By Gruesome Greg

Lost amongst the Pentagrams, Bisons and 40 Watt Suns of the label, this record came out on Metal Blade late last month, another foray into doom from the company that first brought you Trouble. Misery Wizard is the first full-length release from this Rhode Island trio, though it’s clear from the first note that they’ve taken a few classes at the University of Doom Metal.

The crunchy riffs of opener “Astaroth” pretty much do all the talking, though we do get some chanted vocals, and even a verse or two, about halfway in. Vocals are in that semi-operatic style, somewhere between Messiah and Witchfinder, and suit the music aptly. A couple of the snake-like riffs that follow bring the likes of Saint Vitus to mind. These kids know their stuff…

The title track follows, a slow, pounding piece of doom clocking in at just over 11 minutes. Definitely a hint of epicness here, think Argus or Candlemass, albeit with the bludgeoning repetitiveness of Reverend Bizarre. (I’ll admit that I can only take RB in small doses…) “Quest” continues on its journey, just a minute shy of its predecessor. Another piece of pounding, downtuned despondency—well, you get the picture.

I gotta say, while these guys don’t reinvent the wheel (or anything else, for that matter), they’ve got a pretty decent slice of doom on their hands here. Just trim the fat, and the next one’ll be even tastier.

(Metal Blade)

By Jason Wellwood

Aggressor do their damnedest not to sound like anyone else. It would be easy to label the band ‘thrash’ so that readers would know what to expect without listening, but that would be selling the band short. There is an obvious dedication to heavy music of all sorts within Aggressor’s song writing, thrash is the most prevalent sound perhaps, but definitely not the only one. Aggressor have taken the sound of early 80’s thrash, added a few dashes of traditional metal and a twist of 90’s alternative to make Beyond All Reckoning an exceptional piece of Canadian metal. ‘What is Me’ and ‘Justice Lost’ set the overall tone for the album: galloping tempos, duelling guitars, gruff vocals, and groove. In fact the thing about Beyond All Reckoning that stands out the most is that no matter how fast and heavy the songs get, there is an obvious groove to everything. The break at about three minutes in to ‘Unto The World’ is a perfect example.

‘More To Discover’, a balladesque track, has a spoken dedication to Mike Alexander, the bass player for Evile who passed away suddenly in 2009 that, combined with the feel of the song, raises goose bumps. Moody as hell, the song starts off with a beautiful acoustic intro which leads to heavy alternative feel and into some galloping thrash to finish things off. A ballad, yes, but not one that will be getting many folks slow dancing! By the time you get to ‘Redemption’ there is almost nothing that the Aggressor could throw at you that would surprise you, but the song not only features the heaviest vocal on the album, it also turns some of the sharpest corners of all the songs, complete with a chugging hard rock riff and amazing guitar solo that stops on a dime to finish the song that leaves you feeling like maybe you need to play the album again. And again.

Beyond All Reckoning is a solid album throughout, and the fact that you can’t completely pin down the sound of Aggressor is exactly what makes them so good. This is an album best experienced beginning to end, though you couldn’t go wrong picking any one track to listen to. For my money, that’s the mark of a great album.

(Self Released)

By Chris Dyck

The words “retro” and “throwback” get used a lot when describing music, especially in the rock and metal realm. In the case of Christian Mistress it goes way beyond that, sonically speaking anyway. Every single track on Possession is steeped in classic metal awesomeness. I’m hearing Stained Class era Judas Priest, a little Diamond Head, Heart and a kinda thrashy punk vibe. Someone said that they “distill classic heavy metal into the sound of now”… I would say that is a pretty accurate description, but they do lay the 79-83 sound on us pretty thick. So I’d say it is more “then” than “now”, by a mile.

The songs themsleves? Well, the first song is a winner for sure, the latter half of “Conviction” crushes, awesome guitar work, total shredder and “The Way Beyond” is a shit kicker. The more I listen to this record the more I dig it. These bros and ladybro can write bad ass metal for sure, and as much as I want to take some points off for shitty drum sounds and overall kinda weak production…I’m not going to, it’s a fucking fun Metal record so whatever. Hopefully next time they will try to polish it up just a bit, no need to intentionally have a weak drum sound, I get it…but I’m not feeling it. Just a bit more quality on the instrument sounds would be rad, Christine Davis‘ vocals are unreal. She brings up visions of mystics and gypsies and pentagrams whilst simultaneously summoning various skids from heavy metal parking lots, and I have heard she kills it live.

