Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 16: Benediction: Transcend the Rubicon

The early days of death metal saw the origins of three major scenes: New York style death metal from the likes of Suffocation and Immolation, Florida death metal from Death and Morbid Angel, and Swedish death metal from Entombed and Grave, among many others. Death metal spread quickly though and bands were popping up in many unusual places, places like Norway which was more famous for black metal, Poland, Brazil, and many other countries. Even the U.K., which was at the forefront of the metal scene for a few decades started seeing death metal bands pop up.

The U.K.'s death metal scene mostly developed out of grindcore. Bands like Napalm Death, Carcass, and Bolt Thrower were all originally grindcore bands that progressively became more death metal-oriented. Benediction was another of these bands, though less well-known. They are easily one of the heaviest death metal bands from that time period, with a very deep and bass-heavy sound and some powerful low roars from vocalist Dave Ingram, who also did some time in Bolt Thrower.

This album basically came out of nowhere. It is incredibly heavy and surprisingly fast. It quickly became one of my favorite death metal albums. It is very underrated. Benediction has not been quite the same since Ingram has been gone. They are still an enjoyable enough band, but the vocals are not as impressive.

So, why did I pick this up? Because of the awesome cover. Sometimes that does work out.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 15: Intruder: Psycho Savant

I have covered this album before, quite in depth. Essentially, this is a thrash metal band from the late 1980's and early 1990's when thrash was on the downswing of a spectacular period of activity. The band sounds like a cross between underrated Bay Area bands Death Angel and Heathen. They are a technical thrash metal band with a vocalist with a higher register vocal range. There are some great, cathcy songs on this album, but I have already covered that before.

What I want to talk about is how I came across this album. There is a shop here in Norfolk that is something of a novelty shop. They sell a bunch of random stuff and there is a tattoo parlor inside as well. They also have two walls of music, including CDs and cassettes. I don't think that the store gets new music in. It seems more likely that it somehow inherited this collection of music at one point and is still trying to rid itself of it.

I found the Intruder cassette in this store. Immediately upon looking at the cover, I could tell that this was a metal album. I picked it up without knowing anything about the band, I just knew the cover looked great. Am I ever glad I did that. This is a highly underrated thrash metal band from the genre's glory days. It's fun making discoveries like this.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums: (Dis)Honorable Mentions

I recently did a series of albums that I picked up blindly that were huge successes. Those albums became some of my favorites and I had no idea what I was getting myself into by getting them. Well, sometimes things don't work out that way. Every once in awhile, I will buy an album with some level of expectation that then goes horribly, horribly awry. This post will look at two of those collossal mistakes.

When I used to listen to a lot of styles of hard rock (for the last several years I have been limited to metal) I would occasionally buy an album that was for the most part pretty wretched. Particularly in the nu-metal subgenre. Since I have been exclusively into metal for a few years, there have not been too many blind buy mistakes. There has been one, one in which I thought I knew what to expect but was very wrong. Early on, there was one other one which I will address as it is related to the metal genre. Prior to that though, there were several others, bands I just don't listen to anymore so I won't cover them.

These are the metal blind buys that did not work out:

TIAMAT: A DEEPER KIND OF SLUMBERI did discuss this album early on in the formation of this blog. I owned an album by Tiamat that I got in a Century Media Grab Bag and I was spellbound by the dark atmospheric death metal of that album. I was vaguely aware that Tiamat did not really sound like that for much longer, but went in a gothic direction. However, I did not know how far they had fallen.

One day, I was in Hastings Bookstore in Kearney, Nebraska after a final divorce hearing. I was there to pick up new releases from Arch Enemy, Down, High on Fire, and Amorphis, and I also saw this reissue of the Tiamat album. Having enough cash to pick up five albums, I decided to grab it.

It wasn't until late that night that I started to listen to it. I was not pleased with what I heard. There was not an ounce of metal on the entire album. The whole thing was some ethereal dreamlike sonicscape. Gone were the dark atmospherics of the other Tiamat I knew and the harsh vocals and the crushing, malevolent riffs. In their place were just long, meandering melodies and soft vocals. I couldn't listen to a single song without falling asleep. I should say, the first song isn't terrible, but it's not any different from the bland bullshit put out by H.I.M.

