The follow up to 2009’s Passiondale serves as almost a part two of that album’s lyrical content, this being a concept album about World War One also. It seems as though military history is an extremely popular topic amongst the Death Metal community these days, but maybe I’ve just been listening to too much Hail of Bullets and Invasion. What a can of worms Bolt Thrower opened up many moons ago. Topics range from The Battle of Verdun all the way to The Red Baron, if that kind of thing gets you excited, but for me, a band as consistently kick ass as God Dethroned have been for the better part of the last two decades could be singing about ducks and bunnies and it would still get me up and moving. New members Danny Tunker (guitar) and Mike Plicht (drums) recruited from Death/Grind sadists Prostitute Disfigurement have noticeably provided a musical spark this time around. The energy they inject is evident from the get go, especially the rapid fire drumming of Plicht. Woven with the band’s trademark saccharine melodies and becoming-trademark clean vocal guest spots, Henri and the boys continue to be one of the best around at achieving a sound that is both furious and hummable. Don’t expect them to recreate their own stylistic wheel, but with these results why would anyone want that anyway?

For the handfuls of disappointments 2010 brought to the table as far as Death Metal albums are concerned, there was no bigger or better surprise than Invidious Dominion. The 11th full-length album from the Buffalo-turned-Floridian legends. Let’s not kid ourselves, The Ten Commandments was one of the best albums of all time, let alone the glorious and mighty year of 1991 (the motherfucking year of the god damned Death Metal record). But the two albums that followed were boring, not bad, but boring. It wasn’t until the Jason Blachowicz-on-vocals era that they really started to knock dicks in the dirt once more. Once that ended (although it should be noted JB still handles bass duties), they still put out a hell of a record with 1998’s The Fine Art of Murder (Bret Hoffman’s second coming), but the subsequent albums that followed saw a return to the doldrums. And to hammer that point home, I’m a Death Metal lifer and I didn’t even know Kyle Symons sang for them for 5 years, nor do I even remember a second of the Envenomed or Warkult albums. They just seemed like a dead band going through the motions at that point. With 2007’s Doomsday X (Bret Hoffman’s third coming), I sensed a spark I hadn’t recognized in a while, although that album did somewhat go downhill after the first song. The reason for this long rant? I had no idea what to expect when I popped this son of a bitch in for the first time. But holy shit! “United Hate“‘s main riff is like a buzz saw to the skull amidst a sea of machine gun fire! “Slaughterhouse” made me want to head bang and I haven’t had hair for 4 years! “Compulsive Face Breaker” made me want to start a fight, get arrested, and once imprisoned, start more fights! There is no filler here, no forgettable moments. It all fucking kills, each arrangement seemingly gift-wrapped for this aforementioned DM lifer. I can honestly say this is easily their best album since their debut. Now let’s just hope we don’t have to wait until album #21 for another masterpiece.

The problem with Funeral Doom is that it is apparently extremely difficult to make interesting. I’ve heard countless bands try to fuse its glacial tempos with Black Metal and/or Ambient, which almost never seems to really work out. There are, however, some artists that make it appear effortless, such as the slow-motion gods of the abyss known as Skepticism, Shape of Despair, Thergothon, Ahab, Wraith of the Ropes, and Asunder. Now add to that elite list France’s Remembrance, which has improved with each recording over the years, and now, with Fall, Obsidian Night, finally reached perfection. Carline Van Roos’s beautiful voice occasionally washing over the exquisite musical oppression is sublime. The tortured vocals of Matthieu Sachs are as suffocating and bleak and amazing as the music itself, which is nothing less than awe-inspiring in its haunting devastation. This is a masterpiece almost beyond description.

A couple years ago, when I first heard that Martin van Drunen (Pestilence, Asphyx) was assembling a Death Metal “supergroup” with members of Thanatos and Gorefest’s drummer Ed Warby, I knew that the result would be amazing. How could it not be? And so it was no surprise to me that Hail of Bullets’ debut album, 2008’s …of Frost and War, was an instant classic. Honestly, I expected nothing less. The next year, HoB released the super-limited edition EP, Warsaw Rising, which I’m sure was illegally downloaded quite heavily since Metal Blade couldn’t even be bothered to release it on CD at all here in the US, so apparently if you wanted one, fuck off. I sincerely do not understand such decisions, but I suppose that’s why Metal Blade is Metal Blade, and my small label, Cursed Productions, is not. But I digress. With On Divine Winds, Hail of Bullets has delivered an album somehow beyond even my high expectations. The riffs (holy HELL!), the drums, the vocals, the recording quality itself (mixed and mastered by Dan Swano!) - everything is so… perfect. Impossibly, it’s almost too perfect, perhaps lacking the wabi-sabi necessary for a 10 rating, I’m not sure. But don’t misunderstand, this is easily one of the top Death Metal albums of 2010 (along with Immolation’s astonishing Majesty and Decay!), and needs to be heard immediately. However, thanks once again to the seemingly insane decisions of Metal Blade USA, you’ll have to track down an import copy, since that’s the only way to get the bonus track, “Sugar Loaf Hill,” and an entire bonus DVD of the band’s live performance at Germany’s Summer Breeze Festival 2008. My friends, it is worth the effort.

