Stone Sour

Stone Shower

I am old enough to remember Slipknot’s early days. The buzz, hype and the mystique that surrounded them before they released their self-titled album – which I duly purchased – painted them as a bunch of total mental cases that wore the masks so they could do what the fuck they wanted and could anonymously replace each member if one of them quit or died. Their masks were a rejection of the mainstream and marked them out as something darker and less predictable than everything else Nu that was being shat out of 1999. So what happens when you remove those masks and renege on your initial statements of intent? Well on one level you retain the street cred of latter day Glen Benton, and on another you become Kiss circa 1983. Enter Stone Sour.

Stone Sour will forever be inextricably linked to Slipknot, like a massively effeminate Siamese twin conjoined to a slightly aggressive retard brother. I suppose, after the release of Iowa, resurrecting a more traditional hard rock act might have seemed like a good idea for Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Jim Root (it wasn’t, their first two albums were fucking dog shit), but when Slipknot itself changes and becomes as lame and unthreatening as a dead puppy, what is the point in continuing with the side project that now sits in exactly the same space as the day job? I suppose you can drive that side project further into the middle of the road, pulling in behind such luminaries as 30 Seconds To Mars, Hoobastank and Kajagoogoo and settle nicely in that comfortable, beige lane of the musical motorway that any self respecting music fan would like to drive a tank down in the opposite direction.

Audio Secrecy, the third effort from Stone Sour, begins with an eponymous introduction track before they unveil their Mission Statement, which, rather than being the devastatingly original and jaw-dropping tour-de-force you might expect from a song so titled, actually appears to be that they have no idea what they are playing at, instead club footing their way around a mish mash of semi-competent metal riffing, out-of-place crooned clean vocals and ‘not evil enough to get us taken off any precious radio playlist’ screams… The solo is about passable. However, Digital (Did You Tell) is wholesale stolen from 36 Crazyfists 2002 Bitterness the Star album (yes, that cutting edge and relevant), and really only succeeds in making you wish you were listening to the awesome underwater vocal stylings of the original. Dying, which follows, is just a huge, steaming, fetid, swarming pile of reheated Nickelback.

Let’s Be Honest and Unfinished are a pair of unremarkable mid-tempo generic ‘upbeat and defiant’ rockers, either of which could conceivably be used as an entrance theme for a feisty female wrestler, which is actually a compliment given that most of the songs on here are too embarrassingly cheesy even to be used in an Eddie Guerrero tribute montage. One of the worst offenders here is Hesitate, which sounds exactly like When You Were Young by The Killers, only the chorus makes The Killers sound as urgent, vital and emotionally charged as a Napalm Death, Shining and NWA split EP.

My spirits were raised when I saw Miracles as the next track, hoping it would be a faithful cover of the brilliant Insane Clown Posse smash hit of the same name, however it was in fact another mournful, heartfelt ballad with lyrics ambiguous enough to be about nothing and everything… Or to be used as a nice piece of solemn background muzak in some godawful smash-hit US TV series, coming soon to Living TV. Obviously sensing that the listener may be tiring of ballads, the boys decide to crank it up a gear with The Bitter End, and what better way to get your average metal fan rocking again than with a riff fished from the deepest, darkest Nu Metal waters, where only Spineshank before them had dared to dredge?

But hang on guys, that’s us now gone 3 minutes and 34 seconds without a piss poor ballad. Better throw everything at this one, get the acoustic guitars out and really go for it. Make sure that you wring all the cod emotion you possibly can out of those softly arpeggiated chords, try and squeeze yet more blood from that dry, desolate ballad stone… But all that comes out is Imperfect.

But then again, squeezing something from nothing is all they have tried to do on the whole album. It is a cynical attempt to obtain money and Grammy nominations by projecting sentimental balladry and vague aggression onto a backdrop of paper-thin musical compositions, ostensibly to cater for the stereotypical ‘disenfranchised teenage’ lowest common denominator. This is heavy music for people that enjoy a little bit of Coldplay and perhaps listen to the new U2 or Red Hot Chili Peppers album when they’re really letting their hair down after a hard day at the estate agents office and a really spiffing game of squash with Quentin from HR.

It’s fucking bollocks.

Grave Digger - Hammer Of The Scots

Yes, the new Grave Digger song isn’t going to change anyone’s opinion of them but it’s not bad. We also get a slideshow of embarassingly awful pictures of them in full Braveheart gear from their latest video shoot. The song, Hammer of the Scots is taken from their forthcoming millionth album, The Clans Will Rise Again which will no doubt sound just like their last album & I’ll probably buy it.

Grave Digger - The Clans Will Rise Again

The Absence

Absent No Longer

The Absence return after what seems like far longer than the 3 years it’s been since Riders Of The Plague, their 2nd album, pushed them to the forefront of the melodic death/thrash/music picture, establishing themselves as the smart alternative to the Arch Enemies of this world and becoming firm Leave the Hall favourites in the process. Naturally the question must be asked; after such a hotly anticipated build-up, will they choke like Michael Hutchence or gloriously unleash a pent up torrent of creamy metal musical ejaculate into our lives?

One thing is clear from the get-go on Enemy Unbound – Peter Joseph and Patrick Pintaville can still play the guitar like men who have sold a ball to Satan, continuing and developing the fine axemanship that characterized From Your Grave and Riders…. These musical credentials are all over the delicate and overwhelmingly melodic Vertigo, which instrumentally welcomes us to the album and is swiftly followed by the reassuringly thrashy Erased, a song about Total Recall that is so awesome it will have Arnocorps sobbing into their steroids.

Deepest Wound features harmonies lusher than the pubes of a goddess and smatterings of solo spots that are at times reminiscent of Scar Symmetry’s space-age super-noodling, while Maelstrom and the mighty title track reach out and touch modern thrash perfection, every nuance of the onslaught being picked out and carefully polished to a glowing commercial sheen by the production (handled by the guitarists themselves) and Jonas Kjellgren’s excellent mix, giving you a boner that’ll have you bent double for a fortnight.

It’s literally impossible to keep this relentless pace up, however, as the listener would be so overwhelmed by the genius that their soul would prolapse and, inevitably, following 2nd instrumental Solace, the album does slip slightly into Absence-by-numbers in its second half. We’re presented with tracks that would have been strong standouts if featured on their first two releases, but are found slightly wanting when compared to the minge-blisteringly sexual opening tracks. That said, the slow-burning Wartorn and Hidden in White are not without high merit, both featuring yet more guitar majesty but giving the listener enough space to breathe and soak in Jamie Stewart’s brutal yet crystal clear vocals, which go a long way to keeping this album firmly anchored in the ‘hairy man metal’ category that we love so dearly and well clear of any shadow of poserdom that the huge melodies might threaten to cast.

This is an album that, while not quite fulfilling their vast potential, comes a ball hair’s width away and continues the Absence’s journey towards inevitable world domination. This is something I am convinced will happen for them just as soon as the ignoramuses that constitute 96% of the metal-buying public stop felching the nu-metal dangleberries out of Disturbed’s sweaty arse crack and realise that this is what modern metal should be – a rock-solid thrash foundation, death growls, melodies and enough guitar pyrotechnics on tap that, should the need arise, they can be used as some sort of musical Death Star. Next time they will release their definitive, no-holds-barred masterpiece and your face will be Alderaan.

Hail Of Bullets - Operation Z

Leavethehall’s favourite death metal supergroup, Hail of Bullets have been teasing us with a track from their new album On Divine Winds which is out on the 11th of October. We are already far too excited about this album & this may just push us over the edge into a World War 2 themed wanking frenzy involving flamethrowers, gas masks & a very dead prostitute. Check out the other tasty, HoB treats Metal Blade have for you over at http://www.metalblade.com/hailofbullets/.

Hail Of Bullets

Oh No, Udo-n't

Udo-n’t Know What You Are Missing

Two heavy metal superpowers have released albums this month. Iron Maiden’s fifteenth album, The Final Frontier is barely out of the shrink-wrap yet I find myself more excited about Accept’s latest effort. Whilst the 2 sample tracks Maiden were released to a very mixed reaction, Accept’s first single, Teutonic Terror was met with outbreaks of mass-orgasm. One town in North Germany was, in fact, washed away by a torrent of semen minutes after the premier of the video.

Anyway, Udo was too busy launching toys from his shiny, metallic pram to patch things up with Wolf Hoffman so Mark Tornillo of TT Quick has been brought in to replace him. Now, you may be asking “Who?” & that’s a fair question. TT Quick’s biggest claim to fame is probably that Helstar once supported them yet Tornillo’s voice is perfect for Accept’s brand of old school metal. Whilst he lacks the unhinged/full-on mental delivery of the legendary Dirkschneider he is, dare I say, more consistent.

Kicking of in suitably efficient, Germanic style, Beat The Bastards sounds like Motorhead being fronted Biff Byford. The Abyss starts out as a mid-tempo, rather standard Accept affair before someone accidentally inserts a soppy Guns ‘n’ Roses-esque interlude about how the world used to be pretty good. Thankfully, the duo of Hoffman & Frank stomp all over the sentimentality with some scorching guitar work, much like a pair of Gestapo officers going through a Jewish apartment block circa 1942.

They successfully out-Manowar Manowar’s latest efforts with the title track which features gang vocals reminiscent of classic era stuff like Aiming High & it has the words “metal anthem” written all over it. There are a couple of weaker tracks; Kill The Pain leaves me limper than Halford in a titty bar, Pandemic fails to capitalise on it’s initial momentum but there’s not a single turd in this heavy metal hamper. With only one song above the 7 minute mark, Accept avoid overindulging themselves. Closing with the brilliantly named Bucket Full Of Hate* Accept have, for the first time in over 20 years, released an album that has all the hallmarks of a classic.

Finding a new vocalist seems to have been only half the problem for Accept. What makes this album so brilliant is the hiring of Andy Sneap to handle production. He made the band sit back & reassess their back-catalogue before recording. The end result is a proper Accept album; the one we’ve been waiting for. It would have been great to see Hoffman & Udo back together but Blood Of The Nations is the strongest album they’ve released since 85′s classic Metal Heart.

Tornillo’s voice has only added to their trademark sound & whilst Sneap’s masterful touch is evident throughout, this album couldn’t be any more German without invading Poland. Then again, anything else would have been unacceptable.

* Dethklok must be kicking themselves for not coming up with that one

Bonded By Blood - Prototype: Death Machine

Border jumping thrash heroes Bonded By Blood released their new high budget video epic, Prototype: Death Machine guest starring Matt Lucas as the death machine himself. The new album is out now on Earache.

Bonded By Blood

Iron Maiden

The Final Fun Tier

The release of a new Iron Maiden album has almost become more than simply music. Along with Priest and the other elder statesmen of the genre, every new release is an affirmation of the continuing health of a beloved musical institution and, by extension, metal itself. For a metalhead a new Maiden album should be greeted with the sort of rapturous masturbation usually reserved for a teenage boy that’s just flicked over to babestation for the first time, and so it was as a loyal acolyte that I made the pilgrimage to HMV to pick up a copy of The Final Frontier, Iron Maiden’s 15th opus.

Like every other fan expecting the galloping, rabble-rousing, boner-inducing call-to-arms that is a patented Iron Maiden album opener I did a double take when the echoing atmospherics of Satellite 15 started flowing from my speakers, in case someone had accidentally placed the wrong disc in the case. As it segues into the more familiar yet still fairly reserved title track it is abundantly clear that this is another step deeper into Maidens post-Brave New World brave new world, which is one where they feel no pressure to conform to fan expectation. Even lead single El Dorado eschews many traditional Maidenisms in favour of a distinctly prog-style intro and classic rock-sounding riffs, but it still has a chorus that will be in your brain days later, whether you like it or not.

Mother of Mercy follows, where the folk-tinged side of the band that has been emerging over the past few releases is far more clearly established, Bruce Dickinson’s weathered vocals adding a gravitas and an edge of desperation and urgency to the lyrics that elevates the song far above its purely instrumental merits. The same can be said for quite a few songs on ‘…Frontier’; as the song lengths grow and the once bountiful hooks that formed the backbone of their songs become fewer and further between, I find the vocal lines and delivery taking on a far more prominent role in the listening experience. Where the vocals were once carried along by the fast-flowing river of musical bluster, they now have room to weave and lead the way as on Coming Home, an expansive and uplifting track that should be a live favourite, and most prominently on the introductions to album highlight The Man Who Would Be King and classic Harris-penned epic closer Where the Wild Wind Blows, complete with emotional, emotive lyrics and melodies along the lines of Blood Brothers from 2000.

That these two standouts are the final tracks on the album illustrates the way it gathers momentum throughout, hinging on the swashbuckling The Alchemist – whose verses sound more than a little like Man On The Edge – and sees the band really kicking into high gear for the first time on the album, propelled by Nicko’s snappy drumming, radiating an energy that players half his age would kill for. As its final notes ring out we are now firmly heading downhill into epic territory, ushered in with the progressive Isle Of Avalon, complete with stunning mid-section shred work that showcases the triple guitar attack of modern Maiden to fine extent. Starblind sails effortlessly along with soaring vocals and driving, exhilarating riffs, while The Talisman is essentially a distillation of their last 4 albums into one 9 minute masterpiece, again taking in those folk influences in the intro, before bursting into life and galloping into the distance, not even slowing as they unleash a chorus that’s as good as anything they have ever put their name to.

This is Maiden the way they want to sound – the way they should sound. A band of wily veterans who realise they have nothing to prove in the speed or technicality stakes, just making the music that flows naturally from them, unspoiled by industry pressure or financial concerns. While they only occasionally sound like they used to in their spandex-worrying heyday, this is the logical conclusion to the Maiden journey, where the progressive, sprawling compositions are no longer consigned to life as album closers, instead the whole thing marches at a stately pace, unrushed, unfettered and unapologetically grandiose.

This might not be Iron Maiden’s last release, but if, as some suspect, it does turn out to be their swansong, the last thing we hear will be the sound of a band brimming with confidence producing music entirely on their own terms…Which is exactly the way Maiden should go out.

Gaahl's Undeniable Dress Sense

Gaahl’s Fashion Fix

Satan! Oh, wait, no. Fashion! Yes, that’s right. Today I, black metal renaissance man, shall be talking you through some of heavy metal fashion disasters. My partner & I were sat in front of the TV last night watching my new Stryper DVD when I got thinking, metal is a rather unfashionable genre. I know not everyone can be quite as fabulous as myself but here are my big 5 no-nos.

5. Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Oh dear, where to start? Ozzy appears to be wearing some sort of kaftan & platform boots, Bill Ward’s red tights & leathers combo, Iommi’s blue spotted suit jacket & high waist band or the Mexican day-worker they got in to replace Geezer for the photo. Nothing about this picture is right. It looks like the aftermath of an explosion at Boy George’s fancy dress party. Oh how Elton & I laughed that night.

4. Cold Lake era Celtic Frost

Cold Lake era Celtic Frost

Tom may have made the eye-liner & black wool hat look his own but luckily this monstrosity never took off. I’m all for accessorising but white fingerless gloves  don’t do anything for you! As for Curt’s choice of red suspenders & a hand down his jeans, I really don’t know. He wouldn’t look out of place in my favourite film of all time, Backdoor Bum Boys 9: Pool Party Poop Pushers, but playing bass for the Frost, no. Stick to slimming blacks, boys!

3. Adam Dutkiewicz

Adam Dutkiewicz

Previous outfits have included capes & pirate hats but this one takes the unfashionable biscuit! Denim hotpants look fantastic on my Filipino pool boy, Pepe. If, however, you are as unfortunate looking as Adam, I’d recommend sticking to jeans, or possibly a burka. His on stage frolics just scream musical theatre to me. I may give my good friend Andrew (Lloyd-Webber. [ed]) a call & see if we can’t have him play the Phantom.

2. Dez Fafara

Dez Fafara through the ages

Corpse paint is the coolest thing since flavoured lubricant but taking it a step further & getting shitstains tattooed on your chin is not. I know Dez hasn’t been know for his fashion choices as demonstrated on the left but this buff man-bear on the right is just silly. Dez’s primary concern should be to lose some weight so that he can fit into a nice pair of tight black jeans, Chelsea boots, a fitted suit jacket & open shirt. He also needs to get rid of all that beastly body hair, I shall put him in touch with my waxer this instant!

1. Michael Amott

Michael Amott-tage

What decade is this, Mr Amott?! What do you need all those wallet chains for?! Call the fashion police immediately! Back to 2001 with you! Black is not a good colour for someone as pale as Michael. What he should do is break things up with a floral patterned shirt, some black hair dye & a nail-studded leather gauntlet. Combining this with some assless leather chaps & a pair of brown loafers will give him a more sophisticated, mature look.

* Disclaimer: This may or may not have been written by Gaahl. This is, however, exactly how it would have gone if he did.

Sabbat

Achren

I was unaware that International Talk Like A Pirate Day had come around again (not really, you dullard) until Achren’s set. “You are a sorry excuse for a crowd compared with Bloodstock!” barks vocalist Scott, in his best buccaneer tones, to which he receives the sage response, “It’s the same fucking crowd, ya baw!” It’s true, looking around Ivory Blacks, about half of the crowd were packed into the New Blood tent on Saturday morning. It is also true that the crowd were a good deal less enthusiastic but that might have something to do with post-festival malaise.

