Album Reviews

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Mr. Death – Detached From Life (2009)

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    Did I put it the right CD?, am I hearing things?, old school Death Metal done correctly?. Mr. Death feels like a band that was put in hibernation for 20 years and they are finally releasing their debut album “Detached From Life”.

    Featuring some members of Treblinka/Tiamat and Expulsion, Mr. Death makes a solid debut that shows that old school DM is timeless.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Temple Of Baal - Lightslaying Rituals (2009)

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    Featuring members of Glorior Belli ( one of the best French Black Metal bands that I have reviewed recently) Temple of Baal plays some mean straight up Black Metal that many bands trying to be too ‘cult’ or overly symphonic need to pay attention to.

    My instant thought for comparison of this band is with Lord Belial, they both share the same approach to Black Metal, and I love it. The both play stripped down to the basics Black Metal that does not need the ‘we need to sound like shit to be evil’ production or the required tremolo picking riffs galore that makes you head hurt after a few songs.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Vetus Obscurum - Blood Revelations (2009)

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    Who ordered a cup of bad and uninspired Black Metal?, apparently Debemur Morti did when signing up to release “Blood Revelations”. This is another example of a band that sounds amazing on paper: Dario Derna from Abazagorath, Evoken, Funebrarum, etc on ALL instruments, Herb Burke (Drawn and Quartered) on ‘omega’ voice and Mike Nihilist (ex-Abazagorath, etc) on the ‘alpha’ voice.

    All of these names sound good on paper, but then you actually listen to the album you see that things don’t quite work out that way. Maybe it’s the annoying ‘out in the woods’ shitty sound with the intention of sounding more grim and ‘evil’. It can also be the aimless direction most songs take making them feel like bits and pieces pasted together for the sake of releasing something.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Ruins – Front The Final Foes (2009)

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    This Aussie band is back after one year to spread their musical sickness through another very solid and release. “Front The Final Foes” feels like the perfect continuation to “Cauldron”.

    The band’s guitar sound is what drew me to their last album “Cauldron” and it’s still one of the first things that stand out when listening to this release. While all the songs do not sound extremely original, the band does a great job at creating a thick sounding Black Metal that is neither technical or complex, but it’s highly effective in achieving that ‘in your face’ effect that many bands fail at.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    White Mice – Ganjahovahdose (2009)

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    For a person that has never done drugs, I have a hard time imagining what would it feel to be on crack or on an acid trip, but now thanks to White Mice I have both a visual and an aural experience of what I think it would come close to it.

    “Ganjahovahdose” is the band’s sixth full length album and it’s a very very very weird one. This Rhode Island outfit has been terrorizing the masses since 2001 and I assume they have gotten weirder and weirder in every release.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Whiplash – Unborn Again (2009)

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    When I first got this promo I thought it was a joke since this band has been ‘dead’ for over 10 years, but after doing some research I found out that in fact is the ‘original’ Whiplash from New Jersey.

    I must say that I have very mixed feeling about “Unborn Again”, since I think the release is perfectly timed with the current ‘revival’ of the whole Trash Metal sound, but it fails to deliver in some aspects that I will discuss in the next few paragraphs.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Way To End – Desecrated Internal Journey (2009)

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    As the album title states, this is a true journey into a very complex and multi-layered released that reeks of brilliance. Starting with a pretty weak intro I imagined I was in for another boring and pointless release, but once the first song it’s done, “A Step Into The Void” hits you in the face like a bag of bricks and the album never let’s go.

    There are some many things going on at once to fully understand what’s going on, but once you settle with the bands sound (kind of like Deathspell Omega at points), you are ready to fully digest the complexity of this deranged trip.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Tenebrae In Perpetuum - L’Eterno Maligno Silenzio (2009)

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    Hailing from Italy, Tenebrae In Perpetuum plays (as you can imagine) old school Black Metal. As you can also expect there is nothing ground breaking about this band or the album itself, but…. I don’t think that the band has never set out to re-shape a musical genre or be pioneers in anything. This review is also not a bad one, so keep reading.

    The band manages to re-create that bone chilling old school BM sound with perfection and throw a few things here and there to complement it. The traditional tremolo picking riffs are present from beginning to end of the album and they are very efficient in creating a bleak atmosphere.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    The Company Band – The Company Band (2009)

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    After listening to several bad releases this weekend it was kind of refreshing to get an album that features a ‘super star’ band playing straight up Rock.

    The Company Band features Neil Fallon of Clutch on vocals, Jess Margera of CKY on drunks and Brad Davis of Fu Manchu on bass guitar. But the band it’s not just names, they manage to create very catchy music that will please anybody that like Rock.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Epica – Design Your Universe (2009)

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    “Design Your Universe” is probably one of the most expected albums of 2009 based on the momentum Epica has been building up since the release of “The Divine Conspiracy” two years ago. This momentum has been helped with endless touring and a live album released in the mean time.

    This album clearly shows that Epica’s success was not a matter of chance or anything and that the band is here to stay. “Design Your Universe” is a good improvement over “The Divine Conspiracy” and a worthy next step in their career, since this album is somewhat better than their previous releases. But here comes the ‘but’ in this last statement; the band does not offer much new in terms of ‘freshness’ to their sound.

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