Album Reviews Archives - Page 531 of 576

SHORT BUT SWEET: COPROLITH – “HATE INFECTED”

Feb 092012

In the realm of infernally regal blackened death metal, the bands that continue to rise up first in this writer’s mind are Polish juggernauts Behemoth and Hate, despite the fact that the blackening has worn off them over time, at least in sound if not in attitude. Of course, they are not by a long stretch the only bands who have brought about such a strikingly hellish union of those musical styles. Porvoo, Finland’s Coprolith have done it, as I discovered in listening to their new EP, Hate Infected.

This forthcoming, three-song offering is a prelude to the band’s second full-length album, which is projected for release in the fall of this year, and it follows the band’s 2010 debut album, Cold Grief Relief (which I haven’t heard).

The title track sets the hook right away with a thundering riff and a ripping lead melody. It’s a tasty combo of eminently headbangable groove and occult atmosphere. The melodic guitar solo brought a smile to my face, and so did the vocalist’s deep roars and chilling shrieks. The black hasn’t worn off Coprolith’s death metal.

“Chemical Suicide” proves that the title track was no fluke. A dark melodic lead floats over another killer riff that’s prime headbang material. It sounds like a giant industrial machine shaking the girders in some hellish manufacturing facility, implacably punching out war machines while a horned foreman exhorts the demon workers from a bullhorn. Continue reading »

ELITIST: “FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF DUST”

Album Reviews 17 Responses »

Feb 092012

I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I prefer to believe that, in person, Portland’s Elitist aren’t as inhumanly corrosive as their music. Yes, they say, “Our fucking lives ended when we started this band”, but they probably love their parents. Unless they killed them and ate their fingers like french fries.

Despite the fact that the music sounds like helpless bodies being dragged through a trough of broken glass and then dumped in a pit of salt so the lacerations will burn like a motherfucker before Elitist pee on them, they’re probably loyal friends and gentle lovers.

The jagged slurry of metallic slag that flows through these songs surely doesn’t flow through the veins of the band members. The tortured screams and ghastly howls in the music surely don’t come from the bleeding throats of caged demons within their bodies. If you were having a beer with Elitist, they wouldn’t really go for your throat like famished hyenas. They’d probably even buy a round.

This is what I prefer to believe — but after listening a few times to the band’s 2011 Season of Mist album, Fear In A Handful of Dust, I wouldn’t bet on any of it. Continue reading »

NECROWRETCH: “PUTREFACTIVE INFESTATION”

Album Reviews 5 Responses »

Feb 082012

Can you name the band signed most recently by the venerable Century Media Records? Well, you’re looking at them. They’re from Valence, France, and they go by the name NecroWretch. And here’s where you say, “Necro who?”

In their careers as musicians, they’ve led something of a charmed life. Before being signed by one of the largest and most prestigious of metal labels, they had produced a grand total of two demos (in 2009 and 2010) and a four-song EP in 2011 — Putrefactive Infestation. The signing announcement came yesterday and it included this quote from Jens Prüter, head of A&R at Century Media Europe: “The Putrefactive Infestation 12″ dominated my turntable for some months and I’m sure the upcoming album will be as sick and heavy!”

Yes, of course, there will be a forthcoming album — though it hasn’t been written yet. The label that released the 2011 EP (Detest Records) first plans to release a 7″ NecroWretch EP titled Now You’re In Hell on March 10 at Asphyx’s album release party at the Turock club in Essen, Germany, where NecroWretch will also be performing. That new EP will include an original NecroWretch song and a Death cover.

Of course, I became curious about the Putrefactive Infestation EP — this four-song collection that landed an unheralded French death metal band on Century Media. I tracked it down and spent time listening to it yesterday, and it’s a very promising find — an authentic throw-back shrouded in cemetery stench and Sunlight Studio sonics, flavored with hair-raising blackened vocals and, of all things, hooky (but evil) melodies. Continue reading »

THEMADISRAELI’S TOP 20 ALBUMS OF ALL TIME: KILLSWITCH ENGAGE – “ALIVE OR JUST BREATHING”

Album Reviews 15 Responses »

Feb 072012

(Yesterday, a new splash-page photo greeted visitors to the official web page of Killswitch Engage — part of which you will see after the jump in this post. It shows a new figure front-and-center in the line-up, Jesse Leach apparently back in the fold. So, it’s fitting that today we’re launching TheMadIsraeli’s series on his all-time favorite albums with this post on a record by Jesse Leach-fronted Killswitch Engage.)

This is the beginning. This will be my Top 20 albums of all time. Yes, an all-time list — the bane of any music lover, including me, but I cannot deny the effect that certain albums have had on me. Whether because of their musical merit or more personal connections, I’ve never been able to drop these 20. No other albums in recent memory, no matter how good, have come close to knocking these off their pedestals.