The next time I was in Kearney (which was that weekend to visit my brother), I took the CD back and exchanged it for Immolation's Failures for Gods. Recently, I downloaded it to listen to it fully and see if it was as bad as I remembered. It is.

TRIBES OF NEUROT & WALKING TIME BOMBS: STATIC MIGRATIONI don't remember what the hell my thought process was in picking this thing up. I remember being in high school and going to Best Buy with a friend. We were browsing CDs just to kill some time. I remember picking up a couple of CDs, trying to find something new. I do remember having a Kyuss CD in my hand at one point. But then I saw this and realized it was on the same label as Amorphis, a band I had only recently become interested in. It also stated that it was a side project of Neurosis, a band I had heard of and knew were part of the metal/hard rock scene. So, I picked it up and bought it. Huge mistake.

It wasn't until the ride back from dropping the friend off that I listened to it, and there was NOTHING THERE. There was no music. It was just noise. Ambient albums do not interest me in the slightest. I just don't understand them. This album is no exception. It's apparently meant to be played at the same time as one of Neurosis's albums, but I can't imagine how and I don't care, quite frankly. To make matters even more confusing, Walking Time Bombs is apparently Scott Hull of Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed. How did Neurosis and a member of Pig Destroyer get together to form something so awful?! This album is single-handedly the reason I have not checked out Neurosis or anything by Scott Hull. Plus, it's fucking 75 minutes long!

True testament to how bad this album is: when I was in college, my car was broken into and a lot of my CDs, my stereo, my backpack with my expensive new calculator, my tape player, and a lot of other stuff were stolen. I was out over $1,000.00 worth of stuff. A few weeks later, my backpack was found outside a college dorm and I was contacted to pick it up. All my school papers and books were there, so was my tape player thankfully, as well as some random stuff, including this CD. That's right, not even the assholes who broke into my car to steal a bunch of CDs wanted this one. Not even to sell.

The worst part about this post was actually listening to these albums once more, just to "inspire" me to write about them.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 13: Morbid Saint: Spectrum of Death

This is one of those albums that you have to be immersed in the metal underground, or at least know someone who is, in order to have heard about. Morbid Saint released only one album and it is long since out of print. Finding this album in physical format is very difficult. When it shows up on ebay, it typically sells for around $50.00 or more. That's very expensive for an album. Thus it is that this is one of the very few albums in my collection that I had to download and burn onto a CD. I am not proud of that, I have a fundamental issue with not owning a physical copy of the album. But I digress.

The reason that this album is so expensive when it shows up is the very simple relationship between supply and demand. There are very few copies out there and a lot of people want one. The reason it is in so much demand is the fact that this is quite frankly one of the greatest brutal thrash metal albums ever.

The music is lightning fast with heavy riffs that straddle the border line between thrash and death metal. Frequent guitar solos liven things up even more. The vocals are kind of a cross between thrash metal screams and death metal growls as well. Most of the songs are short, although there are a couple of seven minute songs present. But even the long songs hold the listener's interest.

This album features some of the most relentless, brutal assaults on the ears I have heard in thrash metal. Every song should be hailed as a classic. This is truly an amazing album. And yet, very few people even know it exists. Such a shame.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 12: Destroyer 666: Cold Steel...For an Iron Age

Longtime readers of my blog (if such a thing exists) will probably be expecting this album to show up in this series. I have already listed this album as my favorite album of the last decade. I also offered a little bit of a backstory behind buying it. Since I have already done a long, full review of the album, I will not spend much time rehashing the musical aspect of it. Just note that it is one hell of a dirty blackened-thrash metal album, a perfect example of the Australian "war metal" scene, and an album I could listen to endlessly without ever growing tired of it. I did a Top 100 albums list at one point with this album somewhere in the 20's, it has not vaulted up the list to somewhere within my Top 10 favorite albums of all time.

Now, for the humble beginnings of my acquisition of this album. I found this at a used music store. I had only been visiting the Encyclopedia Metallum for a couple of weeks and when coming across this CD, I vaguely remembered having seen this band's name mentioned along with some praise. I had no idea it would quickly become a favorite album. I also picked up several other albums that day including Crisis, Flotsam and Jetsam, and more. But this album made the entire purchase worthwhile. This is apparently a somewhat rare album. I could not believe I found it at a used music store in Lincoln, Nebraska of all places. Even more, who the hell wanted to get rid of it?

