Album Reviews

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Neurosis – Enemy of the Sun (2010)  Reissue

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    With the upcoming 25th anniversary of Neurosis, the band has decided to reissue one of their most influential masterpieces: “Enemy of the Sun”. If you remember going back to 1993, or at any point when you first listening to this crushing release, you will know how epic this album was, and how it changed the way a lot of people listened/viewed “Metal” music.

    This 2010, Neurot recordings has put out another reissue of this epic masterpiece. The first reissue was back in 1999, and the current ‘2010 edition’ features a redesigned package made by Josh Graham. And it also includes two added tracks: “Takeahnse (demo version)” and “Cleanse II” (Live in Oberhausen). As one of the first experimental masterpieces of Metal, “Enemy of the Sun” is one of those releases that every Metal connoisseur must have in their collection.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Trigger the Bloodshed – Degenerate (2010) 

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    As a snake shedding its skin, today we have Trigger the Bloodshed shedding its Deathcore skin and showing us their new Technical/Brutal Death Metal side. Album after album, this band has been making small progress into crafting a powerful and brutal sound that does not sound weak or cloned.

    With “Degenerate”, Trigger the Bloodshed provides us 36 minutes of catchy-yet-brutal Death Metal that will make you want to headbang since minute 1 of this album. The band has paid more attention to the songwriting aspect of “Degenerate” and has crafted songs that are cohesive and well designed to exploit the heavy riffing and inhuman vocals.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    City of Fire – City of Fire (2010)

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    Featuring Fear Factory’s Burton and Stroud, City of Fire has been around since 2008 and their self-titled release has been available to buy from the band’s site for quite a while now, but it’s finally getting a proper release date of August 24th, by Candlelight Records. This re-release includes three newly recorded bonus tracks: "Children of the Revolution”, "Last Wish", and "Dark Tides Revisited”, all of which we did not receive in our promo copy so will not be talking about them.

    As you can imagine, Burton vocals are what makes this release very engaging for any fans of Metal and Hard Rock music. His characteristic pipes provide all the emotion needed for such a genre-combining release. The band’s music is not your typical “Metal” album and will surely puzzle some of Fear Factory’s biggest fans. But after a few spins, “City of Fire” comes out as a very enjoyable hard-rocking commercially-friendly release that features a group of great musicians doing exactly what they do best: great and catchy music.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Blood of Kingu – Sun in the House of the Scorpio (2010)

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    Being a side project from members of Ukrainian underground legends Hate Forest and Drudkh, we expected a very atmospheric and epically raw Black Metal album that would be worthy of Roman Saenko. However, in “Sun in the House of the Scorpio” we get a mixed bag of raw and aggressive Black Metal that is much unlike Hate Forest and Drudkh.

    Yes, Blood of Kingu is brutal and aggressive but the atmospheric elements are highly inconsistent. We sometimes get some interesting atmospheric elements in the way of chants on songs like “Incantation of He Who Sleeps” but they are usually drowned by the dullness of the riffing. The rest of the songs also feature nice highlights but they all get killed by the overall dullness behind the music.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Armagedon – Death Then Nothing (2010)

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    Finally making its way to North America, today we have Armagedon’s second full-length album “Death Then Nothing”. For a band that was broken up for around 12 years (from 1994 to 2006), they sure do a great job in bringing back their in-you-face Death Metal style that is constantly tried to be mimicked by young bands these days.

    With all the current DM kiddies trying to copy old bands, it’s nice and refreshing to actually hear an old band kicking ass and taking names with a refined ‘old school style’ music that will make legions of DM fans start headbanging since track 1. As you can imagine Armagedon is nothing close to be ‘innovative’, but they excel at the basics.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Thy Disease – Anshur-Za (2009)

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    With a very unconventional sound today we have Thy Disease, a Polish band that will surely turn heads when you are blasting this release through your car stereo or out in your back yard. Starting off a second place finish in Poland’s “Metal Millennium Party” back in 1999, Thy Disease has released 5 full-length albums in over 10 years and it’s finally making its way to America through Armoury Records.

    With a very rich mixture of elements in their music, Thy Disease will surely make an impact as one of the bands with one of the most interesting styles in the Metal scene these days. In “Anshur-Za”, the band combines Death/Black Metal elements with some Industrial/Electronic sounds and some interesting chorus sections (featuring clean vocals) that will surely make you scratch your head more than one.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Votum – Metafiction (2010)

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    As soon as we saw that Votum’s second full-length album was promoted for fans of Opeth, Anathema and Porcupine Tree, we immediately took out the CD from its packaging and started listening to this promising release. To our surprise, Votum actually delivers on the promise of being compared to the previously mentioned legendary bands.

    Hailing from Poland, Votum has been around since 2002 and (from what we have heard) has been evolving from Heavy Metal into the mystical genre of Progressive Metal/Rock in the last years. We immediately identify with Votum’s music since it’s well crafted and atmospheric enough to draw our attention away from whatever else we are doing while reviewing music (playing MW2 mostly).

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Burden of Grief – Follow the Flames (2010)

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    When we first got this promo album all tracks where garbled up with the bonus CD of the limited edition version that contains 8 cover tracks. While listening to this promo, we would get one song from the actual “Follow the Flames” album and the next one would be a totally random cover song, making this band seem bipolar or something like that. Now that we have arranged them correctly, we hear that Burden of Grief plays a very mean Melodic Death Metal, and that the cover CD is VERY different from what this band is actually capable off.

    There are countless of Melodic Death Metal bands these days and it’s hard to find good new bands that will stick together for the long run and make decent music in the process. This is where Burden of Grief comes in, the band has released 4 albums in a span of ten years and seem to be constant enough to not be going anywhere anytime soon.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Darkseed – Poison Awaits (2010)

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    Ever since their classic “Midnight Solemnly Dance”, Darkseed has been on a constant quest of evolving as a band and has matured musically a great deal into how they sound now, on their latest album “Poison Awaits”. The band’s long time vocalist Stefan Hertrich decided to leave the band in 2006, and from what it looks the band was idle for two years until 2008, when Thomas Herrmann, Tom Gilche, Maurizio Guolo, and Armin Dörfler decided to get the Darkseed ball rolling again.

    With ex-drummer Harald Winkler stepping up for singing duties, the band has managed to retain their traditional sound and we think that they actually improved over their previous releases. Harald’s vocals are very diverse and his deep clean sections are reminiscent of Lacrimas Profundere and similar Gothic Rock bands.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Doomshine – The Piper at the Gates of Doom (2010)

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    Epic Doom Metal is a genre that has been getting little to no attention in the last few years. With only sparse releases by While Heaven Wept, Candlemass, and others, we can count with two hands the albums that have been released in the last 2 years. Doomshine hailing from Sweden adds their contribution to the mix with a crushing release names “The Piper at the Gates of Doom”.

    As you can expect from any Epic Doom Metal release, chugging down-tempo riffing, epic singing and tight drumming is exactly what the doctor ordered. Doomshine pretty much excels in every single department and created 73 minutes of crushing music that will please even the pickiest fans of Candlemass and similar bands.

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