None of this stops Achren blasting through the Immolation-esque Forgotten King & the crushing The Way of the Twilight or the Aura of Flies. For all their sound & fury though, it seems the crowd aren’t the only ones feeling rough. Closing with the undeniably catchy Bastards (On the Gallows or Bastards on the Rack), there is a consensus between crowd & band that we’ll call this one a draw & come back next time with a bit more energy.

Sabbat

Last time Sabbat played in Scotland I was shitting in my own pants and drinking sweet, sweet boob milk. Last night they returned following their reunion and very little had changed, only this time I simultaneously shat and jizzed myself, and my mum no longer allows me to suck her milkers. If anything, Sabbat have changed even less, still able to thrash to within an inch of their lives – thrashing almost too far given Martin Walkyier was nursing a bad throat which, according to the man himself, was brought on by the rigours of touring in a minibus in your 40’s.

Luckily for the assembled fanatics – some of whom had been waiting for 20 years to see them – medical problems and any advancing years were brushed aside by a face full of ball melting, warp-speed riffs. Proceedings began with a savage rendition of The Clerical Conspiracy but the crowd seemed slow, sluggish and a little subdued, which had me thinking we were in for another cringe worthy Scottish date where people are seemingly only in a gig to get out of the rain, having no desire to actually hear any music, which is something I have witnessed in this very venue on many occasions. Maybe it was just that everyone was in a state of shellshock or had possibly joined me in massively soiling myself as when Behind the Crooked Cross began, people were thrashing as if possessed by the ghost of Baloff himself and my fears of a damp squib were quickly allayed.

Seeing as Sabbat have only 2 ‘proper’ albums to draw upon meant that almost everyone got to hear their favourite song, the set drawing evenly from History of a Time to Come and Dreamweaver, and duly The Best Of Enemies, I For An Eye, Blood For The Blood God, The Church Bizarre and an almighty Do Dark Horses Dream of Nightmares? blasted the crowd into sweaty submission. By the time the band returned for an encore, Walkyier’s urging people to rub their bodies together to create the necessary heat for a Wildfire was as plausible as it was fruity and when they ended with the giant hooks of For Those Who Died, it was a fitting memorial for the ‘bangers that had foolishly, yet amusingly, stage dived straight onto the unforgiving concrete.

The gods may not have wanted this gig to happen; Sabbat’s tour with Shart Enemy being cancelled due to volcanic activity, vocal health issues and the fact that they had to play with only one support act, but they delivered something that was well and truly worth the effort. Now they just need to make sure they don’t leave it another 2 fucking decades to come back or next time I’ll be shitting in my pants with old age.

Taken from last year’s brilliantly named yet slightly disappointing Massive Aggressive, Acid Sentence is Municipal Waste doing what they do best. It’s actually an exclusive debut to a site that’s not this one but I suspect that is an oversight on their part, rather than an intentional snub. Anyway, we nicked it & present it here for your audiovisual pleasure. It’s a bit of a gorefest, just the way we like things.

Municipal Waste Laying Um... Waste

Taken from their new album Maniacal Miscreation which is out now.

They are currently on tour in Europe with legends Devourment. We’ll let you know what we think of the album when we get our grubby hands on it but if it’s anything like this, there’s gonna be jizz everywhere by the time I’m finished listening to it. If you are on the continent, go check them out!

Bay Area thrash titans Exodus have released a video for the track Downfall take from their new album, Exhibit B: The Human Condition. The song is excellent, the video is pretty good & Gary Holt hates epileptics so enjoy. Watch it here & don’t drool on the keyboard!

Their last album was a well-received return to form following Dave Wyndorf’s near-fatal overdose in 2006.

Monster Magnet songwriter and front man, Dave Wyndorf, describes Mastermind;

“It’s a big, beefy ball of demented anthems and power rock. The music itself is exaggerated and muscular. Like classic rock gone insane! Giant hooks, giant sounds. The rockers are direct and intense. The ballads, trippy and strange. It’s guitar heaven. Well, the lyrics read like a fever-dream of life in the 21st century. Cynicism, optimism, satire, sex, deluded fantasies and dead-on reality. They’re all here – sometimes even in the same song! In my world, images, information and emotions tend to intertwine. I’ll describe the smallest details of my personal life in crazy, cinematic terms. When I write, the words play out in my mind like scenes from a movie and that’s the vibe I tried to capture on “Mastermind” – rapid-fire emotion. What can I say? I’m having a weird life and I have to write it down that way. In the end though, MastermindROCKS, and that’s what’s most important.”

The tracklisting is as follow:

1. Hallucination Bomb
2. Bored With Sorcery Dig That Hole
3. Gods And Punks
4. The Titan Who Cried Like A Baby
5. Mastermind
6. 100 Million Miles
7. Perish In Fire
8. Time Machine
9. When The Planes Fall From The Sky
10. Ghost Story
11. All Outta Nothin’

Monster Magnet

Monster Magnet are on tour in the UK in November but there’s a distinct lack of Scottish dates so far!

• 18th CARDIFF – Millennium Music Hall
• 20th SHEFFIELD – Corporation
• 21st READING – Sub 81
• 22nd SOUTHAMPTON – University
• 23rd BIRMINGHAM – HMV Institute
• 25th MANCHESTER – Moho Live
• 26th LONDON – Electric Ballroom

Blind Guardian Confirmed For Wacken 2011

Wacken 2010 might have just finished but the lineup for next year is already shaping up. German power metal legends, Blind Guardian will be playing their only German date of 2011 at the world’s biggest metal festival. Other bands confirmed are Mike Muir’s crossover kings, Suicidal Tendencies, power metal collective Avantasia & Finland’s cello based Apocalyptica. Wacken 2011 will run from the 3rd – 6th August.

Cephalic Carnage - The Incorrigible Flame

American grindcore mentalists, Cephalic Carnage are premiering their new song taken from their upcoming album Misled by Certainty which is out on Relapse Records at the end of August. Check it out here.

What Take That could have been

Welcome to Part 2 of the definitive(ish) list of the greatest heavy metal concept albums. This is the business end, it’s the big one. Here we get into the real heavy hitters of conceptual conceptualising; the beard-stroking, lute-playing minstrels of our time.

You may read Part 1 here

4. Opeth – Still Life

It was a tough decision for me to limit myself to just one Opeth album, with My Arms, Your Hearse narrowly missing out as their entry on the list and 2005′s Ghost Reveries being partially conceptual as well. However, Still Life was where Opeth reached the high watermark of pretentiousness, though not boasting …Hearse’s ‘last lyric is name of next song’ japery, it does have a story that is better realised and presented in a way that is beautifully, intrinsically linked with the music. The tale tells of a man banished from a town for his religious beliefs, leaving behind the love of his life for 15 years, only to make a concealed return to try and find her. Naturally she’s a creepy nun by this point but nonetheless is murdered by the religious loony locals for simply meeting up with our protagonist. There seems to be a distinct lack of good-old Christian values in this here village. Our hero decides to go down fighting the slack-jawed yokels, but is eventually overpowered and hung, but not before he sees her ghost waiting for him in death as he stands ready on the gallows. This uplifting tale is backed by some of Opeth’s greatest songs – the delicate acoustics of Benighted and Face of Melinda are elevated to true masterpiece level by the story, while Godhead’s Lament is quite possibly my favourite Opeth song (Though this is massively open to change on an almost hourly basis). Even weighed against the exceeding level of genius that comprises Opeth’s career, Still Life manages to stand out as one of their finest moments.

3. Edge Of Sanity – Crimson

One man band and all round musical lunatic Dan Swano really outdid himself with Crimson. Seriously. According to the internets, some shops thought that this one track behemoth was a CD single and sold it for £3. Lucky for him, yet of no financial compensation, the music is so good it will actually make you take a shit in your pants; 40 unbroken minutes of crazy sci-fi storytelling set to a soundtrack of sexual death metal, prog. rock and acoustic tomfoolery that has more musical twists and turns than the human mind can safely navigate. The story apparently tells of a future where humankind can no longer conceive, until the King and Queen do that is, leaving everyone feeling pretty chuffed when their daughter is born. Sure, the Queen dies in childbirth, but that’s a small price to pay for restarting the planet’s population, right? Wrong, as no-one else concieves, ever, and then the King dies too. So they have some fuck-off wars, with a new King coming in who everyone hates. So yet again they do a war until the last-born Princess takes over. Which is great, until they realise she’s a mental and get rid of her too. I prefer to call it ‘Regicide – The Musical’. Of course only 17% of this intriguing storyline is legible due to the prominence of death growls, so we fall back on the music, which is as good as progressive death metal can possibly be – not overly technical but sprawling, epic, brutal and even catchy. It’s 2112 for crackheads.

2. King Diamond – Abigail

Abigail is an awesome story, taking in all the classic plot devices – a possessed baby, a haunted house, immaculate demon conception, pushing a pregnant woman down the stairs… And it features a cast of characters that all have 3 syllable names, allowing King Diamond to scream their names in a ridiculously high-pitched manner. The music would have to step up in a massive way to match up to this potent recipe, and thanks to the majesty of Andy LaRocque, Mikkey Dee and the former ‘Fate Members, it does in the most convincing way possible, producing what can only be described as some of the most bangin’, off-the-hook, wiggedy-wack and brap-tacular metal riffs and solos ever seen. Somehow they actually manage to fit more riffs per song than even Mercyful Fate themselves did, which is pretty fucking impressive. The album weaves the story so effectively and the vocals really bring out the personalities and feelings of the characters, with KD switching between his high, very high and dog whistle registers at ease. Standout tracks like The Family Ghost just dominate your face with genius and make you wonder why this isn’t rated (by me) as the greatest concept album of all time.

It might be because I still have no fucking idea why 18 becomes 9…

Or maybe it’s because of…

1. Queensryche – Operation Mindcrime

Yes. This is definitely the greatest concept album of all time, and now I think about it, it’s probably my number one album of all time too. It’s easy to look at (and indeed listen to) Queensryche now and forget how good they once were. Or laugh. In fact if only we could forget the last 20 years of their career it would be perfection and we’d probably be rating albums out of Tates. I could write a million words on Operation Mindcrime (and may very well do in future) but all you need to know is it’s a story of a junkie with a skinjob for a hairdo (yeah, he looked pretty cool), a nun (what is it about nun’s and concept albums) and a man called Dr X, who, apparently, is the man with the cure. Only the cure he offers is more heroin, assassinations and some hot nun-on-smackhead action. This would obviously be incredible as some sort of story or book, but when you add in some of the finest progressive yet perfectly streamlined heavy metal in the history of all life itself, topped off with Geoff Tate’s trouser-straining, orgasm-donating vocals, you have literally the greatest thing ever. I would normally pity you if you don’t own a great album, but instead I will look upon you, non-Mindcrime-owning heathen, with murderous rage and vomitous loathing, for Mindcrime… is sublime.

Numbers 8-5

The Black Dahlia Murder European Tour

The Black Dahlia Murder ‘Deflorate European Summer tour 2010’ kicks off this week

The Black Dahlia Murder begin their ‘Deflorate European Summer tour 2010’ which kicks off in Germany on August 6, 2010 and includes three UK shows including a slot at Hevy Fest. They recently slayed the UK headlining the ‘Bonecrusher Tour’. They’ll be joined by Despised Icon playing their last ever European dates.

‘Deflorate European Summer Tour 2010’
The Black Dahlia Murder
Despised Icon

• 06.08.10 Germany Leisnig @ Suck N Summer
• 07.08.10 Germany Wacken @ Wacken Open Air (DI only)
• 08.08.10 UK Port Lympne Wild Animal Park @ Hevy Fest
• 09.08.10 UK Sheffield @ Corporation
• 10.08.10 UK London @ Garage
• 12.08.10 Czech Rep Jaromer @ Brutal Assault
• 13.08.10 Germany Aschaffenburg @ Colos Saal
• 14.08.10 Belgium Ieper @ Ieper Fest
• 15.08.10 Holland Rotterdam @ Baroeg (Matinee)
• 16.08.10 Germany Bochum @ Matrix, Summer Seek And Destroy *
• 17.08.10 Germany Saarbrücken @ Garage, Summer Seek And Destroy *
• 18.08.10 Germany München @ Feierwerk
• 19.08.10 Austria Wien @ Szene, Summer Seek And Destroy *
• 20.08.10 Germany Dinkelsbühl @ Summer Breeze
• 21.08.10 Switzerland Muotathal @ Mountains of Death (BDM only)

Warrel Dane's audition for the Gary Busey biopic was a strong one.

Hello. Here is my take on the 8 greatest concept albums of all time, or at least the ones I have A) Heard and B) Remembered for the purpose of writing this piece. WASP’s Crimson Idol, Iced Earth’s Framing Armageddon double album and others were unlucky to miss out on merit, I totally forgot about Orphaned Land until writing this little intro, had massive reservations about Priest’s Nostradamus, wasn’t sure if Painkiller was really a concept album and generally made a right bollocks of the whole thing. With your expectations now suitably dampened, I present numbers 8-5 on this countdown to conceptual glory…

8. Hail Of Bullets – …Of Frost and War

I reviewed this behemoth last year, and as such it was fresh in my mind as I struggled to think of concept albums for this list, sneaking cheekily in at number 8. My mental deficiencies aside, however, this is still a crushing album that deals with the Eastern Front of World War 2, and you can’t get a much bigger concept to get your teeth into than that. In fact Hail of Bullets are something of a ‘concept band’, having also released the conspicuously similar Warsaw Rising EP in 2009. There isn’t a ‘story’ to decipher as with most concept albums, instead the songs are tied in chronological order, taking us on a violent, marauding journey across the battlefields and sieges of eastern Europe and back. That feeling that you‘ve been on a journey is exactly what you want from a concept album, and …Of Frost and War leaves you exhausted, shell shocked and sporting a full chest of service medals after every ball-aching listen.

7. Iron Maiden – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

Iron Maiden are a grandiose band, a band who embrace big ideas and aren’t afraid to push the boat out regarding structure and song lengths, but strangely they only have one concept album to their name in 15 releases (though I still haven’t heard The Final Frontier) – 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Lyrically the album deals with a related variety of mystic questions, good and evil, clairvoyance etc. but there is no real storyline per-se other than the supposedly magical powers that the seventh son of a seventh son will inherit. This lack of total commitment to the ‘concept album concept’ may even have been a factor in the departure of Bruce Dickinson, who felt they hadn’t embraced the possibilities as well as Queensryche had done the same year with Operation Mindcrime. Nevertheless, for all its failings regarding conceptual cohesiveness, Seventh Son… contains some of Maiden’s most memorable songs – Can I Play With Madness and The Evil That Men Do saw Maiden reach their commercial peak and elsewhere, Infinite Dreams is an underrated masterpiece. Only The Good Die Young sounds like The Trooper part 2, with a chorus that is quite possibly dangerously addictive – like some sort of musical super-heroin, and the title track is epic Maiden in excelsis. Seventh Son… is a better album than most on here, but as a concept album it falls short of the mark, hence its lowly position.

6. Fates Warning – Parallels

Fate’s Warning are one of the pioneering kings of progressive metal, and though this album did not feature as much crushing technicality and epic musical masturbation as their early work with John Arch on vocals, the arrival of the less histrionic Ray Alder infused the bad with a new-found commerciality that made an album like Parallels possible. It is centered around a loose concept of songs covering a dying connection with a wife, girlfriend or whoever you choose to personally project the songs upon. Tracks like Life In Still Water, Eye To Eye and the epic The Eleventh Hour see Jim Matheos conjouring particularly heartfelt portraits of a loveless relationship, conveying a real feeling of desperation and growing isolation and in We Only Say Goodbye, Parallels also contains one of the greatest power ballads of all time, a monumental song that distils everything about the album into one highly-palatble 5 minute portion. Parallels could be seen as the progenitor of the genre I hereby christen ‘Michael Bolton Metal’, continued today by Evergrey and others, possibly the definitive example of music that contains enough heart-wringing emotion juice to drown a cat yet still packs a punch. It is best enjoyed with a large whiskey when you’ve been dumped… Just remember to hide the razorblades before you press play.

5. Nevermore – Dreaming Neon Black

This gets promoted up the list on the strength of the concept, supposedly being based on the very real disappearance of Warrell Dane’s girlfriend, but being adapted into a more general tale of a mans descent into madness following his girlfriends death. This conceptual framework allows Nevermore to develop their music in a way they hadn’t done on their previous albums, with a great deal more instrumental melancholy and gloom setting the scene for Dane’s twisted lyrics and tortured vocals. Nevermore have never produced anything like it since, with that darkness only occasionally resurfacing in recent years, but I feel their music is all the better for its presence. I Am The Dog, The Fault Of The Flesh and Poison Godmachine (where Warrel again breaks out his Refuge Denied-era high notes) are as forboding, threatening and heavy as anything the band has ever done, and they didn’t need the extra chunk of the 7th string they utilised in later years to achieve it. When you add the agonised The Lotus Eaters, the perilously-close-to-insane sound of All Play Dead and the brooding, angry Deconstruction into the mix it elevates the album so far above the pitiful beige skid mark that is music today that when Dreaming Neon Black takes a shit it will fall, meteor-like, at incredible speed, mercilessly destroying Snow Patrol et al as it penetrates deep into the earths crust. This is Nevermore’s best album.

