Hailing from Finland, we recently got in our PO BOX a very different and unique sounding release from a band named Myston. “Alkaem” marks the band’s second full-length release and with the wide palette of styles, Myston seems to be ready to take over the world and fans of Metal, Indie Rock, Alternative Metal, Grunge and everything in between.

The first thing you will notice about “Alkaem” is that Mystos has a very enigmatic sounding front man with M Myston handling the vocals and guitars. His vocals will immediately make you identify this band in a second, and when paired with the very diverse and interesting sound of the band, we think the band has a winning lottery ticket in their hands.

Featuring two members of Glorior Belli, 11 as in Adversaries is another great addition to the ATMF roster, and with their debut full-length album “The Full Intrepid Experience of Light” they will surely get their name on the map. As the main selling point of 11 as in Adversaries, we have that their sound is very unique since they mix a blend of Post-Rock/Metal with Extreme Metal and Progressive Metal, creating a very rich spectrum of sounds unlike other band in the scene these days.

Getting things moving with the 15 minute epic “The Full Intrepid Experience of Light”, the band sets their sound apart for the rest immediately with the different textures presented in this song. Immediately the melodic and yet powerful guitar work stands out shifting from a Post-Rock/Metal approach to darker corners of Extreme Metal. The typical Progressive Metal tempo changes also add to the overall richness of this track and work wonders with the intricate Blues-infused bass guitar presented.

Usually when we get stuff from ATMF we are very excited since they have some of the most different and interesting releases, with Disiplin’s fourth full-length release we find ourselves puzzled and a bit disappointed with the end result. Mixing Black Metal with Industrial/Ambient elements the band manages to create a very disturbing sound that is very effective for a couple of songs only.

“Radikale Randgruppe” kicks-off with a very straight forward Industrial Black Metal sound with catchy beats and crushing guitars. As dissonant as this may sound, it’s pure evil and creates a dense atmosphere, something that is continued with the second track “Me Ne Frego”. The flow is somewhat hindered by the uninspired and very repetitive “Triarii”, here is were you start to notice the band will fire blanks for the rest of the album since the drums are very dull and similar to the first songs and the overall atmosphere gets a bit stale.

Legendary USBM act Gravewürm have returned with their 7th full-length release titled “Blood of the Pentagram”. In this album the band continues to create their very disturbing sound by combining raw Black Metal elements with Thrash/Doom/Death Metal influences that give the band’s sound a little edge over the rest of the average sounding BM bands these days.

However, not everything is enjoyable in “Blood of the Pentagram” since this release tends to get a bit too simplistic and repetitive in nature. The band exploits the raw and lo-fi approach to things and creates a very creepy sound, but it fails to deliver when the music tends to get boring and super repetitive.

With a very distracting cover, today we have Dirty Tricks lead singer Kenny Stewart’s debut solo album “The Brains behind the Scam”. Featuring 16 hard rocking tracks, Kenny Stewart takes us for a roller coaster journey with soaring guitars, and his very characteristic vocal style.

Having self-produced the album, Kenny handles all the guitar and programming duties. And immediately you can notice that the use of ‘fake drums’ is very evident and takes some merit out of this release but can easily be compensated by the solid guitar work and singing prowess of Kenny. All tracks have a nice guitar driven structure that allows the vocals to shine and achieve the desired effect.

As one of the most brutal albums we have received in quite a while, today we have Manias (a.k.a Sale Sangre) third full-length “Blood Covered”. Hailing from Albuquerque, the place of birth of Infernal Masquerade Webzine, this band plays conventional Death Metal / Grind with a vengeance and an eye for blood and guts, as well can see from the artwork of the CD.

Filled with the traditional witty movie samples, “Blood Covered” features 19 tracks of pure brutality. Let it be clear that Manias it’s not all about barking at the microphone and pounding randomly at their instruments, they can actually craft pretty catchy and crushing songs that will surely be a delight for fans of both Death Metal and Grindcore.

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.