Origin

Origin-al Gangsta

Origin more or less set the benchmark when it comes to ridiculous death metal. Faster than an espresso fuelled gravity-blasting cheetah, their last few releases have established them as the most consistent purveyors of first class brutality and the go to men when you simply must have your internal organs scrambled into a lumpy red smoothie as soon as possible.

Pushing play on an Origin album is like that bit in The Matrix where a huge big headphone jack gets thrust into the phono socket in the back of Keanu Reeves’ head. It’s the same confusing, painful yet not entirely without its charms sensation of an overwhelming influx of information flooding directly into your nervous system. Entity’s first track, Expulsion Of Fury, sounds not unlike 1000 mechanical rats scurrying all over your body, desperately trying to scratch their way to your tasty kidneys… in a good way, of course. Purgatory is a 1 minute 26 second exercise in bludgeoning death, which may on the face of it seem like a short song, but just as soon as the opening riff hits you’ll already feel like your testicles are having square goes with a hammer.

Entity is comprised of a number of these brutally incisive short-lived onslaughts, though there are also some longer (yet no less brutal or incisive) 5-7 minute tracks, which, when spliced together and given a short, relaxing mid-album instrumental break (The Descent) gives the listener all the choice they really need when flicking through it on their iPod. Morbid Angel should probably take note that this is just about the only level of variation that Death Metal fans find acceptable, and even then, the instrumental break is actually more out of necessity than artistic intent, as I urgently needed the time to catch my breath after inadvertantly stripping naked and wrestling my coffee table during the last 30 seconds of Swarm.

Where I previously felt that Origin had a tendency to become bogged down in a swamp of complexity, there is an instant accessibility to Entity that instantly raises it above its predecessors, with songs like Saligia and Concieving Death being about as catchy as music this demanding can possibly be without accidentally destroying the universe. Where they were previously only a match for Nile in the speed stakes they now also compete in atmospherics, structure and honest-to-goodness riffs. In fact, they are only a name change to Tiber and a concept album about the Roman Empire away from probably being the most wanked-over death metal band in history. Make it so.

The album closes with the mighty one-two of Consequence of Solution and Evolution of Extinction, the former being an epic without ever veering off into self indulgent tedium, a feat it achieves by packing an entire albums worth of riffs, time changes, breaks, fills and general fucking aural mayhem into its 7 minutes. The latter is the perfect distillation of everything that has gone before, fading out and leaving you nicely positioned to plug it in to your skull one more time.

Entity is a death metal album that has enough arpeggios to feed Yngwie Malmsteen for a week and drumming that turns kits to dust but still understands that these technical achievements are nothing without massive ball-slamming riffs and, you know, actual songs. This is cutting edge, forward thinking and state of the art in and of itself with no industrial beats, rapping or Scooter tacked on. As Death Metal goes, this is just the ticket. The ticket to fucking party town.

Ken!

1. Us

Well, let’s start with the big one. We’ll be there. Yes, your favourite people in the whole wide world (shut up, we are) are going to set up camp, drink a few bottles of gin & go for a naked jog about the campsite. Probably the best thing you’ll see all weekend.

2. Forbidden

14 years ago, Forbidden dropped Green in our laps. Now, Brown might have been a more appropriate title so it was a pleasant surprise when 2010′s Omega Wave pissed on it from a considerable height. They could have done a Grave, chucked together some recycled riffs with less variation than the output of a particularly unambitious Breville sandwich maker. Bish, bash, bosh, 3/5, on with the groupies. Instead, Steve Smyth bringing an extra string to the mix & big Russ remembering he could shatter scrota with his highs, they reminded the world that a good reunion album doesn’t have to play it safe.

3. Primordial

Having just put out the best album of their career, we’ve got high hopes that Nemtheanga (Alan to his mates) & pals will make their UK open air debut one to remember. As long as we get Coffin Ships & Lain With The Wolf, I will do a celebratory jig.

4. Morbid Angel

This is going to go one of two ways. Either (and I’ll admit this is the less likely option), Evil D & chum(p)s will storm the stage to Immortal Rites before ripping everyone a new hole to piss from with Rapture. A blinding set of classics causes us to forget their recent effort & as they close with Where The Slime Live, everyone joins in a chant of “We forgive you!”. The other possibility is that they play the hour-long extended mix of Radikult as Vincent wipes his sweaty ringpiece on original vinyl pressings of Altars before stamping on them & kicking them into the crowd. There’s definitely no chance they will wobble from side to side with cold dead eyes & play an utterly pedestrian set featuring a couple tracks off the new album & a few hits. It just couldn’t happen….