Overall these guys are pretty gnar. Pretty great little album considering it is only their second release. Relapse was smart to grab these guys, I think they will do pretty good this coming year. I am gonna go check them out next time they are in town for sure. If you dig NWOBHM you will dig this for sure and if you dont, there is probably something wrong with you?

(Relapse)

By Kyle Harcott

Formerly kicking out snarly black’n’roll jams under the name Heathens, the recent name change to Wildernessking seems to have brought with it a fierce focus and commitment to play in a more forward-thinking style. While the basis is skull-ripping black metal at its core, The Writing of Gods… incorporates elements of rock, progressive, noise-rock and a smattering of post-rock to embellish its varied moods.

‘Rubicon’ opens, all vicious blur and tremolo-picking, no quarter given, and impressing its vehemence upon the listener with utmost urgency, until midway – when it breaks off into Enslaved territory, breaking down with soaring guitar riffs and thunderous mid-paced drums. The winter chill of ‘Discovery’ follows, ice-cold riffs relentlessly pelting, wind-chill-whipped along by frostbitten shrieks, summoning ice-breaking Norse-slave-ship rhythms in the middle breakdown, as the song hurls itself toward a storm-swept end.

Singer Keenan Oakes’ vocals are of special note throughout the album; his lacerating peal and equally-feral ravenous growl absolutely show-stopping. Meanwhile, the riffs, pythonic in size and scope, are incessant start-to-finish, coming down like meteorites fastballed by some sarcastic blackgod, shattering everything they come into contact with.

The triumphant ‘River’ is next, opening with a clarion of guitar harmony and galloping its way across clear-black stargaze, while ‘Utopia’ skirts battle-metal territory with a noise-rock bass intro, before dropping midway to a thudding doom pace. ‘Surrender’ is majestic and destroying, capitulating into a gargantuan rock solo at its outro, and the instrumental ‘Reveal’ showcases the band’s jaw-dropping musicianship. Finally, there is closer ‘Inifinity’, nine minutes of attackattackattack, absolutely brobdingnagian in riff, and hell bent for maximum volume infliction. Only -and just barely- at the song’s outro do we catch a glimpse of Wildernessking belaying their nonstop pummeling and show us a softer side, albeit a mournful one.

Ambitious and progressive, razor-raw and unrelenting, the debut from Cape Town’s WILDERNESSKING is passionate and exciting, and I’d daresay an early frontrunner in my book for one of the best of the year. Antithetic has really found something special in this band. Wildernessking appear poised for greatness, and are destined to make a name for themselves as leading the vanguard of cutting-edge black metal, and to put South Africa on the black-metal world map.

(Antithetic Records)

By Gruesome Greg

Having reviewed the first version of Earth’s Angels… about a year ago, I figured I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from the sequel. Again, we have but five tracks ranging from eight-and-a-half to thirteen-and-a-half minutes in length, aside from the abbreviated opener, “Sigil of Brass” which opens things on a clean, melodic, yet somewhat sombre note, due in part to the melancholic cello playing. Y’know, this is probably the first time in about a year I’ve written about “melancholic cello playing” in a music review…

“His Teeth Did Brightly Shine” opens on a lighter note, a guitar-driven number with clean, crisp, airy tones. This one’s certainly not going anywhere fast—or slow, for that matter, just meandering in the breeze…

“Waltz (A Multiplicity of Doors)” offers a bit more of that downtuned despondency that you’d expect from Earth, a slow, shuffling drum beat underlining the sombre interplay between cello and guitar. At 13:27, the longest song on here brings me back to the first installment of the series.

“The Corascene Dog” also features lovely interplay between Dylan Carson’s guitar and the string section, in a similar vein as its predecessor, albeit lighter and more atmospheric, not nearly as depressing.

“The Rakehell” puts an end to the proceedings, not nearly the lengthy epic that concluded the first album—but at twelve+ minutes, it’s not a short song, either. This one, again, is more guitar driven, a mellow number that you could play as background music at some café on a chic boulevard somewhere…

Alas, I’m not sure that this record is all that different from Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I, but I’m not quite feeling this one as much. I shall have to revisit the original, perhaps.

