The Foetal Mind - The Grand Contraction (2010)

Beginning life as a lo-fi bedroom depressive black metal band, The Foetal Mind of Perpignan, Languedoc-Roussillon, France issued five demos between '07-'09 before inking a deal with Canadian label Hypnotic Dirge Records and issuing their debut, 'Suprême Cheminement' in late December of '09. The debut contained many of the typical characteristics found in depressive black metal and was ultimately a very boring record for me.


This late December 14th, 2010 release titled, 'The Grand Contraction' however is surprisingly quite different in style, in fact they've shed almost all of their past characteristics in favor of something quite rich, refreshing and at last something that's absolutely memorable.

Largely the work of one, Lord Trowe as he plays all instruments (with the exception of a guest drum programmer & vocalist) and writes all the music, The Grand Contraction sees the project moving in a highly melodic and mostly instrumental direction. With the exception of the second song, 'Big Crunch,' which is a more black metal driven piece (and the only song with vocals), the remainder of the album is a entirely instrumental and the results are fantastic.

I can't say for sure but a lot of these songs sound as if they've been inspired by Agalloch as it reminds me of a lot of the instrumental parts found on their albums, 'The Mantle' & 'Ashes Against the Grain,' while other portions of this album give a kind nod to post rock music and of course portions of this album still retain the dark depressive doomy black style of the bands past, though certainly refined.

What really stands out is that the songs have varying tempos and moods and some songs tend to fully develop over the course of several minutes. I much enjoy the way some songs start out slowly with atmospheric synths or slow guitar work and gradually build up to epic territories or become chaotic with a blink of the eye just to return to calmer melodic sounds in the end. The mood often shifts between sounding hopelessly depressing to optimistic, dreamy, evil, threatening or to a more dark mysterious sort of sound which brings to mind some of Akira Yamaoka's work on the Silent Hill soundtracks, which I pick up on songs like, 'Silence' & 'Instrumental.'

Lord Trowe has obviously been practicing extensively since the last album because some of these riffs and solos are absolutely colossal in their delivery. In particular I just adore, 'The Collapse' since it has everything I mentioned above through out its six minute duration, while, 'Nobody' has a lot of what makes this album so grand too. It's all about melody and mood and this guy pulled it off flawlessly this time around. I'm fairly certain that once you hear this album you'll be enthralled with what you hear coming out of your speakers and you'll be playing these songs over and over again with such melodic and catchy riffs as well as the brilliant solos.

It surely will be interesting to see where this band goes from here especially if the compositions grow in length and they remain instrumental The Foetal Mind could very well be a huge name in the French metal scene in the near future. As for now I absolutely recommend checking this album and artist out and supporting this great record called, 'The Grand Contraction.'

Grotesque - In the Embrace of Evil (1996)

Before the gates of hell fully opened, Tomas "Goatspell" Lindberg, Kristian "Necrolord" Wahlin and Alf "The Haunting" Svensson (among other known and unknown members) were tearing up Gothenburg, Sweden in the short lived ('88-'90) death metal band Grotesque.

This compilation gathers together the bands 1990 EP, 'Incantation' as well as the, 'In the Embrace of Evil' demo, which was never released as well as two old demo tracks that were re-recorded in '96 specifically for this release, which means the production varies from track to track, but the malevolent schizoid mood remains throughout these eleven songs.

Grotesque straddled the line between early frantic death/thrashers like Sodom, Sepultura and Sodom mixed with strong influences from Bathory and Morbid Angel. The songs herein are brutally pummeling technical tracks, which stab you in the gut repeatedly and even once your on the ground quivering in pain your struck with a final blow to the top of your head just to insure your eminent demise. Most of Grotesque's songs are relentless and brutal, but its clear as the band evolved their deranged creations took on different influences which made room for various tempo and mood alterations, which kept things interesting. Acoustic guitars even popped up here and there and the brief inclusion of some keyboards added further depth to the material.

However I hardly listen to Grotesque for their depth or mellower moods, I listen to them because its mostly just demented raging chaos that was unlike anything else out there at the time and by bloody fucking Satan is it ever immense. The guitar has such a thick muddy quality to it that it just levels over you and the insane blasting drums are absolutely impressive. Of course then there's Goatspell's vocals, just absolute maniacal barking that was not quite a growl but more of a black-ish screech spewing out words of blasphemy and desecration upon Gods flock, which I'll simply say, fucking ruled!

This stuff is colossal and it's really a shame that Grotesque didn't continue onwards, but of course these guys did go on to play in legendary bands like At the Gates, Liers in Wait, Arckanum and Oxiplegatz. Upon the release of Daniel Ekeroth's mighty, 'Swedish Death Metal' book the band did temporairly reunite for the release party, but quickly returned to the grave after a few shows.

Finding this original Black Sun Records release is surely a tough task, but thankfully the compilation along with At the Gates, 'Gardens of Grief' EP was re-released together through Century Media Records and is still widely available. Find it and worship these ancient desecraters and progenitors of pure Swedish evil.

Pestilence - Consuming Impulse (1989)

In 1989 three of thee most colossal extreme metal offerings ever were bestowed upon mankind. Wrought with sin and forged in the very bowels of hell the names of these creations were; Slowly we Rot, Altars of Madness and Consuming Impulse.

Pestilence's, 'Consuming Impulse' was the last of these three massive albums, which was official released on December 25th, no doubt in defiance of all things Christian too. Although where Slowly we Rot and Altars of Madness were debut releases for Obituary and Morbid Angel, Consuming Impulse was the sophomore release for this Netherlands based band who had previously established themselves through an album called, 'Malleus Maleficarum' the previous year, though this one was slightly more thrash related whereas Consuming was bludgeoning full force death metal in all its relentless supreme glory.

Before continuing on I must point out that this album means the world to me, in fact I may very well go on to say that its my all-time favorite death metal release along with those mentioned above and Entombed's, 'Left Hand Path,' which surfaced in 1990.