5. Wintersun

The ironically titled Time has now been in production for longer than recorded history but their appearance at festivals around Europe hopefully means that Jari is approaching his majestic vision. That or his mum is sick of the smell of week old feces emanating from the basement. Mopped clean & shoved on stage, there’s exactly one new song in their current setlist so at this rate, we can expect Time in 2041. Unless the builders next-door start work again.

Check back soon for the imaginatively titled Five More Reasons Why You Should Be At Bloodstock which may or may not contain nude pictures of Dripback.

Soilent Green

Fuck you, Glasgow. Seriously, blame the promoter, blame the venue. I don’t care but this is Soilent fucking Green & you can’t put together a crowd of 60 people on a Friday fucking night. Fuck you right in your lazy, sagging cunts. Anyway, a couple of overpriced pints later we are stood in front of the stage with enough room to swing a particularly large sack of donkeys just in time for London’s newest musical export.

DripBack

This might only be their third (or so, I lost count) gig but they are certainly no strangers to dingy, deserted venues & the smell of piss. Ex/current members of Ted Maul, Pure Negative, Labrat & Leave the Hall favourites, River Freshney, DripBack‘s brand of manky hardcore deathgrind is about as raw as you can get & leaves a palpable soggy feeling in your Y-fronts. Opener Kick Out Time is a fuckton heavier than the 5 Soilent Green fans attending expect & the blastbeat driven hardcore leaves them looking pretty disconcerted. Blowing through their entire EP, slowing only to dedicate a track to the one & only Nicholas Barker who seems to have been adopted by the Freshney boys as their official mascot/tour manager, their groovy grind & gang vocals get exactly 2 people moving. Short, sharp & very fucking dirty, it’s just a shame there’s no crowd to reciprocate & circle pit covered in handfuls of their own bodily fluids.

Soilent Green

Yes, it’s the band we all came for. All 8 of us. Actually I can count 2 people here just for DripBack so we are down to 6. I could go on for hours about this low turnout being a tragedy equal to that of the deaths of Glenn Rambo & Scott Williams but you’d probably just call me a cunt so let’s move on to the set. Opening with (relatively) new track Mental Acupuncture, the Green waste no time in flooding the venue with sludgey riffs, blastbeats & Falgoust’s distinctive low register barks. Sticking with Inevitable Collapse, the irresistible groove of Blessed in the Arms of Servitude finally sees a flicker of life from the sparse crowd but I’d still have their life-support machines turned off. It is Slapfuck taken from their debut that finally kicks the 6-man pit into action. A solid mix of classics & more recent efforts serves only to highlight their ability to deliver their intricate insanity live as the jarring sludge assault leaves a sweaty mess in the middle of the room. It’s just a fucking shame that, having been away from these shores for 11 years, one of the most influential bands in metal is met with such a wet fart of a crowd. Closer Antioxidant is followed by the kind of apologetic small talk you’d give the bereaved family leaving the funeral of a co-worker you had no feelings towards whatsoever as the band depart the stage & I don’t fucking blame them.

Blowjob For A Gayboy

JFUK the Queef EP

Once upon a time I liked Job For A Cowboy.

After ditching the pig squeals etc on the Doom EP, they came into their own as an incredible Death Metal band, with the record Genesis, playing with lots of great bands and ripping faces off. Following that they released Ruination which wasn’t the greatest record, still it contained some good chunky riffage. The current release by JFAC goes to show that all the hard work has softly disappeared up it’s own sugar coated anus. The first track Misery Reformatory captivated me THAT much, that I checked my player to see that I was still on the same dragging song. Itching to fast forward past their new vocalist Dani Filth‘s wailing vocals and find some real meat. Well it turns out, if you’re looking for beef, you ordered a vegetarian option panini.

