Album Reviews

    • Posted By: Proof Of Existence
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    Alestorm - Leviathan (2008)

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     Following the excellent Captain Morgan’s Revenge (2008), Alestorm released the Leviathan EP containing Heavy Metal Pirates, a single that was released for download from the band’s MySpace page months earlier. The EP contains just 4 tracks (listed below), and unfortunately only contains 2 new songs, a re-recording and a cover. The sound is very consistent with what you will find on Captain Morgan’s Revenge; the guitar solos, the keyboards, and especially the pirate vocals.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Gate Of Sorrow – Enter Through The Gate (2009)

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    There are only a handful of releases that I truly enjoy every month, and “Enter Through The Gate” is one of them. This Czech band play a great Gothic /Death / Doom Metal, and their album has an impressive quality, musically and production wise. This album features nine powerful tracks that will blow the fans of the genre away.

    Behind the luscious keyboards and amazing female vocals, there is a very well defined drum line and distorted guitars that make this release great from beginning to end. After several releases under a different name (Gate) and from what I can read on their site, different musical style changes, they have released one of my favorite albums of this year.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Visions Of The Night – Nocturnal Militia (2007)

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    If you want brutal, you’ll get brutal, if you want blazing fast guitars, you’ll get blazing fast guitars, if you want monstrous drumming, you also get them. All of these elements and more are packed in “Nocturnal Militia”.  This war and occultism inspired outfit from Canada are here to stay and haunt everybody with their album. This album does not lack energy and brutality in any aspect, the production is crystal clear and the music is like a round of AK-47 shots.

    While the band style is more death metal oriented they have certain elements of black metal that make it an interesting mix of genres. The twelve tracks on this release are enough to keep moshing the whole time. And you will certainly want more.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Disgust – Crucifucked (2008)

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    Disgust is a Mexican Death metal band that likes to stick to the basics and excel at it. While they are not going to win any awards for originality, they are pretty good at achieving the same sound of Cannibal Corpse with some of the groovyness of Six Feet under. This album provides 35 minutes of pretty good old school death metal that is hard to find in new bands.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Ajattara - Noitumaa (2009)

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    “Noitumaa” is what I image would happen if you take a band to the forest, give them some shrooms and peyote, leave some acoustic instruments lying around, and make them record something. I’m not saying this release is bad, but it’s just very very bizarre. And what might be more bizarre is that I actually enjoyed it (and I was not intoxicated in any way).

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Autumnia – O’ Funeralia (2009)

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    This release is one of the finest Death/Doom metal albums I’ve heard in a few years. Their music is an ode to sadness, because it creates a great depressive feeling that this music should create. Autumnia is a two man band from Ukraine, and for this release they enlisted the help of other three musicians to record piano, bass guitars and violin.

    Everybody that knows me knows that I’m a sucker for a good Death/Doom metal release, and this one will make its way to my favorite albums list. Fifthly minutes of pure depressive music make this album a brilliant, much needed release.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Mind Odyssey – Time To Change It (2009)

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    This band took ten years off between releases and they are surely back with a pretty good album that will attract fans of Progressive metal as well as Power / Heavy metal. The bands sound as been clearly updated to fit more recent releases of other bands of the genre. But the old school feeling is still there.

    This Germans have created a pretty good release that blends Power/Heave metal with some Progressive touches. It was probably good that they had a ten year hiatus before this release, in order to get perspective on things and come up with a very good release.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Hatesphere – To The Nines (2009)

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    Hatesphere comes from Denmark with an interesting release. They mix Trash Metal with some very pronounced Metalcore influences. While this is a considerable step up from their previous release, it has something missing. The music is ok but very repetitive and the vocals have been considerably improved.

    This release is very good for a few songs, but after that it gets pretty dull and all interest is lost. I will admit that the music is very well made and the powerful guitars go along the elaborate drumming. The problem that I have with this release is that is good enough for 3 songs and the rest all sound the same. If you like your music to all sound the same then you will love this album.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    Fejd – Storm (2009)

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    Fejd provides us with a very solid debut album. This Swedish band plays folk music, with almost no elements of metal, so don’t expect distorted guitars or anything like that. The most ‘metal’ aspect of the band is probably the drumming. The bands music incorporates a wide variety of medieval instruments and they all blend to perfection, creating an album very rich in different sounds.

    While I’m no expert in folk music, I can appreciate a good album when I hear one. You can clearly listen to the Hurdy-gurdie, bag pipes, and violin among several other instruments. The fusion of instruments is done to perfection creating very cohesive folk melodies that will have all the fan of medieval music dancing and chanting along the vocals.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
    • Comments: 0

    The Bullet Monks – Weapons Of Mass Destruction (2009)

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    I’m always surprised with the albums that come out of Napalm Records, since they have a wide variety of bands that play almost every genre in metal. The Bullet Monks play hard rock with some metal influences. This German band has a very interesting sound that will make anybody want to ride a Harley and hit the road.

    “Weapons Of Mass Destruction” is the perfect album to be listening to in a dive bar while drinking away your problems. The overall rock and roll feel of this album, with some great guitar work will have everybody asking for more.

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