.  Especially since it was cheap.  I had no idea who Dawn of Demise were, the name vaguely rang a bell, but I had no definite idea.  But with the artwork, I knew it had to be some manner of brutal death.  Let's face it, not too many power metal bands feature artwork so deranged.

In cases like this, you really can judge a book by its cover, or music by its album art as it were.  This is brutal death metal, clearly influenced by Suffocation, Pyrexia, and some slamming brutal death metal bands as well. All of the typical brutal death metal cliches are present here.  Chugging and slamming riffs, pounding drums, and guttural vocals reign supreme in the music of Dawn of Demise.  Vocalist Scott Jensen actually has two vocal styles, a harsh bark that he uses most of the time, and the deep guttural gurgle that is common amongst slam death bands.

Dawn of Demise put together some suitably brutal tracks on this release, but it sadly lacks a sense of real identity.  There are a lot of things borrowed from other bands present here, but nothing really sticks out.  Every time I hear this album, I feel like I am hearing it for the first time, because nothing really captures the attention and sticks in the memory.  This is fine if you want to listen to something brutal, but it likely will not last much more than that.

Initial Impressions: Pathology: The Time of Great Purification

I will give Pathology this: they are surprisingly prolific.  I have been at this blog thing for since early 2009 and I have already reviewed three new Pathology albums in that time period.  One each year since 2010, and I missed their 2009 release.  All told, Pathology has already released six full-length albums since 2006.  That's one a year you math scholars.

Detractors will probably say something to the effect of it being easy to be prolific when you basically re-write the same album over and over again.  And there probably is something to that argument.  Pathology's music is not the most complex music in the world.  It is all heavy slamming riffs, guttural vocals, and pounding drums with a major emphasis on brutality.  But Pathology does all of this with a fairly strong ability for songwriting.  What results is some of the catchiest slamming brutal death metal imaginable.  And that is just plain weird.

Pathology's albums all basically follow the same formula.  They are there to brutally pound on the listener's ears for 30 minutes or so and then the album is over.  None of the songs are terribly long.  Dynamics are not incredibly important.  It is simply pounding riffs upon pounding riffs, bludgeoning brutality.  But they are the most accessible of slamming brutal death metal bands.

It continues to floor me that Pathology is on Victory Records, a label mostly known for hardcore acts.  This is a very brutal band for that label.  But I have basically given up on attempting to understand it.

Pathology has released yet another album of slamming insanity.  And I eat this stuff up.  As long as they do not change, I probably will not fail to pick up their records.

FMA Reviews: Bädr Vogu; Exitium

Originally reviewed here.

I will be completely honest up front and say that my experiences with crust are extremely limited. As in virtually non-existent, particularly in its pure form. I have heard a few bands that combined crust with forms of metal such as Gallhammer, but that is about it. Bädr Vogu is a band that combines crust with doom metal, so I am not in completely foreign territory on this release.

The songs seem to alternate a little bit so that I can not really tell if this is a doom metal band with crust punk influences or a crust punk band with doom metal influences. Not that it really matters that much. On some songs, the band is slow with grinding riffs and a definite punk energy shining through, but on others, the music is actually faster but with some heavy, down-tuned riffs. There are a lot of movie samples present as well. The vocals are done in a deep, death/doom style with some occasionally more primal roars.

This was kind of an unusual album for me, but there was a lot to like. It is a very raw sound but I found myself enjoying it more and more with repeated listens.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 52: Pantera: Far Beyond Driven

Apart from Cowboys from Hell, I never really got Pantera.  To be fair I have not checked out their material prior to that album, their more glam phase was just not something I chose to check out.  That being said, I still bought most of the band's albums because I was a young metalhead and I felt it was my duty to check them out as Pantera pretty much was the be-all and end-all of metal in the mid 1990's.  I was in middle school and did not really have much exposure to the metal underground.

Far Beyond Driven was released in 1994.  By this point, Pantera had perfected their groove metal sound.  Of course Vulgar Display of Power was the release that got the band headed in that direction.  But this is the one that a lot of mainstream people think of when they think of Pantera, mostly due to the minor hit "I'm Broken".

There are some decent songs on this release, and by and large I do like it better than Vulgar Display of Power.  For some reason that album never really did anything for more.  I think the reason I like this one better is due to the fact that the songs on this one are not as stripped-down and simple as they are on the prior album.  Dimebag's riffs are generally more impressive on this release as well.

However there is one truly terrible song on here.  "Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills" is an absolutely horrible song.  There is no redeeming quality at all on that song.

I do tend to listen to this album occasionally, more than Vulgar certainly.  But this is not the Pantera I choose to remember.  Their tough-guy, macho image on this release is annoying.  I much prefer Cowboys.