Many ‘tr00′ folk of the undergay or whatever scenes would scowl at this review. Like an open minded individual, I paid attention, listened to their first record and garnered an appreciation for what they were trying to do as a heavy, extreme band, trying to mature. The debut was immense. There was good riffs, progressive tendencies and beef. It came across overall as raw and intense, a younger generation finding their sound over a period of time. It happens to a lot of bands. I’ll try break this down as much as possible, but most of the EP follows the same structure of riff, riff, riff, breakdown riff, black metal bit, riff, riff. Riff. Or more or less, similar to this. Oh and the occasional burst of dramatic shredding that everyone is performing these days.

As the EP moves anally onto the second track, it shows no signs of becoming anything memorable. Nor does it show any signs of that dreadful drum sound letting up. Although masterfully played, John Rice‘s atomic clock style blasting sounds compressed and ugly. Sugar coated poo poo, is the best description. There must be a point in a musician’s life where they decide that this horrible clicky gated compression, flat line production is the best production. It’s not. It’s shit. Plastic Idols moves timidly along like the previous effort and then disappears like smelly fart that nobody wants to kick up a fuss about because it’s that embarrassing. Sizzling out of an arse crack with a certain amount of clarity before it fizzles out with a tear from the eye. The japs eye.

Execution Parade is more of the same dull boring riffage with continuous monotonous slabbery vocals that sound like that Cradle of Filth record, Pornography. There again, another solo. And aye, there we go, another one. Harmonised a little bit this time. Before I know it, the song has finished. Again, unmemorable and tedious, and it’s so far fried my brain to mince so that I have difficulty trying to listen to the whole EP again to gain a better insight.

The last song Signature of Starving Power, is my pick of the bunch, the intro is just a big fucking blast, straight to the point before it start thunderously roaring along. The vocals are considerably better aswell, as the previous songs sound like a crying retard who lost his 1998 Autumn/Winter edition of an Argos catalogue. Thank fuck there’s not a solo after 1:30 seconds of the song as it would have dragged it down the shitter again. If they wrote all their songs like this one, they would be sitting up there with better bands, they just have to change their name first. To Savagerectomy and get rid of the Fisher Price drum sound. Oh and the singer gargling semen on the first three tracks.

Unfortunately the final song can’t save this EP of brand new material from judgement. Though it does save me from rating it as a crust covered piece of excrement to just a casual slice. They need to get that Pakistani gentleman (Ravi the Daddy) they had back in the band. His hindu groove will save this band from being forgotten off the face of whatever queertini’s they are drinking. That last sentence doesn’t make sense. But I don’t give a sheaaat nigguh.

Anaal Nathrakh

Passion (for teenage black metal vagina)

It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m listening to the new Anaal Nathrakh record entitled ‘Passion’.

Anaal Nathrakh are your local cheeky chappies with a penchant for writing naughty blackened core riffs, that are ridiculously fast for no apparent reason. They have been spewing out more records in the last decade than the average teen mother fires out abominations. If you don’t know who Mick Kenney is, just leave it at that. Let’s have a wee listen and see if the Passion is there.

It’s immensely slick produced and highly triggered, more so than an NYC cop about to have a show down with some Hispanics of the local drug cartel. I hate it. It kicks off pretty sharpish, with a short clean intro before the mayhem of toilet fun consumes my ears and my mind encourages me to reach for the stop button on the stereo. I persevere. There are some great Emperor-isms in the music, but I can’t for the life of me think that this is complete generic nuggetry by the numbers and the evidence of any Black Metal influence is non-existent let alone grindcore.

There ARE some good points though, this is a great family record of course. The riffs are well executed and well played. The vocals are hilarious, sometimes sounding like a domestic abuse scenario. The song titles are you usual evil pish, I can‘t particularly distinguish each song because the vocals are continuously fucking tragic/laughable. ‘Post Traumatic Stress Euphoria‘? I‘ve taken a shite that is more appropriately titled than this garbage.

Black Metal used to be dangerous or at least scary sounding (ish), I’d get more thrill giving Ian Huntley my children for the weekend. The detuned dirge of this record is like playing with marshmallows in your lovely Costa hot chocolate. Tunes like Ashes Screaming Silence are more like gentle tickles on the ear rather than sonic devastation.

