Album Reviews

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    Nightfall - Astron Black and the Thirty Tyrants (2010)

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    When we where thinking where the hell have we heard of this band before, it immediately hit us that the band had a song (“Black Leather Cult”) in the epic “The Holy Bible” compilation album of Holy Records back in 1996. Fast-forward almost 14 years and, several releases and a brief break up and we have Nighfall back with only one of the original members: Efthimis Karadimas, now only on vocals.

    “Astron Black and the Thirty Tyrants” marks a very impressive release of this Greek band on Metal Blade Records. Since you start listening to this album, you immediately know that it will surely be an interesting experience. With a very interesting Melodic Black/Death Metal sound, the band quickly brings back of some of their older releases on Holy Records, because of the odd combination of powerful riffs, different vocals (clean and growls), and the elevated us of keyboards.

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    RattleheaD – Tales from the Gutter (2010)

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    Back in the day when Speed/Thrash Metal was (originally) a thriving genre, we used to have some pretty good bands (that later became really big: Megadeth, Metallica, etc.). If RattleheaD would have been formed in those days, for sure they would have been epic and big, but they probably would have sucked since they wouldn’t have had anybody to steal their sound from.

    Don’t get us wrong, we love old-school music and when a younger band does a great job in emulating past glories of other bands, we are all for it. But this is not the case with RattleheaD, their latest release “Tales from the Gutter” clearly shows why they are not signed and it might be a time to consider a genre change or some drastic changes in their music in order to get really noticed.

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    Pestifer – Age of Disgrace (2010)

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    Sometimes we are greatly puzzled as why bands like Pestifer don’t have a recording deal, but other shitty ass bands are making crap music and releasing it every year. With the current Technical Death Metal boom, bands are appearing out of nowhere and crushing things up with great musical abilities and solid songwriting.

    “Age of Disgrace” is one of those releases that push the boundaries of Death Metal into the technical realm while maintaining the music fundamentals in place. Pestifer is one of those few bands that focus more in the song-structure department than in the high level of virtuosity a band can fit in one song.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Heretic Soul – Born Into this Plague (2010)

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    In this modern age finding good Death Metal can become quite a hard thing to do, you have all the ‘classic’ bands still releasing good shit like Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, Malevolent Creation, etc. But finding a new band that is worthy to be added to such an impressive Death Metal lineup is hard to so, especially because of all the shitty Deathcore influences that many bands have these days.

    Today we have from Rotting Corpse Records, the first full-length release of the Turkish band Heretic Soul. “Born Into this Plague” is a release that can surely be called extremely ‘traditional’ and nothing out of the ordinary, but who cares, if you are looking for catchy Death Metal, then look no further since Heretic Soul is the band for you.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    King Giant - Southern Darkness (2009)

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    After reviewing very good Stoner Rock bands from Poland in the last few weeks (Black River and Corruption), it’s very easy to determine that King Giant are from the USA and from the ‘Old South’ their brand of Stoner Metal has a nice Southern feel to it. With a hefty dose of lyrics about Drugs, Depression, Fear, Hate, etc. King Giant has a very catchy sound that hopefully gets them noticed by a bigger label in the future.

    Opening up with “Solace”, the band quickly shows what they are all about: catchy down-tuned guitar riffs with raspy vocals and a healthy Stoner vibe that prevails through the whole release and greatly captures the genre’s atmosphere. While many other releases are faster paced and more ‘hard rocking’, King Giant goes more Stoner/Doom Metal than average and we completely dig the rocking melancholic atmosphere that the band creates.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    King of Asgard - Fi'mbulvintr (2010)

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    As you probably guessed from the band’s name, today we have yet another band from Sweden that plays Viking Metal. Featuring members of Mithotyn, Falconer and a bunch of other bands, King of Asgard plays a very generic Viking Metal with countless influences from Amon Amarth, Týr, to pretty much every other Viking Metal band these days, paired with some hints of Dissection and Primordial.

    As many other bands, in paper King of Asgard does sound awesome, since we used to love Mithotyn back in the day where Viking Metal was not as exploited as now. Falconer also has had good stuff over the years. But none of these musicians can save King of Asgard from falling in the pitfalls of sounding too much like somebody else.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    October Tide – A Thin Shell (2010)

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    Originally a side project of Jonas Renkse and Fred Norrman from Katatonia, October Tide took by surprise the Death/Doom Metal world back in 1997 with their legendary album “Rain without End”. The band disbanded from around 2000 and finally returned in 2009 with only Fred Norman (not anymore with Katatonia) and Tobias Netzell (of In Mourning) on vocals.

    “A Thin Shell” marks the band’s return to the Metal scene and it’s a great comeback album for all of us Death/Doom Metal fans. With seven songs and over 40 minutes of music, this release has all the ingredients to make it a classic of the genre and continue the legacy of October Tide.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Suicidal Tendencies – No Mercy Fool! / The Suicidal Family (2010)

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    As the second Suicidal Tendencies release of 2010, we have today “No Mercy Fool!/The Suicidal Family”. This release features re-recorded songs from their “Join the Army” release of 87 and a few songs (three to be precise) of Mike Clark’s and Mike Muir’s side project No Mercy.

    With the re-vamped recordings we get a nice up-to date sound to the “Join the Army” tracks and three powerful No Mercy songs get a bigger spotlight in this 2010 release. Immediately we can notice that the music sounds better than ever and that this whole release has the Suicidal vibe all the way.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Locrian – The Crystal World (2010)

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    Every once in a while we get a release that makes us listen to it more than normal since it’s so complex and different that we can’t really craft a solid opinion about it with only 3-4 spins. This month we have Locrian’s third full-length album “The Crystal World”, the band plays a very experimental mixture of ambient, drone, and some Black Metal and Post-Rock elements. This might sound like a handful, but it actually works very well for the flow of this release.

    “The Crystal World” is a very powerful emotional ride that spreads through 6 tracks. With the first track “Triumph of Elimination”, the band immediately sets the stage for this dark and minimalistic journey. In the traditional fashion of creating expectation, this track starts building up with samples and drones that seem to be gaining momentum but they also seem to never culminate. The ‘culmination’ section for us that need it, comes in the next track “At Night’s End”.

    • Posted By: Dark Emperor
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    Gangrenator – Tales from a Thousand Graves (2010)

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    Hailing from Norway and featuring Kvohst (vocalist of Code and ex-DHG), today we have Gangrenator and their interesting sounding old-school Death/Grind Metal. This band feels like a tribute band to old-school Death/Grind and B movies, and they actually manage to pull of this feeling very successfully on the 13 tracks presented in this short but sweet release.

    During “Tales from a Thousand Graves”, we get a bunch of deranged tracks that last between 1 and 3 minutes of highly chaotic, but interestingly crafted music. Amoque Von Berlevaag does a very solid job in providing countless riffs that range from Grindcore to traditional Death Metal influences.

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