At some point, let’s say while composing 2001’s Violence Has Arrived album, it must have dawned on Gwar that a Thrashy sound works best for them, and at long last they ejected most of their other various influences into outer space, after years of failed attempts at disparate stylistic gestalts. Bloody Pit of Horror is the band’s most high-intensity Thrash output so far, with some clear Punk and Hardcore influences, and an absolutely amazing, heavy sound. There are a few clunky riffs, though, and even a couple of lame ones, but the impressive drumming can sometimes make up for such deficiencies. Of course the lyrics are goofy -they’re supposed to be. That’s what Gwar’s about, like a Z-level Japanese gore movie. That said, these songs are as memorable as I can remember the scumdogs ever writing. Seriously, try to get “Tick-Tits” out of your mind! Or “Storm Is Coming” (possibly the best track on here). Or “Beat You to Death,” but maybe that’s because Casey “Beefcake the Mighty” Orr sings on it, so it reminds me of his old band, Rigor Mortis, a little. I’m not sure if it’s cool or not that these sickos recently performed “Zombies, March!” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, but it did get me to watch that bullshit show for the first (and hopefully last, pending other musical guests) time, although I was hoping that Oderus would disembowel Fallon.

I like this album, but I wanted to love it -despite the goofy title. I’ve been a big fan of Nightfall’s blend of Death and Black Metal (and Gothic Metal, and other influences along the way, as well) since the beginning, nearly two decades ago, and I hoped that this, the band’s eighth full-length album, and debut on Metal Blade, would be their return to perfection. Unfortunately, as good as Astron Black… is, there are a few problems. Efthimis’s raw vocals are often excellent (if a little Dethklokish at times), but he just won’t stick with them, and all his various “clean” styles are different degrees of irritation. Nightfall just have too many influences, and occasionally try to cram them all into a song, which typically results in a mess (but a mess with some great parts!). However, when these guys are focused, the results can be truly amazing.

Fucking Nicolas Cage’s ex-wife might be fun, but it isn’t very Metal. Neither is this new output from Dimmu Borgir, which just might be the biggest disappointment of 2010. Probably my favorite Black Metal band for the last few years, not because they were the truest or most kvlt; far from it. Just because everyone else started writing one-man College Black Metal for Hydra Head. What’s wrong with this album? You name it, it sucks. 2,643,098-piece choirs, 745,876-piece orchestras, more experimental vocal mistakes than George W. Bush’s terms, and everything just so over-the-top theatrically dramatized that it doesn’t even resemble Black Metal. Just the name of the album alone reeks of cartoon gayness. It’s like some dark Glee episode, or a Rock Opera about fucking dudes. I know they underwent some lineup changes, but I didn’t expect them to write a play and pass it off as what I’m sure they’ll say is their best album ever. Sometimes you don’t need to hire Brock Lesnar to open the pickle jar. It’s just fucking Black Metal, or at least it was.

I’m going to ignore this band’s 1996 gay porn soundtrack, Swallow the Snake, so let’s pretend that Scars is the long-awaited follow-up to ‘94’s melancholy Death Metal classic, Bitterness. I loved that album maybe ever so slightly less than the band’s flawless 1993 debut, Into Eternity, and so had very high hopes upon hearing that Desultory had reformed and would record again. Counting Our Scars really does pick up right where Bitterness left off, although do I miss the thick Sunlight Studios guitar sound. But that’s the only thing missing. The remaining guys have clearly studied ex-guitarist Stefan Poge’s Thrashy, mournful riffs and solos to such a degree that I was surprised to discover that he wasn’t included in the reformation. I’m tempted to question why some bands get back together after such long hiatuses, but when the result is this good, who cares. Hopefully it won’t be 16 more years until Desultory’s next album.

Fenriz and Nocturno Culto continue to release slop Punk albums under the name Darkthrone only because it would be impossible for Peaceville to sell any CDs by a band called “We Didn’t Want to Completely Shit on Our Legacy, So We’re Not Called Darkthrone Anymore.” What is most disturbing is that there are good riffs here, buried within this weird production, and that it is clear that Darkthrone could easily still be great (possibly even the vox, which are generally fucking horrid - check out the vocal AIDS of the title track, for only one extreme example), but they don’t seem to want to. In fact, they appear to be trying very hard to be terrible. I have to wonder if it’s all a joke to them. I guess that maybe I did know what I was talking about after all when I called these guys out in my 1992 review of A Blaze in the Northern Sky [way back in Metal Curse #07] for their shift from Soulside Journey’s Entombed-worship Death Metal to Northern Sky’s raw, noisy Black Metal. So, to all who doubted me for the last two decades, I accept your apologies.