(Southern Lord)

RATING: 7.5

With the festive season being a confusing nightmare of rampant consumerism and endless celebrations of myths well past their use-by date, it’s easy to get behind. I’m sitting on a stack of albums that thoroughly deserve a review. Solution: short and snappy write-ups. These reviews may not be as in-depth as I’d normally write, but that’s no reflection on the quality of the albums covered.

First up is a triptych of death metal. Each band represents a different branch of Señor Death’s family, and each serves as a reminder of the hefty muscle that lurks in the underground.

Horrendous— The Chills (Dark Descent)

Reading up on Horrendous before I sat down to give their debut full-length The Chills a spin, I discovered a thread of criticism bemoaning the fact that the band sound a little old-school. Somehow the band’s obvious fondness for a ’90s Stockholm sound had become an issue, albeit for a minority of death metal fans.

There’s no denying the band craft a vintage sound, but then, Horrendous clearly weren’t aiming to reinvent the wheel with The Chills, and if we’re willing to celebrate a plethora of other retro-inclined death metal acts, then why not Horrendous? The answer to those who think the band’s Entombed and Grave worship reeks of nostalgia seems fairly straightforward: there are a million other progressive or technical death metal bands to choose from. It’s your choice, you know what you’re getting here, and as it happens, The Chills is an excellent album—stacked with rough, raw, and yes, throwback death metal.

I’ll skip comparisons, suffice to say Horrendous’ songwriting and arrangements have many of the hallmarks of that classic Swedish era of death metal. But it would do the band a huge disservice to simply say they mimic the period. There’s ample variation on The Chills—melodic riffs, icy doom-like flourishes and gritty thrash is mixed in as well. Tracks like the opening trio, “The Womb”, “Ripped to Shreds” and “Altar”, all have distinct characteristics, as do the rest. There’s really no sense of ‘same old, same old’ here—aside from the fact that all the tracks have a similar weightiness—and by the time the epic, multipart final track, “The Eye of Madness”, rolls around, there’s ample evidence that Horrendous don’t deal in uninspired clichés. In fact, if “The Eye of Madness” is anything to go by, the band’s future direction will be very interesting indeed.

Horrendous haven’t set out to produce anything revolutionary, but just because the band happens to look upon the ’90s with some affection doesn’t mean The Chills is worthy of less attention than some technical whizz-kids. As it stands, The Chills more than serves its purpose, which is, at the end of the day, to provide some unyielding death metal. On that count, Horrendous have definitely delivered.

Ominous Crucifix — The Spell of Damnation (FDA Rekotz)

Ugly, fetid and obstinate. That about sums up The Spell of Damnation, the debut album from Mexican occult death metal maestros Ominous Crucifix. Thirty-eight minutes of churning and fervently esoteric odes that’ll be tempting, at least to some degree, to fans of Sonne Adam, Ignivomous or Teitanblood.

Filled with primarily mid-tempo dirges, The Spell of Damnation essentially crawls from one track to the next with little regard to any huge change in cadence. Admittedly, that could be a problem, especially if you were after something a little more dynamic, but it suits the sinister rhythm of the material well. There’s no great stylistic leap between “Defiling the Altars of an Absent God”, “Church of Death” or “Repulsive Sanctification of the Absurd”, nor are any of the other tracks substantially different in tone, but there’s a steadfastness to the album—a sense of determined, vehement occultism.

The Spell of Damnation is only Ominous Crucifix’s first full-length, and after a split, demo and EP there’s still plenty of time for the band to develop—not that they really need to in any great regard, as they’ve certainly found their chosen path. As it is, I’d be happy to recommend this to any fan of diabolic death metal. There’s a crudity, wickedness and primordial magnetism to The Spell of Damnation that’s not easy to ignore.

Vore — Gravehammer (Self Released)

I can’t think of a single reason why Vore aren’t signed to a label. The band’s been cranking out self-released albums of mid-paced death metal since 1994, and if the stripped-back, bone-dry production on their latest Gravehammer is anything to go by, they’ve got their sound nailed down tight as a tornado shelter. Maybe it all comes down to the band’s familiarity with other acts—there are traces of Cannibal Corpse and Bolt Thrower to be found here—but it would be a hugely dishonorable charge to suggest the band are copping riffs off anyone. With 17 years of metal soldiering behind them, Vore have their own arsenal to draw from.

