Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 84

ARTIST:  Fear Factory
ORIGIN:  Los Angeles, CA (United States)
TITLE:  Remanufacture
LABEL:  Roadrunner Records
YEAR:  1997
GENRE:  Industrial/Groove Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Machines of Hate (Self Bias Resistor)"
NOTES:  I will be honest.  I have no idea why I still have this.  This is a remix album of the breakthrough of Fear Factory.  It is much more of a techno remix album and the songs tend to drag on and on.  As such, it is not one I pull out very often.  And I usually don't enjoy it that much when I do.

FMA Reviews: Nunslaughter: Christmassacre

Originally reviewed here.

What Does the Laughter of Nuns Have to Do With Anything?

Well this is certainly interesting. A little bit of background on this release first. This is not a new release. It was initially released on Christmas Day in 2004, in a variety of formats. It was reissued this year to celebrate Nunslaughter's favorite holiday. So this is not a new release, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Nunslaughter has released a filthy little EP full of good times and Christmas cheer. We have the immortal classic "Deathlehem", the positively uplifting "Jewrusalem", and who could forget the popular children's song "Unholy Scriptures". It is pretty obvious how Nunslaughter feels about all of this.

Musically, anyone who has ever heard Nunslaughter knows what to expect. All of the songs are short, sharp, and fast. Nunslaughter plays death metal with a definitive punk style. They rampage through this four song EP in less than ten minutes. They are unrelenting in their brutality. All of the songs are fairly simplistic, but the style fits well for the band. Nunslaughter knows what they want to accomplish and they are very good at what they do.

This is an incredibly short EP, but sometimes good things come in small packages.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 83

ARTIST:  Various
ORIGIN:  Various
TITLE:  In Memory of Celtic Frost
LABEL:  Dwell Records
YEAR:  1996
GENRE:  Black/Death Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  Opeth: "Circle of the Tyrants"
NOTES:  I had heard a couple of songs by Celtic Frost before, but not that many.  Basically I picked this album up to become familiar with not only Celtic Frost, but the bands that played on it.  The album also featured a brief bio on each of the bands, as well as Frost.  The Mayhem bio went into great length about the whole Dead/Euronymous/Varg Vikernes fiasco.  It took me a little while to get into the songs, but eventually I discovered Morgion, Grave, and Opeth on the basis of these songs.

W.A.S.P.: The Headless Children

I was in my hometown a few weeks ago, which is unfortunately down to only a couple of used music stores these days.  I had not been to one for a long time, so I decided to go.  Sometimes used music stores have some unexpected gems, I got Destroyer 666's Cold Steel  at this same store.  Other times, there is nothing particularly interesting.  Well this time I managed to get some decent stuff.

I did a post on W.A.S.P. a few weeks ago.  I was still listening over and over again to the two albums that I had from them when I went to the used store.  I saw this album and recognized it from some decent reviews I had read, so I decided to give it a shot.  This was one of those times where I managed to get a gem.

The Headless Children is the album where W.A.S.P. began to shed some of the cheesier, over-the-top aspects of their sound.  The songwriting matured quite a bit on this album and the band went away from being a typical partying glam band, albeit a much more metal one than some of the other groups that dominated MTV in those days, to being a very impressive traditional metal band.  There are still some moments where the old W.A.S.P. shined through, but for the most part, the band had changed quite a bit, and for the better.

There are some damn catchy songs on here, such as "Mean Man" and "Maneater".  As I said, there are definitely some elements here that really resemble the old band, but they also drifted somewhat away from the catchy poppier sound.  The most obvious example of this is the title track, which is an incredible song from start to finish.  The band is not focused on making catchy, radio-friendly music, or shocking audiences like "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)".  And that is not the only example.

