All the way from France, today we have Feu Gregeois debut album “Mortis Regnum – 2nd Circle”. Featuring an interesting combination of lush keyboard arrangements and traditional Death/Black Metal elements, this release marks for a very unpredictable and interesting approach to the genres.

With five instrumental pieces in this 38 minute release we are treated to a mix bag of emotions, but left very pleased with the final result. Some people might say that some of this songs are nothing but filler pieces, but they somehow manage to nicely separate the album’s ‘brutal’ tracks and keep things in perspective allowing “Mortis Regnum” to flow in a very unconventional manner.

When it comes to having a raw and crushing sound, only a few bands can be as effective as Nocturnal Blood. Unluckily, Nocturnal Blood also lacks depth and enough variation in their music to be 100% effective. That being said, we don’t think that “Devastated Graves - The Morbid Celebration” is a bad album since it’s crushing and relentless, but we will not say it’s amazing either, since it lacks depth and variety and feels like a 26 minute long song.

Having only one member, Ghastly Apparition, the ‘band’ quickly takes command with a very raw sounding assault of guitar riffs, slurred growls and relentless drumming. With “Devastated Graves”, you will surely be brought to your knees due to the fact of the massive rawness and brutality behind this song. However, once tracks like “Death Calls”, “Impure Devotion” and “Ghouls Wrath” go by, you soon realized that Nocturnal Blood is a one-trick pony.

Hailing from Italy, today we get the debut-full length album of Thrash/Crust-Punk newcomers Children of Technology. With similarities to old school Voivod, Cro-Mags, The Exploited, among others, this band will surely appeal to you if you like your music to sound old school and have that Crust Punk-ish feel to it that bands have been perfecting over the years.

The main thing that you will notice is that while Children of Technology is not a bad band, the genre does not allow for much ‘improvement’ or ‘experimentation’ making them sound a bit like everybody else. While this is not particularly bad, if you are looking for something ‘innovative’ might as well skip this album. But if you are looking for straight up old-school music, then “It’s Time to Face the Doomsday” will satisfy all your needs.

With a very confusing approach to music, today we have Ironwood, a band that seems to suffer from multiple personality disorder and plays a very wide variety of music genres in a very disconnected way. However, at some moments the band reminds us of Borknagar and such bands that mix and match genres in very crafty ways.

Hailing from Australia, “Storm Over Sea” is Ironwood’s second full-length release and shows the band trying to find their own sound, or just playing a bunch of random things together and hoping for the best. Starting off with “When it’s all Over” a very Folk/Progressive piece, the band will surely grab your attention, but will confuse you immediately after with “Hail Sign” a very ‘random’ song in our opinion.

Today we find making its way up our ridiculously long review queue Calm Hatchery’s second full-length album “Sacrilege of Humanity”. While we expected a very typical and maybe even good Death Metal album, we found more that we bargained for and we completely loved this both crushing and melodic release from these Polish metalheads.

“Sacrilege of Humanity” starts of very ‘traditionally’ with the typical catchy riffs, chugging melodies, massive drumming and growls. It’s not until the middle of the song “We are the Universe” where you start noticing an unusual amount of ‘melody’ in this song. In “Mirror Giants” the band exploits some more melodic and technical sounds half-way through the song making this piece one of the most interesting of the release, and leaving us with an even more puzzled look on our faces that comes back again with the song “Them”.

It’s been a while since we get the ‘holy shit’ look after listening to a release coming from an unsigned band, and recently Veneficum’s “In Tranquil Absurd” changed that. With a monumental Symphonic Black Metal sound, this American band managed to blow us away after a couple of songs. And while Veneficum does not have the budget to create the expensive orchestrations that bands like Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir are capable of, they do manage to create an epic orchestral atmosphere using synthesizers.

Before you start thinking that we will talk about another clone band that is just trying to capitalize on what CoF and Dimmu have already done, you should give Veneficum a try and verify for your self that they are a quality band with an imposing sound. With the atmosphere being the main ‘attention grabber’, the band also shows great amount of skills in terms of cohesive songwriting, and ridiculously precise execution.

After their killer 2009 demo “Glorybound”, today we have Windfaerer and their dominating Pagan/Folk Metal sound. Windfaerer is probably the USA’s most credible (and good) act of these genres, and with “Tribus” they should get the spotlight needed to make some noise in the international scene.

Featuring around 42 minutes of catchy guitar riffs, powerful drumming, and intense violin action, the band greatly improves on their sound since their “Glorybound” demo. While you can not avoid the typical pitfalls of the genre, “Tribus” is fresh enough to keep the listener engaged and waiting for what’s next, something that plenty of Pagan/Folk Metal releases fail miserably at.

As the first release we review of 2011 (for the USA), today we have a very special release: “The Murder of Jesus the Jew” by the ever surprising The Meads of Asphodel. Featuring their unique blend of Black Metal with countless other genres, the band manages to create their most impressive release to date.

Metatron and company return with their first full-length release since their epic “Damascus Steel” from 2005. “The Murder of Jesus the Jew” plays out in a very theatrical way, depicting in 12 songs the story of Yeshua. As you can expect the band uses their wide range of influences to craft a very unique sounding and appealing release that will blow your mind away (if you’ve never listened to the band).

Hailing from the USA, today we have one of the dullest and most generic bands we have received in quite a while: Dusted Angel. The band plays Doom/Stoner Metal with almost no sense of originality and creativity, crafting seven songs that will surely be forgotten the moment you stop listening to this album.

We know that Doom/Stoner Metal are two genres that do not have much to have drastic changes and elements that would make a release be completely out of the ordinary, but when the band just plays very similar riffs over and over and the vibe of the music feels a bit stale and uninspired.

As one of the most anticipated releases of 2010, today we have Killing Joke’s “Absolute Dissent”. This release marks the return of the original line-up of the band after almost 30 years, making this release even more special since we have Jaz, Geordie, Youth and Paul Ferguson back together pushing boundaries once more with KJ.

“Absolute Dissent” features 12 tracks that vary from vintage 80’s KJ, to the more ‘artsy’ Metal touches KJ had in their latest album. We also get a share of Auto-Tune and other ‘modern’ day elements mixed in between the band’s rich and diverse sound. We can also say that this album is actually one the most cohesive and less pretentious releases of the band.