Consuming Impulse is lead by Martin Van Drunen's sadistic throaty hoarse growls and are still to this day some of the best and most unique ever laid down (and will always be a personal favorite of mine), while the two Patrick’s proved to be a powerfully punishing thrashy/death combination with guitar riffs/solos that contain an ass load of variation and with so many ideas happening. Not to forget drummer Marco Foddis did an unbelievable job obliterating the skins to near nothingness and the inclusion of some keyboards on a few tracks also gave the album a very dark atmosphere, which gelled perfectly with their abusive music. What’s also interesting is that in a few places the band even slows up and briefly includes doom-ish elements in their music, which not many were doing before them.

The production of the record is also perfect allowing the guitars to be fully heard and heavier than hell, while the bass is effective and thick and the drums roar a way in thumping mad fury. With songs like, ‘Dehydrated,’ ‘Chronic Infection,’ ‘Echoes of Death,’ and ‘Deify Thy Master’ it was obvious right away that few could match Pestilences intensity, brutalism and technical abilities, but the best part of this album is that every single song stands out, even the short instrumental, 'Proliferous Souls' is godly!

It's a shame Pestilence wasn't from Florida, because had they been they may very well have been bigger than Obituary, Morbid Angel, Deicide and even Death and best of all you wouldn't be learning about this album for the first time here, no, like me you would have been head banging with this one for years now. I have a consuming impulse to play this one until my final breaths leave my lungs and if you know what's best for you you'd give this classic a chance.

Amorphis - Magic & Mayhem - Tales from the Early Years (2010)

Here's your fieldwork assignment for the week. Go find yourself ten old school Amorphis fans and ask them which of the bands albums they prefer the most. Now, I can't say for sure, but I've got this hunch, and honestly I do believe these ten old school fans are going to say my favorite fucking Amorphis albums are '92's, 'The Karelian Isthmus,' '94's, 'Tales from the Thousand Lakes' and '96's, 'Elegy.' So, what does Amorphis do to further celebrate their twenty year anniversary? Yes, yes they decide to re-record songs from these first three groundbreaking and utterly stunning albums and package it all together and call it, 'Magic & Mayhem - Tales from the Early Years!'

Blasphemy, I say!

Something I'll simply never understand is why bands feel the need to revisit their early years and try and improve their old creations with modern recording technologies and the current members serving in the band. An example would be that Dimmu Borgir re-recording of the entire, 'Stormblast' album a few years ago that some of you might have heard, and, well, it was about as much fun as fucking Nicolas Cage's dried up old hag of an ex-wife, but then I wouldn't expect Shagrath to have good taste in anything, would you?

But, no, seriously these re-recordings are not nearly as bad but they are just as completely unnecessary when you stop and consider the simple fact that The Karelian Isthmus is an absolute death metal classic, Tales From the Thousand Lakes is one of the most highly influential albums ever as it pretty much launched the entire folk metal genre and Elegy is quite simply one of the greatest melodic death prog metal albums ever conceived.

In the recent Amorphis DVD band leader Esa Holopainen explains that the true period of confusion for Amorphis was everything after Elegy and it wasn't until 2005 when Tomi Joutsen joined that the confusion disappeared and shit made since again. So, here's my idea. Instead of trying to touch up, alter and experiment with Tomi's voice why not re-visit the period of confusion and try and clear it up. Take some of these songs that were originally more hard rock sounding with clear vocals and speed 'em up a bit and then throw in Tomi's diverse range of low abysmal growls and cleanly sung abilities and re-create them entirely. That's the point of re-recording songs, I guess, that's what some bands do when they do covers of their heroes songs too. They do them in their style.

Y'see, I've got this problem. These old songs are so vaguely changed it really, truly is a wonder as to what they were trying to do. Oh, I know, it's called cash grab. Cash grab for thee band and thee label, and, god fucking damn it that hurts me to say that, because, you know, Amorphis is like my top band, man.

Even though Esa further explains that Niclas and Santeri contributed new ideas to these old songs I really don't see what he was talking about because the only true difference between these re-recordings and the originals is Tomi's voice and the the inclusion of some extra synth parts in the songs that didn't originally have them. That's really about it. It doesn't sound like anything has been re-arranged or extended, shortened or whatever.

Despite my bitchin' some of these songs do sound good, and in an odd sort of way it made me go back to the originals and really examine them and look for differences. The three songs from The Karelian Isthmus, for example, sound slightly different as a result of the modern top notch production job, but a bad example is that Santeri's keyboard work on the five songs from Tales and four from Elegy sound quite different and ultimately not as cool either. But the ultimate folly comes at the end with, yes you guessed it, the re-recording of their hopelessly stupid cover version of The Door's, 'Light my Fire.' Another idea. Rather than doing the shortened death metal version of this classic as it appeared back in the day, why not do the normal seven some minute version of this song with entirely clean vocals? Make it true to the original, but add the Amorphis touch, but no, no, no, they did not, they went with the shortened retarded death metal version, again. Just imagine Tomi cleanly singing with his awesome voice, 'Try to set the night on fire, try to set the night on firrrrreeeeeeee!' But, no, just growls instead. Ugh.

I also have to point out that although Tomi's growled vocals sound fine on these re-recordings, it's his clean vocals that suffer. Not that they are actually bad, but what I really miss when I hear these re-recordings is Ville's and Pasi's clean voices. Sure they weren't the best, but they worked damn well at the time and trying to cover them up just doesn't work in my book.

So, in the end it's like this. If you never heard those old albums you might just love this album. However if you're like me and you've been listening to Amorphis for over a decade you'll more than likely be sitting about asking yourself, 'Why?' I guess I knew what to expect going into it, but no matter what Amorphis is an all-time fave for me and I just couldn't resist hearing these new versions. Approach with extreme caution.

Hellbastard - Natural Order (1990)

The UK isn't exactly known for their thrash metal scene. I suppose the most known old school names were Onslaught, Sabbat and Xentrix, but then there's Hellbastard from Newcastle, England who made one ripping fast thrash metal album called, 'Natural Order' back in 1990.