The band’s mix of thrash-tinged death metal meets all the requirements for anyone looking for some solid pulverizing grooves. The album’s stacked with hulking numbers: “The Unseen Hand”, “The Claw Is the Law”, “Sacerdotum Tyrannis” and “Progeny of the Leviathans” all have a great neck-snapping compression about them. There’s also no doubt the years of touring and recording have melded the band into a tight unit, and while there’s no great deal of overt technicality on offer—Gravehammer is more battering than innovative—that doesn’t take anything away from the album’s quality. It might be a touch ‘Floridian old-school’, but Vore have a long history, and if you want to make comparisons, Exhumed and Jungle Rot are both veteran acts staking out rigid positions, and no-one’s criticizing them for sticking to what they’re good at. Brutality, consistency and dedicated savagery, those are the hallmarks of Gravehammer. And it would seem, Vore as well.

By Jason Wellwood

I thoroughly enjoyed Joe Thrasher‘s previous album, so when the opportunity to arose to review the new album, I was definitely interested. Admittedly, the ‘sophomore’ album curse always causes a little trepidation but in this case it was worry for nothing. On Cries of War, Joe Thrasher have taken a giant step forward in sound, songwriting, and performance. For Cries of War, Joe Thrasher have refined their collective influences into a sound that evokes some of the finest thrash bands ever to emerge from Canada without sounding ‘just like’ any of them. Even the cover of Exciter’s ‘Canadian Metal’ has Joe Thrasher’s stamp on it (Exciter are probably the most obvious influence on this album) and it’s an excellent way to close out the album.

Right from the beginning though it is obvious that Joe Thrasher not only want to make you bang your head, they want you to remember these songs for a long time. The shouted background vocals underneath the gravel throated roar of singer/bassist Scott Wark are nothing new, but they work so well on the chorus of ‘Cries of War’, ‘This is A Test’ and ‘Out For Blood’ that those choruses will stick I’m your head for days. All three members of Joe Thrasher’s have really put forth an amazing effort to create both ‘songs’ and a complete album here. There is no showing off outside of what is needed for the song and as a result the entire band shines.

There is an obvious passion for what Joe Thrasher are doing and they manage to create an incredible 80′s thrash sound without sounding like a retro band. It’s also worth noting that the band does not resort to bad production to help capture the sound either, Cries of War is a crisp piece of metal that would sound really good on vinyl (hint, hint)!

Cries of War, in my opinion, push Joe Thrasher much closer to the head of the pack not just in Canadian thrash, but Canadian metal in general.

(Self-released)

By Jonathan Smith

The new full-length album by one-man black metal project Panopticon arrived relatively late in the year, but it still managed to lodge itself just shy of the top of my personal top ten albums of the year. I’ve had an interest in the work of A. Lundr for a couple of years now, and Social Disservices is his most accomplished and cohesive album to date. While his self-titled debut was a highly politicized but not always musically consistent cut of fierce black metal, and Collapse was an intricate concept album about the economic collapse and subsequent rebuilding of American society, Social Disservices is an ideal mixture of the furious and atmospheric sound of the best of second wave black metal and the intense rising and falling emotions of some of the west coast USBM acts.

One of Panopticon’s strengths is that even when the sonic experiments don’t always work for me, it is rare that they do not sound like a unique blending of sub-genre elements. Social Disservices’ first track, “Resident,” eschews the more progressive and melodic tendencies of Lundr’s more recent EPs, and it instead blasts the listener with a wall of raw blackened metal. By the time the album reaches its 20-plus minute conclusion, “Patient,” Lundr has blended the more aggressive parts of his sound with the emotional punch of his more melodic side. Social Disservices ends with a trademark moment of contemplation (literally the chirping of crickets), leaving the listener with a desire for more. Though it does not quite possess the potent and urgent vibe of Altar of Plagues’ Mammal, Social Disservices takes second place in my personal albums of the year. Hopefully it will receive even more recognition in 2012.