I really don’t like this record. It’s about as necro as the local Glaswegian graveyard filled with solvent abusers and vampires. Fenriz would not approve. If this is modern day extreme metal then we are extremely fucked, straight in the bum bum. There isn’t any passion (Irony eh!?) behind this record, there’s no attention to detail with the little things, everything is compressed to a flat line and the fucking vocal levels hitting the red to make it sound more extreme isn’t cool and just makes it all sound severely rushed. The snare is repetitive and sound replaced, cut and pasted, slapped, buggered bashed and sodomized into the utter shite it sounds. I’d take St. Anger’s drum sound over this.

Picture an extreme metal guidebook, they have covered nearly everything with this record. An album that isn’t needed, take a 5 year hiatus Anaal Nathrakh and come back with something more captivating. Cradle of Filth covered this stuff a decade ago, as did Emperor with the operatic stuff. Mick Kenney needs to burn a church or something. Death/Fiddler/Chunk core bands are writing better music than this utter fudgey poo, of course, there will be a bunch of folk saying, ‘Aww this is rapid, pyoor fuckin’ extreme and amazing’. They are cretins, don’t listen to them.

The Haunted

Haunted By The Fact They Didn’t Use To Suck

What the fuck? Seriously. What the shitting fuck? Remember Made Me Do It? Thrashy death metal, frantic yet memorable guitar work, Marco Aro‘s powerful vocal delivery, metronome-tight drum work. Well, take that thought & bin it. Unseen kicks off with Never Better which would have been better placed in a Nu-Metal’s Worst Moments list than the back catalogue of a band with so much pedigree they make Triple H look like feral, mixed-breed runt. To be fair, I can’t remember listening to anything they’ve put out since One Kill Wonder. The fact that I have a couple of those interim albums suggests two things. Firstly, they were nowhere near as good as OKW & secondly, they were nowhere near as awful as Unseen.

No Ghost is more reminiscent of Clutch. Groove-laden, bluesy hard rock doesn’t suit Dolving. In fact, it doesn’t suit any of the band. What the fuck were they smoking when they wrote this shit? Seriously. I’m going to have to use the word seriously again because I’m deadly serious. What the fuck happened to The Haunted? Catch 22 is a bad pastiche of Deftones meets Faith No More. The Bjorlers are having an identity crisis. The progenitors of melodic death metal have realised that whilst they created one of the most distinctive sounds of the ninties, other shit was going down & now they want to have a go at it. Imagine Jonathan Davis having a crack at the Gothenburg sound, Kurt Cobain‘s gangsta rap album. The cringe factor is comparable.

The Skull sees Dolving‘s seminal death vocals being replaced with a poor Maynard James Kennan impression by a pre-pubescent child whilst The City is screamo to a level so bad, I am unaware of any reasonable comparisons. There is one good harmonic on Them. That’s it. The single positive point of this whole album lasts less than a second. There’s an argument that this is a progressive album. That it might be a bit hit & miss as they try out new ideas. Well, it’s all miss & it makes Unit 731′s idea of the word experimental seem reasonable & humane.

I’ve thought about this for over an hour now & I really can’t work it out. What was going through the heads of some of the greatest minds in melodic death metal when they thought the world needed an incoherent, second rate genre-mash of an album? Maybe they figured they’d get in on the ground floor of the inevitable groove/nu-metal revival. Yes, that’s the feeling of dread you’ve all had for the past 6 months. It’s coming back with vengeance & it’s going to eclipse deathcore, djent & screamo. If that was the plan, then I wish them best of the luck with the sea of 12 year old pussy they’ll soon be swimming in. As for me, I’m digging in for another 5 years of mediocrity, embarrassment & baggy jeans. I’ve got my Triptykon vinyl & a thermos full of Asda Smart-Price gin.

Do your blood pressure a favour, skip this irredeemably awful contribution to the world of music. R.I.P. The Haunted.

Cerebral Bore are more serious than you. Except for Paul. He looks bored.

Ever Been Punted Really Hard In The Cunt?

I mean really hard. Like Frank Mullen took a run up & punted you square in the nads hard. Oh, and he did it repeatedly for 32 minutes? If not, then you are in for an experience.

It’s 4 years since the last Cerebral Bore release, The Dead Flesh Architect so it’s probably a good thing it’s not shit. Quite the opposite in fact. The Bore have been touring the world with some of the biggest names in brutal death metal, going through vocalists like Barrymore goes through pool boys & becoming a permanent attraction on the continental deathfest circuit. In other words, aye, they’ve not been slacking but thankfully they also found time to write a couple more songs.

