Okay, I admit that I was a little concerned about what U.D.O. would sound like without Stefan Kaufmann, but I needn’t have been. Other than a couple slightly White Zombieish nu-groove riffs (or perhaps variations on the same riff) in the song “Mean Machine,” which are more distracting than ruinous, this might as well be Rev-Raptor 2. Which is to say that it’s great! Kaufmann’s… I’m hesitant to use the word “replacement,” because you can’t really replace a guy like Stefan, but whatever term one uses, the new Russian guitarist, Andrey Smirnov is perfectly serviceable, and I doubt than anyone expected him to outshine Kaufmann. Main-man Udo “Bastard!!” Dirkschneider sounds just as good and gruff as always, even singing one song, “Basta Ya,” in Spanish to prove that U.D.O. truly is an international band. That’s one of the standout tracks, along with “Never Cross My Way,” and the deadly one-two punch of the mid-album duo “Devil’s Bite” and “Death Ride.” Dirkschneider sneaks in a piano-and-vocals softie with the strangely effective “Heavy Rain,” which benefits from its brevity at a hair under two-and-a-half minutes. It’s no surprise that the man with the metal heart has delivered another in an endless line of albums chock full of Metal anthems. There isn’t a song on Steelhammer that you won’t be singing along with after a couple listens (or, immediately, for some!), and other than that 2.5 minute break I mentioned, you’ll probably be working out your neck for most of this, too. The only real flaw —and I hate to beat a dead horse, but this trend must die— is that you’ve got to buy this twice to get all the songs. And even then, you’d better know which two versions to get. Don’t worry, though, because Metal Curse has your back. So, let’s break it down: The normal jewel-case CD has 14 tracks, and the Limited Edition digipak adds one more, “Shadows Come Alive,” which you don’t want to miss. The Japanese version has a different bonus track, an English re-do of “Basta Ya” called “Dust and Rust,” which, while excellent, is less of a must than the LE digipak’s entirely new song. No idea about the vinyl, cassette, 8-track, reel-to-reel tape, DCC, MiniDisc, DVD-Audio, or SACD tracklists. However, in what may be a first, the iTunes/Amazon/wherever mp3 download has two less songs than the standard CD! It felt good to type that. Fuck you, iTunes! So, if you download this (legally), you’re only getting 12 of the 16 songs. That’s three-quarters, for the arithmophobic among you, and I’d say that not getting a fourth of something you’ve paid for is a problem. Imagine you’ve just bought a 20-piece box of McNuggets and it only has 15 in it. Let there be an end to the Bonus Track Wars! May all formats have the same tracklist! In Metal’s name, Amen!

In the realms of Black Metal, Von has become something of a legend. One demo tape (Satanic Blood) and a handful of live shows were all that this band had under their belt before disappearing into the fog that shrouds San Francisco most of the year. Satanic Blood became a highly sought after recording, mostly because Varg of Burzum pumped this band incessantly in interviews. Their minimalistic style became a serious influence on Norway’s seminal Black Metal scene. I actually got to see Von ages ago at one of their few live shows. In Black Metal circles, that’s akin to having met Jesus. I’ve seen twenty-something Black Metal kids damn near shit their pants when I tell them that I was in the audience at one of Von’s concerts. I’ve never quite understood the hype, mostly because I don’t worship other humans like they were gods. I’ve met members of Metallica, who are billionaires. Michael Bordin, the drummer for Faith No More and a guy that Ozzy Osbourne himself handpicked to be his live drummer, lived across the street from me. They’re just people. I look beyond the superficial layer of celebrity and see their work for what it is: art created by flesh and blood humans. Some view the reemergence of Von as a form of blasphemy. Those who have built shrines and altars devoted to Satanic Blood fear that the return of Von is some sort of cash-in. The re-recording of Satanic Blood may have been a cheap cash-in, mostly because the original recordings have been released, re-released, and re-released again so many times that pretty much anyone who wanted to hear the material has already heard it. Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves is an entirely new album. Some people are going to hate this simply because it exists. Those people are never going to be happy. They want Von to remain an obscure cult phenomenon that only the “true” deserve to hear. They want the Satanic Blood demo recordings to be the alpha and the omega for the group, regardless of what the founders of the band want. The question being, is this a Von album, or should the music on here have been released under a different name? Musically, this does have elements of the old Von sound. The structures are minimalistic, though unlike Satanic Blood, the songs are longer and more developed. Where Satanic Blood was a burst of raw anger akin to getting blasted in the face by a steel pipe out of nowhere, Dark Gods is more focused and complex. It isn’t Progressive Black Metal by a long shot, but it’s definitely a step up from the one-riff “kill your mom for Satan” Black Metal that was on display back in 1992. The new material has a darker atmosphere and it’s definitely heavier. It has a vibe that I remember from listening to old Corpse Molestation or Disembowelment. It almost seems as if Von decided to reinterpret Satanic Blood in a Doom/Death Metal style. It has that Burzum-esque minimalism, but with a slower, heavier sound. While I did grow to enjoy Satanic Blood for its minimalism and in-your-face brutality, I find myself liking Dark Gods because it’s so different. Venien could have rehashed Satanic Blood and milked it for everything that it was worth, but he chose not to do it. I’m also a sucker for dark atmosphere, and Dark Gods definitely has it. I asked earlier if this was a Von album, and for me, it definitely is. Just not the Von album that people were expecting.

