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    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Corde Oblique – The Stones Of Naples (2009)

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    Corde Oblique is an Italian band that is the brainchild of Riccardo Prencipe who composes all the music, but in the recording of this album used the help of an impressive list of musicians (for more go to their site),  and when performing live he is helped by Claudia Sorvillo (vocals), Edo Notarloberti (violin), Alessio Sica (drums) and Umberto Lepore (bass) who also contributed in the album.

    The band plays acoustic music that is of the highest level of quality and beauty. I listen to and appreciate all kinds of music regardless if they are metal or not, and acoustic music is one of my favorites.  I really like bands like Antimatter, Brillig and Ashram just to name a few, and Corde Oblique is in the same alley.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Spheric Universe Experience – Unreal (2009)

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    Spheric Universe Experience (S.U.E for short) is a 5 man band from France that plays traditional Progressive Metal. “Unreal” is the band’s latest album that offers us 9 tracks, each one telling a story about different paranormal phenomena.

    The music of S.U.E sounds like a child of Dream Theater, Symphony X and <insert major Progressive metal band’s name here>. While not original in any way, the band is pretty good at mimicking the previously mentioned bands.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Tverd – Follow The Sun’s Way (2009)

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    I was completely blown away by this album since the first time I played it, and I have been listening to it ever since. Tverd is a Russian band that emerged from the band Pagan Reign, and they play some epic folk metal unlike other bands.

    The band’s sound is extremely bombastic and very rich in folk instruments that had me trying to figure out exactly what instruments they use for a few hours. From start to end this album provides us with epic songs filled with great vocals, an amazing array of instruments and traditional Metal elements.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Velvet Seal – Lend Me Your Wings (2009)

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    “Lend Me Your Wings” is the bombastic debut of Velvet Seal, a very good Gothic metal band from Hungary.  This album features 9 tracks providing 35 minutes of top notch Gothic metal that will definitely help this band get noticed and win them a great deal of fans.

    Velvet Seal’s sound is very well defined and perfectly executed, having clear influences of After Forever (riffs in “Torn Within”), as well as other established metal bands in the genre.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Hot Buttered Anal – Lies (2008)

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    Luckily Hot Buttered Anal sent this album in the same package as their first album so we avoided repeating the embarrassment of their mailing label (read the review of “Please Kill Me” for the full story).

    “Lies” artwork seems more conservative than the bands first album, but it still features interesting song names like: “We’re Not Retarded, Choke the Bitch and Duct Tape and Sausages. So we knew we were in for another journey thru this band’s demented collective brain.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Hot Buttered Anal – Please Kill Me (2007)

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    When we were first contacted by this band we were skeptical about their music since their name is pretty bizarre, but since we are pretty open minded and we link to review anything that is thrown at us, we sent out our mailing address to receive Hot Buttered Anal’s promo pack.

    The first moment of awkwardness came in the form of the 60 year old lady working at our PO BOX office handing up a package with a colorful Hot Buttered Anal mailing label on it, she is used to handing out packages with pentagrams and similar stuff on them, but never with a clearly legible name like this, anyways things have not been the same since, but enough with this story.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Idols Are Dead – Mean (2008)

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    Idols Are Dead are trying to take the USA by surprise with their very interesting mix of Trash metal, sleaze rock and some Metalcore hints. This Italian band manages to create interesting and modern sounding music that would appeal to fans of all of the previously mentioned genres and from all different age ranges in the metal community.

    All tracks in this album blast you away from start to finish. All songs are very simple in nature since most riffs are very basic, but extremely effective. The catchiness achieved by the melody in all songs is one of the best things this band has going for them.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Hypno5e - Des Deux L'une Est L'autre (2007)

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    Hypno5e is a French band that plays avant-garde / experimental metal. I get plenty of albums to review each month and I have not heard anything like this album in quite a while, and I don’t mean this in a bad way “Des Deux L'une Est L'autre” is a very interesting album from start to end.

    Since the first track Hypno5e sets the stage for a psychedelic voyage that the listeners are about to take. This album features a very good balance of ‘heavy’ metal parts with nice ambient passages that complement each other to perfection; the band has achieved a very unique balance of musical elements.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Anneke Van Giersbergen (with Agua de Annique)...Pure Air (2009)

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    This is not a metal album by any means, and you are probably wondering why are we reviewing it. Well, in our opinion Anneke has been one of the most influential female vocalists in Gothic Metal, since it propelled The Gathering into international stardom, and she has participated in countless projects as well with many well regarded musicians in the Metal community.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Ashes You Leave - Songs Of The Lost (2009)

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    Seven years!!, yes seven years have passed since “Ashes You Leave” released their last opus called “Fire”. While that album showed the band’s transition into a more Gothic influenced Death Doom Metal, it was still a masterpiece that is always in constant rotation on my Ipod, and checking right now with my Itunes library, it’s the most played album on my device.

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