Interestingly though Hellbastard are famous for coining the genre term "crust" with their 1986 demo tape, 'Ripping Crust,' and apparently the band always thought of themselves as a Crust Punk/Crossover band, but man, oh man, this is straight forward bay area thrash metal in the same vein as early Metallica, Exodus, Forbidden and Testament.

The music of Natural Order is fairly straight forward fast, relentless and aggressive thrash metal with some cool solos, catchy riffs and shouted angry vocals, which have lyrically themes around anti-religion, war, society and so on. There's also a few slower sections here and there which open the songs up for more melodic characteristics, two instrumentals that are decent and of course a few of the songs have the always kick ass backing gang vocals, which I freakin' love.

This record is by no means anything revolutionary but its fun head banging classic thrash metal just the way I like it. I mean seriously I don't need my thrash metal to sound like Master of Puppets always, it's simply not necessary, nor do I need a scholar telling me profound words of wisdom through the lyrics. I don't need a perfect production job either, it can be as dirty as a crack whores twat, but simply put this is just one of those records to throw on when you need a quick fix of raging hostile catchy thrash metal.

Natural Order unfortunately turned out to be the last album for Hellbastard, but the band joined the whole, 'lets reform our old as dirt thrash metal band' boat thing a few years ago and in 2009 they made their definitive return with a new album called, 'The Need to Kill,' which makes me curious especially since I've always enjoyed this old LP.

It would appear that at some point in time some label repressed this album on CD and if you fancy that classic bay area thrash sound you'd do well to give this one a chance if you ever come across it. If not you can just come on over to my pad and will give the LP a spin.

Diabolical Masquerade - Death's Design (2001)

Formed in the early 90's as Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström's personal and side project to his main body of work with Katatonia he released one demo, and four full-length albums between the period of 1993-2001. 2001's, 'Death Design' was his final release before his commitments and priorities to Katatonia took full control and eventually forced him to lay the band to rest in 2004.

Before its actual release, Death Design was billed as a soundtrack to the movie of the same name and Anders went so far as to create a plot and even had various still images from this movie on his website, which naturally created a buzz of wonder. Eventually Anders broke the news that this movie wasn't being released because it was too explicit in nature, which is ridiculous, and not so long after that he finally stated it was just a gimmick, but I'm fairly sure he fooled most of us. I know I was looking forward to seeing it.

This album is a challenge and its not simply because the music is insanely diverse its because the whole thing is broken up in to sixty one tracks, but only forty two actual minutes of music. Curiously on the back of the album these sixty one tracks are grouped into 20 different movements, and why they weren't just put together as twenty songs is really beyond me, but I'll simply assume Mr. Blakkheim was trying to be weird... or annoying. There's tracks as short as 6-10 seconds on this album with the longest being just two minutes and nineteen seconds, so, that will give you an idea of what to expect, maybe.

Besides the somewhat trademark 'horror metal' sound that Blakkheim had established for his project through the previous three albums you'll also find qualities of blues and jazz music, progressive metal, various synthesized haunting soundtrack-ish pieces, ambient interludes, some electronic parts, minor black metal characteristics (the vocals) as well as some parts that I simply can't even begin to describe to you. Some songs are fierce and full of rage while others are softer and full of character, some melancholic, others creepy and mysterious, a few are totally dark in tone while others are just goddamn utterly beautiful sounding pieces of (very short) music.

It's entirely possible that just about anyone could find something to appreciate about this release, yet the odd nature of it all makes it a challenging listen. The simple fact that there's sixty one short tracks instead of twenty normal tracks really, seriously takes a great deal away from the album. Honestly though the whole thing kind of flows as one song so perhaps even making it a single track would have been a fine alternative, but no such luck. A bit frustrating too since there are several tracks on this album that literally make my jaw hit the floor with the awesomeness within.

I should also mention that Blakkheim handled the rhythm/lead/acoustic guitars, ambience's and vocals while Dan Swanö contributed with an additional guitar solo and keyboard input and a host of others handled drums, bass guitar, violin, cello and grand piano duties.

All in all I wouldn't hesitate to say this is an absolutely brilliant record with many highlights and I'm quite sure anyone that's into avantgarde and unique metal will love this record, but as already mentioned that whole sixty one song thing makes it a tough listen, but definitely give it a try if you ever stumble across it out there.

The Loveless - Star Rover (2002)

The Loveless was a shortly lived band formed when Kim Larsen, Brian Hansen and Jesper Saltoft departed from the Danish doom metal band Saturnus. Similar to his situation with Saturnus, 'Star Rover' was wrote entirely by Kim Larsen while playing the guitar, synth, wood chimes and backing vocals. Brian handles the vocals and bass guitar and Jesper is the man behind the drums, plus a few guest musicians (the most notable being Matt Howden of Sieben and Sol Invictus fame) help out with violin, cello and additional synth work.

Probably the easiest way to describe this bands music would be to call it dark rock music with underlining metal heaviness with some similarities to Gothic rock, though this is quite different from your average Bauhaus or Sisters of Mercy clone and at times quite a bit more melodic too.

The songs on this release generally fluctuate between sounding a bit more faster and rocking, kinda Sentenced or Katatonia-ish, to more dark and gloomy song territories. Strangely though the more upbeat, fast and rocking songs tend to appeal to me more this time around. Take a song like, ‘All the Same,’ which is just catchy as all hell and Kim’s interesting guitar work complements it quite well. Also the bands cover of old school Gothic rockers, The Rose of Avalanche’s, ‘Always There’ is really good and much better than the original in my opinion. As for the darker songs my absolute favorite is, ‘Love Entombed.’ This particular one has a very nice chorus to it and the addition of Matt Howden on violin works out really nicely. I must also point out that Kim throws in some fantastic solos all over this record and most of the riffs are quite good and as I mentioned earlier catchy too.

Since this release there have been a few notices stating that this band would record a new album, but it seems all these years later that's just not going to happen. Nowadays Kim continues his work with, Of the Wand & the Moon, Solanaceae and his new doom metal band Black Wreath while Jesper and Brian seem to be taking it easy.