Part 2 of the List is right this way

City Of Fire

It was early 2008 when the Cobalt Hotel in Vancouver hosted the reunion of Caustic Thought; a popular local band that had not played together for twelve years. Little did bassist Byron Stroud (Fear Factory, Strapping Young Lad, Zimmers Hole), drummer Bob Wagner (Econoline Crush), and guitarist Ian White know at the start that this special evening would light a spark that would take this reunion further than they initially expected.

After recruiting guitarist Terry Murray, the four decided to rearrange, write and record new material.As the writing came together Byron reached out to friend and band mate Burton C. Bell (Fear Factory, Ascension of the Watchers, G/Z/R, Ministry) and the final member was found. The spark that ignited on that very special night among old friends had now become a spirited new band… City of Fire was complete.

The bands self-titled debut contains eleven energetic and melodic songs that reflects the band’s immensely talented musicianship. Three additional songs were recorded earlier this year adding to the albums overall depth.

Bell recalls of the early sessions

“I have always loved Vancouver. During this session, my eyes were intensely aware that Vancouver is vibrant with life, like a raging fire. This is where the name of the band came from. I was inspired like never before and I believe it shows.”

Musically, City of Fire finds its roots in everything from metal to hard rock to punk, and boasts a more commercially-oriented sensibility; a sound reflective of the evolving maturity of its members and audience. Sonically hard yet groove heavy, the band has conceived a sound that distinguishes itself from the rest.

“Byron and I have always talked about music and realized that we had many similarities between us: the same music likes and dislikes, Byron knew that I would love the music he and the guys were creating and he was right. When I first heard the music, I was excited by the sounds I heard.”

Bell explained to popular music site Noisecreep.

City of Fire will see US release just as Fear Factory finish up their Canadian run of dates which will include their performance at Montreals Heavy MTL Festival where the band will appear alongside Megadeth, Slayer, Mastodon, Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God and more.

Armored Saint

Legendary LA based metal band Armored Saint recently shot a video in their hometown on July 1st for the track Left Hook From Right Field off their current release La Raza with director Jeremy Schott of Mental Suplex.

Vocalist John Bush describes the video for ‘Left Hook From Right Field’:

“BAD ASS!!! That’s how I would describe this video. The photography is absolutely beautiful. Rene, the boxer, did a nobleman’s job and is convincing as hell. Jeremy’s team was awesome to work with and super efficient. Armored Saint was captured raw and with full power. Sometimes making a video, actually the majority of the time, making a video blows. Not this time!”

Bassist Joey Vera adds

“the video came out great and does justice to the song. We were going for a ‘Raging Bull’ look and I think we captured the vibe for sure. Most videos are pretty boring to make but this one was actually fun. We spent some time shooting scenes ‘on the fly’ and tried things out that were not in the story line, meaning we had a chance to improvise. The story line is a pretty good representation on the allegories that the lyrics paint. Good fun once again.”

http://www.myspace.com/armoredsaint1
http://www.armoredsaint.com/
http://twitter.com/thearmoredsaint

Avenged Sevenfold

Ride The Black Justice For Magnetic Puppets

Losing a founding member, drummer Jimmy Sullivan, came as a massive hit to the band with a trajectory & momentum unprecedented in the metal world for the last decade. Nightmare was already written when he passed away but 7 months on, I can’t help feel they went to the studio too soon to record this. I’m not one for guilty pleasures as demonstrated by my fanatical love of Basshunter, but if I were, Avenged Sevenfold would be one. I’m totally gay for Waking The Fallen & about half of City of Evil is brilliant.

Opener, Nightmare didn’t make the cut for the album but after Sullivan’s death, the song was reconsidered. It isn’t a bad song but despite a decent chorus & an average solo, it could do with being a couple of minutes shorter. Welcome To The Family has a majestically gay chorus that is more fun than kicking midgets down stairwells but it’s let down by shitty breakdowns in an effort to cover up the fact that the rest of the song is Metallica’s Sad But True. Danger Line opens strongly with over the top backing vocals & frantic guitar work before dropping into an Elton John style piano interlude then closes with a military trumpet & snare combo as we get a Guns ‘n’ Roses style whistle over the outro. The lyrical content on the futility of war & the death of soldier marks a shift towards more mature song-writing which would most likely alienate their key demographic if they were to ever listen to the words rather than writing them out verbatim on the back of their maths jotter.

Buried Alive begins slowly with twin guitar harmony wankery close to Metallica’s One before moving into Ride The Lightning territory for the solo then ends by ripping off That Was Just Your Life cunningly changing the words to “This is now your life.” This is the kind of embarrassingly obvious pilfering you expect from minor league support acts, cough, Godsmack, cough, not chart-topping, major-label bands such as Avenged. Natural Born Killer kicks off with tight double bass drum work as the guitars attempt to keep up with Portnoy’s feet. One of the heaviest tracks on the album, it’s also one of their strongest.

It isn’t until the second half that things really fall apart though.  From So Far Away on, Nightmare is an unfocused mess of balladry & solos that lacks any serious cohesion. The track itself is a horrible twangy, country ballad reminiscent of the vomit-in-your-mouth horror of Mama Said from Load. Surely, there came a point as they methodically went through their CD collection picking songs to copy when the reached Load & thought “This is literally the lowest any metal band can ever go.” At least, there should have been.

God Hates Us has a breakdown that not even Lamb Of God could be proud of whilst Shadows attempts an Anselmo but he doesn’t have the heroin-infused magic of Phil. As one of the slowest tracks on the album, Tonight The World Dies is actually pretty decent. A cheesy ballad complete with Slash-style solo that never outstays its welcome. Fiction was the last track Sullivan wrote, featuring vocal harmonies between him & Shadows. November Rain-style piano histrionics abound in an emotional affair that really should have marked the end of the album. Unfortunately, we get closer Save Me, another bloated ballad that begins with screeching guitars & kick drums similar to Eternal Rest but loses steam early on. The whole song could have been cut to the benefit of all involved.

No complaints can be laid at the guitar work. Brian Elwin Haner, Jr., to use his non-preposterous name, might be overrated but the boy can shred regardless of what Morons of the Internet ^TM have to say. Mike Portnoy was brought in to record the drum tracks based on the early recordings of Sullivan & he does an uncanny job replicating his style, proving once again that there’s nothing he can’t do behind a drum kit.

Suffering from what is commonly known as Kirk Hammett Syndrome, Nightmare is, much like this review, an over-long & self-indulgent affair with flashes of genius. In the hands of the right producer, it could have been a good album but at 66 minutes, their bag of tricks fails to cover up the fact that their strengths don’t lie in piano-driven ballads, breakdowns or Metallica covers. Avenged Sevenfold excel at writing cheese-laden metalcore with pop hooks & brainless, sing-a-long choruses. Instead, we all have to sit through Avenged Sevenfold’s painful puberty as they attempt to mature with their current audience but for what it’s worth, I’d recommend they stick to what they are good at.

Powerwolf

German metallers POWERWOLF will headline the SOPHIE LANCASTER stage on Friday 13th August. The Teutonic terrors look forward to their debut UK appearance at BLOODSTOCK’s 10th anniversary event.

“It’s a big honour for us to celebrate the metal mass at this legendary festival. This will be our first time in the UK, and getting the chance to perform at the country’s biggest Metal festival is incredible. We can’t wait to unleash mayhem there!”

comments guitarist MATTHEW GREYWOLF.

Since 2003, the Metal Blade signed five piece have amassed a large and loyal fanbase with their highly entertaining live show, led by ATTILA DORN, half frontman, half evil minister. With a reputation across Europe as one of the most exciting bands out there, and BLOODSTOCK’s reputation for bringing the hottest new bands in metal to the UK for the first time, their addition to this year’s line up with this exclusive appearance is a no brainer, and we look forward to their Satanic Sermon on Friday 13th August 2010.

The BLOODSTOCK OPEN AIR METAL FESTIVAL 2010 will take place at Catton Hall, Derbyshire from 13th – 15th August.

Weekend tickets are on sale now at www.bloodstock.uk.com

Danzig - Deth Red Sabaoth

Def Wed Shabbah!

Glenn Danzig might have been keeping himself busy with Black Aria II but we’ve not had a Danzig album since 2004′s disappointing Circle Of Snakes & if we’re honest, we’ve not had a classic one since How The Gods Kill. Anyway, horror punk’s elder statesman is back aged 55 with long time collaborator Tommy Victor (Prong, Ministry) & Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative) handling guitar & drum duties respectively. Big Glenn himself takes care of the bass, production & he even has a crack at drumming on one track. Unfortunately he has fired his loyal spell checker who served him well since 1988. I guess he never fully got that fuck up back in 96 with Blackaciddevil.

Kicking off with Hammer of the Gods, it’s evident that Danzig is well & truly over his horrible industrial phase. Instead, he’s back to basics with scuzzed up guitars, searing solos, more pinch harmonics that strictly necessary & that 50′s rock & roll groove that he does so well. The opener is a meaty slab of classic era stuff with a brilliant doom break at around the 2 minute mark. Whilst I doubt the factual accuracy of the lyrics, Black Candy is a one of the best tracks they’ve recorded in 2 decades. On Ju Ju Bone, Glenn channels the most rapey of Elvis impersonators attempting, and failing, to outsleaze Bryan Ferry in an sleazing contest. The album peaks with On  A Wicked Night which starts off with Danzig at his crooniest before blasting into some of Victor’s most John Christ-like guitar work.

Deth Red Moon kicks off with an almost identical intro to Mother but never quite reaches the heights of greatness of it. The major weak point of the album is the 2 part, 10 minute epic Pyre of Souls which has a boring intro before stepping into a song that shows about as much development as a thalidomide baby’s arms. Thankfully Glenn cleanses our aural palette with closer, Left Hand Rise Above which again harks back to his earlier material as a slow burner with some crushing doom riffs. Anyone that thinks Danzig’s voice is failing needs to listen to this track & remember that they are speaking out of their horrid, distended anuses.

Victor’s guitar work is good for the most part though there are a few moments where it sounds like Malmsteen has joined your dad’s Status Quo covers band as his shred-for-the-sake-of-shred solos overwhelm everything else & seem out of place. The bass is almost entirely absent in the mix. Glenn has gone for a completely analogue approach to producing the album & to that end, recorded everything on vintage amps & mikes. The end result is a warm sound that some will find unbearably messy in this age of ProTools & Auto-Tune yet it fits perfectly with his trademark 50s sound.

Deth Red Sabaoth isn’t going to pick him up any new fans though at this point in his career, Danzig has made it pretty clear that he’s not making album for anyone other than himself. He has long maintained that he gives not one solitary shit about what anyone else thinks but for what it’s worth, I reckon Glenn has finally put out an passable follow-up to III.

Hail Of Bullets

Comments drummer Ed Warby:

“I don’t think I’ve ever worked this hard on anything in my entire life, but it sure has paid off! Although ‘Of Frost And War’ is a tough act to follow, my ringing ears tell me we’ve succeeded in besting it on every level: songs, playing, production… at the moment Dan Swanö is putting the final touches on a mix that could squash a tank, and then it’s off to the pressing plant! All the main ingredients of our blood ‘n’ guts style death metal have remained intact and I honestly can’t imagine anyone that liked our previous work is going to be the least bit disappointed, on the contrary!”

The yet untitled album was produced by Ed Warby and like before the monstrous mix was in the capable hands of Mr Dan Swanö.

HAIL OF BULLETS nailed down 11 songs plus intro.

The limited edition of the CD will be released as a Digibook including a bonus-dvd. More details on this and the stunning new album will be posted soon!

..OF FROST AND WAR is out now on Metal Blade

The Absence - Enemy Unbound

In conjunction with the upcoming release Enemy Unbound from Tampa, FL area natives THE ABSENCE, Metal Blade Records is pleased to release the track-listing, cover art, and the first single from Enemy Unbound. The title track can be heard on metalblade.com/theabsence. From Your Grave has been on the stereo in the leavethehall offices more than almost any other album so we can safely say we are excited as fuck about this!

Track-listing for Enemy Unbound:

1. Vertigo
2. Erased
3. Deepest Wound
4. Maelstrom
5. Enemy Unbound
6. Solace
7. The Bridge
8. Wartorn
9. Hidden in White
10. Vengeance and Victory
11. Triumph

Enemy Unbound, available in the UK September 13!

In other news; original drummer and one of the founding members of THE ABSENCE, Jeramie Kling, has rejoined the band. Jeramie Kling and THE ABSENCE parted ways after a completing a heavy touring schedule for the band’s first release From Your Grave. Guitarist Patrick Pintavalle comments; “we’re so glad to have Jeramie back in the band. It feels right again.” Vocalist Jamie Stewart adds; “in spite of everything that’s been said and done, I’m glad to have my brother back. I look forward to having our collective magic restored.”

Jeramie had this to say about once again stepping behind the kit for the band that has been called Testament for the 21st Century. “It’s great to be back, I missed all my old friends. I can’t wait to play the new songs on tour; they are going to blow the roof off. I missed the road and I can’t wait to see all our fans out on tour. I am so pumped; it’s just great to back.”

About the band:
Tampa, FL area natives THE ABSENCE laid waste to an unsuspecting metal community with their debut Metal Blade Records album, From Your Grave, and after nearly two years of touring the guys returned in 2007 with their fan and critic acclaimed release Riders of the Plague. Riders of the Plague was recorded at Erik Rutan’s Mana Studios in February / March 2007 with Swedish producer Jonas Kjellgren (Scar Symmetry, Carnal Forge). THE ABSENCE has returned to the metal scene heavier than ever with their third full-length album, Enemy Unbound; a metal masterpiece full of the band’s brand of high flying guitar histrionics and melodies fans and critics alike have grown to love.

Vocalist Jamie Stewart continues to push himself vocally, spewing forth his grim lyrics with more force and violence than ever before. Guitarists Peter Joseph and Patrick Pintavalle deliver blistering solos, harmony-filled leads, and a level of technicality that is off the charts, growing as musicians with every album they deliver. Original drummer, and one of the founding members of THE ABSENCE, Jeramie Kling is back behind the kit and will be joining the band on the road as they tour in support of Enemy Unbound. Jeramie will undoubtedly continue where he left off, acting as the tight backbone needed to hold together the band’s speedy melodic onslaught. With their latest offering, Enemy Unbound, THE ABSENCE deliver a stylish and flavored melodic death/thrash metal album that is sure to please both fans and critics alike.

Enemy Unbound was once again recorded at the famed, Erik Rutan-owned, Mana Studios in St. Petersburg, FL in November 2009 with Brian Elliott engineering and Peter Joseph and Patrick Pintavalle producing the album. Going along with the saying ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,’ the band went to Sweden’s Jonas Kjellgren (Scar Symmetry, Carnal Forge) of Black Lounge Studios who handled both mixing and mastering on Enemy Unbound. Guest musicians on the album include Tom Englund of Evergrey and Andy Wood.

The Absence have toured with the likes Cannibal Corpse, The Black Dahlia Murder, Vital Remains, Goatwhore, The Red Chord, Vader, Kataklysm, Grave, Nuclear Assault, Destruction, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Entombed, Dismember, Vivisec, Unmerciful, Dead to Fall, and Ion Dissonance just to name a few. Each stop on every tour has earned THE ABSENCE legions of new fans, which is something that will surely continue through the release of Enemy Unbound as the band tours through the states, Canada, and Europe in support of their highly anticipated release.

The Absence is:
Jamie Stewart – vocals
Peter Joseph – guitar
Patrick Pintavalle – guitar
Jeramie Kling – drums
Mike Leon – bass

‘ENEMY UNBOUND’ is out on September 13, 2010 on Metal Blade

Metal Blade

The lovely, marvellous, splendid guys at Metal Blade have sorted us out with something money can’t buy. Well, we couldn’t find it in the shops anyway! In honour of our wonderful interview with death metal legend, snake lover Chris Barnes, they have sent us a Chris Barnes bobblehead pictured below. To win this exclusive prize, you need to do 3 things.

1. Go to the Metal Blade Facebook page & hit Like
2. Go to the Leavethehall Twitter account & follow us or the Leavethehall Facebook page & hit Like
3. Tweet this message “I’ve just entered the @leavethehall competition in conjunction with Metal Blade at http://www.leavethehall.co.uk/?p=888″ or share the competition post on your Facebook wall using either of the links below.

Tweet the message now? or Share on Facebook

Every tweet or wall post will give you another chance of winning. On the 6th August 2010, we’ll add every entry to a list & run it through our great mechanical randomising device & notify the winner. We’ll only be able to count tweets from non-private accounts unless you’ve already approved us to follow you or if your Facebook profile isn’t private.

For over 27 years, Metal Blade has been the backbone of the international metal community bringing us bands including Slayer, Metallica, Cannibal Corpse, GWAR, Six Feet Under, and King Diamond while developing acts like As I Lay Dying, Unearth, The Black Dahlia Murder, Amon Amarth, Job For a Cowboy, The Red Chord, Hate Eternal, Shai Hulud, Soilent Green, Whitechapel, Goatwhore, The Ocean, Brain Drill. Recent releases from As I Lay Dying, Brain Drill, Armored Saint & Bison BC prove that Metal Blade are still the reigning force in metal.