As required by the Big Book of Brutal Death Metal, the album opens with a sample although, in a break from tradition, it’s taken from Trainspotting rather than A Serbian Film. It’s rare to get a chance to praise the compostion in a brutal DM release. It’s usually a case of throwing all the heaviest shit they’ve got at your face & hoping some of it sticks but Maniacal Miscreation buzzes, slams & blasts in all the right places. Guitarist, Paul, has a sack of riffs far more diverse & memorable than most & his stubborn refusal to re-use a single one is refreshing. Take note, Kerry King, you don’t have to hold onto each one of the 3 riffs you ever wrote like they are your beloved children. I’m of the opinion that brutal DM has the propensity to be as boring as watching a Snow Patrol album when done wrong so it’s a pleasant change that the album barrels along like a schizophrenic bull pissing lasers & fire from it’s massive death-cock. Everything the Bore do is underpinned by one of the best rhythm sections in the UK scene. Drummer McDibet’s precision blasting rarely lets up throughout. When it does, it’s usually to allow some filthy grooving or erotic bass fills from the more than capable fingers of Mr Rutherford.

Much verbal feces has been spouted from both sides of the retard-spectrum about new vocalist Som. This tends to swing from “Dur, wumin cnt do vokillzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” to “ZOMG, bst vokilist evarzzzzzzzzzzz, rrly leik her chebz!!!1!11!!!!” but put simply, she’s damn good. Heavily influenced by John Gallagher (Dying Fetus), she brings ultra-low gutterals capable of turning your scrotum into an internal organ & a great range of pig squeals, grunts & growls. Lyrically, the Bore stick to safe, non-controversial topics like everyone’s favourite Austrian DIY legend, Josef Fritzl & Jade Goody’s death by cancer so it’s a perfect Christmas present for your gran as long as she likes cancer & incest.

Epileptic Strobe Entrapment‘s staccato, machine gun drums & chaotic time signature changes do a decent job of simulating an seizure. Well, that’s my excuse anyway, I woke up covered in piss & saliva. The relentless bass line of Entombed In Butchered Bodies is a testament to the band’s stamina & talent even if parts are a bit too similar to the brilliant final track, 24 Year Party Dungeon. Flesh Reflects The Madness sees a Morbid Angel influence creep in & stands out as one of the highlights on the album. In fact, the album closes with it’s 3 strongest tracks. The title track is one of the slower numbers but that’s not to say that once it gets going, it doesn’t leave your ears looking like the tattered rectum of a child prostitute on the back streets of Athens. The slithering guitar work & manic bass of the closer is probably the most representative track of what they are all about as it blasts your ass cheeks apart before slamming so hard you can feel your vertebrae compressing, cracking & shattering. The inclusion of Glaswegian-isms throughout is genius, I’m fairly certain this is the first & last album to include the line “I’ll jab yer da!”.

Recorded & produced down at Foel Studios (Napalm Death, Godflesh, everyone who’s anyone), the album sounds far better than you’d expect from a self-financed debut. It’s pretty obvious why Earache picked these guys up & the album will be getting a re-release in the new year. Death metal release of the year? Tech-heads will complain at the lack of solos but for my money, it’s got to be up there.

* Editor’s Note – I started this review on 22 September, 2010. This makes me a massively lazy cunt but I reckoned I’d better finish it up before we do our top 10s.

Look Out Ladies! And I mean that very sincerely.

Wa-chren

Unlike the rest of the Scottish nation, you can’t question Achren‘s work ethic. They’ve been working their balls of touring up & down the country with support slots for Vader, Hecate Enthroned, Sabbat & Cthonic. All this work certainly paid off with a victory in the Metal To The Masses competitions resulting a soggy, sweaty buy overwhelmingly erotic set at Bloodstock 2010. That’s going to be out on DVD in January & should tide you over until the start of August when Glasgow’s finest will join Judas Priest & some cunt from Black Sabbath in showing Germany how to do metal.

Frontman, Scott, had this to say :

The Metal 2 the Masses initiative has given us a great chance to take the band to a different level. The whole team at Bloodstock work so hard to make it the best metal festival in the UK and we can’t thank everybody enough for providing us with this great opportunity.

