Album Reviews

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    Domination through Impurity – Masochist (2010)

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    When it comes to Technical Death Metal, 2010 has been a great year; we got amazing releases from Pestifer and Decrepit Birth among others. “Masochist” is another album that will join these ranks since it will propel Domination through Impurity to the spotlight in this very crowded genre.

    Fronted by Joe Payne from Nile and Divine Heresy fame, we get a brilliant sophomore album that features traditional Death Metal roots with massive drumming and brilliant guitar acrobatics, showing that is more than the brutal bass player from the previously mentioned band, but a solid guitar player that can shred the shit out of an axe.

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    Dimmu Borgir – Abrahadabra (2010)

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    Just when many people thought that Dimmu Borgir will never be as good as in their “Enthrone Darkness Triumphant “ and “Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia”, we get “Abrahadabra”, another masterpiece from this Norwegian band. While the band’s musical quality had considerably decreased with “In Sorte Diaboli” and “Death Cult Armageddon”, they come back in full swing with an impressive symphonic masterpiece that puts almost everything that Mustis “wrote for the band” to shame.

    While many people will be crying and bitching about the Cradle of Filth comparisons, or that this album is too symphonic, blah, blah, blah, WE have to say that this is highly impressive stuff. The orchestration behind this release is, for lack of a better expression, ridiculously impressive. Everything sounds just right and helps build up a brilliant atmosphere that feels like a John Williams soundtrack on top of the traditional Dimmu Borgir sound. We have to recognize that Mustis did a good job before (especially in “Puritanical…”) but this is just ten steps ahead. With Gaute Storaas doing the orchestration of this album, he greatly helps in creating a truly diabolically haunting atmosphere (better than on “Death Cult Armageddon”).

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    Iron Fire – Metalmorphosized (2010)

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    Ever wonder how can you royally screw up the flow of an album?, just listen to Metalmorphosized and you will have the perfect example of how not too structure your release. Featuring 3 new songs (tracks 1, 3, 8 and 10) and 9 more from the band’s demos between 2001 and 2006, “Metalmorphosized” showcases Iron Fire’s metamorphosis in terms of sound between the years.

    Immediately you can notice that “Metalmorphosized” is a ‘stitched together’ release because the way the sound of the band changes between songs. The only common denominator of this release is the band’s signature Power Metal sound and Martin Steene’s characteristic vocals. The new songs are definetly better written (and sounding) than most of the band’s older stuff presented here, but the vocal ‘experiments’ get to be very annoying sometimes.

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    Kamelot – Poetry for the Poisoned (2010)

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    Three years after releasing “Ghost Opera”, Kamelot is finally back with a very different and ambitious album then ever before. The band steps aside of their traditional Power Metal roots and takes an exploratory journey with progressive elements. This creates a very dark and yet refined release that will most likely please most fans of the band, but will leave some in the dark.

    Our first impression of this album was not completely favorable since we expected something to sound more like older Kamelot releases. But upon exploring our 3rd, 4th, and 5th time we started to appreciate the album from its differences to older releases rather than the similarities. You will find the traditional vocal melodies of Roy, the impressive guitar work of Thomas, and all the other individual elements that make Kamelot a great band, but in different doses and with extra elements that elevate the band’s sound.

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    Hell Militia - Last Station on the Road to Death (2010)

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    Relentless and unpretentious are two words that immediately came to our minds when writing this review about Hell Militia’s latest effort “Last Station on the Road to Death”. The band features a wide variety of well-known Black Metal musicians of the ever growing French scene, and deserves worldwide attention because of their down-to-the-roots approach to mid-tempo Black Metal that will crush your soul after just a few minutes.

    After their powerful 2005 debut album “Canonisation of the Foul Spirit”, the band showed potential, but the elements were not completely aligned for them. Now, the band shows more musical maturity and a bigger focus on creating a nihilistic sound that never relies on 1000 bmp assaults or cheesy elements to create a sober atmosphere that Black Metal has been characteristic of in its early days.