Generally speaking, 'Star Rover' is a fantastic release with a good balance of rocking songs and gloomy dark songs all rounded out by an impressive vocal performance from Brian and some great guitar work from Kim. Certainly recommended to anyone that’s looking for some dark rock/Gothic metal-ish music or those that are just interested in Kim's various musical activities.

Enslaved - Vikingligr Veldi (1994)

During the course of the past twenty years, Norway's Enslaved has gone through a myriad of changes both in sound and musician membership and largely I've thought that as the years have gone by the music has suffered at times too. However the bands early releases, '92's, 'Yggdrasill' demo, '93's, 'Hordanes Land' EP and especially their masterful debut from '94, 'Vikingligr Veldi' are beyond exceptional (I've got quite a bit of love for their following album, 'Frost' as well).

Wrote between '92/'93 and recorded in '93/'94 by Pytten, the bands debut, 'Vikingligr Veldi' has been often confused as being a self titled release due to the fact that the title is no where to be found on the cover or spine of the album, and only the words, 'Enslaved' & 'Anti Mosh 008' are present.

Vikingligr Veldi is in my opinion one of the most underrated releases in the early Norwegian black metal scene and this could be largely because the album wasn't re-released until 2004 with the only other copies available out there being the original DSP/Voices of Wonder release (which I own). It could also be because the band fancied lyrically themes around Norse Mythology instead of the typical evil stuff most bands were spitting out at the time, but whatever the case may be this album has always deserved more recognition.

Most folks have always viewed Enslaved as a viking metal band even if the lyrics are different I've always thought of this album as a black metal album since the band didn't fully embrace and start to experiment with clean vocals, progressive characteristics, slower playing speeds and a cleaner production job until the following album and a few years down the road from there.

It's key to point out that the members of the band were young when this was recorded, guitarist/keyboardist Ivar was just 15, bassist/vocalist Grutle was 21 and drummer Trym probably somewhere between those two in age. Of course many Norwegian black metal musicians were young, but I should also point out that it was 15 year old Ivar that wrote all of the music and lyrics for this debut.

But, enough with these random factoids.

Although at first this album may seem like a somewhat typical Norwegian black metal album with fast double bass drum work, repetitive tremolo picked guitar riffs and raspy screams/growls, underneath all of the chaos you'll soon take notice of the absolutely unique sounding keyboards which hold an odd cosmic haunting sort of swirling effect unlike anything that was being created at the time. Two of the songs also feature some sort of brass instruments, which may very well be synthetic, but they surely do sound authentic to my ears and again add a unique and majestic sort of tone to these songs. Grutle's bass work is also fairly audible and excellent in its delivery too, which is something you just didn't see in these days.

Although Ivar's guitar work is repetitive most of the time there are still plenty of melodic riffs to be found and while songs like, 'Vetrarnótt' & 'Heimdallr' mostly move at blindingly fast paces or songs like, 'Lifandi Liv Undir Hamri & Midgards Eldar' show the band slowly and epically building up there black metal sound. The instrumental, 'Norvegr' is interesting as well since it remains at the same pace for its entire ten minute duration, but never once does it get boring. Ivar's keyboard work is as I already said unique, but there are times where it sounds a little hooky, but I'm sure you'll forgive them for not being able to get hold of the most state of thee art equipment available.

I also really enjoy the icy cold feeling the whole album gives off. Seriously this is an album to stick in your car while driving around during a snow storm or one to take into the forest with you while hiking, but if you don't fancy either of those choices you can always just sit in your living room and allow the music to chill you to the bone.

Lastly I have to point out that the production is a bit above average for releases at the time as the guitars don't really have that buzzing chainsaw effect, the bass is present, the drums are loud and vibrant and there isn't any ridiculous uncontrolled reverb here either. Though this is black metal music all the way so its not as if things are perfect by any means, but it works, it works well.

Its been almost seventeen years since this albums release and in my opinion it still is an absolute one of a kind and as I've already said horribly underrated release. I find the entire thing hard to put into written form because its so massive, but if you've longed to hear a truly mesmerizing piece of music and a classic within the black metal genre then look no further than this one right here.

Catamenia - Morning Crimson (1999)

I have a great deal of appreciation for the first three Catamenia releases even though their music has never been overly complex or been tinged with a great deal of originality.

This Finnish band formed in '95 and released two demos before issuing their excellent debut, 'Halls of Frozen North' in '98, but it's their sophomore release, 'Morning Crimson' from '99 that I feel is truly an overlooked gem. Musically Catamenia is fairly straight forward semi-melodic black/death metal that moves at both a speedy and mid-pace with backing synthesizers quite similar to Dimmu Borgir and snarly raspy screams.

The typical Catamenia song is short (none of these 13 songs are over 4 mins.) with catchy riffs, no solos and plenty of synth enrichment either at the beginning of the song or consistently during each song and as I said its straight forward and pretty simple stuff, but its effective. The music seems to give off a very hate filled and energetic vibe through the harshly screamed vocals and the fast and well played drums and I've always found this to be a great record to throw on when I need to get a little bit of quick frustration out through music (the entire thing is just 40 mins.). The synths are highly atmospheric, cold and generally just otherworldly and for a lack of any other word, kind of purdy too. I totally adore Mika Tönning's screams too and always thought it was a bit of shame he didn't do much after they booted him from the band in '03. Of course it would have been nice if the rhythm section of the band had tossed a few solos in here, but with the average song being just 3 minutes I suppose its hard to fit much extra in there.

There's a lot of great songs on this record as well, especially, 'Aurora Borealis,' 'Talviyön Varjot,' '...and Winter Descends' and 'Beauty Embraced by the Night' are the true highlights for me, though I've always found the whole thing to be a pleasure.

During their fifteen years of existence the band has been highly prolific too by releasing no less than nine full-length albums, but they've also changed the music dramatically over the years by removing the keyboards, black metal influences and eventually nowadays sounding like a fairly standard melo death band, but unfortunately not a very interesting one. They've also had fifteen members come and go with the only original member being lead guitarist Riku Hopeakoski.