W.A.S.P. matured on this album.  As much as I liked the earlier group, I like this version even better.  This one has been playing almost everyday since I got it.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 82

ARTIST:  Sepultura
ORIGIN:  Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (Brazil)
TITLE:  Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation
LABEL:  Cogumelo Records
YEAR:  1986
GENRE:  Thrash/Black/Death Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Troops of Doom"
NOTES:  I was in the middle of my massive obsession with Sepultura when I picked this one up.  Of course this one is completely different than anything I had heard from the band to this point.  I was mostly sticking to the groove metal era of the band.  So this was a major difference from what I had been used to up to that point.  It was the most raw and chaotic album I had heard.  So it took me a little while to really get into.  But once I did I was hooked.  This is still my favorite album by the band.  It also features the band's first EP.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 81

ARTIST:  Alice in Chains
ORIGIN:  Seattle, WA (United States)
TITLE:  Unplugged
LABEL:  Columbia Records
YEAR:  1996
GENRE:  Grunge/Heavy Metal (Acoustic)
FAVORITE SONG:  "Would?"
NOTES:  I was skeptical about this one before I got it.  I had seen the MTV special, but I was not sure I wanted the album or not.  The fact of the matter is though that some of Alice in Chains's songs really translate well to the acoustic guitar.  It would have been bizarre for the band to play "Man in the Box", "Them Bones", or some of their other heavier stuff, so they stuck to the more mellow stuff, and it worked quite well.  Staley's voice really conveys a lot of pain that he was going through at the time.

FMA Reviews: Fastkill: Bestial Thrashing Bulldozer

Originally reviewed here.

I have seen a lot of complaints that all of the thrash metal released today is just bands copying what has been done by the big-name bands of the 1980's, in particular the Big Four. This is simply not true. Obviously there is the wave of bands from the United States and England that are trying to recapture past glories of the Bay Area scene. Of course there were other scenes in the 1980's, scenes that have been largely ignored by newer thrash metal bands, for some unknown reason. 

Enter Japan's Fastkill, a band clearly influenced by the much more chaotic, and yes, bestial, thrash metal bands of the 1980's. We are talking clear Slayer, Destruction, and Kreator worship here. Japan has produced a few bands like this, with King's-Evil being another name.

The cover art leaves no doubts that the music contained therein is going to be fast, intense, and destructive as all hell. And Fastkill definitely delivers on those promises. With rapid-fire riffing, jackhammer-drumming, and the banshee-like shrieks of frontman Toshio Komori, this is a total maelstrom of pure, unadulterated thrash metal. The speed and intensity of the riffing is reminiscent of the early records of the aforementioned Slayer and the Teutonic thrash wave. The songs are all short and lightning-fast with the longest track being just under four minutes and nothing else coming close. The brevity of the songs and the take-no-prisoners, constant and fast riffing leaves the listener gasping for breath, their head reeling from the sonic assault. It's a good thing, really.

The first couple of times I listened to this, I really did not care for the vocals. They are high-pitched and often resemble the whooping of birds the way they emerge out of the music. Komori does do the high-pitched Araya-esque blood-curdling scream well. After a couple of listens, I got used to his voice and it does not bother me nearly as much as it did early on.

This is a punishing and brutal thrash attack. An impressive tribute to the much more chaotic sounds of early thrash metal away from the Bay Area.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 80

ARTIST:  Voivod
ORIGIN:  Jonquiere, Quebec (Canada)
TITLE:  Negatron
LABEL:  Mausoleum Records
YEAR:  1995
GENRE:  Progressive/Thrash Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Nanoman"
NOTES:  I had heard a few songs by Voivod up until this point.  This was my first album by the band though and I always liked this one.  It was not the easiest album to get into as there was not a lot of catchiness, but once it took hold, I loved it.  There are a number of different versions of this album with some additional songs.  I unfortunately only have ten tracks on mine.

Bandcamp Mayhem: Randomness

I was on Facebook recently and a couple of ads caught my eye for bands on Bandcamp.  Not having much else to do at the time, I decided to check them out.

CROW BLACK SKY: PANTHEION

Crow Black Sky captured my attention because they are from South Africa.  I have not heard much metal from the African continent, so I am always intrigued when I run across a band from that region of the world.  Crow Black Sky is a melodic black/death metal band from Cape Town in South Africa.

