As you probably know, we are huge Doom Metal fans, so every time a new release comes our way we prepare ourselves to fully enjoy one of our favorite genres in Metal. “Born from Shadows” marks the return of Isole after two years since releasing “Silent Ruins”. In this release the band finally fully convinces us by mixing slow and painful sections with a few speed-ups and harsh screams, a bit like My Dying Bride did in their past.

The repetitive and tuned low riffing is a must, and on “Born from Shadows” it is perfectly developed. With the opener “The Lake”, Isole quickly delivers dominating riffs paired with the epic vocals that we are not quite so fond, but in this release the band pulls them off perfectly. The speed up and harsh vocals section in this track is very nicely timed and works wonders to keep the song going for the seven minutes it lasts.

Is there something in the water? Or are too many people having drugs and Jim Beam infused benders and then decided to play Southern Rock music? We quite can’t point a finger at it, but tons of bands have decided to play this kind of music with some Metal elements. Lonely Kamel is the next entry in this list, and while hailing from Norway, they still manage to pull it off very nicely.

Since the eloquently titled “Grim Reefer” opening track, the band delivers waves of Southern Rock/Sludge guitar riffs and very engaging vocals. The raspy vocals nicely fit the sound of the music perfectly and remind us of bands like The New Black, Black River, and Chrome Division. “Evil Man”, “Blues for the Dead”, and “Rotten Seed” all keep the same trend of punchy music and witty lyrics, allowing the album to nicely settle following a particular groove.

With its latest incarnation, Visions of Atlantis delivered earlier this year one of their best albums to date with “Delta”. In “Maria Magdalena” follows the same path of showing off the amazing vocal chemistry of Maxi Nil and Mario Plank. Featuring six songs, this new MCD will keep fans satisfied after listening to “Delta” hundreds of times.

The opening track of this release “Maria Magdalena” is a cover of 80’s synth-pop artist Sandra, and it is actually a pretty decent and listenable cover. The tempo of the song has been nicely increased and with added distorted guitars sounds like a million dollars. The duet between Mario and Maxi is very similar to the original song, but with that nice Metal edge we expect from this band. The catchy chorus section is also nicely transferred to the VoA sound.

As the saying goes: “if you want stuff done right, do it yourself”, Hoest delivers us the latest and finest Taake album to date: “Noregs Vaapen”. Featuring the traditional Norwegian Black Metal that we all love from the band plus a few surprises here and there, Hoest has greatly enhance the aural power of the band’s raw and aggressive sound.  Delivering waves of brutal Black Metal for over 46 minutes, Taake shows no signs of aging and continues to be one of the best Black Metal bands in the world.

Opening with some traditional BM guitar work, “Fra Vadested Til Vaandesmed” delivers waves of BM pleasure. The brutal yet rhythmical drumming is one of the main trademarks of the old-school Norwegian BM sound, and on this track (and album) is one of the best elements. Hoest vocals are as hellish as usual and the speed-ups in this track are excellent. Keeping a similar atmosphere “Orkan” and “Nordbundet” keep the album flowing very effectively with some melodic sections that nicely blend into the brutality of this release.

There are tons and tons of Black Metal bands these days, but it is very hard to find the ones that manage to deliver and original album that keeps you wanting for more. Farsot managed to achieve that with their previous release “IIII”, and now with “Insects” the band proves that they are not a one-album kind of band. Playing Black Metal with an edge of Doom and Post-Metal, “Insects” is by far one of the most interesting and different sounding albums this 2011.

“Like Flakes of Rust” opens this release with an atmospheric section followed by heavy guitars and very desolate vocals. Here you can start noticing that while music is aggressive, there is just something that makes it different from the cookie cutter bands (like the subtle bass guitar in this track). “Empyrean” delivers a very effective atmospheric section with nicely distorted guitars and some amazing clean vocals in the same vein as Ulver and similar bands. The riffing is excellent and nicely creates a very powerful atmosphere without being completely on your face.

Being huge fans of Melodic Death Metal, we are always excited when a good band finally returns with an impressive release. Cipher System’s last release was back in 2004 with “Central Tunnel 8”, and with “Communicate the Storms” they have returned with a very effective Melodic Death Metal sound that can easily position them among the best in 2011.

Featuring ex-members of Anata and Nightrage, Cipher System delivers 10 tracks of unpretentious Melodic DM in a similar fashion to genre legends: Dark Tranquility. There are almost no fancy elements in this release, just a solid foundation of catchy riffing, atmospheric keyboards, tight drumming and very direct vocals. There is no need to re-invent the wheel, and Cipher system excels at creating a very traditional but effective sound that will appeal to any fan of the genre.

Two years have passed after releasing the excellent “Vigilance” and one of Canada’s finest returns with their new release “Threat Signal”. We are extremely divided when it comes to this release since the music is excellent, but some of the vocals are just WTF. So we kind of liked the album in the sense that Threat Signal has very nicely matured musically and all songs are just excellent, but when the Linkin Park style singing kicks in we just want to jump of the balcony.

Opening very powerfully with “Uncensored”, the band delivers well crafted guitar riffs and tight drums, courtesy of two of the band’s newest members: Chris Feener and Alex Rudinger respectively. However, the band things really start showing when the clean ‘modern Metal/nu Metal’ clean vocals make their appearance. There are of course harsh screams to kind of balance things out but it is not enough to eliminate the bad taste. We can also listen to an edge of Gojira and Fear Factory in the sound of this release, and when paired with excellent solos, the music alone is truly entertaining and very good.