Chris Barnes Bobblehead

Chris Barnes Bobblehead

Competiton is now closed. Winner is Stephen Fallows from Barrow in Furness.

Malefice Confirmed For Sonisphere 2010

Malefice have just been confirmed for Sonisphere 2010 which takes place at Knebworth between July 30th and August 1st 2010.

Dale Butler wants to see you down there:

“After working our asses off in Europe for most of the summer it was great to get home to this news. We’ve had a lot of kids on our facebook and myspace asking us to get on the bill, so we’re really looking forward to getting in front of everyone at a U.K festival again, and recreating the ass kicking we handed out at Hammerfest early in the year! See you at the front!”

Catch them on Saturday July 31, 2010 at 5:30pm on the Jaegermeister stage.

• 24th July – PETERSFIELD – Gedfest @ Festival Hall
• 31st July – KNEBWORTH – Sonisphere 2010
• 28th August – MARGATE – Westcoast

Check out the video for An Architect Of Your Demise here:

Dawn Of Reprisal is out now on Metal Blade

FireBug UK Tour

US psych-rockers FireBug will grace UK shores again this month for some rare club dates followed by an appearance at the, fast-becoming-legendary, Sonisphere Festival. With influences from Zeppelin to Pink Floyd, the four-piece, fronted by the captivating Juliette Tworsey, always get a great reception on our side of the pond, and this visit looks set to be no exception.

In preparation, the band have been holed up in the studio with Queens of The Stone Age producer Chris Goss, laying down tracks for their forthcoming, as yet unnamed, record. Goss brought the band further out of their shell during the sessions, having them experiment and execute some great new music. FireBug will be back in the studio this summer to complete the record.

Lead guitarist Jules Shapiro said;

“We always love performing in the UK! Our first tour back in 2007 went way beyond expectations. To be asked to perform at the legendary Sonisphere Festival has really got us spinning around. Playing alongside legendary rock bands like The Cult, Iron Maiden and Iggy Pop, is really a dream come true! And to do all that in the UK, a country so influential in making rock music what it is today, is great.”

Full details of the UK dates are as follows:

• 28th July – Dublin Castle, London
• 29th July – Riff’s Bar, Swindon
• 30th July – The Wilmington Arms, London
• 1st Aug – Sonisphere Festival, Knebworth

For more information on FireBug please visit:
www.myspace.com/firebug
www.4entertainment.biz

Bison BC & Coliseum & Kvelertak UK Tour 2010

The Canadian outfit featuring James Farwell: Guitar/Vocals, Dan And: Guitar/Vocals, Masa Anzai: Bass and Brad Mackinnon: Drums are promoting their Dark Ages album, released on Metal Blade in April 2010.

Check out the bootleg video of Stressed Elephant shot live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada in March 2010 here:

Coliseum + Bison BC + Kvelertak

November 2010

• 17th LONDON – Underworld
• 18th STOKE ON TRENT – Sugarmill
• 19th GLASGOW – Ivory Blacks
• 20th LEEDS – The Well
• 21st NORWICH – The Marquee

DARK AGES is out now on Metal Blade

Fozzy

Heavy metal sensation Fozzy, starring WWE superstar Chris Jericho and Stuck Mojo hero Rich Ward released the video for “Let The Madness Begin” at midday.

It was shot in UK at live dates in May.

Fozzy, who also feature Sean Delson and Frank Fontsere, recently announced a full tour of the UK and Ireland and this week have announced three more dates at Camberley on October 9th, Middlesborough on the 12th and Margate on the 21st.

Rich Ward on why he just loves being here:

“How excited am I about Fozzycoming back to the UK? Where do I even begin? The birth place of heavy metal, the home of proper football, pub grub, curries, treacle sponge pudding and the craziest metal fans on the planet. Thank You Britain for your contributions to my life. I owe you and will be honoured to repay you with one of the best live shows you’ll ever see.”

Fozzy

October 2010

9th CAMBERLEY – The Agincourt
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.theagincourt.com/

10th CARDIFF – Millennium Hall
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://millenniummusichall.fatsoma.com/event.php?eid=28556

11th SHEFFIELD – Corporation
BUY TICKETS HERE: WWW.CORPORATION.ORG.UK

12th MIDDLESBOROUGH – Empire
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.theempire.co.uk/pages/fozzy.html

13th EDINBURGH – Studio 24
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.seetickets.com/see/price.asp?code=486295&userid=%7BA788298C-1F31-4434-AB6E-DDD55F579DA7%7D&filler1=see&filler2=rss&filler3=0

14th BELFAST – Spring and Airbrake
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.ticketmaster.ie/

15th DUBLIN – Button Factory
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.tickets.ie/event.aspx/fozzy-the-button-factory-dublin-15-October-2010/VLLRL

16th MANCHESTER – Academy 3
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.alt-tickets.co.uk/alttickets/home_fozzy.html

17th LEICESTER – Academy
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.alt-tickets.co.uk/alttickets/home_fozzy.html

18th NORWICH – Waterfront
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk/events/fozzy.aspx

19th SOUTHAMPTON – Talking Heads
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.seetickets.com/see/event.asp?e|artist=FOZZY&n|artist=null&resultsperpage=20&filler1=see&filler2=art-srch&orderby=date,time

20th YEOVIL – The Orange
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.seetickets.com/see/event.asp?e|artist=FOZZY&n|artist=null&resultsperpage=20&filler1=see&filler2=art-srch&orderby=date,time

21st MARGATE – The Westcoast
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.westcoastlive.co.uk/

‘CHASING THE GRAIL’ is out now on Riot Entertainment
GET IT HERE:
http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/13506800/Chasing-The-Grail/Product.html
http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;0;-1;-1;-1&sku=313058

Lube Gill Is Pee

Lube Gill Is Pee

Blue Gillespie describe their namesake as, and I quote:

“the band’s collective evil alter-ego. The lyrics are his mind, the bass is his foot, the guitar is his hand and the drum his heart.”

Frankly, I can’t comprehend a more horrible description so imagine my disappointment when, after fetching my best reviewing hatchet, I put on the album & rather enjoyed most of it.

Influenced heavily by Porcupine Tree, Tool & Sleep, Blue Gillespie’s brand of progressive metal is a stripped down version content to rely on sparse but atmospheric guitar work & technical drumming.

Opener Beat Oven is a dark, down tempo track that gets repetitive early on & out stays it’s welcome by a good 2 minutes. Sugarglass has an outro that would have many a nu-metal band jizzing into their backwards baseball cap whilst Tripout‘s groovy start gives way to a haunting melodic chorus & Sabbath style guitar work. Dodgy lyrics, particularly on Wiff & Black Waltz, delivered in the first person by the band’s eponymous character do little to upset the mood of the album as a whole.

Standout track Fingered is, for the most part,  little more than catchy chorus layered over a basic drum beat but that seems to be the magical formula they’ve been searching for. Blue Gillespie shine a lot brighter on the longer, more ambient tracks where their stoner riffs are allowed to linger like a P.E. teacher in the boy’s changing rooms. Closing duo, Paradox & Time Knot work so well as one song that one wonders why they were split in the first place.

The drumming shares similarities with Danny Carey but it lacks his superhuman foot-work. Torchwood star, Gareth David-Lloyd’s vocals at their lowest are reminiscent of Anselmo in the midst of his decade-long smack binge. Whilst that sounds like an insult, I’ll remind you that he put out every one of his best albums bar Power Metal whilst fucked on heroin. The band as a whole are extremely tight but it feels like they are still trying to define their sound in a field more densely occupied than an eastern European tenement.

Whilst they may have the worst name since punctuation-loving, proper case-hating nu-metallers (hed) PE, Synesthesia is a solid debut in a genre that is easily cocked up. There is so much to like about this band, even if their name & biography make me want to headbutt a pinata full of warm vomit.

Soilwork

A Croon With A View

Soilwork return, and with Peter Wichers back in their ranks and in the producer’s chair, fresh from working with Warrell Dane and twiddling Nevermore’s knobs, I approached this album with the tentative hopes of a horny ugly man at a blind nightclub.

With melodies so sickly that even Stock, Aitken and Waterman might call them wimpy poofs, I had the insulin on standby in case my blood-sugar level was too dramatically affected by Soilwork’s trademark melodic death metal stylings. Luckily the album opens with Late for the Kill, Early for the Slaughter and some straight-up, honest-to-goodness blastology, accompanied by an abrasiveness that hasn’t really been present since the days of A Predator’s Portrait. As predictably as night following day, the chorus comes in and starts softly massaging your nuts, however something is different… the vocals are not clean and the chorus doesn’t sound like a different song altogether. This is a true surprise finger up the bum for the Soilwork listening experience. The following track – Two Lives Worth of Reckoning – goes back to the tried and tested template, however, and features a chorus hook so silky smooth you could turn it into a pair of exceedingly comfortable y-fronts.

The album continues like this, with chorus-driven sing-along’s like Night Comes Clean sitting side by side with the really heavy, primitive sound showcased on King of the Threshold. Now, Soilwork have attempted this sort of thing before, notably on the last couple of albums, but it has always been fairly hit-or-miss for me and I would invariably end up listening to their older albums which offered one or the other instead. This, however, pulls the balance off with aplomb, and as a result is the first Soilwork album in a long time to really hold my interest. Though it does veer perilously close to the seas of shit, vapid, soulless, lifeless, toilet-paper thin, mawkish, cynical, fanny flap commerciality where Bullet for my Valentine dwell, Soilwork manage to deftly navigate safe passage thanks to their superior riffs and vocals. Rather than sounding twee and anaemic, Björn “Speed” Strid‘s vocals are as thick and luxurious as a swimming pool full of caramel, while the immaculate guitar tone and expansive drumming ensures that the instrumentals are suitably crushing to add a solid steel backbone to the crooning.

There are a lot of songs on here that could conceivably be Eurovision entries, and The Akuma Afterglow is probably the gayest song I’ve heard in my entire life, yet at no point did I feel like I was listening to drivel, I was just enjoying really solid, melodic metal. Over and above the instrumental superiority, Soilwork seem to bring an honesty and sense of feeling that elevates The Panic Broadcast above the (many) Killswitch Engages of this world. This sort of music is so easy to get very, very wrong indeed, and Soilwork are one of the only bands who can pull off Melodic Death Metal as modern and commercial as this without sounding like they’re after your little sisters pocket money.

The Panic Broadcast sees a welcome return for an influential songwriter and is a welcome return to their finest sparkling form; an album brimming with confidence, riffs and melody that will work deep inside your brain and have you nodding your head and singing along like an extraordinarily drunk man at a karaoke bar.

London’s finest are back with their new album, The Final Frontier. Check out the video here!

Fornost Arnor

Escaping the Abysmal

Hailing from the world capital of atmospheric black metal that is Colchester, Greg Chivers has gathered himself a very talented group of musicians. Combined with a diverse sack of influences, the end result is a powerful & intelligent, if slightly bipolar debut that owes much to Scandinavian masters without ripping off their trademark styles.

Melodic passages bring to mind the progressive black/doom stylings of Agalloch & The Morningside. Certain parts, such as ballad Her Face in the Water, are too much for my heroic manly exterior but they appeal so much to my inner overweight, teenage goth girl that you can forgive them. That said, the vocal harmonies are so fantastic that I may just put on some eye-liner & light some candles.

Fornost Arnor are, of course, happy to break the mood with brutal black metal more reminiscent of Åkerfeldt at his most pissed off. The effects can be more jarring than a road trip with Nelson Mandela’s granddaughter but for the most part, play off well against each other. Black metal has never been one to shun those without musical talent  but the sheer ability on here is astounding as is the production which only lets us down with a drum sound that could have done with a bit less compression. Gravity Denied is a brilliant showcase for Chivers’ guttural growls & Will Hall’s outstanding lead guitar work despite some questionable lyrics. Strength of the Heart follows suit with more guitar wank of the highest order.

Culminating on the 13 minute epic, The Tragedy of Delusion, Fornost Arnor present their magnum opus. A demonstration of their talent at crafting both the beautiful & the brutal, the final track gives them the space to move from one to the other. Their ability to generate a real atmosphere without resorting to the usual tricks i.e. nicking something off the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, is refreshing. Further vocal harmonies are provided by Elle Torry of Imperial Vengeance which, unlike Kerry King turning up at the studio unannounced BC Rich in hand, is the kind of seal of approval that actually means something.

Their debut lands at a time when the UK black metal scene is teeming with great bands & Escaping The Abyss puts Fornost Arnor very much within the top tier.

Not Advised

Following the release of their new album, After The Fight, UK rockers will be bringing their infectious brand of pop-punk & fashionable haircuts to a venue near you!

Guitarist Jack Fairbrother said;

“We’re excited for the August tour because these will be our first headline shows in some time. We can’t wait to get out and play a new set in both familiar cities and new places – to some old and new faces.

Fans can expect the best Not Advised show they’ve ever seen. We’re putting everything we can into these dates to make sure we play the best set – and more importantly make sure that everyone walks away after the best gig of their lives. That’s the aim!”

Dates:

• 30 July – LONDON, Slam Dunk @ Purple Turtle
• 1 August  – MILTON KEYNES, Crauford Arms
• 2 August – BRISTOL, Academy 2
• 3 August – BIRMINGHAM, Academy 3
• 4 August – NEWCASTLE, Academy 2
• 5 August, GLASGOW, Academy 2
• 7 August – ABERDEEN, Warehouse
• 8 August – DUNDEE, Dexters
• 10 August – MANCHESTER, Roadhouse
• 11 August – LIVERPOOL, Academy 2
• 12 August – LONDON, Islington Academy 2
• 13 August – SOUTHAMPTON, Joiners
• 15 August – SHEFFIELD, Academy
• 17 August – LEEDS, Cockpit

Their current single ‘The World’s Not Ready’ is on Kerrang! TV, Scuzz, Lava and Starz now!

The new album ‘After The Fight’ is available now on LAB Records.

For more information on Not Advised please visit:

www.myspace.com/notadvised

www.facebook.com/notadvised

www.twitter.com/notadvised

www.labrecs.com

A Loathing Requiem - Psalms of Misanthropy

Mindblowing Requiem

Leave the Hall presents, Real Men of Genius.
Real Meeeen of Geeeeeenius! Mr Technical Death Metal Creaaaaatooor!
You’ve given us music that pushes the boundaries of human ability and musical notation, stringing together sweep arpeggios longer than the Chinese phone book.
Waaaaaaaaaanktaaaaaacular!
You know that on the internet some geek will say you’re a guitar noob no matter what you do, but still you persist on proving him wrong.
Yooouuuutuuubbbee Trollin’ Baaaaabbbyyy…
So we salute you Mr Technical Death Metal Creator…

Anyway, the world needs more men like Malcolm Pugh. Men who have no concept of social lives or even sleep, instead sitting in a room with guitar in hand, practicing and practicing until after many years and tens of thousands of hours of dedicated work it is time to release their technical death metal album. So, peeping out into the light comes A Loathing Requiem, looking to follow in the hallowed footsteps of Jim Malone and Muhammed Suicmez in the world of one man bandsmanship, a concept that has developed somewhat since Dick Van Dyke’s epochal one man band performance in Mary Poppins. As seen in this rare original draft of Fermented Offal Discharge.

Albums created by one person appeal to me, they have a single-minded purpose to them, an undiluted and pure vision of what they want to achieve, utterly unchanged by the committee thinking and compromises that bands have to deal with. It is clear that A Loathing Requiem has clear goals – Psalms of Misanthropy is bowel-worryingly heavy, a technical showcase that will pick you up in a whirlwind of notes and shit you out the other side looking like you’ve done 10 rounds with a polar bear. We are presented with texture and depth but never at the cost of sacrificing that essential murderous intensity.

The songs are of the frantic, fretboard-dancing blueprint so beloved of tech-death aficionados, but with some mind-bending time signatures (the dissonant intro to And Darkness Was Cast) and some atmospheric instrumental interludes that segue between raining blows of brutality and warp speed blasting. Just when I was starting to fear that Death Metal had been helplessly overrun by ‘core stylings and ghastly excrement like Annotations Of An Autopsy, we are given some sweet musical salvation. Surgically precise and tighter than a ducks arsehole, songs like The Carnage of Infinite Black and False Gods Render Death provide all the death metal you could need without ever outstaying their welcome – the whole album rips by in a shade over half an hour. Even the programmed drums sound natural, avoiding the temptation to create patterns and speeds that would have Flo weeping into his Kraft Dinner, which is a real credit to the programming skills of Mr Pugh (and possibly Drumkit From Hell).

It goes without saying that the solos are incredible, and with Christian Muenzner doing a guest spot on Architect or Arsonist (he gets around) the Necrophagist comparisons are obviously going to be drawn. As I said when reviewing Cosmogenesis by Obscura, Necrophagist are in danger of some major Chinese Democracy syndrome should their new album not come out soon and be something truly mind-blowing.

It is a testament to the quality of Psalms of Misanthropy that even the big daddies of the genre will need to be at their very best to top it.