The first thing that is noticeable is the frequent use of keyboards to achieve a symphonic effect.  This is a calculated effort to provide an epic atmosphere.  The result is similar to the better albums by Dimmu Borgir and Hecate Enthroned.  The guitar tone is suitably dark and crunchy and provides some interesting riffs.  The vocals are fairly typical for melodic black metal style.  Think Naglfar and Luna Ad Noctum for reference points.  They are delivered in a rough, deeper rasp.

The only real issue I have with this one is that some of the songs are a bit on the long side.  The album tends to drag a little bit in places.  Other than that, this is a decent album.  It is not something completely original and mind-blowing but it is certainly entertaining.

Bandcamp.

THE DEADSTATION: EPISODE I: LIKE PEERING INTO THE DEEPEST OCEAN ABYSS

Okay, the title of this album is pretentious as all hell.  It also does not help much that four of the seven tracks make up the "Like Peering Into the Deepest Ocean Abyss" saga.  I am not sure if they refer to it as a saga, but dammit I am going to refer to it as a saga.  Despite the ridiculously long album and song titles, the songs themselves are relatively succinct.  That's good.  It is easy to ignore the long titles that way.

Well if you could not tell by the album title, The Deadstation is a progressive metal band, somewhat in the vein of Dream Theater, Queensryche, Manticora and other groups.  The music is energetic and upbeat.  It is extremely melodic and for the most part faster-paced.   The songs have a more progressive structure, but the band keeps things from bogging down with some very impressive lead guitar work.  There are a couple of filler tracks on here, but that is not terribly surprising from this genre.  The vocal work is impressive and mostly consists of higher-registered singing.

This is a reasonably interesting release.  It probably does not do enough to stand out among other progressive metal bands, but it is a fun listen.

Bandcamp.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 79

ARTIST:  Prong
ORIGIN:  New York, NY
TITLE:  Rude Awakening
LABEL:  Epic
YEAR:  1996
GENRE:  Industrial Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Mansruin"
NOTES:  I had heard of Prong before.  I think everyone had heard "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck". But this was the first album I had heard.  I liked a lot of industrial metal at the time and I knew that Prong had taken that turn.  For a long time, I listened to this album every day.  It has been quite awhile now and I definitely prefer their earlier crossover material, but this was for the most part my indoctrination into the band.

FMA Reviews: Schattenbrandung: I - Apophänie

Originally reviewed here.

Blackened doom metal is kind of an odd concept. Some of the earliest better-known black metal bands were often very fast-paced with thrash metal and punk influences. Think Immortal and Gorgoroth's earlier work for examples. Doom metal on the other hand is quite the opposite. Obviously over time the atmosphere became the major element in black metal and that is where black and doom metal were able to eventually find a common ground. Blackened doom would not have worked in the mid 1990's. It works better now. 

Meet Schattenbrandung, a German blackened doom metal band. This is the band's debut album after forming in 2009. Their songs on their album are not named, but instead represented by Roman numerals that are weirdly out of order and missing VI. Their inability to count notwithstanding, this is some surprisingly decent stuff in places.

The songs often alternate between heavy and faster-paced riffing and more melodic noodling. It is quite the contrast and it probably would come across better if it was not done so frequently. I find myself enjoying the heavier material much more than the lighter stuff. Oftentimes when they go lighter there just is not anything else really going on. Very few vocals, just some light drumming and melancholic guitar chords. There is not too much to the melodic soft sections.

The songs on this are often very long. The shortest one is almost seven minutes long. The band tries to break up the monotony by switching gears somewhat frequently with tempo shifts and the aforementioned alternating hard and soft sections. Sometimes this is effective, sometimes it feels as if the band is having troubles figuring out what to do next and ending the song is not one of the options.

I do not want it to seem like this is a bad album, it is just a little overdone at times. The good parts are very good and they do outnumber the bad. It would be nice if the band would cut down on the soft sections, or at least shorten them. The rest of the material does sound pretty good.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 78

ARTIST:  Queensryche
ORIGIN:  Bellevue, WA (United States)
TITLE:  Operation: Mindcrime
LABEL:  EMI Music
YEAR:  1988
GENRE:  Progressive Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "The Needle Lies"
NOTES:  This is one of the greatest metal concept albums of all time.  The story is engaging, with clearly identifiable characters.  And of course the guitar work of Chris DeGarmo and the vocals of Geoff Tate are incredible.  One of the most talented duos in metal.  These album has a number of classic tracks, but "I Don't Believe in Love" is the big hit.

