Album Reviews

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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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    Sarath – Siste Indre (2010)

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    Norway might suck at basketball, football, and countless other sports, however, they are number one in producing Black Metal bands that can release cold and grim releases that will hypnotize you from beginning to end. Sarath is yet another one of those Norwegian bands that can kill with their music and don’t even break a sweat while doing it.

    “Sistre Indre” is the band’s (one-man band) first ‘full-length’ release in almost a decade of existence, and we must say that it was well worth the wait. Featuring 4 songs and around 31 minutes of music we wouldn’t really can this a full-length album. However, due to the repetitive nature of the band’s music, “Siste Indre” feels much longer and completely crushing.

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    Aenaon / Satanochio – A Parallel Zoetrope (2010)

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    All the way from Greece recently we got a very nice 7” split from Aenaon and Romanian Satanochio. In this short but sweet split we get to listen to another brilliant track from Aenaon and a different but equally intense song by Satanochio. Featuring one track per side, this 7” split is very nicely packaged and ready to become a collector’s item for fans of either band since it’s limited to 500 copies.

    Starting off on the Aenaon side, we get a Black Metal anthem with influences from Zyklon and other more experimental bands like Dodheimsgard and Ihshan. Aenaon since their mCD “Phenomenon” has immediately grabbed our attention and with “I, Tyrant” they show that they are masters at creating powerful riffs, interesting vocal melodies and blasting drum patterns that deserve the attention of any ‘refined’ Black Metal fan.

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    Maniac Butcher – Masakr (2010)

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    After a ten year hiatus Maniac Butcher returns with a powerful Black Metal release that will surely send a lot of crappy Black Metal bands crying to their garage wishing they could craft such hate filled anthems of destruction. The band’s original members Vlad Blasphemer and Barbarud Hrom are back in top form and ready to spread disease through the world of Black Metal.

    With six songs clocking around 30 minutes of hate filled raw Black Metal, it’s like the band never left the scene. Featuring a crystal clear production, the band sounds as raw as ever and their music crushes since the first riff. Haling from the Czech Republic, the band writes are their lyrics in Czech, so we can’t really know what they are singing about but all we care about is how brutal and chaotic their music is.

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    Broken Mirrors – Strong Enough (2010)

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    Hailing from France, today we have a very interesting EP from an unusual band that has a very fresh sound. Mixing some Thrash Metal influences with Melodic Death Metal elements and Children of Bodom like vocals “Strong Enough” is a short, yet effective release from a band that has great potential.

    The first thing that will pop out is the funky sounding keyboards, while they are very good, something just sounds weird about them. This alone will quickly grab you attention and make you interested in the band’s sound. They create nice a atmosphere that sounds very lush, but due to a low production budget they sound a bit too high in the mix. Not that we are complaining, but we just find it a bit odd.

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    Lava Engine – In Limbo (2010)

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    In a day that almost everybody is doing what has worked for somebody else, playing it safe and avoiding any kind of creativity seems to be the typical approach ‘new’ bands take to making music. Luckily for us Lava Engine actually tries to craft their own unique sound and actually manage to create pretty solid compositions with intricate musical palettes that sound very well when mixed in together.

    Hailing from Sweden, Lava Engine brilliantly merges Progressive Metal elements with some ‘Symphonic’ elements and creates a very uniquely sounding Experimental Metal sound that many bands will surely envy. The band’s combination of powerful riffs, keyboard arrangements, and well crafted vocal lines, carries their second EP “In Limbo” from start till finish and hopefully lands them a record deal.

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    Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini (2010)

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    The masters of Progressive/Experimental Black Metal return with a super impressive release that tops anything they have done before this album. With “Axioma Ethica Odini”, Enslaved shows no signs of slowing down, compromising, or playing it safe. The band maintains the high musical standards they set with “Isa”, “Ruun”, and “Vertebrae”, and manage to push things a bit further on this long-awaited release.

    It has been years since we liked a Black Metal release as much as “Axioma Ethica Odini”, and through our listening experience of this brilliant album we can’t avoid using comparisons to Borknagar’s “Olden Domain”, Primordial’s “A Journey's End”, and Enslaved’s “Isa” among other is in terms of musicianship and innovation for their time. While there are many Psychedelic, Progressive and Experimental elements in “Axioma Ethica Odini”, the core roots of the album emanate from well made and aggressive Black Metal that is non-compromising and never feels watered down, but rather enriched by these elements.

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