Who ordered and nicely cooked AC/DC clone?, apparently AFM records did with Big Ball. While the band never denies, and even encourages, the label of AC/DC clones, we find them to be good at capturing AC/DC’s sound and essence and providing a tiny-little-bit of their own into “Hotter Than Hell”, the band’s first full-length release.

As the band states, if you hate AC/DC you will hate us, so if you do then stop reading and move on to the next review. Big Ball is a pretty decent clone/tribute band to AC/DC and even the vocals sound strikingly similar to earlier the earlier style of Brian Johnson, but sometimes get a bit raspier and sound more like Udo Dirkschneider, still not bad.

Hailing from the small town of Tübingen, Germany, today we have Suffproof with their four songs EP. The band plays traditional neck breaking Death Metal. While they do not provide anything original or super brutal to the genre, “Demonstration Of Strength” is a pretty solid first release for the band.

Kubo, the band’s vocalist, kicks off the release with a very ‘nice’ message to all the special people in his life, and jumps straight into a crunchy DM riff and some growls. Immediately you can notice some issues with the recording quality of this release since the vocals standout WAY too much as the guitar fills the background and the drums are just a distant banging sound.

While Hells Headbangers is known for releasing very retro (and good) sounding releases, with Vomitor’s “Devils Poison” they have dropped the ball immensely. This Aussie band had done a great job with “Bleeding the Priest”, a very worthy debut album that gained them well deserved comparisons with Sodom, Celtic Frost and the all mighty Hellhammer. But with “Devils Poison” they sound like they should be heading back to their garage and record a few more demos.

“Devils Poison” is a very chaotic release that has pretty much nothing going for it, the album gets boring right after track number one. We are not complaining about the raw and primitive sound the band has (which is characteristic of the early Sodom, etc albums), but we complain about the lack of creativity and even musicianship behind this release.

Hailing from the USA today we have Progressive Metal wizards Canvas Solaris. “Irradiance” marks the band fifth full-length album, and a very impressive one we might add. For over 40 minutes we are taken through a brilliant exercise in execution and composition skills, “Irradiance” is one of the best Progressive Metal albums we have reviewed this 2010.

With their heavy influences from Cynic, Yes and Dream Theater, we can quickly notice why Canvas Solaris has been around for a while and are serious about making brilliant Progressive songs. The songwriting quality behind “Irradiance” is top notch and will immerse you into the band’s powerful sound.

Four years have passed since this album’s original (and European only) release. During this years Delain, which started as a project of Martijn Westerholt, has gained worldwide acclaim and recognition. Martijn then decided to make this a full-time touring band and has since released “April Rain”, the band’s second full-length album. Going back in time when Delain only consisted as Martijn and Charlotte Wessels as the permanent members, they recorded “Lucidity”, a majestic Gothic Metal masterpiece.

“Lucidity” features guest appearances from some of the most celebrated musicians in the Gothic Metal scene. We have Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot) on vocals and bass guitar, we also have the appearance of Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation), Liv Kristine (Leaves’ Eyes), and George Oosthoek on growling duties in some of the tracks. As you can expect from this impressive lineup, “Lucidity” is a pretty strong first-release for a band.

Today we have one of the shittiest albums we have reviewed in quite a while. Low Twelve patter is a Death Metal band hailing from Illinois that has been around for quite a while, but display an impressive lack of ideas and musical abilities in “Splatter Pattern”.

Fro over one hour and 14 songs we have been subjected to a very painful Death Metal that sounds very bad might be the promo quality of just the recording facilities the band used, but in general the sound is very terrible. The vocals don’t help either, featuring a mixture of drowsy screams and some spoken sections; they have a metalcore-ish feeling to them that is downright terrible when combined with the Death Metal riffing of this release.

Aluk Todolo has been labeled (and use to be a Black Metal), but with “Finisternis” they open our minds into a darkly demented world that will surely be understood by a select few. The band’s latest effort explores minimalistic sounds that for the most part will leave you expecting some sort of climax that never occurs, making you hand by the edge, waiting patiently.

Comprised of 5 songs merged into two side-a and side-b, “Finsternis” is truly an aural experience that even if it fails to fully deliver it’s full potential, should be hear by fans of the truly bizarre. On side-a we have a very monotonous drum rhythm that made me so anxious that I started biting my nails. It creates the perfect endless and dark corridor feeling that has you pondering if you will every reach the end. With it’s deranged guitar riffs creating peaks into our anticipation of something happening in this release.