Their debut album is now complete & should be invading your ears some time in spring. For now, you can check out http://www.achren.com for a taste of things to come. As for us, we think it’s sexy that there’s a way for bands play the biggest European metal fests without letting major labels finger their bumholes & hire Ross fucking Robinson to make them a sound like KoRn. Now, go enjoy a suitably low-fi recording of our favourite Achren track, Bastards (on the Gallows or Bastards on the Rack).

Patrick Pintavalle

We’ve caught up with Patrick Pintavalle, guitarist of one of Leave the Hall’s favourite bands, The Absence. In a break from tradition, we actually interviewed him rather than making up some comedy answers & going back to wanking. Turns out, he’s a lovely guy that could kick a field goal with a possum. You wouldn’t get this kind of hard-hitting, fact-finding journalism anywhere else, would you?

Leave the Hall: Your new album has been out a couple of weeks now, how has the reception been compared to your last 2 albums?

Patrick Pintavalle: Its been cool so far. I have been  reading some reviews and there are some great ones and some alright ones. I don’t think we can please everyone. That’s how it goes I guess.

LTH: Why the big gap between Riders of the Plague & Enemy Unbound? What have you been up to since 07?

PP: We went through line up changes with drummers and bass players. There were a few tours that slowed us down as far as writing goes. I think we will be putting out more material a lot sooner than this record. Since Jeramie is back in the band we are already starting to write new music.

LTH: Erased is about Total Recall which makes it one of the greatest songs ever written. Any plans for more Arnie based songs?

PP: HA HA HA, I dont think so. It was a great movie that we always bring with us on tour and watch it on the road. We know every quote and bad one liner in it so we just had to make it a song.

LTH: Our review of Enemy Unbound suggested that “Peter Joseph and Patrick Pintavalle play the guitar like men who have sold a ball to Satan”. Is this true?

PP: No not at all. I think we are just old. I guess we are like wine in a way. We have been playing guitar since we were teens and now are in our mid thirties. Peter might have sold the devil something along the way. HA HA HA.

LTH: You’ve got Tom Englund guesting on the new album. How did that come about?

PP: Tom and Peter were using the same guitars a few years back. They met through online chat Myspace etc. Pete asked him one day if he would be interested in throwing a lead down and he said yes.

LTH: You’ve toured with Destruction, Vital Remains, Grave & Nuclear Assault among others. Which band has been the most fun to tour with? Any bands you’d like to tour with in the future?

PP: Amon Amarth was probably our favorite band to tour with. They were great guys. Very friendly and we would tour with them again in a heart beat. Destruction was a great band as well and we would tour with them again as well.

LTH: Peter, why the move from Caparison to Suhr? Can we have all your Caparisons now that you don’t play them?

PP: He actually made the switch to Ibanez, however that fell through and now hooked up with Suhr and is very happy with that company.

LTH: You really like the whole Gothenburg movement of the nineties, who are your 5 biggest influences?

PP: Soilwork, Archenemy, Edge of Sanity, Entombed, Opeth

LTH: And lastly, what’s the largest animal you reckon you could kick over a set of goalposts?

PP: I am watching SportsCenter right now and I think I could kick a possum or a cat with out any problems. I wouldn’t be a favorite of P.E.T.A. though.

The Absence‘s new album, Enemy Unbound is out now on Metal Blade & we reckon you should go buy it now.

Blastonbury 2010

This Line-up Will Dig Up Your Gran & Fuck Her Corpse

5th of December is going to be a messy one! Prostitute Disfigurement & Last Days of Humanity are laying waste to the capital, along with Scottish heavyweights Cerebral Bore, 1-man death grind projects Anal Penetration & Neonatal Death, Relinquished, Joe Pesci & Leave the Hall’s favourite child molesting, granny bashers Cancerous Womb. Tickets for this are selling out fast so we’d recommend you get yours before it’s too late!

Missing this would be a rather foolish thing to do!

The Absence - Enemy Unbound

We can’t get enough of The Absence at Leave the Hall. Here is their new video taken from the spectacular album, Enemy Unbound.

Enjoy!

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 Pintavalle 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

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!

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)

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

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.

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′

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.

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.

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.