The Eyes Of A Traitor is one of the few bands that is truly trying to find their own unique sound and not trying to copy anybody. Every song here features different styles and elements that make me wonder what they are trying to achieve. “A Clear Perception” is a very interesting album feature ten very different tracks, that would attract many different types of listeners.
While their main ‘sytle’ I would say it’s metalcore, but they have different elements in many songs that make me re-consider this. Some songs are leaning more to death metal, and they some other res just weird. Some songs feature weird samples/keyboards either at the beginning or the end, and then they are forgotten, to suddenly reappear again.
I have to say that I was quite impressed with The Sorrow’s performance in Tuska 2008, so I was curious about listening to this album. And I was completely disappointed, while you can clearly see their old Gothenburg influenced Melodic Death metal style, they completely kill it with the terrible Metalcore/emo style vocals. The album kicks of powerfully and I was thinking, this will be a great release, but noooooo the vocals switched to the annoying clean vocals, and the typical emo’ish choirs.
I was about the stop listening to this album, but I remembered that I have to communicate my finding with other metal heads, so they decide for themselves if they want to take the plunge this way. I must say that the music is excellent since they still play a killer melodic death, but they ruin every single good riff with terrible vocal changes.
Three years after their first full length in 16 years called “Left Hand Pathology” this band returns stronger than ever with “Corpus In Extremis”. These crazy ‘doctors’ as they call themselves (read our interview with them in this issue), have the closest old school death metal sound that I’ve heard in years. And while their sound is not ‘original’, it’s refreshing since bands haven’t been playing this type of music, with this quality, in several years.
The doctors are clearly influenced by early Carcass, and you can see this in the music as well as their lyrics and song titles, but they have also created a style of their own that can be heard and read in their two full length albums. They don’t waste any time in blowing the listener away since the first track of this album: “Necronomics”. Their lyrics are a mix of blood, guts, medical lingo and humor that reminds me of the old times when bands didn’t take themselves to seriously and where just having fun.
After nine years and four demos this German band blows us away with their debut album “Side Effects Expected”. Their highly technical Death metal took me by surprise when this album started. I was not expecting anything of this quality for a first release of a band. If I had to pick a favorite song in this album, I would not be able to do this, since all of them are excellent.
The dual guitars work along with the precise drumming take this album to a whole new level in terms of technical Death metal releases. Every song features different solos and riffs that would keep any metal head with A.D.D paying close attention to them. The changes in between songs are brilliantly executed and dramatically increase the complexity of the songs.
Grave Digger has been around for almost 30 year now, and they have been marked by their inconsistency between releases. “Ballads Of A Hangman” is one of those in between releases. While the band’s sound is more of an old school Heavy metal they also have some Speed metal influences here and there. The best part of their sound is that the stay away from many of the current Power metal clichés.
This album is an overall good release with some very good moments, but at some points I was lost thinking that I’ve been listening to the same song for 10 minutes or so. Most songs are very similar and they can get boring eventually. The vocals I have to say are one of the things I like the most about this band, the raspy style of Heavy metal vocals makes them a perfect fit for the music, and don’t annoy the listener too much (like, in my opinion, many Heavy metal bands).
“Depths” is one of the most brutal releases I’ve heard in the last few years. It grabs you by the throat and keeps going at it until the album is over. Oceano comes from Chicago, USA, and this album was released through Earache records. Providing 13 tracks of perfectly executed death metal, this album will take many by surprise.
The band’s musical style is nothing new, they excel at creating death metal with some great growls. The music is quite technical in some parts and overall pretty good. The guitar chugging never gets old if its done correctly and this band has a graduate degree at doing this. While there are some influences of Cannibal Corpse and other death metal bands, Oceano has a very characteristic chugging guitar sound of their own.
This releases is the 9th full length album of Suidakra, and like it’s predecessors it’s very good and different. In this release the Celtic influences are predominant in most of the songs, but the traditional aggressiveness of their musical style is always present. All songs feature a higher technical quality than most of the bands previous work.
“Crógacht” features nine tracks that will leave you begging for more. The intro track will give you a very good idea of what to expect through out the rest of the album. And then “Conaloch” hits with a combined aggressive and melodic aspect to it that will enthrall any listener. In this release the keyboards mark the overall Celtic atmosphere of the whole album.
This two member band from Michigan plays something close to industrial and ambient, and while some other reviews and the promo sleeve say’s they have some Black Metal influences I fail to hear them. The vocals sound a bit Black Metal, but other than that there is nothing else. The album it self is a weird trip into outer space or somewhere in between.
Auriga features seven tracks of synthesizers, and guitars and a drum machine. While there are many interesting Industrial Black Metal bands, their music does not sound like this band at all. The overall atmosphere of the album is quite interesting and tense, but it just stays like that, I think it fails to deliver something that it’s building up to.
Wyrd has been shaping their music over the course of its existence, and now “Kalivägi” marks their newest release with a more refined mix of Pagan Black metal with doom metal. If you are expecting the old heavier sounding Wyrd, you’ll be in for a surprise since while their music is slower they still have some of the rawness of their first releases mixed in with their slower newer stuff.
This release features a majestic combination of acoustic passages, harsh vocals, clean vocals and distorted guitars that create a depressive atmosphere like no other band has done. While the clear vocals are not the best they clearly fit into the music. Imagine listening to Tenhi with some distorted guitars and harsh vocals.
Nachtgeschrei hails from germany and they play Folk rock/metal. This band has some clear similarities with In Extremo, but they manage to have a sound of their own. This release features a more rock oriented music, than their previous album “Hoffnungsschimmer” and while this is not necessarily bad the band might loose some followers over this.
“Am Rande der Wel” features song very catchy songs and nice mixture of metal/rock guitars with bagpipes and very distinctive vocals. The album kicks of with two great songs (after the intro): “Musipili” and “Herz aus Stein”. The rest of the songs do sound very similar, but if the music is good (like in this case), then this is not a problem. There are many parts that are perfect for sing-along moments during live performances.