I originally chose from a pool of 50, and from among those I’ve had a list of 20 planned out for a while, though a few of those have changed as I’ve thought more about it (although the majority have been forever constant).

It’s fitting that I should start the series with this album on this day, given the recent signs that KSE’s original vocalist Jesse Leach has returned to the band. For me and many others, that’s a sign of hope that Killswitch Engage will finally rise back up to metalcore prominence. Maybe it won’t, maybe I’m just nostalgia-driven at the moment. We’ll see.

When Alive Or Just Breathing emerged in 2002, I had just made my official transition into metalhood. I had abandoned my shameful nu metal past and adopted the ways of the brutal and the fast. The first two metal albums I ever bought (at the same time no less) were Slayer’s Reign In Blood and In Flames’ Whoracle. This was around 2001-2002, I can’t remember exactly. What is important is that the metalcore movement was about to take its first steps into prominence. Continue reading »

THE 11TH HOUR: “LACRIMA MORTIS”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Feb 072012

(Today, NCS reader/commenter KevinP review Lacrima Mortis, the new album by The 11th Hour, which is being released today in the U.S. The album was written, performed, and produced by Ed Warby (Gorefest, Hail of Bullets), with harsh vocals provided by Pim Blankenstein of Officium Triste.)

I’ll admit to being a Warby Weenie. I love Gorefest as well as Hail of Bullets, so I followed the production process of this album (via Facebook) more than any other album before. I was naturally excited for its release, but also a bit worried, as I had hyped it up in my mind. Most albums never quite match my expectations and they seem like a letdown initially. I’m happy to say this is one of those rare instances where the hype was exceeded.

What you get here is 52 minutes of doomy death metal across 7 tracks, filled with clean and harsh vocals, soulful piano melodies, along with some (dare I say) uplifting guitar riffs. It does everything the first album did and improves upon it 10-fold. This is the way you want a band to improve: Stay true to their sound and keep polishing and refining. Frankly, this album is so stunning, I have no idea where they go from here. It will be a daunting task to follow up.

I can’t pinpoint any specific song over the others, as the entire album is so strong, everything about it just works and falls into place. And if I sound overly “gaga” about this, I AM. I don’t find many doomy death records you can just put on over and over again and enjoy this much. Continue reading »

BLEEDING THROUGH: “THE GREAT FIRE”

Album Reviews 3 Responses »

Feb 062012

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album from Orange County’s Bleeding Through, which is out now on Rise Records.)

Anyone who was around when the metalcore explosion was happening and followed its development should know who Bleeding Through are. Their revolutionary (and unmatched to this day) combination of hardcore brawn, black metal venom, thrash metal fanaticism, and death metal brutality — all with symphonic overlays courtesy of the only female keyboardist in metal worth a living fuck — has yet to get old for me.

I remember when people were pronouncing Bleeding Through’s demise when founding guitarist Scott Danough left the band after The Truth and thought they would start sucking, but Bleeding Through has been proving everyone wrong ever since, writing their best material on their last two albums, Declaration (2008) and Bleeding Through (2010), which showed that Scott apparently didn’t have much to do with the song-writing process at all. So what’s the verdict on this band’s new album The Great Fire?

This is their most brutal yet most experimental effort yet.

This is a much faster, much more visceral and frantic Bleeding Through than we’ve ever heard before. At the same time, this is also the oddest Bleeding Through, mainly due to Marta Peterson’s new-found sense of adventurism in the keyboard and symphonic department. Adding instruments and sounds that were begging to be incorporated into Bleeding Through’s music — organs, harpsichords, fucking electronic-as-all-get-out pad sounds that are lo-fi as shit — she has helped create a much more blackened atmosphere than has been heard before. Continue reading »

A THROATRUINER SPLIT: AS WE DRAW, EUGLENA, AND HEXIS

Album Reviews 6 Responses »

Feb 042012

For anyone who thinks we’ve been insufficiently faithful to the name of this site in recent days, I have a few things for you this weekend that will set you straight.

As record labels go, I think Throatruiner has to be a short-listed finalist for best label name ever. They have also been putting out some tasty releases, if your taste runs to unstructured violence. Take this one for example. It’s a three-way split with international flavor. The three bands are as follows:

AS WE DRAW •• Described as a French “post-metal” band, their contributions to this split follow up their 2010 album, Lines Breaking Circles. Throatruiner recommends them to fans of Ken Mode, Breach, and Old Man Gloom.

EUGLENA •• A Russian band whose preceding release was an EP called An Anxious Surface. Throatruiner compares their music to that of Buried Inside, Plebeian Grandstand, and Botch.

HEXIS •• This is a Danish band that slathers together hardcore, black metal, and sludge. By coincidence, they were recommended in a recent NCS comment by Old Man Windbreaker. Before contributing to this split, they released a self-titled EP and then a full-length album called XI that debuted last year. Throatruiner recommends them to fans of Celeste, Crowpath, and Blut Aus Nord.