Nautical Montage is Montacular

5. Mastodon – Leviathan

After the absolutely brilliant debut, Remission, Mastodon invested in a book & dropped this whale-shaped bomb on the heavy metal scene. It’s probably a good thing that they picked Herman Melville’s epic Moby Dick. Whilst we are all still waiting for that elusive prog metal concept album based on Dr Seuss One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Melville’s imagery allows the lumbering doom & sludge structures developed on their previous releases to take on a whole new level of mental.

4. Ahab – Call of the Wretched Sea

In a serious attempt to come up with the most obscure genre name ever, Ahab are currently the world’s only purveyor of nautical funeral doom metal. Whilst Mastodon may have done it first, Ahab’s interpretation of Moby Dick takes things to outrageously heavy places. Their low tempo, distorted, downtuned sound induces a trance-like state. Combine that with bass levels that tread dangerously close to the brown chord & you are on course for a messy listening session. Bring a change of pants or, better still, get the whole experience by listening to it in the bath.

3. Savatage – The Wake of Magellan

Savatage have (almost all) survived some terrible challenges in their long career & their 10th studio album is definitely their magnum opus. A soaring rock opera which mixes 2 real life events with the fictional account of a sailor who, tired of the word, decides to sail out to sea & die alone. The lyrics combined with the liner notes tell a complex & epic tale which is narrated for the most part by Zak Stevens’ voice, more suited to musical theatre that progressive metal. Chris Caffery & Al Pitrelli’s guitar work is excellent but it’s Jon Oliva’s keyboard arrangements that make this album stand out as a career high-point for one of the most creative & painfully underrated metal bands ever.

2. While Heaven Wept – Vast Oceans Lachrymose

Classifying this album might be more challenging than drowning a fully grown spaniel in a toilet bowl but While Heaven Wept’s unique brand of progressive doom power rock is something special. What they attempt on Vast Oceans Lachrymose would cripple lesser musicians but the symphonic multi-tracked genius on their 3rd album blows away all the competition. Introduction of the new vocalist, Rain Irving, appears to have been the missing shot of steroids that finally allowed them to create this melodic masterpiece of superhuman quality. Epic 16 minute monstrosities & 0utrageous operatic vocals are the order of the day. Dive headfirst into this album, it will swallow you whole.

1. Alestorm – Captain Morgan’s Revenge

Scotland’s finest purveyors of nautical nonsense

Nope. I can’t do it. I was going to write a cheeky wee sentence about them, then we could all have a laugh at their expense but I can’t do it. I got halfway through my first sentence:  “Scotland’s finest purveyors of nautical nonsense” & I had to stop. A proper review of this album reads as follows: Hahahaha Failstorm.

They are shit, end of story. On to the real number one.

1. Running Wild – Port Royal

Rock ‘n’ Rolf’s band made the transition to pirate overlords with their 87 album Under Jolly Roger but their follow-up, Port Royal cemented their crown as king of the seas. The title track, Raging Fire & Blown to Kingdom Come are all speed metal anthems in their own right but it is with Conquistadores that the ‘Wild boys peak. Galloping bass lines Steve Harris would be proud of & a chorus as infectious as ebola make for a tasty combo of Germanic genius. Overcoming an extremely weak production, you’ll definitely need to turn this one all the way up to 11 but other than a single mis-step with Final Gates, a rather pointless instrumental track, you are faced with a classic. Next time someone tells you Swashbuckle are the best pirate metal band, remind them that Running Wild are the true lions of the sea, then run them through with your rusty dagger.

This makes absolute sense as the first album for me to review for our forgotten or overlooked classics section, as the ratio of genius to actual recognition is so phenomenally high (approximately a billion trillion to one at last count). Toxik are the kings of the overlooked thrash bands, the ones that sat 2 divisions below the big 4 but no-one really knows why. They burned brightly at the end of the 80’s, releasing two albums before breaking up in ’92, though they have since reformed and I await new material like some sort of thrash metal gimp chained in their cellar. For some, Toxik’s first album, 1987’s awesome World Circus, is their finest, but for me it is all about 1989’s follow up – Think This.

Maybe it’s because I wank over technical and progressive music so much, but Think This just seems to stand out above the gathered masses of the thrash pack, making all but the most seminal of albums seem as appetising as a shit and aids sandwich with extra shit.

The driving force behind the genius is Josh Christian, a truly incredible guitarist. It is an indictment of the world we live in that a man of this talent was out in the musical wilderness until their recent reunion. He sits on top of this record like a fat woman on a small mans face, absolutely dominating proceedings with guitar chops that should have seen him hailed as the thrash Van Halen. Where many thrash guitarists of the time were content playing fast, tuneless chromatic diarrhoea *cough* Kerry King *cough*, he was really pushing the envelope with bags of harmonics, sweeps, taps and whammy bar madness. Check out the Greed solo. Check out the Machine Dream solo!!! He should be up there on a diamond-encrusted throne with Skolnick, Friedman and the other hallowed names of thrash lead guitar, or at the very least be spoken of in the reverent tones reserved for the likes of Watchtower’s Ron Jarzombek.

In fact, Watchtower is a definite reference point for Think This, as they also took the thrash blueprint and doodled all over it with an array of technical flourishes, yet where Watchtower could often find themselves bogged down, Toxik never lose sight of the straight-up thrill of ball busting, neck breaking thrash. Songs like Technical Arrogance more than matched the ‘tower and Coroner at their prog thrash game, while Spontaneous and In God also capture the melodic side of Annihilator at their very best. The greater diversity of styles showcases the soaring vocals of Josh Sabin, and though Mike Sanders may have hit greater heights on World Circus, I feel that the more rounded approach displayed on Think This perfectly encapsulates the strides that the band as a whole had taken. There Stood the Fence is a thrash ballad™ of the highest, cheesiest calibre, but simultaneously a walk through a post-apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by nuclear Armageddon (This is 80’s thrash after all).

In fact it at face value it is such an awesomely 80’s album, the use of samples to begin many of the songs ties the album into a loose concept about the state of the world heading into the 90’s, racism, life in the shadow of the Cold War and the potential dissolution of a society in future shock. Which might seem very dated if the music itself didn’t sound so fresh. Bookended by the incredible Think This and instrumental Think That, there are no bad tracks (they even pull off a Led Zeppelin cover along the way) as should-be-classic after classic fly into your willing face.

This is an album that no self respecting thrash fan should be without, truly a classic album that should have been far, far bigger than it was as it basically makes most bands pitiful attempts sound like the last fart of a dying man. If you’re not into Toxik, you are not my friend.

Parkway Drive - Deep Blue

Deep Poo

Ah, Parkway Drive. They’re another one of those bands that I had only heard of on the t-shirts of emaciated boys in skinny jeans. Now, I don’t want to generalise, but in my experience the music that they listen to is absolute, total, complete, 100% shart. I will, however, listen to this album with an open mind and willing ears, endeavouring to provide yet more unbiased reviewmanship for you, dear reader.

The album begins with Samsara, which consists of a minute of atmospheric noise build up then a breakdown. Yes, it begins with a breakdown. Well it’s good to see them utterly confounding my low expectations with such a devastatingly creative and original idea. This, as well as highlighting their crushing lack of compositional skill, also demonstrates that they have no concept of what a ‘breakdown’ is, as you usually need something to actually break from. 1 minute 45 seconds in and I already want to go on a shooting holiday to Cumbria.

Ah well, ever onward, and the second song, Unrest, is just really generic metalcore, the sort that actually makes you want to go to Skynet and travel back in time to murder At The Gates. You arrive naked in a sphere of light in 1990, sourcing some clothing and weapons before setting out to the Bjorler abode with the intention of blowing them away for their future crimes, only to be interrupted. Instead you explain to them the seriousness of what their pioneering sound would go on to inspire, before all uniting to go off together and blow up their studio for the benefit of mankind. This riff then goes into a half speed breakdown, then, lo and behold, quarter speed. It used to be that not being able to write riffs would have been a hindrance to your career, but apparently it is now all the rage and to take just one chord and play it at a variety of speeds is a sure-fire path to success.

This may shock you, but there are actually some decent parts on this album, and at times it could even be classed as enjoyable – in the same way one might take pleasure from a handjob given by the man that has just murdered your family. These parts might be forgivable if they were sprinkled sparingly on an album, as an element used to colour a solid song, but this album is built up from a bundle of little bits – a shout along here, a little tapping piece there… Any momentum that briefly seems to be gathering is quickly interrupted by some atrocious ‘gang-vocals’, a cringe-worthy pre-breakdown shout or yet another knuckle-dragging beat down and the album limps ever on. A mid-paced song, a slightly-quicker-than-mid-paced song, a delicate tapping or picked opening followed by mid-paced song and repeat.

I enjoy a bit of hardcore now and then and I like melodic death metal, but if you compare the contents of Deep Blue to the best in those genres this is just fucking shite, even compared to the relative mediocrity of Unearth, who did the whole breakdown metalcore thing so much better 10 years ago. What really boils my piss though, is that it’s the continued success of bands like Parkway Drive that prevents bands with a genuine potential for mainstream appeal like Insomnium or The Absence from getting the recognition and sales they deserve.

This album is metal music for people that hate metal, it’s for teenage boys that want to impress girls with their angry yet vulnerable taste in music, it’s metal for people that ‘listen to a bit of everything really’, but mainly it’s music for posers. Shit cunt posers.

Vinnie Paul's auction of his toilet comes with a free copy of Stamede to put in it

Hellnaw

super-
pref.

1. Above; over; upon: superimpose.
2. Superior in size, quality, number, or degree: superfine.
3. Exceeding a norm: supersaturate.

group
–noun

1. Any collection or assemblage of persons or things; cluster; aggregation: a group of protesters; a remarkable group of paintings.
2. A number of persons or things ranged or considered together as being related in some way.

Hellyeah are keen to remind us that they are a ‘supergroup’. Formed from such metal luminaries as Pantera, Damageplan, Nothingface & …. um, Mudvayne, Hellyeah’s brand of metal-tinged hard rock sold over 400,000 copies of their debut. In fact, the whole PR campaign around this album is desperate to remind you of these facts. All this implies two things: firstly, the PR company has actually listened to this album & secondly, 400,000? Seriously?

Stampede doesn’t bother messing with their self-titled debut’s winning formula: 12 generic metal songs about drinking, fucking & trucking. Hell Of A Time has the potential to be something more than average but rather than capitalise, they repeat the chorus about 400 times in 3:41 & it begins to grate around number 50. High point of the album is the Down meets Alice In Chains on a budget Order of the Sun. We also get a bonus live track of their previous hit Alcohaulin’ Ass, a proud member of the ‘lol wut’ school of song naming.

Better Man tries to wander into epic southern ballad territory but ends up wallowing somewhere closer to Staind than Skynyrd. In a spectacular display of  a unintentional irony, this cautionary tale about the dangers of alcohol addiction & drunken parents fits really well in the middle of a collection of songs about partying. I hear the next album is going to be called Guns Are Fucking Cool & feature a ballad about Nathan Gale.

Musically, they take no risks & the end result is a bland sandwich of their respective sounds. There is a healthy level of cheese & that’s about the only positive to take from it. If an anemic Reinventing The Steel decided to recruit a nu-metal dream team that would lose a University Challenge showdown with Motley Crue, you’d probably end up with Hellyeah. Needless to say, Vinnie Paul’s stature adds considerable weight (as does his tits) & I have no doubt this will sell 400,000 copies through a combination of inbreeding, low IQs & nostalgia.

Hellyeah are a testament to the power of goodwill. Sometimes you have to march up to the orphaned child and say, I know your family is dead, but that drawing is fucking shite son. Chad Gray helpfully asks “Am  I Alive & Well, Or Just Wasting Space” on the song Alive & Well. Unfortunately for Hellyeah, it’s the latter. They are indeed a group & they do exceed a norm thereby meeting all the criteria of a supergroup. It’s just a shame they are supershit.

0.5 Grimmetts *

* The half Grimmett is given only because this isn’t quite as awful as War Is The Answer & I don’t want to devalue the humiliation of receiving a 5 Oli Sykes.

Grand Magus

Heirs To The Throne

A nightmare scenario: Joey DeMaio makes some modifications to his bass prior to a gig. He plays the first note & the resulting vibrations crack the earth open swallowing the band, stage & crowd. We now live in a world without Manowar. Who is going to fill their sizeable boots of steel? The answer can be found in Stockholm.

Grand Magus’s metamorphosis from average doom band to heirs to metal crown has taken little over a decade. As a serious contender for the title of Most Metal Man Alive, leather lunged frontman & guitarist JB demonstrates his impressive vocal range & delivers riffs the size of continents, all whilst oozing pure iron from every pore. There are no technical solos, no progressive tendencies, just a masterclass in fist-pumping metal.

Opening with I, The Jury, JB channels Dissident Aggressor-era Halford to embed the brilliant chorus deep in your brain stem. The title track is a perfect example of what happens when you take your big book of doom metal & apply every single lesson to a heavy metal song. By the end of the song,  you will most likely find yourself topless on a snow swept mountain peak swinging a warhammer.

Black Sails takes us firmly into Running Wild territory whilst Mountains Be My Throne harks back to their early days as the doomiest track on the album. It’s probably my second favourite mountain-based song about mountains after Manowar’s classic mountain homage, Mountains. Everything builds to a climax on At Midnight They’ll Get Wise, which bears all the hallmarks of a future classic.

Without resorting to hyperbole, I can safely say that there’s not a weak track, just 50 minutes of perfect, old-school heavy metal thunder. Now, with the backing of a major label, Grand Magus are set to take the world by storm, make sure not to stand in their way. All hail the Hammer of the North.

Ivan Moody

Our second interview* for the site is with none other than Ivan Moody of 5 Finger Death Punch. Leave the Hall correspondant and self-confessed 5FDP fanatic Strachs met up with the vocalist and metal icon to discuss what makes him tick and give a little insight into the band.

Leave the Hall: Good day Ivan.

Ivan Moody:S’up?

LTH: It’s pretty safe to say that 5 Finger Death Punch are one of the most revered and critically lauded bands in metal right about now and are on a seemingly unstoppable mission to conquer the hearts of every music fan worldwide. I’ve got to ask you sir, what’s your secret?

IM: Well playa, it’s like this. We basically take styles of our favourite bands, yo – Crazy Town and Ill Nino – and combine them. Like my main, main, main man Freddy Durst said, it’s about my g-g-generation. Or, kinda taking shit from 10 years ago and putting some metalcore riffs in there. Pretty cool that no-one has noticed! Yeahhhh Boiiiiii, open the skyyyy!

LTH: You are undoubtedly the middle finger of this generation. Like a seething, unpredictable and dangerous mix of James Dean, Elvis, Johnny Rotten and Kurt Cobain only exponentially more charismatic and influential than them all combined. Who has helped you to nurture this incredible gift?

IM: Well you know I gots to break this shit down. My fuckin’ brother of metal and my inspiration, the Dre to my mutha fuckin’ Snoop has got to be Dez Fafara. To be in not one but two of the greatest bands of all time is off the hook! Coal Chamber are so influential to me yo, their music is like my blood and shit. From a technical, riffing side, we’re totally influenced by Coal Chamber, and that ain’t easy yo, only a handful of bands can step to this shit and match Coal Chamber. Then the crazy mutha fucka comes out with DevilDriver – the most extreme and brutal band of all time. It’s like get the fuck out of town home dog!

And getting a beard tattooed on your face? Forget about it! That shit is radical!

LTH: You’ve touched on your influences briefly during this interview, and it offers a fascinating insight into the world of 5FDP that I, for one am thrilled, excited and, frankly, a little over-awed by. If I may peer a little deeper into the well of metallic perfection that is your life, what are your top 5 albums?

IM: Broseph, I only need one albizzay up in this bitch. Only one album can step to me, step to me motherfucker and that’s Fieldy’s Dreams.

LTH: Ah I knew it! Superb choice! I must commend you on your flawless taste. It has been speculated upon by scholars of this fine art that you were lyrically influenced by Fieldy and I feel that my choice of studying this for my thesis is now vindicated by your revelation. There is so much more depth to your lyrics though, Ivan. Would you care to shed some light on them?

IM: Well the key to success in this metal game is you gotta come across as bein’ a bad ass jock. I gots that demographic cornered bitch. If you can be homophobic and call people faggots too then it’s all good yo. I likes to think my lyrics are a window to my soul, like Durst or Wes Scantlin. You got to overcompensate for your deficiencies as a man playa, so I talk about knockin’ punk-asses out and fuckin’ dominating these hater fools, and if you can do it posing in MMA shorts then it totally means it’s true.

And let me tell you something, it’s nothing to do with me being really unpopular at school and girls laughing at me, calling me Ivana, then the bigger boys would push me and I was like “one day you’ll step to me and I won’t piss my pants! I’m gonna be a singer and work out to be real big too! I swear! I swear it… I swear it…

LTH: It’s ok Ivan, let it all out.

Have a tissue, take a minute.

IM: Yeah, so as I was sayin’ I’m a bad ass. You liked my joke about bein’ a fragile pussy just there right? Haha I hate faggots! I’m totally not gay! No siree!

LTH: You were involved in a car accident recently. I, along with millions of others, kept a vigil at my 5FDP shrine, praying that you; sweet, blessed urban poet would pull through and live to shine your bright, beautiful light into our cold, dark hearts once again. I understand this is difficult, but would you like to tell us about it?