If you've heard some of the newer stuff and were put off by it then I highly suggest turning the clock back and checking out the bands first three albums, they are great!

Zyklon - World ov Worms (2001)

I recall 2001 being a fairly solid year for heavy metal with both new and old bands releasing quality material, but all these years later the one album from '01 that has stuck with me the most is Zyklon's massively crushingly apocalyptically charged debut, 'World ov Worms.'

Zyklon is (or was) the brainchild of one Tomas "Samoth" Haugen who formed the band in 1995 under the name Zyklon-B with an all-star line-up (Ihsahn, Frost and Aldrahn accompanied him) but after releasing the, 'Blood Must Be Shed' EP that same year the band was sacked and eventually reformed with an entirely new line-up in '98 under the shortened Zyklon moniker.

For the debut Samoth was joined by drummer and Emperor band mate Trym Torson as well as guitarist Destructhor (Myrkskog), bassist Secthdamon (Myrkskog) and vocalist Daemon (Limbonic Art).

The music itself is blistering fast and technically amazing blackened death metal with minor industrial characteristics that basically showed influences from all of their current bands. The lead off track, 'Hammer Revelation' has over the past ten years become truly one of my favorite songs with its relentless blasting machinegunnary drumwork and intense Morbid Angel-ish guitar work and utterly insane but highly impressive shrieks, roars, growls and what not from the throat of Daemon. You've got to love the intensity and honestly the catchiness of 'Deduced to Overkill' as well 'Chaos Deathcult' makes great use of the industrial/ambient influences with a chill out part at the end that features heavy electronics, samples and a spoken segment from Garm (Ulver). Oh, and how I fucking love, 'Worm World' with those keyboards that sound like they were taken straight out of, 'In a Nightside Eclipse' and 'Transcendental War - Battle Between Gods' is one of the most epic death metal songs you'll ever hear and its made only better with the inclusion of Garm's cleanly sung vocals too. Plenty of love for all of the other songs as well and this is at least for me one of those records to put on when I need to wake myself up, because shortly after it erupts I'm headbanging for the next forty one minutes, everytime!

The production of the album is crisp, clean and perfectly done for this sort of music and I also have to point out that the artwork, photos and layout is highly impressive and the lyrically tales of misanthropy, philosophy and anti-religion penned by then still jail bound friend, Bård "Faust" Eithun are absolutely stunning.

Before dissolving in 2010 Zyklon went on to record two more albums, but they completely lacked the focus and song writing talent of this debut and for whatever reason they completely sacrificed their identity to be an almost entirely pure Morbid Angel clone. Daemon also quit after this album and Secthdamon stepped up to the mic, but he proved to be just awful in his efforts. Nowadays, Samoth is rocking out in his new band, The Wretched End, but I haven't got my hands on this album just yet, though I'm curious.

Megadeth - Youthanasia (1994)

Megadeth's, 'Youthanasia' was the first album I had ever looked forward to hearing/owning. What I mean with this statement is that I had (sometime) in '93 established myself as a fan of Megadeth through their album, 'Countdown to Extinction,' but of course that album had already been out for some time. Therefore Youthanasia was my first experience getting excited for new music and purchasing an album from one of my new favorite bands.

I can honestly still remember going to the store the day it was released, searching through the 'M' section, finding it with some pleased sound, running back to the counter and paying for it and quickly getting my ass home to listen to it. And that my friends is a special feeling. One many of you will never know. One you don't care to know. One that doesn't exist any more these days. People prefer files over physical today. A sad world we all live in today, eh?

Youthanasia (a play on the word Euthanasia) continued where Countdown left off and although Megadeth has stuck to the fairly same modern metal/melodic metal/heavy hard rock/whatever since '93, I've always thought this was their finest moment from their post thrash days.

I just love the powerful heavy hitting nature of songs like, 'Reckoning Day' or 'The Killing Road,' and although songs like 'Addicted to Chaos,' 'Elysian Fields' and 'I Thought I Knew It All' are slower in speed, they are ridiculously catchy in delivery. Of course I utterly love, 'Train of Consequences' and the softer almost melancholic at times, 'A Tout Le Monde' is one of Megadeth's finest, which curiously they re-recorded a few years ago with that bitch from Lacuna Coil (but I'll forgive 'em). And holy fuck I love that totally grim intro on, 'Blood of Heroes' and that riff at the beginning of, 'Family Tree' is bloody brilliant, man! The title track and 'Black Curtains' rock pretty hard too and the fast paced closer, 'Victory,' which uses old Megadeth song titles as the basis of the lyrics is insanely awesome as well.

Fifteen years later and this one still remains one of my favs from Megadeth and if you've ever caught these guys live you probably noticed many songs from this album are regular set selections too. Many good moments there, friends.

I think a lot of Megadeth's post thrash stuff is neglected and that's really a shame because unlike their brethren in Anthrax and Metallica they've actually continued to write complex, catchy and genuinely excellent music. If you missed this album give it a shot, kick your local internet music thief in the balls and blast Youthanasia, loud!

Edge of Sanity - When All Is Said: The Best of Edge of Sanity (2010)

Seven years after the bands last album and thirteen years since the bands original termination, Black Mark Productions has released, 'When All Is Said,' the final statement from one of Sweden's most revered and influential bands, namely; Edge of Sanity.

This 2CD collection comes housed in a stunning fold out digipak, which features a fantastic booklet that has all lyrics, comments on each song from Dan Swanö, various photos of the band and of course it gathers together songs from each EoS release, which play out in chronological order too.

