What more can be said of the remarkable 20-year career of the mighty Immolation? How many bands can lay claim to their eighth full-length album having the same jarring ferocity as their first or second? Immolation simply are not interested in fixing what is not broken. Essentially the same formula as any one of their nearly flawless albums, Majesty and Decay sizzles and jabs with the band’s trademark technical proficiency and atonal brutality. Quite possibly the best production the band have ever achieved with the rhythm section and Ross Dolan’s bestial, demonic roar the primary beneficiaries. Bob Vigna is still the jagged riff master, his otherworldly concoctions are in a distant league of their own. Immolation have always succeeded in making their own brand of Death Metal their own way. Boundary pushing brutality and unmatched creativity, yet still memorable and beyond focused. The completely pro-Jesus Christ lyrics on this album did throw me for a loop at first though. Ha! Just kidding. Favorites: “The Purge,” “A Token of Malice,” “The Rapture of Ghosts,” and “The Comfort of Cowards.”

Deathcore is becoming quite the dirty word in the Extreme Music community. Take the UK’s Annotations of an Autopsy, whose debut album Before the Throne of Infection was a solid, brutal chugfest of blasting and breakdowns. It received scathingly poor reviews from nearly everyone (except the massive crowds attending their shows, that’s odd). “We’ve heard it all before” seems to be the battle cry of the critics. It’s much more honorable and novel to heap praise on Neurosis clones I guess. That’s not a trend at all (bandwagon-jumping fucks). So, with 2010’s new offering from the band, minus 3 original members who left the band to play full time in Ingetsed (a great Deathcore troupe in their own right), responds by shedding much of the Core and emphasizing almost exclusively on the Death. You won’t hear any complaints from me, as the young band can apparently tackle any style they desire. Reign of Darkness is the best Death Metal album of the year. Okay, as of press time in early February it’s the only Death Metal album of the year so far, but it’s still a damn good one. And scenesters, don’t be scared, there’s still hints of that slamming groove hidden throughout the core of this Deathly assault.

Who gives a fuck about Fear Factory in 2010? No one relevant actually, but in reality a lot of people do by Extreme Music’s standards. I loved Soul of a New Machine, in essence a Death Metal album possessed by Streetcleaner’s ghost, but was repulsed by the Industrial Pantera vibe of Demanufacture (everyone’s favorite, go figure). However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit they rebounded nicely with Obsolete, finally trademarking their own heavy sound with strokes of Pop Metal genius (“Resurrection” is a fucking brilliant song). Digimortal had its moments, but the band fell apart shortly thereafter due to petty inner turmoil. Booting founding guitarist Dino Cazares turned out to be a pretty bad idea, as the music suffered greatly in his absence. Which leads us to the present and the return of big Dino, exit Olde-Wolbers and drum god Raymond Herrera? I think this is all over pussy. Isn’t it always? But who cares? Enter drum god Gene fucking Hoglan! The drummer extraordinaire for hire is now pounding skins for Fear Factory and mimicking the Herrera style with ease. Perhaps even perfecting it further, as his presence on standout cut “Powershifter” is immediately felt with brute force. As with any Fear Factory album, expect filler, but the band sound rejuvenated, refocused, and perhaps heavier than ever.

Absolutely fucking tragic. The unexplainable need felt by the majority to fix what is not broken. To take what already works perfectly and try to make it better. Rampant everywhere in society and now evident in the mighty catalog of Greek Black Metal legends Rotting Christ. From their raw, primitive early works to their more experimental recent material, and the perfect balance of the two I found in the all too brief A Dead Poem/Sleep of the Angels era, the “Grecian formula” was solid and it fucking worked. With Aealo, the need to fix what is not broken is the only formula. Could it be the seminally trend retardant masters have succumbed to the accursed Viking/Pagan/Swords/Pirates/35-Year Old Virgin Metal trend? It would appear to be painfully true. The cover of the album is a battle helmet and the album pretty much plays like the lost soundtrack to 300. The primary enjoyment destroyers of this album are the horrible female backing vocals. They sound like something out of a bad Nile song, and there’s lots of them. There is also a plethora of guest vocal appearances from guys who have no business singing. And the saddest aspect, underneath the bullshit choir practice and role playing atmosphere is a core made of those perfect, epic, soaring Rotting Christ melodies that have defined them for over two decades. Had they been left alone, this would have been another near perfect chapter in a magnificent musical career. As is, only “Noctis Era” and “…Pir Threontai” are tolerable.