IM: Well dawg, it’s like this. Everyday is a new day, I’m thankful for every breath I take.
I won’t take you for granted, so I learn from my mistakes. It’s beyond my control, sometimes it’s best to let go, whatever happens in this lifetime. So I trust in love (so I trust in love), you have given me peace of mind.

IIIIIIII feel so alive, for the very first time. I can’t deny you, I feel so alive. IIIIII feel so alive, for the very first time. And I think I can fly… Fly… Fly…

I’m writin’ a song about it, it’s gonna be a fuckin’ original smash.

LTH: I, like so many other dedicated acolytes am fit to burst with sweet, sweet anticipation of your future musical endeavours, something that, in my humble opinion, promises to be the zenith of man’s musical achievement to date. What’s next in store for 5 Finger Death Punch?

IM: Well motha fucka we just bought some Papa Roach CD’s at a charity shop so we’re gonna see what we can take from there. Plus I been studying some of John Cena’s interviews and been looking for some lyrical inspiration within his mad rhymes. Plus our guitarist used to be in Hilary Duff’s band so we gonna get him to bring some more of her trademark shreddin lead sound over to this bitch and totally beef it up, injectin those mad ‘roids into our tunes like I do to my ass.

LTH: We all know that your band cannot be matched in terms of compositional skill, lyrical genius and technical ability, but if you could give some advice to aspiring metal musicians, who one day aspire to be in a band that makes such a difference as 5 Finger Death Punch or, god willing to even share a stage with you in future, what would it be?

IM: You gots to stay faithful to the classics dawg, pay your fuckin’ dues and win the fuckin’ war. If I hadn’t spent my formative years – 1999-2001 – listening to Spineshank, Adema and the Kings of Metal – Puddle of Mudd, then I wouldn’t have been able to produce the cutting edge shit I’m bringin’ today. Also dawg, let me tell you something, if you ain’t got a coloured, plaited beard or maybe a Mohawk you can forget about makin’ it in this business bro.

And bitch, if you ain’t got tribal tattoos, I just gots just one thing to say – ‘1, 2 Fuck You!’

LTH: Superb, ribald wit Mr Moody, It has been an honour and a privilege to spend this moment discussing your phenomenal musical career.

Thank you Sir.

* Disclaimer: No, we didn’t really interview Ivan Moody. This is, however, exactly how it would have gone.

Nevermore

Quoth the raven, “Tis fucking good”

It has been a tough 5 years. This Godless Endeavor dropped almost exactly half a decade ago & it blew the world away. The complaints leveled (rather unfairly) at Enemies of Reality were rectified when they brought in uber-producer Andy Sneap. Nevermore enjoyed new heights of success culminating in a support slot for nu-metal lightweights, Disturbed. I wish I were kidding. After this trauma, Nevermore released the brilliant Year of the Voyager DVD then promptly dropped off the radar.

From the opening strains of The Termination Proclamation, it’s obvious, they’ve done it again. Majestic heavy metal that defies genre classification. Loomis’s 7 string mastery, Warrel Dane’s soaring vocals & an underlying appreciation of melody that is so often missing in metal today. And The Maiden Spoke is pure My Dying Bride-esque doom metal channeled through the twisted imagination of King Diamond. Ballad Emptiness Unobstructed is the outstanding track of the album with Loomis mostly taking a back seat to let Dane demonstrate his power.

Is this soliloquy or psychosis,
Or self hypnosis?

Moonrise (Through Mirrors Of Death) – Nevermore

The lyrics may have been carved from a single, massive block of edam & delivered in a manner fatal to lactose intolerants but it adds a level of accessibility to proceedings. For all the progressive touches & the guitar work that makes every bedroom guitarist cry into their Squier Strat, what makes Nevermore so special is the fact that they make great heavy metal that everyone with an IQ above 7 can appreciate. The Obsidian Conspiracy can sit happily within their canon of greats, somewhere between Dead Heart In A Dead World & their 2 masterpieces, This Godless Endeavor & Enemies Of Reality.

Special note should be made of the Limited Edition packaging which includes the rather ambitiously titled Play Guitar Like Jeff Loomis & a ton of artwork that really deserves framing.

Chris Barnes

Our first interview* for the site is with Chris Barnes of Six Feet Under. He was also a founding member of Cannibal Corpse & was a member of Finnish death crew, Torture Killer. We catch up with Chris following the release of Graveyard Classics 3 to get his views on the current state of death metal.

Leave the Hall: So Chris, your career has spanned almost 3 decades now. Six Feet Under have got 8 studio albums plus 3 Graveyard Classics releases. You also did the first 4 Corpse albums, numerous guest slots on other albums, toured the world & were one of the first people to use the now famous “death growl”. What are you most proud of?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: You got more than a little flak for the track One Bullet Left featuring Ice-T, fueded with Seth Putnam of Anal Cunt, left the world’s biggest death metal band & recieved mixed reviews for every SFU release. What’s the biggest regret of your career?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Are you planning on touring the UK any time soon?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Have you listened to the latest Corpse release, Evisceration Plague? Erik Rutan produced it & he produced the SFU album, Commandment. How do you think the two albums compare? Why didn’t you use Rutan for the new SFU?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Recently, we’ve seen a massive shift in the death metal scene towards technicality & speed. There’s also been a huge rise in the number of bands mixing death with other genres. What are your thoughts on the current deathcore fad? How do you think these changes will affect a band like SFU who eschew the tech side of things?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Any bands you feel deserve a wider audience? Any underground recommendations?

Chris Barnes: Duh Duh Duh Duh!!

Leave the Hall: Anything else you wanna add, Chris?

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Thanks for your time! It was great to meet you.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: That’s us done now, Chris.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: Ok.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

Leave the Hall: See you later, Chris.

Chris Barnes: Snakes!!!

* Disclaimer: No, we didn’t really interview Chris Barnes. This is, however, exactly how it would have gone.

Immolation - Majesty & Decay

A Glorious Epoch

One of Death Metal’s old guard, Immolation have always stood out from the crowd with their immense technical ability & their refusal to conform to traditional DM song structures. Having maintained a (relatively) consistent line-up compared to the revolving door policies of many of the scene’s bigger names, this has afforded Immolation the chance to hone their craft to unparalleled standards.

Everything you love Immolation for is present here. The anti-humanity sentiment, Ross Dolan’s inimitable vocal delivery & the palpable feeling of pure evil emanating from every note but this time there’s something more. It’s hard to pinpoint but despite the numerous time changes & the outrageous riff-to-song ratio, every second of this album fits together like a clenched fist in the rectum of a Dutch prostitute.

A short atmospheric intro & the sounds of crumbling masonry leads into opener, The Purge. A meaty slab of brutality on the subject of ridding the world of humanity. The first solo sets the bar high for the rest of the album. The tempo drops for the next track, A Token of Malice, with some more groovy riffs and yet another beastly solo. The album lumbers on like a colossus through the crushing title track up to A Glorious Epoch, the strongest track on the album.

There are times where the sheer technicality of this album will put off posers & moments where the doom-influences creep in putting off purists but if you fall into either category, you simply don’t deserve an album this magnificent. Initially, I was going to say that this is the best Immolation album since Close To A World Below but it’s not. This is the best Immolation album. There can be no debate. It’s an evil, brutal, technical masterpiece that leaves every DM release of the year with a lot of work to do.

Die Apokalyptischen Reiter

Reitermania Finally Hits Britain

It is 15 years since the criminally underrated Die Apokalyptischen Reiter formed & it’s only now that they get a UK headlining tour. Making up for lost time, the German nutcases decided to blast through a set which leaned heavily towards to last 2 albums. I can’t help but feel that the show would have benefited from a couple more of their classics. Licked By The Tounges Of Pride, Reitermania & Unter Der Asche almost made up for the absence of anything from their 2004 masterpiece, Samurai.

Reiter are used to playing to much larger crowds at home than over here but that didn’t stop them bringing the sex swing, inflatable boats & flaming torches, causing much anxiety to the poor roadies as flames licked the wall-mounted bass drum. Their exacting requirements caused the venue to have to set up a second sound desk which paid off with the end result being the sonic equivalent of a blow job on a summer’s day.

Minor complaints about the setlist don’t mar a thoroughly enjoyable gig & although Die Apokalyptischen Reiter are far more suited to a large field in Germany in early August, they handle themselves admirably on a club tour.  It is encouraging to see a genuinely unique band getting a crack at the UK without having to support fucking Trivium.

Cancerous Womb

Smokin Joe Fritzl

This is the debut EP of one of Scotland’s brightest hopes – Cancerous Womb – who are gamely sailing the brown seas of Dimebag necrofellatio, scene kids and bands that think Lamb of God are cutting edge genius to deliver some actual Death Metal to our poor, tired anuses. Seeing as there are only 3 songs on this, I’ll do a track by track…

1 V.I.Paedophile
This is, of course, the greatest track name of all time, and it is coupled to one of my favourite Death Metal staples – the patented ‘reversed evil intro’. Morbid Angel would be proud. Once we flip back into the right direction we’re off with some polyrythymic force, and some excellent mid-paced action that touches my plums in all the right places. The song ends with a slidey riff and the repetition of the almost playground (apt) chant of ‘V.I. Paedophile!’ This section really should have a chorus of little kids chanting this in thrash gang vocal style though. Tsk.

2 Up To My Nuts In Guts
Well the start of this song reminds me very much of the intro of Invisible Control by Decapitated (definitely not a bad thing), and featuring some prolonged groove sections, again with some flourishes that hint at polyrythyms, showing a definite Meshuggah influence. The riff at 2:36 is the stand out moment from the demo, definitely worthy of stoving someone’s face in with a sledgehammer to and the rest of the song pretty much crushes from then on in.

3 Austrian Basement
This opens with another groovy passage to which I can’t help but imagine fat Goths dancing to but it then nicely chunkifies into some solid death metal aggression. We are treated to some more dissonant riffing with some excellently structured passages before out of nowhere there is a weird space out that sounds like the sudden onset of tinnitus, or worse, like a section from trance anthems. We also get our one and only solo, which is nearly all tremolo picking, presumably to add intensity, but to me this is something that somewhat detracts from it, as the atmosphere might have been better built with single notes. It also sounds rather lonely without a guitar track behind it, which is obviously to recreate their live setup, but doesn’t work so well in a crisper studio recording where backup is more conspicuous by its absence. Some fat ass palm muted chords behind it would have had me jizzing into an early grave.

Overall this is very promising, with some great passages, structures and riffs, well thought out vocal patterns and some large metaphorical hairy testes. The Austrian Basement EP comfortably puts them at the very forefront of the Edinburgh metal scene (even if that is like beating 50 bald men in a hair combing competition), and I think that with some further refinement they will be nicely poised for world domination. Or on the sex offenders register. Probably both.

…and winners of the hotly contested ‘Leave The Hall Demo Of The Year 2009′

Even Rocky Had A Montage

1. Cormorant – Metazoa

If there is any justice in the world, Cormorant are set to be the biggest thing out of the Bay Area since 1983. Metazoa is a blinding mix of melodic death metal, hard rock, black metal & about 100 other genres. I really can’t recommend this album highly enough.

2. Megadeth – Endgame

Mustaine & co. are back on top. Endgame built on the last 2 ‘deth albums & shocked the world with this masterpiece of thrash domination, undoubtedly driven by the arrival of Broderick & his big sack o’ riffs. Mustaine had finally found someone to trade solos with that rivalled the might of Friedman.

3. Ravage – The End of Tomorrow

Heavy metal the way Priest used to make. Epic vocals, catchy hooks, insane shredding. It might not be anything new but it’s done so well that you don’t even care.

4. Ahab – The Divinity of Oceans

Nautical doom metal that often sails close to the shores of more extreme genres. Riffs the size of Moby Dick, melodic interludes & you’ve got an album ***BAD JOKE ALERT*** more epic that a Faith No More single.

5. Hospital of Death – Surge, Kill, Steal

H.O.D.’s bastard mix of heavy metal & early Exodus-style thrash along with their debut Beer Bitches Blood put them on the map but this album takes that map & shits all over it. Highlight track The King of Sweden is a soaring ode to the greatness of a certain Mr Malmsteen that features the line “Lots of twats play Fender Strats but he is the exception, he makes it cool because he rules & gives us all erections!” Nuff’ Said.

6. Immortal – All Shall Fall

Black metal’s second biggest band silenced 7 years of rumours & negativity by releasing All Shall Fall, an unrelenting modern classic with all the hallmarks of Immortal’s frost-ridden soundscapes.

7. Skeletonwitch – Breathing The Fire

Athens, Ohio’s finest sons released their 3rd album, Breathing The Fire cementing their reputation as blackened thrash’s kings last year. Maiden riffs, sweeps & some healthy palm muting mixed with Garnette’s growl for a perfect soundtrack to a beer-fuelled thrash-down.

8. Cauldron – Chained To The Night

See Number 3. All the same reasons apply.

9. W.A.S.P. – Babylon

I only gave this album 3.5 Grimmetts earlier in the year but it’s grown on me like that mould on the end of my dick. Blackie Lawless knows how to write a catchy tune that burrows into your brain stem & stays there for the next decade.

10. Gama Bomb – Tales From The Grave In Space

Free downloads don’t come much more awesome than this thrashtastic collection. It’s like if you chucked some B-Movies, comic books, Nuclear Assault & fuckload of beer into a blender & recorded the sound it made as it blended. Get it here!

Just Missing Out:

Shining – VI: Klagospalmer
Nile – Those Whom The Gods Detest
Swallow The Sun – New Moon
Saxon – Into The Labyrinth
Kreator – Hordes of Chaos
Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know

We need a montage

1. Megadeth – Endgame

This had to be the number one. It’s just very important to have Megadeth existing and putting out some proper music again. I still think that they can improve on this, but for the time being, enjoy Mustaine sneering and thoroughly thrashing his tits off once more.

2. Exivious – Exivious

Just an incredible album, all instrumental featuring the half of Cynic that weren’t on Death’s Human album and the drummer from Textures. For me Exivious comes across even stronger than Cynic’s Traced in Air (which was itself amazing), with the mandatory shit load of crazy time changes and jazz club vibe. Some 5 Finger Death Punch fans might call it meandering wank but they’re ignorant, inbred cunts so fuck them. If this had been the follow up to Focus and they’d added some robot vocals into the mixer then the entire world may very well have exploded, unable to contain the jazz metal mastery and tsunami of critical acclaim.

3. While Heaven Wept – Vast Oceans Lachrymose

This majestic behemoth of an album came out of nowhere and blew me away. While Heaven Wept meld powerful doom riffs to progressive structures and soaring vocals that would make Fates Warning cry sweet tears of jizz and Dream Theater vomit as their grasp of atmospherics is shown to be pitiful in comparison. It’s like a giant (possibly some sort of mutant Joey DiMaio created by mad Manowar worshipping scientists in the heart of Germany) striding across the world saying “This is heavy metal, what the fuck are you going to do about it?” and the answer, of course, is rock out to epic power ballads (Vessel) and 15 minute undulating progressive monstrosities like The Furthest Shore. Yes, some of the melodies are as cheesy as the cheesiest cheese warehouse on a hot summer’s day but I just can’t stop listening to it!

4. Augury – Fragmentary Evidence

This one I’d been looking forward to for quite some time, and happily Augury have moved on a great deal from where they left off with 2004’s Concealed, losing the female clean vocals and upping the prog-factor to new levels. The result is a brilliant Technical Death Metal album that is underpinned by the fretless bass (an instrument that appears in 3 albums of this top 10 because it’s fuckin’ sweet) prowess of Dominic ‘Forest’ Lapointe, who also amply filled the mighty Steve DiGiorgio’s shoes in fellow Montreal-eans Quo Vadis. Fragmentary Evidence is heavy, technical, interesting, complicated and with great songs. Yes.

5. Novembers Doom – Into Nights Requiem Infernal

This band keeps getting heavier! The Death/Doom maestros continue to evolve in the opposite direction of EVERY other doom band that ever lived and, rather than turn into HIM are instead morphing into some sort of Doom Amon Amarth. The album is as bristling with humongous riffs as it is sorrowful passages, and there is a real confidence in the dynamics that showcases just how on top of their game Novembers Doom are at the moment.

6. Obscura – Cosmogenesis

Ah the new Necrophagist album. Oh no, wait, they are still playing to the worlds scene kids on their 68th US tour, as they have been for the last FIVE FUCKING YEARS. Well they can consider their throne well and truly usurped by Obscura’s Cosmogenesis, featuring two of the members that made Necrophagist’s Epitaph so awesome in 2004. You snooze you lose. The requisite neo-classical solos are there, dizzying passages of technicality and… hang on… some extremely melodic interludes that elevate this above the massed tech-death hordes.

7. Insomnium – Across the Dark

Insomnium evolve again, moving further away from the outright Gothenburg worship of old to what verges on Amorphis-channelling on this, their fourth album. There’s something in that Finnish water. A much more introspective album than anything that has gone before it, with only occasional bursts of melodeath being tastefully scattered across the frosty landscape they conjour. With this they have managed to be both less accessible and more accessible at the same time. My brain hurts.