Reader Submissions: Nonsun: Good Old Evil

Nonsun is a Ukrainian duo that plays an amalgamation of sludge metal, doom metal, and drone metal.  They recently released this EP and contacted me to take a listen.

I will admit that this one took a little while to get into.  The band switches gears somewhat frequently between sludgy doom metal, which I enjoyed, to moments of random feedback and noise, which I really did not care for.  Nonsun is a very harsh listen.  There is nothing particularly pretty about anything that the band does.  When they are playing the more metallic parts, the tone is muddy and hostile and the vocals are rough.    The noise parts are very grating on the ears as well.  Of course, all of this is the point.  Nonsun is not trying to be particularly pleasant.  They are trying to be as loud and painful as possible.  And in that respect they certainly succeed.

There are moments on the second track "Rain Have Mercy" that border on the catchy.  As such, that is probably my favorite track on the EP.  It also has far fewer noise moments.  Of course with the good comes the bad, and third track "Message of Nihil Carried by the Waves of the Big Bang" is a complete noise/drone track.  The final track makes up for it with its very slow burn leading into nothingness.

As I said, this one took a couple of listens to get into.  There are some moments I did not care for, but by and large they were outnumbered by the good parts.

Nonsun bandcamp page.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 77

ARTIST:  Megadeth
ORIGIN:  Los Angeles, CA (United States)
TITLE:  Killing is My Business...And Business is Good!
LABEL:  Combat Records
YEAR:  1985
GENRE:  Thrash Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Skull Beneath the Skin"
NOTES:  Megadeth's debut album achieved a level of notoriety with the cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots".  Due to label pressure, the album had to be re-released without the cover song.  I have the version without it.  This also featured "Mechanix" which was an early version of the Metallica classic "The Four Horsemen".  Quite an impressive debut.

Deathhammer: Onward to the Pits

Darkthrone's Fenriz has pretty good taste in underground metal.  He runs his own blog with a band of the week highlighted.  Ghost and In Solitude are two bands that have risen to a fair amount of stardom based on Fenriz's hype on his blog, along with a number of others.  Deathhammer is another band that has appeared there.  In addition, the character on Darkthrone album covers once sported a Deathhammer patch.  I recently picked up the cassette issue of their 2012 album from Hell's Headbangers.

Deathhammer toiled in relative obscurity for years, releasing demo after demo before finally releasing their first full-length album in 2010.  That is when the word of mouth really began working for the band.  Hell's Headbangers paid attention and picked the band up, releasing their 2012 sophomore effort.  As it turns out, Deathhammer is definitely the kind of band built for that label.

Deathhammer is a particularly filthy breed of thrash metal band from Norway.  Sounding like the unholy offspring of Motorhead and early Sodom, their style is raw and nasty.  Deathhammer is a two-person band, much like Darkthrone, with Sergeant Salsten on bass, vocals, and guitars and Sadomancer on drums and backing vocals.  They make an unholy amount of noise for being just two members.

The songs are all fast-paced and retain the same frenetic energy throughout.  The result is an album that sounds as if it would not have been out of place in the early days of extreme thrash metal.  Sodom, Sarcofago, Bestial Devastation-era Sepultura, and Destruction are the obvious reference points.  No wonder Fenriz loved this band.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 76

ARTIST:  GZR
ORIGIN:  United Kingdom
TITLE:  Plastic Planet
LABEL:  TVT
YEAR:  1995
GENRE:  Industrial/Groove Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Drive Boy Shooting"
NOTES:  Geezer Butler was frustrated with Black Sabbath.  He did not believe that the last couple of albums should have been released under the Black Sabbath name.  So he went out on his own and formed a band under his own name.  He recruited Fear Factory's Burton C. Bell for vocals.  This was a surprisingly decent album, but the band never did anything else remotely interesting.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 75