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    Tenebrae in Perpetuum / Krohm – Split (2010)

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    Today we got a very raw and nihilistic split from Debemur Morti. Featuring two of the best Atmospheric Raw Black Metal bands of the recent years (unluckily Tenebrae in Perpetuum has decided to split-up). Clocking over 42 minutes of pure unadulterated atmospheric brutality, this split release features three songs from each band, and interestingly enough, almost every song is 7 minutes long (give or take).

    Kicking off the proceedings, we have Krohm and their three songs of very atmospheric and darkly constructed blasphemy. We particularly like how this one man band creates buildup in the first few minutes of each song and then it keeps the tension throughout the end. The vocals are a bit raspy and not extremely raw for us (unlike Tenebrae in Perpetuum), we also like that the music has many ‘traditional’ elements and keeps things on the Black Metal side of things but with a tick atmosphere.

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    Place of Skulls - As a Dog Returns (2010)

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    Tennessee doomsters Place of Skulls return with another traditional Doom Metal combined with Rock release that will surely take you by surprise thanks to its groovy riffing and brilliant guitar solos. The band formed by Victor Griffin of Death Row/Pentagram fame gives us 9 very interesting tracks that will have you listening to them more than once in order to understand them completely.

    As we listened to “As a Dog Returns”, we quickly identified a single issue that caused some confusion when listening to this album. The ordering of the songs is a bit odd and it tends to cut the flow of the album, creating a very uncomfortable but yet intriguing listening experience. The differences between “The Maker” and “Breath of Life” (tracks 1 and 2) are pretty drastic, since the first song opens things up in a groovy powerful fashion and the second one is more of a slower-paced ‘doomier’ song that kind of kills the flow of this release. This issue also happens further in the album, but if you don’t mind about the flow of a release then this should not be a problem for you.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Arsenic Addiction – An Undertaker’s Lament (2010)

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    With their 2009 release of “Requiem of the Fallen”, the band made a powerful statement that they are a force to be reckoned by combining powerful vocals, crushing guitars, and precise drumming with an equally interesting and interactive Victorian-themed live show. “An Undertaker’s Lament” is the bands latest release where they try to push things one step closer to national (and why not international) recognition.

    Starting with the atmospheric piece “Invocation”, Arsenic Addiction immediately shows considerable improvement when it comes to writing songs and creating catchy melodies within the first two songs in the album (“Lady Death” is the second one). Led by Lady Arsenic’s contrasting clean and growling vocals, the band has grown musically into crafting better songs that showcase her vocal abilities.

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

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    If you’ve been following Infernal Masquerade for a while, you should know that we are one of the biggest Amorphis fans ever. When this release was announced we had big smiles in our heads since after seeing the band perform this classic songs with the ‘latest’ line-up and completely blowing us away, we wanted to have them on studio-quality recording and blast them all day long, since 7 out of the 13 songs in this album are some of our favorites of all time.

    “Magic & Mayhem - Tales from the Early Years” features 12 songs (plus one bonus track) that have been re-recorded and somewhat re-arranged to fit the band’s current dynamic sound. These songs are taken from “The Karelian Isthmus”, “Tales from the Thousand Lakes”, and “Elegy” albums.

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    Nightfall - Astron Black and the Thirty Tyrants (2010)

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    When we where thinking where the hell have we heard of this band before, it immediately hit us that the band had a song (“Black Leather Cult”) in the epic “The Holy Bible” compilation album of Holy Records back in 1996. Fast-forward almost 14 years and, several releases and a brief break up and we have Nighfall back with only one of the original members: Efthimis Karadimas, now only on vocals.

    “Astron Black and the Thirty Tyrants” marks a very impressive release of this Greek band on Metal Blade Records. Since you start listening to this album, you immediately know that it will surely be an interesting experience. With a very interesting Melodic Black/Death Metal sound, the band quickly brings back of some of their older releases on Holy Records, because of the odd combination of powerful riffs, different vocals (clean and growls), and the elevated us of keyboards.

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