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 11: Dissection: Storm of the Light's Bane

I remember one day going to Barnes & Noble and perusing their music selection (or lack thereof). I decided to look at the kiosk for customers to order music and was looking for metal music. I came across Dissection somehow and decided to order it because the cover of the album looked cool (see, it pays off sometimes). I also ordered an album by Satanic Slaughter because I liked the name of the band, but I didn't end up getting it. That one never came in, although I did buy it years later.

But I digress.

Dissection was my first real foray into black metal, although the band is more of a blackened death metal band. I could not believe what I was hearing from this album. It was cold, hostile, and faster than hell. It took a few listens, but this really made an impression on me.

It was quite some time before I was able to find anything quite like this. I was taken in by the entire atmosphere of the album. It just felt so forbidden and dark. The vocals were so harsh, the riffs so fast, and the drumming is some of the best I have heard. This is just an incredible album, and a true classic.

If you remember back to the beginning of this blog, I had this album rated #4 of my Top 100 Albums list. That list is outdated, but this album would still occupy that spot, only behind albums by Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Megadeth. This is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. And to think, I bought it only because of the Grim Reaper on the cover.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 10: Diabolical Masquerade: Death's Design

I mentioned this album before on this blog. This is a very strange one. First, a little bit of a back story on the band. Diabolical Masquerade is a side project of Anders Nystrom (Blakkheim), guitarist of Katatonia. He is actually the only member, with occasional contributions from others. The band was conceived as a way for Blakkheim to compose extreme metal while Katatonia continued to mellow their sound. The music is based in black metal with elements of thrash and avant-garde metal thrown in.

Now, the album, as I mentioned, has its own backstory. The album was conceived as the soundtrack to a non-existent Swedish horror movie, similar to the Final Destination series, in which death is stalking people. The album contains 61 tracks broken up into 20 movements. The music is all over the place, one minute black metal, another thrash metal. There are frequent symphonic moments throughout.

I had heard something about this album soon after moving to St. Paul when my interest in metal grew exponentially. It intrigued me, but I had no idea how to find the album. It was out of print and hard to locate. Then, I ordered a Grab Bag on Century Media and this album was included. It's definitely a bizarre listen, but it's extremely captivating.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 9: Swallow the Sun: The Morning Never Came

This was a blind buy in the truest sense of the phrase. I saw this album at the music store one day when I was on my way to Omaha and seeking some new music to listen to on the drive. I was immediately enchanted by the amazing cover art. Despite not having ever heard of the band, and also not really knowing what doom metal was which was written on sticker on the album (this was very early in my extreme metal days), I picked it up. I was absolutely blown away.

This is some of the most emotional and melodic death/doom metal out there. Containing powerful sweeping guitar and keyboard passages melded with deep death growls. The music is often very slow, but unrelentingly heavy and heartbreaking in its somber atmosphere. The band pulls off one hell of a Candlemass cover as well on the amazing track "Solitude".

The cover art matches the music so well. Such a dark atmosphere with only a little light.

This is easily one of the best pickups I have ever done without knowing anything about the band or the music beforehand. I have since picked up one more album by the group and am always on the lookout for 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.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 7: Twisted Tower Dire: Crest of the Martyrs

According to much of the mainstream music press, the grunge wave of the early 1990's killed heavy metal. Obviously this is not true. Plenty of bands still exist today that play traditional-sounding heavy metal. Twisted Tower Dire is one of these such bands. I was on the lookout for power metal bands at one time, along with some other random stuff and placed a large order with CD Universe. This album was one of about thirteen albums I purchased at that time. It is also my favorite such album from that group, which included the likes of Manticora, Hibria, Angra, Portal, Gorguts, Arsis, Cirith Ungol, and more.

Twisted Tower Dire plays traditional metal with some occasional U.S. power metal influences thrown in. The music is generally upbeat with faster tempos and extremely catchy choruses. The band seems mostly influenced by classic metal acts such as Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Dio, and other bands that proudly waved the metal flag in the 1980's. This band is a throwback in the true sense of the term, but are not limited to replicating the same sounds from that era.