Disc 1 kicks off with two songs off of the bands '91 debut, 'Nothing But Death Remains' and its interesting to hear EoS during this period since they were more or less a fairly straight forward Swedish Death Metal band with only minor hints of where the music would go on the next album. Continuing from here in '92 with one song from, 'Unorthodox' & two songs from 'The Spectral Sorrows' in '93, both of which introduced the bands trademark fusion of progressive rock and death metal into EoS's music. Two songs from the experimental alternative metal/rock EP, 'Until Eternity Ends' are up next with then two of EoS's most awesome songs from, 'Purgatory Afterglow' in '94. Then comes two songs from '97's, 'Infernal,' which is around the time things within the band started to go wrong and finally another two songs from, 'Cryptic,' which appeared in '97 as well, but it was at this point the band was Swanö-less and as such sound quite different from everything released before hand.

Disc 2 is actually one of the main reasons I wanted to get my hands on this compilation (thanks to my buddy for buying it for me too) and that's because both '96's, 'Crimson' and '03's, 'Crimson II' are here in almost their entirety (minor edits) and I thought, "Hey this will save me the trouble of buying these releases separately." Unfortunately both of these songs, which (Crimson at least) were originally a single forty minute track are instead split up on the second disc and together we have 90 some individual tracks. Personally I think its fine that Crimson II appears in this form since I guess that's how it was, but Crimson wasn't, it was done as a single track to be different at the time so EoS could say, "Look at us we did a single forty minute progressive metal song and we actually made it work, suckas!" I mean its a minor complaint you still get the song, but still it just seems like a bad choice to me.

In the end though this is a perfect collection and introduction for someone that is willing to discover the pure awesomeness that was Edge of Sanity or someone like me who stupidly ignored the band for many years even though he was well aware of their existence. Whatever the case this is worth checking out as it will give you an idea of which EoS release to pick up next. Me? Heck, I'll get my hands on 'em all eventually, but this will keep me going for the moment.

Barren Earth - Curse of the Red River (2010)

The first thing you need to know about Barren Earth - They fucking rule!

Second thing ya best know about Barren Earth - You need to buy this album!

For the misinformed, Barren Earth is a semi-star Finnish project initiated by bassist Olli-Pekka Laine (ex-Amorphis) in 2007. Joining him is vocalist Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun), guitarists Janne Perttilä (Moonsorrow) & Sami Yli-Sirniö (Waltari), keyboardist Kasper Mårtenson (ex-Amorphis), drummer Marko Tarvonen (Moonsorrow) and session flutist Erno Haukkala (Alamaailman Vasarat). In late 2009 Peaceville Records released their debut EP, 'Our Twilight' and in March of 2010 this monster of a debut, which the band has decided to call, 'Curse of the Red River' was unleashed.

Probably the easiest way to describe this album is to say it sounds like late 90's Amorphis, meaning a mixture between their milestone, 'Elegy' and their softer prog rock kinda metal stuff like, 'Tuonela,' which is no surprise since these are the last two recordings Olli played on. I pick up a little bit of an Opeth influence too though it seems clear to me that the bands intention was to pick up where Amorphis originally went slightly astray and goddamn it they do it marvelously!

So, with that said here's what to expect: Ridiculously memorable mid-paced songs with harmonious guitar riffs, kick ass lead solos, both deep growled vocals and emotionally charged cleanly sung parts, decent drumming and audible bass work as well as progressive keyboards, which remind me of bands like Uriah Heep and other prog bands, but in any case again they are similar in style to the ones found on those old Amorphis records.

I don't say it so often, but I like just about every song on this album. Seriously, songs like, 'Curse of the Red River,' 'Flicker' and especially 'The Ritual of Dawn' are so insanely catchy that I'm quite sure after just one listen you'll be hooked on this stuff. But the best part is that these are the type of songs that are both fetching but also hard hitting. I mean seriously I've spent much time head banging and allowing all of these songs to infect me, possess me, and completely pump me up while I listen to them and in all seriousness if I get to hear The Ritual of Dawn live I'm going to have a damn moment, man! A fucking moment! Oh, and that's right, Barren Earth hooked up the opening slot on, 'The Finnish Metal Tour Part II,' which kicks off mid-February. You're all going, right?!

In the end this is surely one of the better records released in 2010, but then again I didn't pay that much attention to new music last year, but nevertheless I say it rocks and I'm sticking to that opinion. You'd do well to check this one out, is what I'm trying to say here.

Angelcorpse - Of Lucifer And Lightning (2007)

I completely missed out on Angelcorpse during their original tenure ('95-'00), but had always heard that albums like, 'Hammer of the Gods' & 'Exterminate' were true classics of the death metal underground, but for whatever reason I never got around to checking them out...

Three years ago when, 'Of Lucifer And Lightning' was released I got my chance to hear the recently reformed Angelcorpse and initially I didn't care much for this album and that was largely because of my fascination with the black metal genre, but during the latter half of 2010 I found myself backing away from black metal and diving for death metal. After pulling this album out once again I found myself head banging in a mad fury to this brutal band, which I had wrongly ignored.

I've been told that the older Angelcorpse is a mixture of black/death metal, but here on, 'Of Lucifer And Lightning' I hear a death metal band that seems to be drawing a fair amount of inspiration from the older works of Morbid Angel. With a great amount of technical riffs, killer solos, pummeling drums, blasphemous lyrics and raspy semi-understandable growls we have nine brutally intense songs, which clock in for just thirty six minutes, but warrant replay value again and again.

I've read some reviews of this album and the opinions seem to be rather mixed, but having not heard any of the bands previous outings I guess I have nothing to compare it to, but you know what I don't care, songs like, 'Hexensabbat' or 'Saints of Blasphemy' are utterly brutal fast paced and dare I say catchy death metal songs, which have kept me coming back for more and more. In fact, I pretty much like the whole album and I'd have to say if you favor Floridian style death metal, Morbid Angel or are a fan of the bands past works you really can't go wrong with this one.

Unfortunately just two years after this release Angelcorpse packed up and called it quits again, but like all hungry musicians the members continued on in different bands.

In the end though I look at the album art work once again and I say to myself, "Is this what its like to eat the body of Christ?"

Ulver - Shadows of the Sun (2007)

Ulver’s 2007 release, ‘Shadows of the Sun’ was, as usual, something completely different sounding to their previous recording and of course its something not easily described, but something that's easily beautiful in its execution and style.