Normally, I wouldn’t write a track-by-track review for anything other than a various-artists compilation, but I can’t think of another way to plump this up beyond one sentence. So, let the ever flowing stream of consciousness begin! I’m not sure that I understand why Evocation wanted to record an all-covers EP when they wear their influences so clearly on their collective sleeve, but they’d have been hard pressed to pick better bands and songs to cover. Up first is possibly the greatest Death Metal song ever written: Bolt Thrower’s beyond-flawless “…for Victory.” Evocation’s bright, modern production does this one no favors, as it needs the thick radioactive grime of the original. And do not tweak the fucking riffs! Add to the poor decisions the terrible multi-tracked vocals that come in towards the end, and… it’s a disaster. Guys, this isn’t a call to arms, it’s a lamentation. Do you think that you somehow know better than the masters?!? You do not. Up next is every non-Carcass-fan’s favorite Carcass song. Yes, it’s “Corporal Jigsore Quandary.” And although sadly missing its intro, this is fairly by-the-numbers, and impressive in the appropriately precise and surgical performance. But it’s missing… something. Maybe it’s due to the slightly faster tempo? Whatever it is, the song’s emotion is gone. As for the following cut, it will take you longer to read this sentence than the duration of the 2-second blast, “You Suffer” (Napalm Death), so… moving on… Edge of Sanity’s “Enigma” is an interesting choice, with its cello intro and minimal use of clean vocals. Unfortunately, Evocation ditches those elements, which I think are important parts of the original, and I was curious to hear how they would be handled. Ex-Edge of Sanity mastermind Dan Swano mixed and mastered this EP, so don’t tell me that he wouldn’t have done the clean singing, too. I’d be surprised if he didn’t make the offer. Finally, we come to Evocation’s take on At the Gates’s “Terminal Spirit Disease.” It seems like an odd choice to me, but nevertheless comes the closest to capturing the “spirit” of the original, with the more modern recording/production actually helping out for once. Evocation is very good at delivering the Metal of Death, no question, but not really in the same league as any of the big boys they’re covering here. Don’t feel bad, though, almost no one is in their league - especially the gods known as Bolt Thrower. Cover songs are tricky things. A band needs to translate the original into their own style, while not changing the essence. Check out Entombed’s Venom and Motorhead covers. Or Aborted’s Entombed covers. They get it. I understand that Evocation wanted to pay tribute to their influences, but they don’t always seem to understand exactly what makes these songs classics, and a little alteration of the wrong kind goes a very long way, indeed. I will happily check back in with these Swedish sickos when their next LP comes out, but this one-listen novelty EP is certainly safe to skip.