ARTIST:  Faith No More
ORIGIN:  San Francisco, CA (United States)
TITLE:  The Real Thing
LABEL:  Slash Records
YEAR:  1989
GENRE:  Alternative Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "The Real Thing"
NOTES:  Faith No More was one of the earliest metal bands I remember, even before Metallica.  I remember my older brother getting this album on cassette when I was still very young.  I have vivid memories of the videos for "Epic", "Falling to Pieces", and "From Out of Nowhere".  All of these memories eventually lead me to pick up this album for myself.  I still love this one.  Mike Patton's voice had a ton of range.  Although it sounds somewhat dated now, this is still a fun one to put on occasionally.

Arsis: Lepers Caress

This is yet another short and intriguing EP from Scion A/V Records.  Arsis has been a band that I have been following fairly closely since I discovered them.  Arsis started out as a very technical melodic death metal band.  Over the years, their technicality has decreased somewhat as they have focused more and more on crafting memorable songs.

Arsis opens things up with an intro track here, which I would argue is probably not necessary on an EP.  But from there, Arsis gets right back at what they do best, which is to rampage through some razor-sharp riffs with insane drumming patterns, and the manic vocals of James Malone.  The EP definitely picks up from there and refuses to waver after that point.  Arsis has continued with their recent trend of making their songs as memorable as possible.  Each track after the introduction has its own infectious moments.

"Veil of Mourning Black" is a re-recording of an early Arsis track.  The remaining tracks are all new.  The closing track "Denied" stands out as the highlight on the EP, ending things on a very high note.

There is not much here to really make an impact on non-fans of the band.  If you like Arsis, you will likely like this one.  If not, this probably will not change your mind.

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 74

ARTIST:  Sepultura
ORIGIN:  Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais (Brazil)
TITLE:  Dead Embryonic Cells
LABEL:  Roadrunner Records
YEAR:  1991
GENRE:  Thrash Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Troops of Doom"
NOTES:  This was a single featuring the title track, a cover of the Motorhead classic "Orgasmatron", and a re-recorded version of "Troops of Doom" which was initially on the Morbid Visions album.  There is not much to say about it other than that.  I was a huge Sepultura fan in high school and I was picking up anything and everything by the band that I could find, which included singles, bootlegs, and more.

FMA Reviews: Melencolia Estatica: Hel

Originally reviewed here.

Sounding like a dream that keeps getting stranger and stranger, going off the rails towards oblivion, Melencolia Estatica's Hel is one of the more surprising albums of the year. The album is a concept piece centered around Fritz Lang's masterpiece of early cinema, Metropolis. I will admit to being somewhat naive about that piece, having only read about it or heard others talk about it. I have never seen it myself, though the pieces I have seen would suggest a fairly powerful message.

Melencolia Estatica is the project of Climaxia, who performs the bass and guitar duties. She, that's right she, is the only stable member of the group. The vocals are handled by Afthenktos, who possesses a fairly impressive range for a black metal vocal style, which is used to terrific effect over the course of this album. Melencolia Estatica has been making some noise in the depths of the Italian black metal underground for a few years now. This is the group's third full-length album.

The music is dark and suffocating. The atmosphere is extremely foreboding. All of which serves to drive home the underlying threat of the demise of mankind as found in the film that inspired this album. This is doom-laden black metal that always sounds slightly unhinged and deranged. It is unpredictable and chaotic. At times it is ethereal and dreamlike and at others it is torturous and aggressive. The soundscapes crafted by Climaxia take hold deep within the soul and refuse to let go. The album is deeply affecting.

This is definitely music for headphones. The vocal effects come across best that way. The whispers and screams from the void are much more effective through the use of headphones instead of stereo speakers. Besides, it is much easier to get lost in the music that way. To shut everything else out and let it whisk you away.

I found myself completely engrossed in this album. And it got stronger and stronger with repeated listens. This is one of the biggest surprises of 2012 for me. An absolutely breathtaking experience.