Each of these three bands contributed two songs to the split. I have some quick reactions to them them after the jump, along with a stream of the whole split — which can be downloaded for free or for any price you think is fair. Continue reading »

CHRISTIAN MISTRESS: “POSSESSION

Album Reviews 2 Responses »

Feb 032012

(grover XIII reviews the new album from Olympia, Washington’s Christian Mistress, which will be released by Relapse Records on February 28.)

“Everything old is new again.” Although the source of that quote is not at all metal (it comes from All That Jazz, which I admittedly did not know prior to a Google search), it certainly is applicable to the current metal scene. Within the last several years, revival of metal’s roots has been sweeping across the musical landscape, from thrash to death metal to doom to NWOBHM, with varying levels of success depending on the band. Christian Mistress fall into that last category, and the Olympia-based 5-piece have been making waves with their decidedly retro sound.

It really started with a shout-out by Darkthrone’s Fenriz, who said of the band, “They play heavy metal the old way, the exact way we enjoy it ourselves.” From there, the band’s initial full-length Agony & Opium (if you can call it that, given that it was six tracks and 27 minutes long) took off, earning a lot of well-deserved notice with its classic metal riffing and the soulful (clean, in total violation of this website’s name) vocals of frontwoman Christine Davis.

It is primarily on the strength of Agony & Opium (and to a lesser extent, a demo and a single from 2009) that Christian Mistress’ second full-length, Possession, has been garnering an impressive amount of hype for a relatively unknown band. Happily, I am here to say that Possession lives up to that hype. Continue reading »

TACOMA NARROWS BRIDGE DISASTER: “EXEGESIS”

Album Reviews 8 Responses »

Feb 032012

I can’t vouch for the accuracy or authenticity of this review. I did write it, but I wasn’t exactly in my right mind when I listened to the album or when I wrote the review, due to a combination of feverish illness and the effects of heavy medication. All I can say is that I’m writing what I’m feeling at the moment. Maybe it only goes as far as a recommendation for the feverish and/or drug-altered listeners in the audience, and everyone else will have to make up his or her own mind.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is a twin suspension bridge that crosses Puget Sound south of where I live, connecting the city of Tacoma to the Kitsap Peninsula. It opened to traffic on July 1, 1940, as a single suspension bridge, the third longest suspension bridge in the world at that time. Only four months later, on the morning of November 7, it collapsed under high wind conditions. The collapse was caught on film, and the sight of a large concrete and steel structure twisting like a rubber band is still a freaky thing to watch. The bridge was replaced 10 years later, but the collapse still resonates as an example of man-made creations succumbing to the power of nature.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster is also the name taken by five-man band from London, who came together in 2008 with the aim of creating “epic soundtracks for terrible events”. Yesterday, they released their second album, Exegesis. Composed of eight largely instrumental songs, most of them lengthy (with more than an hour of total run-time), the album is itself like a fever dream, which may be why it affected me so powerfully.

CYBORGS MAY OR MAY NOT KILL US ALL, BUT SYBREED WILL PROVIDE A PRETTY GOOD SOUNDTRACK FOR THE EVENTS

Album Reviews 15 Responses »

Feb 022012

(Here’s another post from DemiGodRaven . . .)

Sorry folks, I’ve been busy for a bit. Trying to build up the finances to buy some podcast gear and maybe do a radio-style show where I expose the Sacramento music scene to people. It’s all very tentative though and the initial hurdle is about $500 so I had to bury myself in work. ~ DGR

A few weeks ago, I found an article on Io9 that discussed the merits of why we should fear androids, mutants and cyborgs, because they will likely be the ones to kill us all, instead of the plain old robots that we have always feared. Like most Io9 articles, it was interesting but didn’t go into quite enough depth or explore many of the possibilities of how such a scenario could play out.

It’s a common problem for Gawker sites in general, so you can’t really fault Io9 for that. They usually do well with their astronomy articles (which are a personal rabbit hole of mine), and once you get past their habit of creating sensationalist headlines, you can usually get a pretty good read. It’s as if Carl’s Jr (Hardees for you heathens who happen to live west of Utah) started advertising their burgers as the GREATEST FUCKING THING EVER. You know it’s bullshit, but the food is still pretty good.

One of the thoughts that did come to mind, though, was that the left-hand image above, which accompanied that Io9 cyborg article, reminded me a whole hell of a lot of the Swiss industrial/electronica/metal group Sybreed and the cover art for their single Challenger (which is on the right). Maybe it was the whole gas mask/face mask imagery. Consider yourselves blessed that I didn’t go with my original reaction, which was that the image reminded me of the video for Nine Inch Nail’s Pinion off of the Broken release. Although, then I could’ve done a whole article on the merits of bondage and BDSM. Perhaps we should save that for another time… Continue reading »

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