Initial Impressions: Accept: Blood of the Nations

Okay I admit it.  I have never really gotten into Accept before.  I never really tried.  I recognize that they have been around for a very long time, dating back to the NWOBHM in fact.  But I never really checked them out.  I have heard "Balls to the Wall"  many, many times and in fact love that song.  But for some reason I just never really got around to picking up an album by them.  Then this album was voted Album of the Year on the Metal Maniacs website in 2010.  So I decided at some point I would start with this one.

Accept does not get the recognition they deserve.  A lot of that is probably geographical.  Accept came out of Germany with their first album in 1979.  This was at the height of the NWOBHM and Accept was left out in the cold even though they had a minor hit with the aforementioned "Balls to the Wall" and some well-received albums.  However, the band continued until a hiatus from 1996 to 2010, putting out some decent music in fact if the reviews on the Metal Archives are to be believed.  That is a longer shelf life than most of the NWOBHM bands enjoyed.

Musically, Accept sounds like a heavier version of Judas Priest.  They have traditional-sounding metal riffs, strong melodic sensibility, a liberal usage of guitar solos, and a strong and gritty vocal performance.  While diminutive frontman Udo Dirkschneider is no longer with the group, the new vocalist does a passable job at sounding like him.  This does still sound like the band that recorded "Balls to the Wall".  The band does not sound like they were coming off a 15 year hiatus.  This album sounds great.  Every song on here is terrific.

I will be looking into Accept's prior discography after hearing this.

The People v. Dissection: Reinkaos

If it pleases the Court, your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are here today to discuss the merits of Dissection's swansong.  Reinkaos is often mentioned among in the same breath as St. Anger, Risk, and The Unspoken King, among many other huge flops by heretofore famous bands.  The problem is one of reputation and prior albums.  Dissection's early work is held up as classics by a large number of metalheads.  Their brand of freezing cold, melodic black metal had never really been heard before.  And Dissection did it well.  Their first two albums have stood the test of time and truly are classics.

So what happened with Reinkaos?  To begin with, there was an eleven year gap between Storm of the Light's Bane and Reinkaos.  In that time, Dissection ceased to be a truly original band.  Many other groups took what Dissection was doing and crafted their own sound.  Lord Belial, Naglfar, and many other melodic black metal bands arose during the time Dissection was on hiatus.

Secondly, the sound on this release was significantly different.  Instead of the cold and dark atmospheric black metal Dissection previously crafted, this was a melodic death metal album.  Most of the black metal elements, apart from the vocal style had been stripped away.  Furthermore, the sound was more streamlined on this release.  The songs were much more straightforward and had a more typical structure and progression.  The songs were catchy, insanely so.  And that just is not well-received by a band that had previously been beloved as a melodic black metal pioneer.

Reinkaos is a good album though.  And that is why we are here ladies and gentlemen.  To discuss the merits of this much-maligned album.  For one, as mentioned before, it is incredibly catchy.  I know I find myself singing "Starless Aeon", "Dark Mother Divine", and "Maha Kali" over and over again every time I hear this album.  They are, in a word, infectious.  And the entire album is like that.

Furthermore, you simply cannot judge this album against the band's prior albums.  As stated, there was a long gap between albums.  Many bands change their sound drastically over a long period of time, it just so happened that Dissection's change seemed like night and day because there was a dearth of releases between them instead of a gradual progression like other groups.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I urge you to reconsider Dissection's final album.  It is not the terrible release that many make it out to be.  If it was created by any other band, it would be considered a classic.  Thank you.    

FMA Reviews: Bestial Summoning: The Dark War has Begun

Originally reviewed here.

Apparently this is a reissue of a 20 year old album from the Netherlands-based Bestial Summoning. This was originally released when black metal was just starting to make waves in Norway. It actually pre-dates many of the big-name black metal releases of the Second Wave. It is a very overlooked gem that I have actually not heard of myself.

This is tremolo riff-based black metal with some incredibly intense drumming driving things. The riffs are down-tuned giving off an evil-sounding tone. Most of the songs are broken up briefly with the occasional slower moment. This keeps things from becoming too one-dimensional. The drums are blast-beat driven and are absolutely crushing. The vocals are delivered in an Attila Csihar-esque groaning screech. They do not have the same distinct personality, but do have the other-worldly quality.

The songs do tend to sound kind of the same after awhile, but that is certainly not anything completely unusual in early black metal. The songs are mostly shorter so there is not a lot of time to experiment with different ideas. Most of the tracks have one basic riff and a slight change of pace interlude at some point. This is not at all technical music. It's just early black metal, plain and simple.

I was a little surprised this was such an old release originally. It is certainly an overlooked early black metal gem.