The End Records

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

HELLBOUND’s TOP 10 CANADIAN METAL ALBUMS OF 2011

Since Hellbound.ca is a Canadian-owned and operated metal publication, we do things a little bit different than most. While 2011 was coming to a close we asked all of our contributors to pick their Top Canadian metal albums of the year. We then tabulated up their responses and have created our third annual Top 10 Canadian Metal Albums writers poll.

Please check out what our writers feel to be the best Canadian metal albums released in 2011.

Novembers Doom – Aphotic

The word “aphotic” means lacking light, specifically outside of the range of sunlight, like the abyssal depths of the ocean floor. But there is light here, a strange, phosphorescent light — this album shines.

First Look at… Anvil’s Juggernaut of Justice

While this was the first listen through I feel pretty comfortable in saying that Juggernaut of Justice is the best album Anvil has made since Metal On Metal. In fact, it may even one day be recognized as their best album ever. It has the massive production the band has always wanted, produced by Bob Marlette at Dave Grohl’s Studio 606, the band finally had the opportunity to not rush things, get the sounds they wanted and delivered an album that both Lips and Robb Reiner told me afterward even surpassed their own expectations.

Article by Sean Palmerston; photos by Albert Mansour

Hellbound.ca’s TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2010, Part Two

We asked all of the contributing writers here at Hellbound.ca to submit their Top 10 albums of 2010, which we then compiled into a master list, assigning points to all their choices (10 points for #1, down to 1 point for #10). After tabulating the results, we have created Hellbound.ca’s Top 20 Albums of 2010. For part two of our continuing series, here is albums #15 through 11…

Danzig – Deth Red Sabaoth

Sure, it’ll be a frosty day in Danzig’s nether lair before you’ll ever see a reunion of the band’s classic lineup – but until Lodi finally freezes over, you can certainly find solace in Deth Red Sabaoth, which goes a long, long way to recapturing that classic Danzig sound.

Laethora – The Light in Which We All Burn

Formed five years ago by founding Dark Tranquillity guitarist Niklas Sundin and three former members of goth veterans the Provenance, Laethora wastes absolutely no time in giving Swedish death metal fans exactly what they crave: bruising, punishing riffs and grooves reminiscent of great bands like Entombed and Unleashed.

Jay Gorania’s SXSW 2010 – Part 1

Austin’s 6th Street area is the performance location for much of the musical side of South by Southwest—a massive interactive, film and music conference and festival. Historically, unsigned bands came to get noticed by suit ’n tie record label reps; however as it has evolved, signed underground and mainstream bands have dominated showcases, and schmoozin’ and boozin’ is underway as backroom deals and negotiation unfolds. Hell, it’s gotten to the point that Metallica played last year.

Jay Gorania recaps his take on this year’s SXSW Music Festival. In this first entry, he reviews the Relapse Records showcase as well as sets by Torche, Goes Cube and Goatwhore.