Album Reviews

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    October File – Our Souls To You (2010)

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    With their very interesting and modern sounding mixture of hardcore, industrial metal and even some metalcore-ish influences, October File is back with “Our Souls To You”. The band’s third full-length release and we must say a very shitty one. Featuring two mixes of the tracks in this album, to us it indicates that the band was not fully satisfied with the end result and decided to let the fans pick the one they like the best.

     “Our Souls To You” is a ‘good’ album for the first two songs, and later you discover that is the same stuff over and over (and we don’t mean because of the ‘double’ tracks featuring different mix). With “Holy Armour from the Jaws of God” the band left off in a high note, but with this new release it feels they forgot how to make good music.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Mouth Of The Architect – The Violence Beneath (2010)

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    American Sludge Metal monsters are back with “The Violence Beneath”, a four song EP that features two new songs, a live song and a cover of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”. While we feel that this EP does a good job to create anticipation for the band’s future full-length release, an anticipation that is currently burning inside us, since we really enjoy Mouth Of The Architect’s (MOTA) releases.

    Two years have passed since their crushing album “Quietly” and we were wondering what was going out with MOTA. With the two new tracks “The Violence Beneath” and “Buried Hopes” we get a nice continuation from where the band left off with “Quietly”.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Tarot – Gravity Of Light (2010)

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    The charismatic Marco Hietala brings us the ninth full-length release of his first band: Tarot. While this band is widely recognized in Finland and Europe, the band has been relatively unknown in the USA. With Marco’s popularity increase since he joined Nightwish in 2001, and his work with Northen Kings, Tarot is finally getting the worldwide spotlight they deserve.

    Playing Heavy Metal, Tarot is a band that has always released good albums over the years. “Gravity Of Light” is another one of their solid releases and if you like Marco’s voice, you need no other reason to get this release (even though he does not sign as much as we wish). The band’s music has always been ‘standard’ and we might even argue that feels a bit tired after nine releases that sound very much alike.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Great Awakening – Hit n Run (2009)

     

    Jumping on the Trash revival bandwagon we have Great Awakening from the USA. Having formed in Florida in 2006, the band does a great job in bringing the good-old days of Trash back. Great Awakening’s music is very decent for a Trash Metal release, but they do not offer any edge that would allow us to consider them a force to be reckoned with.

    Their 2009 demo titled “Hit n’ Run” showcase 3 very decent songs Trashy songs that have the old-school vibe, but are missing some soul and originality to them. While we don’t expect every band to re-invent the wheel, we do expect some level of originality when it comes to playing a genre that has been around for over 20 years.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Scarred – Haunting Memories (2010)

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    Next up we have Scarred and their Power Metal music with “Haunting Memories”, their latest EP. Hailing from the USA the band does a great job at incorporating influences from Metal Church and even the all-mighty Savatage into their sound. The album features 24 minutes of nicely composed songs that sound fresh compared to what most Power Metal bands are doing these days.

    Without exploiting the ‘let’s play as fast as we can’ approach, the band creates solid songs that feature ‘slower’ but crushing riffs. Sometimes they even sound a bit like Doom/Stoner Metal bands, and we totally dig this different approach to a genre that is full of virtuosos showing off.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Sabbath Assembly - Restored to One (2010)

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    With a highly elaborate theological foundation we have Sabbath Assembly, a gathering of musicians featuring Jex Thoth. Following the ideologies of Process Church of the Final Judgment a cult from the 60’s and 70’s, Sabbath Assambly’s “Restored to One” is a ‘re-charging’ of this cult’s hymns and brought to the general audience in form of psychedelic rock songs.

    We love anything that has to do with theology, and especially stuff about cults so “Restored to One” is a very interest release for us. The whole idea of having three great gods of the universe in Jehovah, Lucifer and Satan, sound like a crack-pot theory that my friend would cook up during an acid trip. However, not all ideas behind the Process Church were as crazy as this one.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Thulcandra – Fallen Angel’s Dominion (2010)

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    Fronted by Steffen Kummerer from Obscura, today we have a very impressive band from Germany. Thulcandra comes with the slogan of “the heirs to Dissection’s throne” and this could not be any more accurate. The band excels at making Death/Black Metal music unlike anybody these days.

    The influences of Dissection and Emperor are clearly present, but the band takes this further with their own technical abilities. For a band that has been together since 2004, and has never release a full-length, “Fallen Angel’s Dominion” is an impressive achievement.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Necronomicon - The Return Of The Witch (2010)

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    After an absence of 6 years, we finally get a new release from Canadian Necronomicon. Since the impressive “The Sacred Medicines” the band has been lurking in the shadows, but finally they make their big label debut with “The Return Of The Witch” out on Napalm Records.

    Necronomicon combines straight-up Death Metal with some melodic influences. However, the band sounds nothing like all the Melodic DM bands these days. Their music is very brutal and less flashy than other bands. They have also added some minor Black Metal influences in the riffing, but nothing major and it’s just to enrich the band’s brutal sound.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Enforcer – Diamonds (2010)

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    After a very well received “Into the Night”, Enforcer is back with their 80’s inspired Heavy Metal, and with “Diamonds” they manage to pick up where they left off two years ago. The band is clearly very influenced by the 80’s and they sound exactly if they traveled through time in order to show us how it was done back then.

    While some people might call them posers, we have to say that if the music is done correctly and it has the same feeling, then it does not matter that Enforcer is a flashback band, they kick ass and take names. Showcasing a perfect balance of Heavy/Trash Metal from the 80’s “Diamonds” is a pretty solid album that will make you want to dig out your favorite tapes and LP’s from those glory days.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Vektor – Black Future (2009)

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    With the logo calling for similarities from Voivod we were expecting a soulless clone of this band, but instead we found a very good Progressive Trash Metal American band that is set to make a name of their own. Hailing from Arizona, this quartet does a great job into mixing progressive elements with old-school Trash that will blow you away.

    While there are some Voivod influences, “Black Future” is an album that clearly stands out from all the ‘new’ Trash Metal releases these days. The riffing is the main driving force behind this release, but it’s perfectly crafted around complex song structures that are unlikely in many Trash releases.

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