Out of all the self-released albums we get, we have never received such an impressive release as Bitter Frost’s self-titled debut album. With an amazing musicianship, crystal clear production, solid songwriting, and impressive guest appearances, “Bitter Frost” will surely be our favorite Symphonic/Melodic Black Metal album of the year.

Featuring 73 minutes of impressive music, the one man band Bitter Frost takes us through many different genres of metal laid on top of a Black Metal foundation. With all the ideas and creativity behind this release, we only feel sorry for all the unsigned bands that even when combined together will never put out a release as impressive as this one.

While most Folk Metal bands can easily be picked apart based on their sound, we totally screwed it up when trying to figure out where Northland comes from by only listening to their music. The band’s music is heavily inspired by Scandinavian Viking/Folk Metal and some Celtic elements, but they are from Barcelona, Spain! Something we did not expect until we actually visited the band’s MySpace page.

Featuring a full six-member line-up, the band creates a very rich sound that will surely make them one of your favorite bands of the genre. And having only released two demos prior to “Revenge”, we are quite impressed behind the quality, both in sound and songwriting, of this release.

When a band is pretentious enough to claim they have their own genre they usually fail at life miserably and their music plain sucks. Well, this is not the case with Dyrathor, the band claims to play “Northern Storm Metal” a thing we find to be ridiculous, but they do play a very Pagan Metal.

Hailing from Germany, Dyrathor has a very good style and they do not sound (a lot) like the seas of bands playing a combination of these genres. The band’s aggressive edge allows them to not sound super ‘pretty’ (i.e soft) and makes their use of Folk elements/Keyboards more effective.

When it comes to Death Metal it’s already a widely proven fact that nobody can do it like the older bands can. With all the 16 year-old pissed off emo kids trying to create Death Metal and heavily relying on Pro-Tools and other modern ‘magic’ elements to have their band sound decent, we are left hanging to our old school albums, and waiting for the remaining greats to produce new music.

This month we have Grave’s “Burial Ground”, and album that clearly states why bands like this will never get old. Yes, you might argue that this band is not dynamic or fresh sounding anymore, but when it comes to Death Metal, who gives a shit. We all want chugging mid-tempo songs with fast-paced drumming and consistent growls. None of that modern sounding shit.

Hailing from the USA today we have Locusta, a band that plays an interesting combination of Death/Black and Progressive Metal. While the band does have a very original sound, they have some flaws here and there that make their self-titled debut album a very good attempt but not quite there kind of record.

The first thing we will note is that the band’s technical abilities greatly surpass their budget for this record, even if you had whatever amount the band paid to record this album changed into pennies and lugged it around on a big bag. The album’s product makes us want to cry since it sounds very bad. The drumming is extremely wobbly and sounds like when our tape player was destroying our precious cassettes back in the day. The guitars sound very weird, something we attribute to the production but it might be the ‘especial distortion’ used by the band.

With one of the most annoying and shitty looking MySpace pages in the world, today we have Pussy Sisster and their self-titled release. Usually whenever we have a band that has the words pussy, snatch, virginal, and Satan on their name we immediately deduct 10 points of their review. For Pussy Sisster, we did not do this since their name actually embodies everything this band stands for and their rock-star looks.

Playing hard-hitting Rock and Roll, the band does a great job in capturing the sound of bands like Kiss, Poison, Cinderella, Mötley Crue, etc. Pussy Sisster has the right sound and look to make people re-live their glory days listening to the previously mentioned bands while doing their hair (and other activities).

With a very Germanic sound to their music, today we have Ingrimm and their third full-length album “Böses Blut”. Playing a mean Folk/Medieval Metal, the band does a great job in creating 11 songs that will surely please all your Folk/Medieval needs. All songs in this album are sung in German and give that extra authentic feeling to them that we usually look for.

Mixing modern metal style riffing with bagpipes sounding awfully familiar to Eluveitie, the band might not be 100% original in their craft, but as long as their songs are catchy we don’t really care. Ingrimm’s music is not super diverse either and you will find yourself wondering if you already heard this song before.

Sometimes we wonder if Infernus really listens to whatever he puts out/sells on his Forces of Satan records label. Blasphemous “Bearer of the Darkest Plagues” is released by Baars Records, but Forces of Satan has it for digital download and we are not impressed.

With a very low-fi cassette-demo sounding production, Blasphemous second full-length has minor flaws that greatly bring down the quality of this album. The band’s style of Blackened Death Metal is very retro sounding but still holds it’s own, until you hear the drumming going from slow sections into the blasting sections. It seems that the drumming is playing in a slower gear than the rest of the music.

Boasting a majestic combination of Black, Death, and Gothic Metal with Symphonic Metal elements today we have Arcane Grail, a very bombastic band from Russia. “Arya Marga” was originally released back in March of 2009, but luckily for us the folks at Hunter’s Moon records from the UK re-released it on a digital-only format.

Immediately the first thing that stands out is the beautiful classically-trained voice of Natalie, the band’s female vocalist for those that need clarification. The band’s music is very dynamic and it’s very well varied through the 40 minutes that “Arya Marga” lasts. There is never a dull moment and there is something for everybody ranging from full-on Black Metal aggression, Death growls and overall solid riffing.