All in all, if you don’t own Infinite and are a power metal fan, I recommend you pick it up. If you already own it but don’t have the bonus material, it’s not essential but it is cool to hear at least once.

The fact that the much-ballyhooed debut album by Blood Revolt is generating vehement reactions from the metal world shouldn’t be much of a surprise. And you know it’s the kind of reaction Alberta black metal mainstays C. Ross and James Read wanted when they formed a trans-Atlantic artistic partnership with Primordial proselytizer Alan “Nemtheanga” Averill. One one side, you’ve got underground metal scenesters who can make neither heads nor tails of all that damned singing atop the scorching backdrop of raw black metal provided by the two members of Axis of Advance and Revenge. On the other side are the Primordial fans that are so starved for a new album that they’ll listen to anything Averill lends his voice to. Needless to say, hearing the man contribute to something so unflinching, so confrontational had to have been the last thing they expected. Where are the 6/8 time signatures, dammit!

While this is indeed a different vibe from the more nostalgic, fantastical vibe given off by Alcest’s albums, Lantlôs remains very similar in feel. This fact alone should be enough to help one decide whether or not .neon is worth pursuing.

In summation: Decrepit Birth: bad name, bad past, good band. Polarity: great record. Bravo!

Another one of those bands I somehow stumbled onto by accident, there’s very little I can tell you about Indianapolis’ Sleepbringer. Born out of the ashes of Heroes Laid To Rest, an Internet search bore only one other short review (so far) of Compendium, although I have the feeling that once this record gets heard a little more, that’s going to change. What I can tell you without a doubt is that this record absolutely crushes, it’s one of the most promising debuts I’ve heard this year.

The songs, like the lineup of the band itself, seem a tad underdeveloped, like a reasonably well-produced demo tape made to audition a bassist and/or singer. I doubt that stoner/doom minded musicians are in great abundance in Belgium, but the band would benefit from both in my belief

All in all, I’m not overly impressed by this release. Only by purposefully listening for something positive did I find anything worth more than one listen. The musicians on this record do a great job but they don’t mesh with Floor Jansen’s voice at all. The song writing on this just didn’t seem to be as much of a focus as the keyboard and vocal flourishes were.

How significant a release is Manilla Road’s After Midnight Live? Imagine if Judas Priest or Iron Maiden suddenly went, “Whoops, look what we found lying around, a live recording from the early days featuring songs none of our fans have ever heard before.”