This album is a fast, fun, and exciting listening experience from start to finish. Featuring great vocals, infectious songs, terrific riffs, and blazing guitar solos, it is unfortunate that more people are not aware of the band.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 6: Cenotaph: Saga Belica

One day I was contemplating placing an order with MetalDisc. I highly recommend that site by the way, huge inventory of stuff. I knew I would be getting Burn to Black, Root, and Reverend Bizarre and I knew I wanted to add on one more band. Preferably something inexpensive. So, I went through the clearance titles and eventually decided on Cenotaph, a Mexican death metal band with members who went on to form The Chasm. I did not know much about this band at all, I just assumed it would be a slightly interesting addition to the collection. It quickly became one of my favorite death metal albums though, a result I was not expecting.

There are a couple of bands named Cenotaph. This is the Mexican death metal band, not the Turkish brutal death/grind band. Cenotaph plays a form of old school death metal with strong melodic tendencies, but they play music that absolutely rips and roars through the speaker. It's extremely aggressive, almost rabid. Earlier in their career, they were very similar to early At the Gates material. This album abandons much of that for a full-on angry attack on the senses.

Cenotaph is a much more streamlined death metal machine on this album, with razor-sharp riffs, pummelling drums, and desperate, snarling vocals. The band comes across as a ferocious beast on this album. The sound is exciting and fresh. Many bands have become too laid back, this is a whole different animal.

As I said, this album shocked me. I had no idea it would be as good as it is.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 5: Thornafire: Exacerbated Gnostic Manifestation

I have mentioned this album frequently on this blog without much actual discussion of it. Quite simply, this album rocks. At one point after moving to the bustling metropolis of St. Paul, Nebraska (population 2,300 or so very bored people), I really branched out my interest in heavy metal. I also began reading Metal Maniacs regularly. It was at this time that Thornafire was introduced to me. There was an ad in the magazine as well as a brief article about the band as some sort of coming attraction type thing. So, one day I visited the Ibex Moon Records webpage and placed a small order, getting Estuary, Incantation, and Thornafire. Shortly after receiving my albums in the mail, I had to go to Indiana with my family to a cousin's wedding. I listened to all three albums in the ride up there and that was that. Thornafire's album made a huge impression, as did the other two albums, but not to the same scale.

Thornafire sounds like an unholy mix of old school death metal bands and some of the more occult sounding death metal bands. Frequently, I describe them as Immolation meets Morbid Angel meets Death. The band plays murky, fast-paced riffs with a fair amount of bottom-end and an unwavering sense of doom. The vocals are deep and guttural, with a slight hint of phlegm, which sounds bestial and raw.

South American metal bands are often extremely primal and aggressive. There's just something about many bands that are from the continent that makes them a particularly intense listening experience. Look at Sepultura's early stuff, Sarcofago, Vulcano, Inquisition, Anal Vomit, and many others. Thornafire possesses these same traits on this album, coming out with an album that sounds like it would have come out in the early 1990's days that Immolation and Incantation were shocking the metal world with sludgy, occult-laced death. Thornafire sounds like this, but is not a retro band. They have masterfully laced their old school occult death metal with modern touches. This is one hell of a ride.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 4: Sabbat: Dreamweaver (Reflections of Our Yesterdays)

In keeping with the thrash scene on a worldwide scale, we come to England's Sabbat. England is well-known for its place in metal history, spawning leading metal bands Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Venom, Iron Maiden, and many other highly influential metal bands. But the country also produced some fine bands from other styles. It had a highly underrated thrash metal scene lead by Onslaught, Cancer, Xentrix, and Sabbat.

I bought this album along with several other albums by groups like Death Angel, Draconian, Behemoth, and Devian. I was in Lincoln for a legal education seminar on trial presentation and decided to head over to my favorite music store (which has since closed) and pick some stuff up. I had heard of this band, but I really did not know if I was getting the British band, or the Japanese band of the same name, who I did previously own an album by. It was kind of a throw-in to the larger purchase because it was fairly cheap. It was not until fully absorbing the album that I realized that it was far and away my favorite pickup of the day.

Sabbat is very clearly influenced by the NWOBHM, and I guess when you're from that same country, that's going to be a big influence. But the riffs are stronger and sharper, the aggression is greater, and the overall speed is faster. The band recombined some thrash metal influences with their already strong NWOBHM influences.

The thing that really interests me in this band is Martin Walkyier's vocals. He has an unusual vocal style, a kind of staccato, rhythmic style that he uses. It really catches the ear and forces the listener to pay attention. He would later use the same style in his followup band Skyclad.