8. Nile – Those Whom the Gods Detest

Worthy of a place in the top 10 for re-affirming my faith in them after the disappointing Ithyphallic, they are back up there at the pinnacle of death metal where they belong. Crushing, frenzied yet classy.

9. Dying Fetus – Descend Into Depravity

Dying Fetus give everyone another lesson in violence with this album, not re-inventing the wheel but just adding more spikes on to it and driving very fast over your face. The album is more fluent than their last couple of releases, and the production is meatier than Pavarotti eating a meat pie. This transforms songs like Atrocious By Nature and Shepherds Commandment into the musical manifestation of Charles Bronson – Fucking nuggets and not to be messed with.

10. Cauldron – Chained to the Nite

This sneaks into the top 10 just for the sheer number of listens I managed to give this album during the summer. Classic (in the sense that these songs could all have been released 30 years ago) metal all the way, with sing alongs a-plenty and enough denim and leather to equip the next 14,672 Saxon conventions.

Just missing out:

Amorphis – Skyforger
Suffocation – Blood Oath
Skeletonwitch – Breathing The Fire
Immortal – All Shall Fall
Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue
Katatonia – Night Is the New Day

Overkill - Ironbound

Old School Kings Put On A Clinic

Thrash metal’s recent resurgence has left us with a few shining gems in a sea of mediocrity & recycled Exodus riffs. Whilst we looked to the future & filtered the wheat from the chaff, the thrash from the trash, the Gama Bombs from the Eviles,  New Jersey’s finest were putting together a masterpiece. Overkill have never been particularly progressive, they never went down the death vocals route a la Testament, the penis-flavoured corporate rock sound of Metallica. No, they preferred to thrash the old way, hitting everything head on with their punk-influenced brand of musical destruction & have the odd stroke on the way.

Overkill might be in their 30th year now but Ironbound has all the energy & punch of a bunch of ADHD delinquents on a day-trip to Starbucks. Opener The Green And Black serves as a devestating statement of intent with just a touch Take No Prisoners-style Megadeth mixed in there. The title track follows & it’s classic Overkill to the core (minor pun intended). Whilst Blitz’s unique voice & DD Verni’s distinctive pick bass have always formed the backbone of Overkill’s trademark sound, new drummer Ron Lipnicki really shines driving the tempo to a crushing pace. It also includes some of the best, most technical solos they’ve ever produced.  Both Derek Tailer & Dave Linsk have raised their game since the last album & the end result is outstanding.

[*] The Head & Heart is a lumbering heavy track that gives the feeling that you are about to be charged by a particularly vicious bull whilst the following cut, In Vain is a blinding yet funky thrashfest. Killing For A Living follows a similar structure to Overkill’s older material but is played with a machine-like precision that adds an extra bite to things. Closer The SRC is a beastly ode to the underground, a place Overkill have happily been reigning for last 3 decades.

The mix was handled by the ever capable Peter Tagtgren who is rapidly becoming to go-to guy for beastly sound, especially when Andy Sneap is unavailable. I’d go as far as to say that this is finest album Overkill have released since Necroshine & already a contender for album of the year.

If you aren’t currently an Overkill fan, this album isn’t going to do anything to change your mind, but if you don’t like Overkill, what the fuck are you doing on this fucking website. Leave your address as a comment below & I will charter a fucking jet to your doorstop, punt you in the face, snap your dick off with a crowbar, set it on fire & chuck it at your mum.

[*] We would like to apologise. There was intended to be, in the original review, another paragraph here detailing some of the stand-out tracks on the album. Unfortunately our reviewer got side tracked when it occurred to him that there might be some people that don’t like Overkill. I present the intended paragraph here & if you are a non-Overkill fan, kindly ask you to fuck right off.

Blackie Lawless

Not Too Shabby-lon (Sorry)

A lot has happened since W.A.S.P. released their last truly great album, The Crimson Idol. A black democrat president is in the White House, Blackie Lawless has found god, oh & he’s now rocking the Mischa Barton/Yngwie Malmsteen coke bloat look. Currently, Blackie see’s himself as some sort of prophetic messenger predicting a biblical apocalypse at the hands of a single New World Order style shadowy organisation. As far as crazed conspiracy theories, it’s up there with David Icke but as an idea for an album I’ve heard a lot worse.

If you are wanting an epic concept album that will forever be considered the yardstick by which all metal concept albums (sorry, Maiden, Dream Theater) then stick with Crimson Idol. To be fair, this isn’t a true concept album, it’s a mix of spoken bible passages & songs on a theme in Blackie’s inimitable growl.

Babylon features the same lineup that gave us mediocre-fest Dominator but don’t let that put you off. Tracks Babylon’s Burning & Seas of Fire are W.A.S.P. doing what they do best; fast, catchy metal songs with awesome hooks. There’s also a cover of Deep Purple’s Burn that didn’t make it onto Dominator for licensing reasons but it fits better here & sits well with the theme of the album.

The album closes with an epic, slow-burning ballad, Godless Run, on the subject of Blackie’s past, his faith & it’s by far the strongest song they’ve released in the last 15 years. They follow this up with an brilliant cover of Promised Land by Chuck Berry & I get the feeling it may have been more than a minor influence on their classic track, Blind In Texas off The Last Command.

This is not a future classic but it is a solid album & a step in the right direction. W.A.S.P. may no longer fuck like beasts but Babylon proves they’ve still got what it takes to rock like motherfuckers.

Nile - Those Whom The Gods Detest

Those Whom Twats Detest

Nile albums generally transcend any predetermined preconceptions of what a listening experience is, instead crafting huge sonic landscapes that whisk you back 5000 years to the banks of the river from which they take their name, so that you can almost feel the Egyptian sun scorching your back, as some slave driver whips you harder to construct the Sphinx’s giant stone phallus (this may or may not exist outside of my mind). Luckily for us, Nile do not have magical time travelling powers or, to my knowledge, whips, and instead settle for scorching and lashing your face with their enormous metaphorical phallus of death metal on this, their sixth, album.

I must say it is very nice of Nile to pop up every couple of years to remind everyone that incredibly brutal death metal can be something other than lobotomised, gore-fixated fuckbaggery, and it is testament to their compositional ability that this album manages to be as technical as anything that will be released this year without ever seeming like you’re listening to ‘tech’ music. The sweeps are subtly applied, the riffs are complex yet memorable and the drumming is restrained, intelligently textured and, when it needs to be, fast enough to leave pretty much everyone else in the (Saharan) dust. Songs shift to and fro from monolithic slabs of doom to what having a swarm of bees in one ear and an artillery range in the other sounds like, all topped off with that trademark glaze of eastern instruments, huge string bends and unsettling droning notes from Sanders’ fretless guitar.

The issue of trademark sound is an interesting one, however, as I have noticed something of a backlash towards Nile of late for being ‘formulaic’ and ‘one-dimensional’. Now, I would usually be the first to give a band a kicking for this (see my previous review), but in their case it is more that they have created such a strong niche with their imagery and instrumentation that even their most experimental work sounds ‘like Nile’. Similarly, this phenomenon has never stopped me from buying a new Iron Maiden or Opeth album, as they are all free to develop within their own unique paradigm rather than stuck in a one dimensional rut.

This development is shown not least in the *gasp* non-Egyptian related opener ‘Kafir!’, which tackles the rejection of God in a more general sense, inspired by a race of people that lived in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan and were seen as infidels by the Islamic countries that surrounded them. I know this because… Karl Sanders’ liner notes have returned! And the ‘Kafir!’ notes even give a shout out to Exodus!

Elsewhere, the title track is an 8 minute titan that only Nile are really able to pull off, and the total fucking madness of ‘Kem Khefa Kheshef’ is a mindblowing example of how to craft a death metal song… My discussing individual tracks is a waste of time though, as if you’re not willing to listen to the whole shebang (while reading the liner notes) you can get the fuck out of town or die.

Slayer - World Painted Blood

World Painted Bland?

People often say that Slayer have never made a bad album, which might well be true, but they have certainly made a few mediocre ones. The nu-metal influenced God Hates Us All and Diabolus in Musica (see ‘Love to Hate’) were hit and miss at best, and it would be fair to say that Slayer haven’t made a really great album since Seasons in the Abyss nearly 20 years ago. So, regardless of what meat-headed Slayer fanboys will tell you, and there are plenty around to do it, they have almost as much to prove on this album as Megadeth did on Endgame, even if they didn’t fall far enough to release an album quite as smelly as Risk.

World Painted Blood begins strongly with the title track, featuring some nice Mandatory Suicide spoken vocals from Tom which is followed by Unit 731, though Slayer, while playing very fast, fail to make a song about a WW2 Japanese unit that carried out experiments that would have Josef ‘Angel Of Death’ Mengele saying “hold on a sec there lads, that’s a wee bit needless” sound quite as fucking evil as it should.

Hate Worldwide, with its fairly generic riffing and facepalm inducing lyric of ‘I deny, I defy, and spread a little hate worldwide’ (no prizes for guessing it was Kerry ‘I steal my lyrics from angry 14 year old boys diaries’ King that wrote this gem) isn’t a particularly great song, but he redeems himself with the following track, the thrashtacular Public Display Of Dismemberment, and so the album continues on in this fairly inconsistent manner, threatening to gel into a big, solid thrash face fucking but with little inconsistencies and here and there that derail the momentum and we’re left with another mixed bag. Like Christ Illusion before it there just isn’t enough here to keep me coming back for more, yes it’s fast and yes it’s aggressive, but it lacks the sprinkle of class that sets an album like Seasons in the Abyss apart from what they have presented here.

It seems to me Slayer are caught in a conundrum, not doing anything wrong (no singing choruses – check, no br00tal breakdowns – check) and with a rabid fanbase that will lap this up, they are comfortably stagnating. It’s no coincidence that the best songs on the last couple of Slayer albums have come when they’ve pushed themselves or added some experimental touches, some texture and light and shade to their work, but they far too often fall back into Slayer-by-numbers, or even worse, sound like a Diabolus… b-side, and frankly it’s just fucking boring now unless you’ve only just discovered them.

In all, World Painted Blood is a solid but unspectacular album, with some moments on it that will make you medically NEED to headbang, but with others that just leave you feeling a bit ‘meh’. World Painted Blood is not a bad album, I mean come on, everyone knows Slayer have never released a bad album, but I’m still waiting on their next truly great one.

Cormorant

Prog-tastic Contender For Album Of The Year

Pinning Cormorant down to a single genre would be about as productive & as easy as stapling a turd to the back of a particularly pissed off badger. However, if you really insist on having something to put in that tantalising “Genre” box in your iTunes, I’d say they play progressive blackened death metal.

Dark, crushing brutality mixes with beautiful melodic passages on pretty much every track. Influences range from Zao, At The Gates, Cynic all the way to Rush, Celtic Frost, Iron Maiden and a thousand other bands, yet each song sounds like something totally original & unique. Arthur von Nagel’s growls & screeches are reminiscent of the early black metal scene whilst his fretless bass work drives the whole album & really stand out in the production.

Opener Scavenger’s Feast builds from a slow intro up into a heavy Gothenburg sounding blinder before dropping into an epic hard rock solo then on to a classical guitar interlude before building again to more Slaughter of the Soul style savagery. One track that really stands out is Blood on the Cornfields which has an excellent NWOBHM melody & it tells the tale of Nat Turner’s 1831 slave rebellion. Rarely for an album this heavy, the lyrics are really intense, well-written epics on diverse subjects that fit perfectly with the schizophrenic styling of the music.

Its hard to believe that Cormorant aren’t signed to a label or that they put this out as a self-funded release, especially when you consider they got Billy Anderson (Sleep, Mr. Bungle, Cattle Decapitation) to produce it. The production is flawless. I’ve tried to think of more to say on the subject but it’s actually so perfect that anything I say superfluous wank-fluff. Just listen to it!

It’s rare that I get such an intense feeling from an album. It happened the first time I heard Cynic’s Focus, Zao’s Funeral of God & Mastadon’s Remission. Its a magical feeling that usually leaves me with a hard-on & a bit of shit in my pants. I think Cormorant might be the best new band to come out of the Bay Area in a long time. Trust me when I say that this is an extremely special album & a definite contender for album of the year.

Onslaught - In Search Of Sanity

In Search Of Thrash Perfection

By 1989, Onslaught had established themselves as the biggest thrash band in the UK. Power From Hell was a rough, punk-influenced beast that, much like Venom’s debut, shocked the scene with its raw power. Two years & a line-up shuffle later, The Force was released to critical & public acclaim. The punk influences were scaled back for a more traditional thrash sound, longer songs & more structured riffing. Vocals for The Force were handled by then unknown, Sy Keeler. His guttural, snarling style added a whole new dimension to the band.

By 1986, Onslaught were set for worldwide thrash domination. Unfortunately, it was 3 years before the release of the next album. In these years, Onslaught’s new label had lost faith in Keeler’s vocal ability & decided to replace him. In a rare flash of brilliance, one which has not yet been repeated by a music label, they brought in a genuine metal god. Steve Grimmett had already made his name on the three legendary Grim Reaper albums. The label felt their new cleaner sound required a refined vocal style & that Grimmett was the man for the job.

Of course, any question over the choice of vocalist went out the window with a first listen to the finished article.

They kick things off like any sexual experience with five minutes of foreplay, in the form of an instrumental. This is followed by the sheer orgasmic joy of the title track. Heavy, Exodus-style riffing gives way to Grimmett’s awesome voice. The sound & subject matter are both reminiscent of Anthrax’s Madhouse.

If you want a thrash anthem, you are in luck because there are more here than in Metallica’s entire back catalogue. Shellshock, Lightning War, Power Play & Blood Upon The Ice are all fast heavy classics with brilliant guitar work from Nige Rockett & Rob Trottman and the best bass sound Onslaught have ever had.

There’s also a cover of AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock which sounds far better with Grimmett’s falsetto scream but the highlight of the album is the 12 minute thrash ballad Welcome To Dying. I am of the belief that there is no greater musical creation than the thrash ballad & this is one of the best ever. Grimmett’s vocals, Nige Rockett’s guitar work, everything about it is perfect.

This album receives so much hate, abuse, disrespect from almost all sides by uneducated, illiterate fuckbags who’s idea of good thrash consists of Rob Dukes era Exodus, Trivium & Linkin Fucking Park. The fact is this: Onslaught plus Grimmett equals an unmissable classic & one of the best albums of 1989.

Triaxis - Key To The Kingdom

Power Metal Perfection From The Valleys

Lets be honest: musically, we’ve not got a lot to thank Wales for. Tygertailz, Bonnie Tyler, Charlotte Church’s tits (anyone who mentions BFMV gets a free head wound) . That’s a pretty comprehensive list right there, but things might finally be changing. Hailing from South Wales, Triaxis are a female fronted power metal band who, hot off the heels of a, by all accounts, extremely impressive Bloodstock set have released a self-funded, self-recorded debut, Keys To The Kingdom.

Triaxis are a band that obviously love Maiden and their influence can be heard throughout the album, particularly on the faster tracks. There also plenty insane shredding solos that fans of Vai, Batio & melted faces. Special note should be made of the track Lies which is, and I’ll use a technical term here, epic-as-fuck!

The whole package is very impressive, even more so when you consider that it is all self-recorded. If I were to find one complaint with the production, it would be that some of the vocals on a couple of tracks don’t sound quite as polished as we’ve come to expect in this age of auto-tune & over-production but if the other option is to have all metal vocals sound like Kanye West, then I choose this every time. Comparisons between Triaxis & Holyhell are almost inevitable but the only one appropriate would be “Like Holyhell but not shit” or “Like Holyhell but 4 Kamelots better”.

The next stage for these guys better be a full tour of the European festivals circuit & maybe the UK power metal scene will finally be forgiven for inflicting ‘comedy’ frap-fest Dragonfarce on the world. Triaxis are poised to take the world by storm, that I will stake my anal virginity on. Seriously, buy this album now!

Wolf & Cauldron

Cauldron Conjure The Fucking Mass On A Cold Monday In Glasgow

Yesterday was a sad day for the Scottish metal scene. I know it was a Monday night, I know that somewhere down the line posters were printed with the wrong date on, I know there are a ton of metal gigs on this month but I still think that there should be a turn out of more than 50 people when bands of Wolf/Cauldron’s calibre actually bother to do a Scottish date. All I hear is bitching and complaining that no bands play Scotland and then whenever someone puts on a gig that’s not Slayer/Machine Head/Lamb of God, no one fucking turns up. Anyway, that’s my rant over, on to the review.

Facegrinder –

Proceedings were opened by local death metallers, Facegrinder. I’ve seen them before supporting Onslaught and know they are much better than last nights performance indicated. Their whole set went all kinds of wrong. They took to the stage missing their bassist, the lead guitarist’s mum had just been chucked out by an over-zealous bouncer, the sound was muddier than an Indonesian village during the rainy season & their singer looked to be suffering from the hangover from hell. They get a Grimmett for turning up & one because in the middle of the set, their singer wandered off to the bar and bought himself another pint.

