Album Reviews

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    Lava Engine – In Limbo (2010)

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    In a day that almost everybody is doing what has worked for somebody else, playing it safe and avoiding any kind of creativity seems to be the typical approach ‘new’ bands take to making music. Luckily for us Lava Engine actually tries to craft their own unique sound and actually manage to create pretty solid compositions with intricate musical palettes that sound very well when mixed in together.

    Hailing from Sweden, Lava Engine brilliantly merges Progressive Metal elements with some ‘Symphonic’ elements and creates a very uniquely sounding Experimental Metal sound that many bands will surely envy. The band’s combination of powerful riffs, keyboard arrangements, and well crafted vocal lines, carries their second EP “In Limbo” from start till finish and hopefully lands them a record deal.

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    Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini (2010)

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    The masters of Progressive/Experimental Black Metal return with a super impressive release that tops anything they have done before this album. With “Axioma Ethica Odini”, Enslaved shows no signs of slowing down, compromising, or playing it safe. The band maintains the high musical standards they set with “Isa”, “Ruun”, and “Vertebrae”, and manage to push things a bit further on this long-awaited release.

    It has been years since we liked a Black Metal release as much as “Axioma Ethica Odini”, and through our listening experience of this brilliant album we can’t avoid using comparisons to Borknagar’s “Olden Domain”, Primordial’s “A Journey's End”, and Enslaved’s “Isa” among other is in terms of musicianship and innovation for their time. While there are many Psychedelic, Progressive and Experimental elements in “Axioma Ethica Odini”, the core roots of the album emanate from well made and aggressive Black Metal that is non-compromising and never feels watered down, but rather enriched by these elements.

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    October Falls – A Collapse of Faith (2010)

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    October Falls is one of our favorite bands of all time and they have returned with their 3rd full-length album “A Collapse of Faith”. The band plays a mean mixture of Black/Dark Metal with Folk elements unlike anybody else these days, just imagine if early Ulver, Empyrium and Tehni had a genetically engineered of spring.

    As in the same vein of “The Womb of Primordial Nature”, the band crafts epic songs that will transport you to a dark world filled with nature, helplessness and pain. All through a hefty dosage of distorted guitars, surgically precise drumming and majestic acoustic passages that will haunt you till the rest of your life. The atmosphere created for “A Collapse of Faith” is very haunting and unique, and when paired with M. Lehto’s shivering vocal performance you will surrender your soul to this majestic aural experience.

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    Wolfshade – When Above… (2010)

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    Every few months we get an album that completely takes us by surprise and we end up loving it and adding it to our permanent ‘all-time favorites’ playlist. This month the “When Above…” by the Wolfshade has achieved a spot for eternity in said playlist, featuring seven compositions of majestic Atmospheric Black Metal/Dark Metal, this one-man band is probably one of the best we have heard in quite a while.

    Kadhaas is the sole member behind Wolfshade, a French ‘band’ that has released three full-length albums to date and if “When Above…” is only their third release, we can only imagine how amazing their future albums will be. The band features influences from Dark Metal masters Bethlehem (vocals particularly), a hefty influence of Atmospheric elements, some Post-rock/Post-Black Metal elements, and some more Doom/Gothic oriented guitar/keyboard structures that create an ethereal atmosphere that will send chills through your spine.

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    The Empire Shall Fall – Awaken (2010)

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    Featuring ex-Killswitch Engage vocalist Jesse Leach, we were very weary about “Awaken” from The Empire Shall Fall. We never liked Jesse’s vocals on KSE and we also don’t like 95% of the Metalcore that bands put out these days, so we imaged that we would completely rip this album to shreds and call it a day. To our surprise we actually found and interesting sounding album with “Awaken”, an album that will put many of the current Metalcore shit to the ground and Tea-bag them all night long.

    Right of the bat, we still hate the vocals and we will not change our minds about them. The screams seem forced (like he has something up his ass), and the ‘growls’ seem weak in comparison to other dudes in the Deathcore/Metalcore circuit. Jesse’s clean vocals are as vanilla as they come, and there is nothing else to add about such a plain (and boring singer).