(Flenser Records)

By Kevin Stewart-Panko

The first and most obvious question you’re probably asking yourself after seeing that Hellbound is reviewing the Fat Wreck re-issues of the first five albums by these Goleta, California’s melodi-punk heroes is whether or not the version we’re reviewing here is the box-set edition or simply the individual releases reviewed as a collective. I believe what Grand Wizard Palmerston has provided here are the individual releases, seeing as they are strewn across my desk and there’s no box provided that might maintain any amount of order in the slightest… [Well, that is what Fat Wreck sent - don't ask me! - Tha Ed] Oh, that’s not what you would’ve asked? What’s that? Your question would have been more like, “What the hell is that punk rock shit doing on this metal website?” To which I would respond, “If Alcest, Amasoeurs, Lantlos or any of that sit-down-to-pee-shoegaze-rock-disguised-as-black-metal-because-some-guy-who-used-to-be-in-a-black-metal-band-plays-it has been anywhere near your stereo, you don’t have nary a leg to stand on. But enough with the justification, there’s a lot of punk rock that’s ten times as vital, fast and heavy than a lot of metal – unless you’re singling out the Double Plaidinum album, that shit’s just on the wrong side of mediocre – and if there’s a band that deftly straddles that divide, it’s these jokers.

A few seconds into their 1992 debut, Duh and the song “Tragic Vision” you can hear it – these dudes love their Slayer. And Black Sabbath. And Metallica. They maybe playing melodic hardcore/punk along the lines of Strung Out, Bad Religion et al, but back in the day, they threw the fucking tri-tone around like it was going out of style, except they did within the context of riffs drizzled in sugary melodies, ridiculous driving tempos, ascending/descending guitar dueling and “ooh-ahh” backing vocals. Sure, the band may have succumbed to the ravages of time, age, maturity and everything that comes with touring 200+ days a year over the course of the six years these five albums were written and recorded. Their sound became smoothed out and everything post-Hoss came across as tired, but these re-issues are testaments to the snotty-ness of Duh’s “Beer Goggles,” Trashed’s “Lazy” and Hoss’ “Violins.” And let’s not forget their audacity in fucking with sacred cows like “Bad Moon Rising,” “Brown Eyed Girl” and the Bonanza theme. Good shit!

If you’re still with me and haven’t punched your computer screen in disgust, each of these albums comes packaged in gatefold digi-packs complete with a fuckload of bonus tracks (demos, alternate mixes, acoustic versions and rearranged, early versions), big ol’ photo fold outs and recollections in the liner notes from various members. These re-issues are examples of the sort of quality and value-adds that all others who are going to foist their back catalogues onto the public should strive for regardless of genre. Ok, I’m going to go listen to Svarti Loghin…

(Fat Wreck Chords)

By Jonathan Smith

Going all the way back to the beginning of 2011, the debut album by one-man US black metal project Oskoreien is one still worth highlighting as the world moves into 2012. Main musician Jay Valena has crafted a powerful full-length record with many strengths even as it doesn’t often stray far from the sub-genre’s tried-and-true clichés. Its organic, earnest, and perhaps even retro sound lifts its five lengthy tracks above some of the contemporaneous releases of even seasoned veterans of the genre. What it lacks in polish and originality it more than makes up for in terms of epic grandeur. That this self-titled debut is mostly the product of a single individual makes it all the more impressive.

Opening track “Illusions Perish” begins with the tranquility of the night sky and stereotypical outdoorsy sound effects before it and the rest of the album proceeds to crash and bang through 45-minutes of mostly encrusted mid-tempo black metal. The lead guitar work is shrill and commanding (as likely to delight some even as it annoys others), sailing over the rhythm section and often providing emotional emphasis on what could have just been standard riffs. Valena’s vocals are mostly composed of throaty shrieks, and at times they are even somewhat understandable even when they aren’t being sung in a clean fashion (though those appear too). The folkier elements that take finally take centre stage on “River of Eternity” are where the inevitable and appropriate comparisons between Valena’s work and Ulver’s Bergtatt can best be made. If there is grounds for a complaint about the album, it’s that the piano-based instrumental “Ashen Remains” is easily overlooked after the bombastic album-closing potential of “Transcendence.”

For almost a year, Valena has made the album available in a number of ways. As of this writing it’s available as a free download on the Oskoreien bandcamp website, but there are also a number of album + shirt deals as well. This means that the album is available in almost any combination/format one might like, and thus that there is little reason for people to not at least check the album out via MP3s. Here’s hoping for a follow-up soon.

(Seventh Seal Records)