A 19-year career in Extreme Metal usually produces more than two LPs and a legendary EP, but quality is preferred over quantity anyway. And while 2007’s Left Hand Pathology lacked a little of said quality, Corpus in Extremis: Analysing Necroticism makes up for it big time. By infusing a touch of that Old School Swedish Death Metal into their Carcass-worshipping Grindcore assault, General Surgery have crafted an instant classic. Like Entombed freebasing Pathologist riffs, this album hits hard and dirty, short and quick. These are easily the best riffs they’ve ever written, and they haven’t sacrificed much if any of that gurgling ooze delivery. If veteran Swedes themselves can’t get away with robbing the Sunlight vault, who can? And it makes sense, after all, don’t forget the Carcass/Carnage connection. All I know is General Surgery finally sound like a band that once featured Matti Karki.

Admittedly I’m a little biased when it comes to Varathron, but that said, this is not only the band’s best recording ever, Stygian Forces of Scorn is one of the greatest Black Metal albums of all time. The complexity, intensity, and majesty of this masterwork absolutely annihilates newer Rotting Christ, the de facto leader of the Greek Black Metal scene. Part of the key to Varathron’s perfection is that main-man Necroabyssious knows what so many others seem to have forgotten: Black Metal is Metal! It’s not Techno, or Punk, or any of 666 other bad ideas that various artists have tried over the years. Those experiments virtually always fail. Please do not misunderstand me: I am not trying to say that these songs all sound the same, or at Necroabyssious will not try new ideas. This album sounds absolutely new, due to both the stunning production and amazing songwriting, and is exploding with the kind of musical details that I would expect from Varathron, while no speed, heaviness, or complexity is sacrificed on the altar of being “different.” From the mind-liquefying beginning riffs of “Behind the Mask,” to the mournful “Where the Walls Weep,” to the last seconds of album-closer “Aclo Savaoth Soth” -honestly, every moment of every song on here- Stygian Forces of Scorn is so flawless as to almost be beyond belief in all ways. You will be haunted by this music from beyond the abyss.

These German Tech Death aficionados may know how to do otherworldly things with their instruments, but they definitely need tracklist order lessons. A small quip, but the first three tracks on Side Effects Expected are pure filler. Fast, punishing and brutal filler, but not much more than endurance tests and showing off the chops. The next few tracks show improvement in structure, but it isn’t until tracks eight (“Dripping Red Canvas”) and nine (“Selfmade Cage”) that Centaurus-A really show you they can make a memorable song. These two cuts bend, hook and pummel in a way the others do not while sacrificing none of the flair. But by then, the record is nearly over having only just recently hit you as hard as it can. So in summary, Centaurus-A can really cook, but their debut is too many appetizers and not enough main course.

Dark Funeral never seem to get the respect they deserve. Not quite trve or kvlt enough for the original wave of church-burning enthusiasts, and now much too riff and song-oriented for the College Black Metal crowd. Sorry, kids. No 31-minute songs that sound like AM radio static to be found here. Not to mention a real drummer, a real record produced in a real studio, and band members who’ve been laid. They just don’t have anything going for them I guess. Actually they do, and this impossible-to-say-or-remember Latin-named album is just as good as their last impossible-to-say-or-remember Latin-named album. They pretty much fit the same mold, lightning fast speed and intensity with inhuman blasting that occasionally gives way to Doomier or mid-paced melodic passages (“Stigmata,” “My Funeral,” “In My Dreams”) which turn out to be the album’s real standout cuts. And cheers to Masse Broberg (aka: Emperor Magus Caligula), a great Death Metal vocalist back in the day and a great Black Metal vocalist now. A rare feat indeed. With Black Metal’s once bright flame now reduced to a few glowing embers, consistently awesome bands like Dark Funeral are a bestial breath of fresh kerosene.

I don’t much care for instrumental bands. I’m not sure why but they just don’t hold my interest, at least for very long. Instrumental Metal bands, or Instrumetal if you prefer, are usually extremely talented but that is not the issue at hand. A band without a vocalist to me is like a cheeseburger with no bottom bun. Sure it can still be tasty, but something is missing. And when I watch instrumental bands play live, it just feels like practice. What can I say, I dig vocals. And on that note, we come to Germany’s Long Distance Calling. An instrumental band that are extremely talented (no surprise there) and especially gifted when it comes to crafting a somber atmosphere. Their songs are, for a lack of a better word, pretty. What sets them apart from all the rest, you ask? How about guest vocals from God among men Jonas Renske? That’s right, Katatonia fans, you heard me right. Jonas lends his magical lungs to “The Nearing Grave,” the only cut on the album with vocals and an absolute masterpiece of a song! It’s like a long lost Katatonia track intact with Anders Nystrom-style guitar playing and a chorus that nails itself to your cerebral cortex permanently by the second repetition. I try to listen to this song 666 times a day, but sometimes I go over. Renske’s guest appearance single-handedly transforms Avoid the Light from competent and well played background music to an all-out essential release for all non-posers.