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    Angrepp – Warfare (2010)

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    Is nice to finally hear some Black/Thrash Metal that is not trying to sound too ‘oldschool’ or too brutal. Angrepp manages to perfectly Thrashy riffs, Punk-ish rhytms, and powerful vocals, creating a very thick sound that will surely please metal fans since the first couple of minutes of this CD.

    The opening song (after the Intro) “Five Horned Formation” wastes no time in establishing that the band’s riff machine is open for serious business. With a very powerful Thrashy opening riff, you will think that you are listening to the new Exodus, or something like that. After the initial impression settles, you will be quickly taken away by the surgically precise drumming that makes your head explode.

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    WAN – Wolves of the North (2010)

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    All the way from Sweden today we get WAN, a band that features a sound that will take you back to the ‘early’ days of Black Metal with their Bathory/Hellhammer influenced music. With a lo-fi production that will make some sound snobs cry, and fans of the ‘poor’ sounding music cheer. We think that there is a fine line between sounding ‘old-school’ and just ‘plain shitty’, and for “Wolves of the North” we have to lean on the ‘plain shitty’ category.

    The band takes us in a 13 tracks and 35 minutes long ride of dull sounding old-school Black Metal. After a few songs you will start wondering why they are signed and releasing such an unimaginative album. There are some ‘ok’ moments, but they quickly get dulled by the monotonous drum machine, random riffs, and reverbed vocals. There is not much to be rescued from this album besides a few riffs and some decent songs like “Ulvhall”, but the drumming makes them less than bearable.

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    Abigail Williams – In the Absence of Light (2010)

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    Abigail Williams, one of the most promising North American bands is back with “In the Absence of Light”, a very dominant second full-length release. After tons of line-up changes, and loosing the very talented Ashley Ellyllon to Cradle of Filth, the band manages to maintain some of its bombastic sound from before and unleashes a guitar-driven Symphonic/Melodic Black Metal attack unlike any other band in North America has ever done before.

    Before people start hating on this band, we will mention that they do sound like Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, etc, etc, etc, and that the band did have some ‘American’ Deathcore/Metalcore influences. However, the band with “In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns” did craft some pretty nifty Symphonic Black Metal songs that are only rivaled by their European counterparts. The band also sounded completely different to the whole USBM scene since AW used a more symphonic and ‘European’ sounding style. Because of these reasons we do respect and actually like (very much) AW and their powerful sound.

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    Accept – Blood Of The Nations (2010)

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    The German Heavy Metal monsters are finally back with their first studio album in 14 years and with a new vocalists that while not as good as respected as Udo, he holds his own at the helm of such a legendary band. Accept has managed to combine some of their old day’s magic with a fresh sound that sounds better than anybody else in the Heavy Metal scene.

    For the first time in years we can notice that Wolf Hoffmann and Peter Baltes managed to get their shit together and craft an epic album worthy of the Accept moniker. And by recruiting Mark Tornillo as the vocalist they managed to get a vocalist that we are sure nobody, except the hardcore Udo fanboys, will be complaining about since his performance is better than expected.

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    Christian Mistress – Agony & Opium (2010)

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    After receiving “Ganjahovahdosed” from The White Mice last October, we can’t really know what to expect from the label 20 Buck Spin. This month we got an equally cool, but completely different release with Christian Mistress “Agony & Opium”, the band’s long-awaited debut album. Featuring 6 hard rocking Heavy Metal tracks, you will surely be blown away by the band’s effectiveness in creating catchy and powerful melodies.

    Coming from Olympia, Washington (also the label’s headquarters), Christian Mistress is surely set to take the American Heavy Metal by surprise with their guitar driven songs. The bands dueling guitarists do an awesome job in crafting the perfect back bone for Christine Davis raspy vocals. With less than 30 minutes of music the band makes a great introductory statement with this brilliant release.

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