Eluveitie – The Early Years
The Early Years is a decade of primal folk, and a document that has evidently shaped one of metal’s most extreme divisions today.
Reviews – Audio
Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay
This is still a “metal” album, just one that defies quick-and-easy categorization. Not for the faint of spirit, but a long, strange trip for the rest of us…
Samothrace – Reverence to Stone
On its surface, on a purely musical level, Reverence to Stone is a fantastic journey of ups and downs, rising to heights and crashing back down to earth, riding the waves and the winds of inner discovery. Add to that lyrics which can be interpreted in more than one way and you have an outstanding doom record itself worthy of reverence.
Candlemass – Psalms for the Dead
If they’re ending their careers on this note, well, they’ve left us with a solid token to remember them by.
Monuments – Gnosis
Blessed with a phenomenal level of skill and impressive forward thinking attitude, Monuments don’t deserve to be written off as trend-hoppers and “Gnosis” will have the naysayers eating their dust for a while to come.
The End Records – The Music For Nations Reissues Part One
Recently The End Records acquired the rights to the catalogue of Music For Nations, an excellent British label which closed its doors in 2004. When the label folded into Zomba Music, which was owned by BMG which is now owned by Universal, many of the ‘smaller’ releases were discontinued or lost. The End Records has jumped in and brought many of these releases back to North America, some for the first time as domestic releases. Since there are so many of these, I’m going to break them up into a few different articles (hope you don’t mind) and keep the reviews relatively short.
Review roundup by Jason Wellwood
Blood Of The Black Owl – Light the Fires
This isn’t the kind of album you’d listen to during a first date, but it’s great to do reading or studying to. I now feel ready to take a long nature hike on a chilly November day.
Serpentine Path – self-titled
Right off the bat, you can tell this is one heavy vegetable; slow, punishing doomy riffs with deep-throated death metal growls. Winter is a definite reference here, albeit this record sounds thicker and sludgier, presumably because it wasn’t recorded in a basement.
The Return of… Kevi Metal’s Rimshots (August 2012 edition)
Back again by popular demand, it’s the one, the only Kevi H Metal and his Rimshot reviews! A long standing Hellbound favourite returns.
Nate Hall – A Great River
A Great River is raw and jagged, and yet beautifully serene in parts. It’s as incongruent and temperamental as any of our hearts, and Hall tears his chest wide open on the album, unafraid to express his own shortcomings and fears in the hunt for peace and fulfillment.