The music this time around foregoes any of the rock or metal-ish moments that sneaked in on, ‘Blood Inside’ for a more stripped down highly atmospheric melancholic sound that is based around keyboards, piano, minimal electronics, some stringed and brass instruments (violin, viola, cello, trumpet) and of course Kristoffer’s stunning lead vocals.

It could be said that this is an enriched ambient album since the music does contain a very similar sentiment with the addition of lots of beautiful synth melodies, piano, odd samples and various bizarre electronics all over the place that recall the bands 'silence' era. Of course the stringed instruments only enhance the ambient mood further since they seemed to be played in droning sort of manner rather then sounding typically classical. Electric guitar is used on the Black Sabbath cover and although this version of the bands classic, ‘Solitude’ is slightly different it is nearly just as powerful and somber sounding as the original though, of course, no one could possibly hope to top such a classic song.

Kris’ vocals are naturally one of the key points in this recording although he doesn’t stick to just singing in his normal operatic tone as this time around he also uses whispery & spoken voices, and usually he sounds rather depressed.

All in all I find this to be a really, really tough album to describe, but on the other hand it is considerably enjoyable and infinitely gorgeous. The album moves at a very slow pace and never at any point does it go fast nor does it need to. This is also obviously not an everyday album due to its melancholic character, but still, it’s Ulver so it’s hard to resist.

Mystic Forest - Romances (2004)

I can remember it was back sometime in 2005 that I first heard this album and it was through this recording (as well as recent releases from Sin Origin and Hellveto) I had a revival of interest in black metal music after largely giving up on the genre for reasons I don't even recall any longer.

Anyway, Mystic Forest is more or less the solo project of French composer/multi instrumentalist Stefan Kozak (with some assistance from Baalberith & Claire Guillot) that has been around since 1997 and to date has three demos and four full length albums available. Stefan’s sound is somewhere along the lines of black metal meets classical music; think grim high caliber speedy black metal with razor sharp melodic guitars, throat lacerating black metal cry’s, brutal drumming, piano, symphonic synths, accordions, flutes and you’ll have somewhat of an idea as to what this impressive entity known as Mystic Forest sounds like. The album has somewhat of a raw feeling present to it, yet everything remains audible and loud. Most of the recording consists of speedy, raw, however melodic black metal playing and occasionally the band slows down to more mid-pace giving the album more breathing room. Even further interesting the album features interludes written by Frederic Chopin, but naturally played by Stefan (no sampling here).

The flutes are probably one of the most outstanding aspects of this release since there played at a fast pace moving right along with the guitars. And Stefan’s skills as a guitarist really are impressive to. This guy creates some highly melodic riffs and excellent solos that will simply leave you breathless. The other two members Baalberith and Claire’s contributions are small, but certainly note worthy. Baalberith handles the lyrics, which are almost completely in French while Claire adds her voice to a few of the songs. When all is combined we are treated to one very dark, dreamy, surreal, beautifully violent recording that can only be called, ‘Romances.’

It's been six years since this albums release and other than a demo compilation last year, Mystic Forest has remained silent, although Stefan has kept busy with his band Eikenskaden (later 'The Skaden'). Hopefully a new album will emerge someday, but when this many years are spread apart from a release its all very hard to say. Nevertheless I will definitely continue to enjoy this recording.

Weh - Origins (2010)

I first became aware of Weh, the solo project of Norwegian musician Erik E. back in 2004 when his acoustic cover version of, 'Likbør' appeared on the Windir compilation, 'Valfar, ein Windir.' I remember being completely blown away by the fact that someone could take a Norwegian black metal song and transform it into something of neo/dark folk song and actually make it work, but Erik didn't just make it work he made it absolutely beautiful.

It was sometime later on that I discovered his website and found that he had all five of his demo recordings available for free download, and within a few hours I was absolutely obsessed with this musicians work. Not to long after that I began to review Erik's work on the old Lunar Hypnosis website and eventually we did an interview (most likely his first) and finally his song, 'And the Bells are Ringing Doom' appeared on the third Lunar Hypnosis mp3 compilation, 'Autumn Calls - Winter Awaits.' My hope is that this little bit of exposure brought Erik's music to a few more peoples ears.

In late 2010 Soulseller Records released a 2CD digipak compilation, which includes all of Erik's early EPs/Demos, 'The Death' from 2002, 'All the Sinners are Sleeping Now' in 2003, 'The Coffee's Cold in the Morning, The Beer's Warm at Night' came next in 2004, 'Hoof & Horn' followed in 2005 and lastly 'North' in 2006. This compilation also has the cover of, 'Likbør' and unreleased track from 2009 called, 'The Seaward Song' and finally a brand new five song EP called, 'Origins.'

Erik’s music while consisting of just one twelve string acoustic guitar, his voice, and light backing synthesizers is beyond gorgeous in its deliver. His music is soft, delicate, emotional acoustic ballads, with excellent vocals, thoughtful lyrics, and stunning guitar work. The music generally carries a dark melancholic feeling, which you can sense so strongly through Erik’s voice and his lyrics. When I listen to this music it makes me remember the first time I heard Current 93 or Sol Invictus, and the emotions I felt, and the compulsive feeling to continually play the songs over and over again even though they made me feel sad.

The first EP, 'The Death' however is a bit somewhat straightforward fast paced singer/songwriter material with fast acoustic guitars, typical songwriter semi-poetic lyrics, cleanly sung vocals and the odd inclusion of some death growls, which indicate his past interest in the metal genre. None of the songs go past the three minute mark and although they are nothing special they do have their own unique charm, which instantly increased my interest in Weh when I first heard them.

'All the Sinners are Sleeping Now' shows a refinement in Erik's style as around this EP the songs began to show their first inclusion of darker themes and feelings as well the songs were played slower, the guitar work is more elaborate (in places) and the death growls are completely gone, though in the grand picture this EP doesn't differ that much from the first one. The following recording, 'The Coffee's Cold in the Morning, The Beer's Warm at Night' finally starts to show where I think Erik began to make major steps towards his current style and although elements from the past remain he managed to write two of my favorite Weh songs, 'When the Raven Spoke my Name' & 'Summer Went South' on this EP.