This is a highly underrated thrash metal masterpiece. I highly recommend checking it out.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 3: Nocturnal Breed: Fields of Rot

Once in awhile, buying an album for the cover art works out. I bought this album mostly because of the cover, but also partially because the band came highly praised by many people on the Metal Archives for being a really good modern thrash metal band, without being retro. I had some idea of what I was getting when I threw this in the shopping cart at Hell's Headbangers, the same time that I bought the earlier posted Deceased... album. But I was still blown away.

But first, a little history. Thrash metal was huge in the 1980's. There were two countries at the forefront: the U.S. and Germany. The U.S. produced Metallica, Testament, Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth, Exodus, Overkill, and many, many more. Germany produced Sodom, Destruction, Kreator, Holy Moses, Mekong Delta, Tankard, and more. However, as thrash became a worldwide phenomenon, bands from other countries soon picked it up. Norway, known for its black metal even got in on the act. Which brings us to Nocturnal Breed.

Nocturnal Breed formed in 1996 in Oslo, Norway, featuring a former member of Gehenna. The band plays an updated, modernized version of German-styled thrash metal. It's fast, intense, and aggressive as all hell. The band often gets lumped in with blackened thrash, but the vocals are the only real reason to do so. And that's tempered by the fact that Sodom and Kreator both use harsher vocals as well.

The riffs are easily some of the best and most memorable in modern thrash metal. This band has an amazing ability to play some ridiculously jagged and crushing riffs. The guitar solos are also amazing.

This is easily one of the best albums in modern thrash. It is highly recommended for anyone tired of the bands copycatting the old sound.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 2: Deceased...: As the Weird Travel On

When I was not paying attention, I had heard the band name "Deceased..." thrown around. But I was not paying attention. My assumption was that this was just another death metal band and I would wait until either I had heard something more concrete or had a chance to look at them. Then I started actually paying attention a little more closely. It was clear I was missing out on something. There was an entire thread about the band on Metal Archives with universal praise. I read an essay critiquing impure metal on another site, which spoke glowingly of Deceased... being a band that was honest and pure and even dare I say true metal. That essay claimed one of the band's albums was a masterpiece.

It was at around that time that I had money to burn. I had just gotten my tax refund that year and was planning on buying a bunch of records over at Hell's Headbangers. I saw an album by Deceased... and decided to add it to the mix. Holy shit am I ever glad I did that.

Deceased... is not a death metal band, or at least they are not now. They have death metal influences, mixed with thrash metal influences, and delivered in a traditionaly metal style. They started out as a thrash metal band, evolved into a death metal band, and then combined everything to end up with a stunning mix of styles that seems odd at first but works incredibly well.

It's difficult to describe exactly what the sound is on this album, but traditional metal with some thrash influences and death metal-sounding vocals is probably pretty close. It sounds like a cross between Motorhead and Overkill with David Vincent of Morbid Angel on vocals. The riffs fly by at a breakneck speed with overlapping guitar leads and solos to keep things melodic and King Foley's smoky snarling vocals.

This is a great album by a great, underrated band. Check this album out as well as anything else by the band.

Blind Buy Surprise Album Pt. 1: Apophis: Heliopolis

This is the first part of a series on albums that I picked up as throw-ins to a larger purchase, picked up because the album cover was cool, or came across in some other way that have become personal favorites. These are albums I was not expecting much from but that have blown me away.

I bought this album along with four other albums off of an ebay seller. Each album cost a little more than $1.00. The other four bands were bands that I was at least somewhat familiar with: Dismember, Ancient, Domine, and Gardenian. I threw this one in just because of the extremely low cost. It became my favorite album of the group.

Apophis is a German death metal band with some heavy melodic touches. Essentially, they sound like Amon Amarth if the band was obsessed with Egyptian mythology, not Vikings. The band features some incredibly solid, melodic riffs grounded in death metal with frequent guitar solos. The vocals are very deep and growled. The production is murky, but not so bad that one cannot hear the music, it is just enough to sound dark.

I listen to this album fairly frequently and it never fails to grab my attention and get my blood pumping. This is how melodic death metal should sound. I picked up one of the band's other albums after this, and while featuring many of the same qualities as this, it does not leave quite as strong of an impression. This is a great, underrated album. And it should be able to be found cheap.