Album Reviews

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    Spectral Lore / Locust Leaves – Split (2012)

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    Keeping busy this 2012, the one man project Spectral Lore delivers another excellent Black Metal release with their split album with fellow Greeks Locust Leaves. Continuing with their highly refined brand of music presented in their latest full-length “Sentinel”, they deliver a crushing 15-minute track that covers half of this excellently packaged release on Order of Theta Records.

    Immediately delivering their aural assault, Spectral Lore opens the split release with a crushing track titled “Duty”. For the span of fifteen minutes the band’s excellent guitar work gives us that Primordial vibe, but with a heavier Black Metal orientation. The singing is as brutal as ever, but it’s the small details the song structure that makes this track engaging. With a several tempo changes, epic atmospheric keyboards, and a pulsating bass guitar line, the band shows again their strength in crafting restless tracks that are very diverse and engaging.

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    Midnight – Complete and Total Hell (2012)

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    After not getting enough of Midnight with their debut full-length release “Satanic Royalty”, this compilation delivers 21 catchy songs that spawn all their pre full-length debut years (eight years and several EP’s and splits). Hailing from Cleveland (WTF), this band is one of the catchiest and most engaging Black/Speed/Heavy Metal bands these days, no other Black’n’Roll band comes close to them.

    Covering their complete early catalogue (minus few tracks), this release shows an interesting progression in the band’s sound (and recording quality). Track like “All Hail Hell”, “I Am Violator”, “Long Live Death”, and “Endless Slut” have that nasty sound and a very sleazy vibe to them, just like one would expect from a truck driver hanging out at a high-school female volleyball game.

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    Red Moon Architect – Concealed Silence (2012)

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    After blowing us away with their youtube trailers for this album, we had to reach out to the band’s label and try to get hooked up with this release to enjoy its excellence and communicate it to the masses. Red Moon Architect’s debut full-length titled “Concealed Silence” could not come at a better time when similar bands like Swallow The Sun, Black Sun Aeon, Insomnium, etc. are paving the way for more Finish Melodic Death/Doom acts to get recognized.

    This one man project headed by Saku Moilanen of RoutaSielu fame, opens with the commanding “Abscond”. This very Doomy track features very powerful riffs and killer growls courtesy of session musician Frans Aalto. While the first track is short and sweet, it crates the right momentum with its melodic sections giving a very Insomnium/Swallow the Sun vibe but with its own direction and uniqueness.

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    Silent Leges Inter Arma – Silent Leges Inter Arma (2012)

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    Hailing from Germany, today we have a very interesting sounding Black/Death Metal band named “Silent Leges Inter Arma” and their self-title debut release. While this band has no ‘fancy’ elements on their music, their song writing abilities makes their sound be old school and brutal while still having some modern elements that makes them very unique sounding. If this sounds weird, just imagine Sepultura circa “Morbid Visions” with modern BM elements.

    Starting with a very average track titled “We Are”, the band kind of has a pattern in the opening songs of this release of one average track followed by a good one, seems weird it turned out this way (or we liked the album this way). “Falcon-Headed One” delivers quite powerful growls and very interesting guitar work. Here you can perfectly notice the band’s weird and unique sound that makes them different from the rest, maybe comparable to bands like Secrets of The Moon and such in terms of their guitar work.

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    Germ – Loss (2012)

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    After Germ’s impressive debut “Wish”, released earlier in March 2012 by Eisenwald as well, we are totally blown away at how much a band’s sound can mature and such a short time and with “Loss”, this one-man project delivers 36-minutes of lush and deranged Black Metal with countless influences and a huge atmospheric component. Lead by the Aussie Tim Yatras, better known for his work in Austere, Grey Waters and Woods of Desolation, this new project brings forth an amazing musical proposal that countless bands have danced around, but never quite got it this perfect.

    Moving a bit away from the psycho-sexual electronics of “Wish”, “Loss” takes things to a whole new dimension and produces some of the best atmospheric passages we have ever heard, with some brilliantly introduced electronic splashes. Opening with the heartfelt “My Only Hope”, we get very solemn vocals and excellent mixture of piano with atmospheric elements that nicely culminates very dramatically, lush, and brutal.

