Atrocity is one of those bands that you really don’t know what’s going on with them, but you eagerly await for their next release to see what they will sound like. First they started off by playing pretty decent Death Metal, and then they started incorporating weird non-metal elements into their music, way ahead of their time for 1994 in their album “Blut”. Lately (and we say lately very loosely) they released their “Werk 80” and “Werk 80 II”, in 1997 and 2008, these albums featured covers of popular pop songs of the 80’s.

More recently (four years ago) they released “Atlantis” and they where considered and ‘extreme metal’ band again, because of the ‘aggressiveness’ of this release. Now in 2010, the band is jumping into the Folk Metal/Ethno Metal area with their very impressive “After the Storm”, an album that features Yasmin Krull on vocals. This jump will surely puzzle some people, but for us that been listening to the band for quite a while it’s merely an interesting twist in the band’s career.

In a band that features Jonny Davy from Job for a Cowboy and Navene Koperweis (ex-The Faceless, ex-Animosity) we expected a shit-core marathon but instead we found ourselves listening to some sub-par technical/experimental Death Metal that features a few intersting ideas that could have been developed further to create a better album.

We have to admit that the musicianship on this release is pretty awesome and that Navene does a great job at playing all the instruments. However, the problem lays in actually crafting songs that can handle all this brilliance, “Dementia/Dyslexia” sounds completely disconnected from reality and feels more like a drugs induced ego-trip in showing how brutal and fast can you play the drums and how well can you play the guitar, than an actual album.

Seven years have passed since their debut “Black Penance” and Meltgsnow is finally back with their album “Black Penance”, a very diverse, interesting but dated sounding release that will surely confuse all the people used to getting their dose of brutality form Pulverised Records. This release, while not in the traditional ‘vein’ of Pulverised bands, is very interesting in terms of older genres of music being merged together in a very unique and different fashion.

Merging Gothic Rock/Metal elements with some NWOBHM, Thrash, and traditional Heavy Metal “Black Penance” is indeed one of the most diverse sound albums we have received this 2010. Having not heard of this band before, we can’t really say how much (or little) they have changed over the years, but we can say for sure that the sound in this release gives us a late 90’s/early 00’s vibe.

After listening to the band’s EP “The Mystical Gate of Reincarnation” we were highly impressed by the sheer brutality that oozed from that release. Fast-forward almost two decades, several band member changes and a handful of uninspired releases (mostly everything they did in the 00 decade) and now we get “Heaven’s Venom”, a very inspired release that immediately turned our heads and made us focus 100% on listening to this solid release.

While the band is not as ‘brutal’ as on their earlier days, they have matured enough to be able to pull of Melodic songs with brutal blastbeats and not even break a sweat. During the ten tracks presented in this release, the listener is treated to a rollercoaster ride through melody and brutality unlike another found in an ‘older’ Death Metal band this year.

Legendary American Death Metal band Malevolent Creation is finally back with another hard-hitting face-pounding release that will blow you away. “Invidious Dominion” is yet another powerful release in the band’s 23+ years in the business, marking the return of Jason Blachowicz to the band (for the 2nd time).

If you are a Death Metal fans and have never heard of this band before, you are either 18 years old, or a complete poser and you need to stop reading… maybe not, but there is plenty of research you need to do in order to call yourself a Metal head. Anyways, the band feels completely rejuvenated and they totally kill on this release. Each of the 11 tracks are fast paced and as brutal as ever.

For the some fans of the band “A Twist in the Myth” was a somewhat mediocre release, but with “At the Edge of Time” they return as powerful as ever. With a very epic release, Blind Guardian shows no signs of succumbing to mediocrity and will blow you away with around 60 minutes of pure unadulterated Power Metal with some Symphonic and Progressive elements.

As you can expect, the songwriting on “At the Edge of Time” is both inspired and magical. With only a few sub par sections, all 10 songs in the regular edition of the CD are pure Blind Guardian magic. Being a bit more epic than on their last release, we finally get powerful songs that will have you chanting as you prepare to march into battle.

Featuring Draconian members Johan Ericson and Andy Hindenäs (Ex-Draconian), Shadowgarden is another Gothic Rock/Metal band to appear on the scene courtesy of Napalm Records. While having heavy competition on their label with Lacrimas Profundere, Shadowgarden’s Gothic Rock/Metal is good enough to make them a name for themselves and become one of the top bands in the scene.

As we could expect, Shadowgarden’s biggest appeal is the solid guitar work. The ten songs in this album feature a plethora of powerful guitar riffs and melodies, something that Johan is an expert in creating, both with Draconian and Doom:VS. “Ashen” quickly made us remember the sound of bands like To/Die/For, Charon, Entwine, etc, where the melancholy behind the music is ever present thanks to the excellent guitar work.

Formed in the early nineties, Pro-Pain has been playing their Thrash infused Hardcore since their first release “Foul Taste of Freedom” until now with “Absolute Power”. The band’s style has not changed much over the years and continues to put out solid releases, but we feel that their sound is getting quite old to be honest. “Absolute Power” is yet another one of those good-but-sounds-tired kind of albums that we encounter every month.

Don’t get us wrong, there is nothing bad about “Absolute Power” the album has over ten songs of catchy riffs, solid vocals and powerful drumming. It’s the similarity to their older stuff what bothers us. Even while listening through this album, you will get the ‘I already heard this’ kind of feeling as the songs keep flowing.

Formed under the moniker of Creeping Death, the band changed names to Chaossworn in 2009. As a promising but underachieving band they released 3 demos and 1 EP before changing names, now with “Chalice of Black Flames” the band is unleashing three powerful songs of pure chaotic Swedish Death/Black Metal.

If you love bands like Dissection, Einherjer and Naglfar, then you will love what Chaossworn brings to the table in this short but sweet EP. While some people might argue that ‘there is nothing new’ presented in “Chalice of Black Flames”, but there is nothing wrong about ‘similar but good’. Because of the lack of releases that feature this Swedish Death/Black sound, we think that Chaossworn deserves a chance in the spotlight since their music is spot on in every single level.