Album Reviews

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Fen - The Malediction Fields (2009)

    When this album starts, I started saying to my self” “here comes another shitty atmospheric black metal band”, like I often find telling my self and being completely right. Well for Fen I ate my own words, while their style is indeed atmospheric black/dark metal they have carefully crafted elements of folk and post-rock, to create a great unique sound.

    I would say they kind of resemble Alcest or even Agalloch at some points, but they have their own original ideas and sound embedded in their music.

    This album also evokes some memories of Ulver’s opus: Bergtatt. While at some points the music is very harsh, it’s perfectly balanced by great acoustic interludes changing the pace entirely of the songs.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Dol Theeta - The Universe Expands (2008)

    I have to say that this album is something very interesting, at first I thought I had the wrong band and I was reviewing some weird DJ shit, but nope, this Greek band plays some type of weird progressive / electro music with metal influences so I would just put it in on the category that everything weird goes into: Avant-garde Metal.

    Let me tell you the production of this album is amazing since you can hear every single detail in the music with perfect clarity. They do tend to emphasize the synthesizers too much, but this is the main core of the bands sound.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Inferi - The End of an Era (2009)

    While Nashville, Tennesee is not usually know for its metal bands Inferi calls this city home. This bands release is very good if you don’t consider two things: 1) Very bad recording/mixing and 2) Terrible vocals (or it might be the recording).

    Inferi plays melodic death metal, and they do so with a lot of energy and brilliant precision since most of their songs are very fast in nature and therefore their guitar work is amazing, I cant say much for the bass guitar since you can’t hear it. But the drumming is very good (it would be better if the recording was not this bad).
    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Trollfest - Villanden (2009)

    Trollfest hails from Norway and they try to bring their Troll inspired folk metal to the masses. While the bands concept and website is quite funny, and the language of their lyrics is unique (since they mix several languages in them), the whole thing gets kind of old after the 3rd song.

    While the music is not bad, it’s just annoying after a while. They try to sound like Fintroll but this sensation clearly fades off after a while.

    I can see people enjoying this music when you are very drunk in the woods somewhere, since some of their songs have a great ‘folk drinking song’ atmosphere.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    HDK - System_Overload (2009)

    HDK is the brain child of Sander Gommans from After Forever fame, so naturally I was very excited about this release. Now that After Forever split-up I’m looking for some band to take their place. Well let me tell you HDK is not that band, while I was impressed by reading all the people that participated in this project: Amanda Sommerville, Andres Matos and Arjen Anthony Lucassen to name a few, this album just does not deliver in my opinion.

    This album seems like a composition of random thoughts materialized in music, some parts are really good and some other ones are very bad. The album contains a mixture of genres that becomes annoying after a few songs. I don’t know how people can like this release as a whole, since while there are good parts and some of the guest performances are very good, as a whole it’s just bad.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    In Fear And Faith - Your World On Fire (2009)

    While I’m usually pretty good at filtering out Metalcore / screamo bands but for some reason this band from the USA flew under my radar. Once I started listening to the album I decided to might as well finish listening to it and write a review for it.

    I have to admit that many of these bands have very good guitarists and keyboard players. The whole concept and the singing just kill’s the mood for somebody that likes their metal to be… well metal.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Ephel Duath - Through My Dog's Eyes (2009)

    Well what can I say about this Italian, every time I pop in their music I’m in for an acid trip, or what I imagine one would be like. Through My Dog’s Eyes is yet in their crazy musical direction, now they sound more like Avant-garde jazz/metal than their earlier more ‘black metalish’ releases.

    The whole concept of the album is clearly described in the title, and it perfectly matches the weird and chaotic sound of the band. While they are refining their instrument mixing skill, sometimes stuff just seems very out of place.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Emergency Gate - Rewake (2009)

    Every time I hear and album start with the phrase: “Are you ready”, I get so irritated, since they are usually pretty bad. Well this album is an exception to that rule.

    I can’t really label this bands genre since they combine clean with harsh vocals, with some melodic death metal touches as well as power metal elements, and sometimes it even sounds like metalcore.

    I have to admit the songs are very catchy but the metalcore parts kill it for me. When the songs are more power metal or melodic death metal their guitar melodies are pretty awesome, also the drumming is pretty decent.
    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Tardy Brothers - Bloodline (2009)

    The Tardy brothers if you where living under a rock for the last 20 years, or are too young to know, are 2 of the founding members of Obituary (vocals and drums). I was very interested in listening to this album since they announced it. And let me tell you this album arrived 10-15 years late.

    While you can clearly notice the typical vocal style of Obituary, the Tardy Brothers music is more of a trash metal and death metal. I would have imagined that the brothers would have broaden their musical horizons in the last few years, but apparently they have been listening to their old tapes and LP’s for too long.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Luna Mortis - The Absence (2009)

    Luna Mortis is an American band formed in 2002 under the name of The Ottoman Empire, which they changed in 2008. They are traditionally labeled as progressive metal, but I think gothic/progressive metal is a better description of their music.

    This bands musical style is very interesting since they sometimes sound like Arch Enemy with clean female vocals, and the only weak point in my opinion is the  harsh vocals that sound a bit amateurish. Other than that this is a very good release both musically and production wise.

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