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    Doro – Raise Your Fist (2012)

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    The queen of Metal Doro Pesch is back with yet another killer release that comes very close to trumping Accepts “Stalingrad” as the top Heavy Metal release of 2012. Doro is one of the most active and fan devoted musicians in Metal and the collection of heavy hitting hits delivered in “Raise Your Fist” is a true treat for anybody that has been following her since her days with Warlock.

    Opening with the heavy-hitter “Raise Your Fist In The Air”, Doro sets the bar very high which such an energetic and catchy song. We can totally picture thousands of people raising their firsts and going crazy with this epic anthem on a live festival show. While ALL the songs in this release are excellent, the next highlight comes under the name of “It Still Hurts”, a power-ballad duet with none other than Lemmy from Motörhead. While we don’t get to hear his traditional raspy vocals, we still get a pretty unique and different side of his talents alongside Doro, what more can we ask for.

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    Holy Knights - Between Daylight and Pain (2012)

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    Returning after a 10 year absence, today we have Italy’s Holy Knights and their very exciting release “Between Daylight and Pain”. In case you thought that there aren’t enough Power Metal bands, Holy Knights returns to deliver eight tracks that are indeed very well crafted, but sound like a ‘light’ version of Rhapsody and similar bands.

    Since the rich opener “Mistery”, the band immediately sends the message that they have great musicians, excellent production values, and solid composition skills. The bombastic elements of their songs remind us a lot of Rhapsody of Fire and their explosiveness when it comes to symphonic elements. The vocals of Dario Di Matteo remind us a bit of Fabio Leone, making them actually quite good in our book. The first few songs deliver quite a hectic pace and very well crafted guitar solos like on “Beyond the Mist”, but it is the melodic sections that make this song (and release) more appealing than your average Power Metal release.

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    Freitod – Regenjahre (2012)

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    Delivering a very interesting combination of Black Metal with some Gothic/Dark Metal elements, today we have Germany’s Freitod and their sophomore release “Regenjahre”. This journey through seven tracks and 52 minutes of brilliantly crafted music is a very unique one since the band keeps a perfect balance between harsh and aggressive Black Metal brush strokes and highly melancholic overtones creating a lush Post-Black Metal experience.

    The album start with the title track and the band immediately sets the mood with excellent guitar work and a very catchy pace. The melodic aspect of Freitod is excellent and on tracks like this one they use it perfectly. Combining crushing harsh vocals with dreamy Gothic Metal/Rock clean vocal sections the band creates a very unique and melancholic atmosphere. The band further uses these tools to contrast the brutality of their Black Metal roots with their lush melancholic side, and tracks like “Der Traumsturm” and “Neue Wege” are clear examples of this.

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    Peacemaker – 3 Song Sampler (2012)

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    Hailing from the UK today we have a very entertaining and highly effective Doom Metal band named “Peacemaker”. With their debut 3 song sampler/demo, the band shows they have the riffing chops to craft engaging Doom Metal tracks that do not put you too sleep. Keeping their sound very traditional and compact, this band is one of the most promising up-and-coming Doom bands we have heard this 2012.

    Opening with a riff very reminiscent of My Dying Bride, “Dead Man’s Keys” opens this short but sweet release with a bang. The band does a great job in creating catchy riffs and introduces very well timed tempo changes during this song. The vocals perfectly fit the music, and keep the band away from the traditional whiny or growling vocals, but rather good spoken sections and some harsh screams that are not too intense to overshadow the song’s musical foundations.

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    Sylosis – Monolith (2012)

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    Greatly improving on their already impressive 2011 release “Edge of the Earth”, today we have Sylosis and their latest album “Monolith”. In this eleven track beast of an album, the band further refines their killer ‘Melodic Thrash Metal’ sound with even better crafted songs and heaps of killer guitar riffs. The band’s mastermind Josh Middleton has done a great job in crafting a very unique sound that is familiar to Metal fans, but it is also completely different from everybody else in Metal.

    Setting a melancholic mood with the opener “Out From Below”, Sylosis quickly delivers the usual dosage of Thrash Metal riffs that nicely transform into brilliant melodic passages, particularly the brilliant closing to this song. There are a few hints of ‘Modern Metal’ included in tracks like “Fear The World” and “What Dwells Within” that give the band a Gojira kind of edge, not bad, but maybe alarming in the future.

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