'Hoof & Horn' was at the time the darkest creation of Erik's and through his own words these three songs were the closest sounding to what he originally set out to do with Weh. Each of these three songs have their own unique qualities, but I really feel the ending song, ‘Ruin’ was one of Erik’s best songs at the time, but man, oh man, it was only a glimpse of what was to come.

‘North’ continues on in the same vein as, ‘Hoof & Horn’ although I feel with North Erik made me a fan for life with these four compositions. Things kick off with, ‘And the Bells are Ringing Doom,’ which I feel is not only Erik’s best song to date, but also his most sorrowful, and I wouldn’t hesitate to say this is one of the best dark folk songs ever composed. Basically everything about this song is perfect; the guitar work is stunning, the keyboards are dark and atmospheric, the singing is beyond excellent and the lyrics are fantastic and catchy as well. ‘North’ and ‘Darkness Part Two’ are up next; North is a rather straightforward slow acoustic ballad, while Darkness Part Two is a bit more upbeat and for some reason or another it reminds me of the German dark folk band Werkraum. This release closes out however with another stunning song called, ‘The Men Of Gallow Proud,’ which has a very nice riff in the song that runs throughout most of the song and a light synth melody in the background. In any case another one of Erik’s finest.

Both the unreleased song, 'The Seaward Song' and the new EP, 'Origins' basically continue where North left off. Once again the songs are slow, dark and beautiful pieces of melancholic acoustic music, which in my opinion make for an unique listening experience. The highlights include, 'The Road and the Forest,' which is utterly astounding in its epic sorrowful delivery and 'Nihil Interit,' wow, it's like hearing, 'And the Bells are Ringing Doom' for the first time with its heartbreaking melodies and singing. Just stunning! Also I must mention, 'En Bekk Av Blod,' which is the first Weh song with Norwegian lyrics, although somehow Erik's voice doesn't seem quite as confident while singing in his native tongue, though it's definitely a pleasing song.

In the end I'm happy to see Weh finally getting some attention as well its a grand thing that these old songs were re-released too. This compilation offers up absolutely everything Weh has released during the past eight years and hopefully with this compilation the full-length debut album is on the horizon. If you downloaded these early EPs in the past couple of years then here's you chance to finally own them in a physical format as well you'll get to hear six new stunning songs as well.

Forteresse - Les Hivers De Notre Époque (2008)

Forteresse's second album, 'Les Hivers De Notre Époque,' once again on Sepulchral Productions and after a 7” LP in 2007 surely brought this Quebec based black metal band to greater heights.

With this second album it seems this two piece band is taking their music in a more atmospheric and ambient like direction and forgoing the folk elements found on their debut album, 'Métal Noir Québécois,' With that said you can probably guess that the music is a bit more traditional black metal in character with lots of repetition and droning, but certainly not boring since the atmosphere is immense. The production also seems to be considerably more underground, but nevertheless completely appropriate for this style of music. Also given the current month this album is superb too as it truly is cold, wintry and very dark in character.

Besides that Forteresse doesn't offer up much more than another pleasing black metal record. Honestly I do enjoy the debut slightly more so, but black metal bands usually perform at their finest on there first outing. Even so if you enjoyed the debut or just really atmospheric black metal then I'd certainly wave you towards this album.

It seems late last year these guys unleashed their third full-length, 'Par Hauts Bois et Vastes Plaines,' which means an order from Sepulchral Productions is definitely soon to come for me.

Skagos - Ást (2009)

Hailing from Northern Cascadia (AKA Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada), Skagos is a two person collective of Isaac Symonds & Ray Hawes who formed back in 2007 and in the past three years have released one demo, one EP, three split releases and this their debut album, 'Ást' was released in both cassette & CD format in 2009.

The band’s name is derived from author George R. R. Martin’s, 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series of fantasy novels, which I've now regrettably never read, but it definitely intrigues me to do so after discovering this band several months ago.

More importantly though Skagos is a black metal which shows characteristics from the early works of bands like Ulver, Wyrd, Satyricon and Agalloch, however if I had to compare the band to anyone I would say they are very close to sounding like Maine, USA band, Falls of Rauros. So, if you are at all familiar with those bands then you'll already have a decent idea as to what Skagos sounds like, but if not you can expect to hear acoustic/folk influenced black metal music on Ást with long song times, somewhat raw production, loads of atmosphere, progressive tendencies, lyrics about nature and primitive ways of life and a monochrome booklet/cover with various nature photos.

The interesting thing about this recording is that its raw production makes the whole thing sound very organic and somehow as you listen you can imagine the members playing these songs while out in the middle of the British Columbia forests. The guitars tend to veer between being melodic and full of character to more discordant paths as expected in black metal music, but never are they boring or poorly performed. In fact those guitars in the first few minutes of, 'A Night That Ends, As All Nights End, When The Sun Rises' is one of the best moments ever in this particular sub-genre of black metal. As expected the acoustic parts spread out through this recording are utterly brilliant too.

The vocals hold a truly venomous hate filled tone to them and while they are typical sounding they are by no means poorly performed. Some cleanly sung parts also make their appearance on, 'Calignosity' and while they are not awful they remind me of Tom Yorke from Radiohead and I'd rather not be reminded of that band, ever. The drums too are unpolished, but it adds to that natural organic feeling I mentioned earlier and while the drums tend to be played fast with plenty of cymbal crashes and drum roll usage they also slow up here and there when the music demands it. The bass guitar is unfortunately no where to be found, but this sort of music hardly needs it since everything else provides a very atmospheric and engaging listening experience.

At fifty five minutes in length and just six songs total, Ást is a truly great record, though some people will tell you it's pretty much the greatest record ever conceived, yet I'm still not completely convinced on those claims. Nevertheless, I enjoy Skagos and I'll most certainly be purchasing their next record as well as going back and picking up those split releases soon.