Cauldron –

The gig properly began when Canada’s finest NWOBHM (no irony intended or needed) revivalists, Cauldron stormed the stage. Cauldron’s particular brand of heavy metal hails from the days when core was something you found in an apple, fringes were cut using a spirit level & tight jeans were accompanied by high tops, not Converse. The size of the crowd, combined with his untamed vocal delivery meant that Jason Decay’s microphone was almost completely unnecessary. Cauldron are the complete package: catchy, heavy riffing, perfectly timed Priest-esque synchronised head banging, solos performed at a 90° angle balanced on top of the monitor. All this is carried out without effects, without swapping guitars & done with such confidence that you wouldn’t believe they’ve only been going 3 years. The set might have only clocked in at 40 minutes but by the end of it, they own the place & there’s not a single person in the crowd that isn’t erupting with NWOBHM jizz.

Wolf –

Wolf were given a hard task to follow but from the opener, Speed On from the excellent Ravenous album until the closer, In The Shadow of Steel, they showed they weren’t going down without a fight. Despite never quite connecting with the crowd in the same way Cauldron did, the set-list was perfect & they were tighter than a Nun’s cunt. Highlights included Curse You Salem, Hail Caesar & discovering that Lee Dorian’s Swedish twin brother sings for Wolf.

All in all, it was an excellent night that underscored the massive problem with Scottish metal fans & their general unwillingness to attend anything that doesn’t feature Trivium. It’s the latest in a long line of well promoted, poorly attended gigs & it’s no fucking wonder that promoters aren’t willing to risk putting on smaller gigs. Next time I hear a complaint that no good bands play Scotland from someone that won’t support their scene by attending a couple of events a year, I’m gonna rip their fucking throat out, shit down their wind pipe and let a tramp rape the turd-stained esophagus.

Evile's Mike Alexander

New Wave Thrash Band Takes Metallica Worship Too Far

In a statement released by Earache records, Evile members Ben Carter, Ol & Matt Drake say:

This is so hard to find the words to express fully how we feel.  We can’t believe or accept what’s happened.  One minute we’re talking to our buddy, Mike, the next minute we can never speak to him again.There’s so many things rushing through our heads that we want to say, do and feel.  We half expect him to come round the corner and call us ‘dickheads’.  We can’t get our heads around it.

It upsets us so much that he was away from his family when this happened, although knowing Mike, we’re at least glad he was on tour doing what he loves.

We’re lost for words.  We all miss him so much already.  He was such a headstrong, genuinely nice guy who loved music and his family.  We’ve got so many brilliant memories with him.

Our hearts go out to his daughter, family and friends at this tragic, difficult time.

Mike is much loved and is sorely missed.

Rest in peace, brother

Evile were on tour with Amon Amarth following the release of their second album ‘Infected Nations’.

Megadeth - Endgame

Leg-Endgame

Dave Mustaine is a bit of a cunt. It is his biggest problem, but is also his best feature and my favourite thing about him. He is like a cartoon villain, constantly whining about Metallica, then saying how ‘over it’ he is and how he loves them all, before saying Lars is a rat faced little fuckrag that couldn’t drum his way out of a wet paper bag, or words to that effect. He had the all-time classic heel-turn of becoming a born-again Christian. He has given interviews about how awesome his new band line-up is, yet he is the only member of the band on the back cover of Endgame. He constantly winds people up and makes them angry, calling Kerry King a big fat shit head-tattooed inbred with gay sunglasses and no ability to play the guitar (or words to that effect) about 30 seconds before announcing a tour with Slayer. For the last decade and a half (at least), people could say that Dave Mustaine was all mouth and no trousers, but with Endgame he has now created and donned a large pair of solid gold trousers with ‘Suck ma plums’ embroidered on the crotch in neon lights.

Whether the back cover represents it or not, Endgame is made by the arrival of the master Chris Broderick on guitar, whose shredtacular talents have forced Mustaine raise his own game much like he did after Marty Friedman joined about 20 years ago. In fact, certain points on this album feel like Michael Angelo Batio, Rusty Cooley, Yngwie Malmsteen and Paul Gilbert doing a full-tilt bukkake session on your face… and Mustaine is sneering about something in the background. That is a beautiful thing. While there are moments that it seems an overload of notes per second is about to occur, the solos are generally well thought out and tasteful, if you like the taste of guitar rape in your face that is.

If you can manage to put the massive levels of guitar pwnage to one side (unlikely), the album sounds bizarrely like a mixture of Killing Is My Business… and Youthanasia, seeing extremely old school riffs meeting with some thoroughly melodic choruses on many of the songs, though some have a crunchier, modern stomp that some die hard thrash fans might find slightly too reminiscent of shite bands like Devildriver. It’s a small complaint though when you weigh it up as a whole, considering the last couple of Megadeth albums have had more filler than a fleet of cement mixers. In fact, the more I think about it, even the perennially wanked-over Countdown to Extinction had some dodgy tunes on it, so Endgame comfortably slots into the top tier of Megadeth albums, which in turn places it many miles above generic dog shit like Arch Enemy that passes for ‘classic’ style modern metal.

If Mustaine can keep this line-up together (and get fucking Vic Rattlehead back on the front cover!) then I firmly believe that they can go on to leave attempts at proper singing and grooviness and make the true successor to Rust in Peace. For now though, everyone should be grateful that Dave has still got an album of this calibre in him and is still angry enough at everyone else in the world to want to prove it. If you can avoid looking with a rose tinted view of Megadeth past, Endgame should be hailed as a god-like slice of genius. This is a definite contender for album of the year.

Sonata Arctica

Finland’s Finest Progress Pleasantly

If you are a fan of Euro-Power Metal, werewolves & stalking girls, then Finland’s Sonata Arctica are the band for you. A massive, orchestral sound with soaring vocals, heavy keyboards & fast, tight guitar solos combined to establish them, along with Edguy & Nightwish, as new leaders of the scene. However something changed with the release of 2007′s Unia. Gone were the driving bass pedals, the speed & a massive chunk of their cheesy catchiness. They had been replaced by a slower, more progressive sound with their most complex song structures to date. Needless to say, this was about as popular as a salad bar in downtown Glasgow.

The Days of Grays is a lot closer musically to Unia than it is to their first 4 albums. There are a few nods to the traditional Sonata sound, particularly on Flag In The Ground. The progressive elements introduced on the last album are still present but the whole album feels more light-hearted & straightforward than their previous effort. The heavy symphonic keyboard intro on Deathaura would fit better on a recent Dimmu Borgir album than it does here & its followed by some Nightwish style warbling before the album proper kicks in. After that, we get some more traditional Sonata keyboard & guitar solos whilst Tony Kakko’s vocals stand out as a career best.

There are also plenty slower tracks, Zeroes, Juliet & an excellent melodic interlude in the middle of The Dead Skin show than they are still capable of making the kind of dark ballads that made them stand out from the cesspool that late nineties power metal became.

This isn’t the return to form that some people had hoped for but its a step in the right direction. The pop hooks, outrageous solos and a lot of the speed are back but they’ve kept some of the darker, more intricate structures & themes from Unia. Its not a classic but, much like a sloppy handjob from a drunken teenage girl, you could do far worse than check out The Days of Grays.

Five Finger Death Punch - War Is The Answer

Nu-Metal is the Answer? Oh No, Wait, It’s Not

What year is this? Is it 1999? Is nu-metal still considered a valid genre choice for aspiring musicians? Is it fuck. Five Finger Death Punch, or FFDP (worst abbreviation since Buh-Fuh-Muh-Vuh), play a bastard mix of late nineties nu-metal and early noughties metalcore. The music industry are, however, happy to sign anything that reminds them of simpler times when CD sales bought them mountains of cocaine, rather than the briefcases of cocaine they now have to make do with.

It’s impressive for a metal band to claim the title of Most Anachronistic Album in a year when Vera Lynn has had a number one album. War Is The Answer is FFDP’s second album and they’ve lost none of the qualities that got them voted ‘Best New Band’ by Metal Hammer. Yes, they are all there: The horrible melodic verses, the shitty breakdowns that even Lamb of God wouldn’t be proud of, the lyrics straight from “My First Book of Angsty Teenage Rhyming”, the kind of screams you’d expect from a toddler with its hand in a paper shredder.

I’m struggling to pick out any unique elements of this album. It is, end to end, an irrelevant turdfest but the title track does feature some terrible, Disturbed style spoken shit including the lyric “I will slap you so hard, it’ll feel like you kissed a freight train” and repeated rhyming of “cancer” with “answer”. They also kindly included a cover of Bad Company. Bad Company would be well within their rights to sue FFDP over, for it is without a doubt the worst cover of a song since this.

Not content with writing some of the most soulless, derivative music of recent years they’ve also gone down the old PR stunt route to shift a few more thousand copies of this abysmal semen-stain of an album. Guitarist Zoltan Bathory (real name apparently) was reported ‘missing’ 3 days prior to the launch of the album. Unfortunately our hopes of body being discovered were cruelly dashed when he was ‘found’ alive & well. Las Vegas police have no record of a missing person report but that’s most likely because he was sat in his hotel room wanking into a pile of dollar bills & SOiL albums.

I can’t recommend this album, even to those of you who love Lamb of God’s breakdowns or Drowning Pool’s awful choruses. This album lacks a single redeeming quality and on that basis alone, I’m sure it’s going to be among the top selling ‘metal’ album of the year. I’m going to start running an exchange program where anyone I meet wearing a FFDP t-shirt can exchange it for a set of stab wounds and some reconstructive face surgery performed with a size 10 Nike High Top.

Manowar

Theirs is the Kingdom of Steel

Reviewing a Manowar release in any conventional way makes about as much sense as reviewing anal sex. Manowar are, like anal sex, something you will try once and make a life-long decision regarding. To this end, I’m not going to waste my time explaining to you that they are the greatest band in the world, that seeing them live will change your life or that sometimes I have Eric Adams based wet dreams.

No, instead I’m going to advise you on whether its worth forking out £12+ on a 6 track EP, one of the songs being a re-recording of a previous song. At a rate of over £2 per new track, is this a bargain? Well, no, its not a bargain. Its not even reasonable, but Manowar are not a reasonable band.

The EP marks a distinct return to form after the last album which comprised mainly of filler & spoken word tracks. Instead, we get 4 suitably epic tracks on the subject of steel, honour and death in battle. Final track, God Or Man stands out as a an excellent future classic with some surprisingly good drum work from Scott Columbus.

They’ve also re-recorded The Crown And The Ring, one of their standout tracks from their classic Kings of Metal album and, along with a metric ton of fireworks, the song they close their live set with. The new metal version mixes out the orchestral backing in favour of a heavier guitar sound and it sounds as epic as the original.

Special note should be made of Father, a perfect acoustic ballad for those of us with parents who aren’t Josef Fritzl. There is a second disc which includes versions of this song in Bulgarian, Croatian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish & Turkish. For any other band, this would be a massive undertaking but Manowar probably translated and recorded the whole thing in an afternoon.

I’ll leave you probably the best lyrics ever written:

Hands that never take
Can only give
And because of you
I know how to live

Manowar – Father

I’m not going to bother telling you to buy this because if you are a Manowar fan you already own 2 copies and if you aren’t, then leave the hall, for you are a wimp & a poser.

Ravage - The End of Tomorrow

End of Tomorrow? Middle of the 80s Would Be Closer

Ravage play heavy metal. Not 90s heavy metal where it all got sensitive, not 00s heavy metal where it got all ‘core. They play heavy metal as it was meant to be played. Duelling lead guitars, galloping bass work & plenty high pitched screams. They play 80s heavy metal.

The album starts out with a fast but generic instrumental track before kicking things up a gear or two with Reign Fall. Iced Earth style guitar work & some awesome lyrics make for an excellent opener. Vocally, Al Ravage has a sound of his own. Excellent mid-range stuff perfectly suited to the material but entirely capable of the prerequisite screams as demonstrated on The Shredder & The Nightmare’s Hold. They even find time to slip in a  cover of Priest’s classic Nightcrawler *, but its location right in the middle of the album unfairly makes it seem like a linchpin placed there because someone wasn’t confident enough in the band’s own songwriting talents.

Much like fellow NWOBHM revivalists Cauldron, the biggest complaint you can make about Ravage is that they don’t really bring anything new to the table. However, when you’ve got guitar work this tight, songs that are as catchy as AIDS & the ultimate seal of metallic greatness (an Ed Repka album cover),  you can’t go far wrong. Add into the mix, a vocalist who has a unique raw quality that stands out in a sea of clones and you’ve got all the ingredients for a classic metal album that will have heads banging and necks dying.

Trust me when I say this; If you like heavy metal, you are not going to be disappointed with this album.

* There are a couple of ‘metal’ critics who seem to be unaware that Nightcrawler is a cover of a Judas Priest song. Being a metal critic and being unaware of the Painkiller album is a crime punishable only by a slow painful fire-based death.

Hail of Bullets - ...Of Frost and War

Hail and Kill

Hail of Bullets are a supergroup that play death metal. Death metal of the proper, old school, straight up, mid-paced blasting variety, which in these technical times can often sound like misty eyed revivalism or, even worse, just plain dreary and uninspiring. To pull it off you need to be doing something very special indeed.

Luckily, Hail of Bullets are doing just that. What they bring to the table is a total commitment to recreating World War 2 in your ears, in both music and lyrics, which cannot be denied or ignored.

While the classic DM onslaught is all well and good, it is the addition of almost doom-metal atmospherics on ‘…Of Frost and War’ that make it stand out from the pack, as tracks like Nachthexen and Inferno At The Carpathian Mountains see the band slowing to an icy dirge that perfectly encapsulates the dismal bleakness of the Eastern front. And Stalingrad was no place for shandy boy breakdowns, thank fuck. The lyrics are amazing too, basically a load of facts about various battles, technical terminology and information about defensive formations and counter attacks in the flank – war geek overload. These are delivered by the legend Martin Van Drunen (who, according to the irrefutable Wikipedia, has overcome the extremely un-metalhead-friendly condition alopecia) in the vocal style of someone who had spent months being bombed, scavenging for food and freezing slowly to death as they use their last remaining breaths to radio for help as the merciless enemy closes in. Instrumentally, the rest of the band are as tight as Dave Lee Roth’s posing pouch and the guitar tone evokes early 90’s Stockholm, making this all sound a bit like early Entombed having a quick rake through the Imperial War Museum.

In short, this album is fucking awesome. Basically the History Channel really needs to use this album as the soundtrack to a Stalingrad documentary. I’d wank.

3 Inches of Blood - Here Waits Thy Doom

3 Inches of Pleasure

Everyone’s favourite retro metal traditionalists/parody band returns with their new offering. It seems like they’re getting more traditional and ‘true’ with every album, though that isn’t necessarily a good thing as this, like their last album, falls a bit flat. Advance and Vanquish was so ridiculous and over the top as to be beyond criticism of any kind, even containing a trilogy of songs about Pirates that didn’t make me want to vomit diarrhoea for insulting Running Wild (unlike the tediously shit Failstorm). Then, sadly, 3 Inches of Blood made the fatal error of believing they were a proper band with some serious ideas and Fire Up The Blades was fairly wank.

The problem with their last album was that practically all of the core original members left and were replaced by proper beardy metal heads that weren’t just having a bit of a laugh trying to re-write Maiden and Priests back catalogue but more over the top as they were with the first two. Here Waits Thy Doom, however, scores massive points for not being produced by every generic shit metal fan’s favourite midget drummer, Joey Jordison, and was apparently mixed by someone with the surname Douches.

This album falls somewhere between the two in terms of quality, with the band finding an almost Grim Reaper-esque NWOBHM quality on many songs which is obviously amazing, especially ‘Rock In Hell’, about which Grimmett must be kicking himself that he didn’t use the title first.

A definite plus is the departure of the bell end that did the screaming vocals, because they sounded shit, gay and basically just blocked off the awesomeness of Cam Pipes’ ridiculous high notes, which themselves now have a rough edge no doubt brought about by the years of touring. While the riffs and solos are not quite as instant and in your face as they were on ‘Advance and Vanquish’, songs like Battles and Brotherhood, with its promises to ‒take the posers down” and the Manowarian themes of Fierce Defender and Call Of The Hammer are very welcome indeed, especially if you’re drunk, and as far as I can tell, the chorus of Silent Killer goes ‒Never seen, never heard, a sausage way of life!” Halford would definitely approve.

Municipal Waste - Massive Aggressive

Massive Aggressive? More like Massive Disappointment

Despite being the best thing to come out of Richmond, Virginia since Earl Hebner, the latest Municipal Waste album is about as bland & unremarkable your average Paul Anka album. At no point in my repeated listens of it did I want to down a beer, punch out a police officer and dive face-first through a plate glass window. Where is the fucking party?

It does have some highlights. Wolves of Chernobyl and Mech-Cannibal both feature inspired moments that should have the circle pits the size of France going. Upside Down Church starts out with a chunky intro before taking you into space on a rocket made of pure shred that the Bay Area titans of yesteryear would have been proud.

The guitar work is as tight as ever, Dave Witte’s drumming is on par with Slayer’s and the bass sound is awesome. The only issue I have with the production is that on a whole, the album sounds too polished. The Waste play crossover thrash and it’s a well known fact that all crossover should sound like it was recorded in a biscuit tin by 2 deaf crack addicts.

My major complaint with this album is that every song sounds like the last. There are only about 5 moments on the record that actually stand out. Its all filler, no killer.