Alex Krull, the only remaining original member of Germany’s Atrocity, has been all over the Metal map. Atrocity has played everything from Grindcore to Folk Metal to Gothic Metal to shit that can only be described as “Experimental,” for the lack of a better word. Okkult, though, rests primarily in the gray area between Gothic Metal and Death Metal. Where Atrocity shines is when things stick primarily to the Death Metal style. The straight-forward Death Metal on Okkult is brutal and aggressive. When Alex and company start kicking ass, my neck starts making more snap, crackle and pop noises than a fucking bowl of Rice Krispies. The Gothic Metal influence is on the schizophrenic side. On one hand, there are bits that sound like Horror soundtrack parts that heighten the evil sounding Death Metal and makes it more potent. On the other side of the coin are the bits that sound like rejected parts from the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, which are campy and distract from some otherwise good Death Metal. These parts are thankfully rare, only coming into play on two or three songs. I liked that Atrocity wove in some interesting atmospheric stuff into the mix, but mostly stuck to their strengths. Okkult never strayed too far from the reservation and while it had some interesting flourishes, it was pretty orthodox compared to a lot of their back catalog. Hopefully Atrocity will keep up with this formulation and refine away the campy stuff. One of the things I’ve always disliked about this band is the fact that each record tends to be radically different than the one before it. Atrocity did an album of reworked Pop songs, if you remember. If that wasn’t a nasty surprise, I don’t know what is. Alex Krull has changed styles so many times that you wonder if he is in a constant state of identity crisis. If anything, Okkult is a mostly solid album that does a lot of ass-kicking. Hopefully, their next one will do the same. Knowing Atrocity, though, means that there is no guarantee of that actually happening.

When I first heard of Sidious, all I had to go on was the band name and the title of this, their debut EP for Kaotoxin. Based on that, I assumed that the band was from Poland. A lot of Polish bands use “ov” instead of “of” for some strange reason. I think Behemoth started this, but other bands in that scene have picked up on it. It came as a surprise, then, when I found out that this group isn’t from Poland. They’re actually from London, England. Two of the members of Sidious are also in Eye of Solitude. That was kind of a shock because Eye of Solitude isn’t exactly known for fast and aggressive music. They usually explore the slower and heavier realms of the Metal sound. As for Sidious, their music sounds like what would happen if Behemoth did a bunch of Dimmu Borgir covers. The guitars have that Polish Death Metal crunch, but there are more atmospheric elements to this, including extensive use of keyboards and melodic guitars. When these guys get aggressive, it is some brutal and heavy Death Metal. When they get atmospheric, things are dark and epic. If there is a downside to this band’s style, it’s that there’s a lot going on at all times. The drumming is a tornado of blasting snare, double-bass, cymbals and just about everything else except for cowbell. The guitars are fast and technical. Tom Allen’s vocals are harsh and abrasive, sounding like Peter from Vader most of the time. What keeps everything from becoming a whirlwind of blasting, grinding Death Metal are the atmospheric parts. The keyboards and other atmospheric elements break up the brutality enough so that your brain doesn’t go numb from all the punishment. It takes a little while to get your head around what Sidious is doing, mostly because there is so much going on. Once I did, I found myself thinking that this was too short and that I wanted more. If this EP is to give you a hint of what is to come, I’m definitely interested in seeing what this band’s next release is going to be like.

There are only two songs here, and normally that would make a review difficult. But Brutality is far from a normal band. It has been 17 long years since the classic In Mourning was unleashed upon mankind, and although there have been some demo collections and a live recording in the interim, I have been very anxiously awaiting this new material. All three Brutality albums (the aforementioned In Mourning from 1996, 1994’s flawless When the Sky Turns Black, and 1993’s Screams of Anguish) are prime examples of how to properly write, play, and record Death Metal. Every aspiring band should dissect these masterpieces and study them intensely and ceaselessly. Do you want to learn the secret of writing riffs that are both brutal and memorable at the same time? Guitar solos that actually enhance the songs they’re in? Drumming that is always intense at just the right times and allows the music space to breathe when necessary? Brutality will show you the way. Are you curious about how to achieve the perfect blend of rawness and understandability in your growls and screams? Look no further than Brutality’s bestial bellower, Scott Reigel, who is inarguably one of the very top Death Metal singers of all time. And Ruins of Humans picks right up where the band left off, obliterating everything in its path. At a mere 14 minutes, this isn’t much more than a teaser, but holy Hell it is utter perfection. So, consider my appetite officially whetted for a hopefully soon-to-be-released new full-length album. However you get new music, you need to check this out immediately, as if your life itself depends on it - because it does. The masters have finally returned! Death Metal does not get better than this. Period.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Gamma Ray, but I’ve always had a lot of respect for Kai Hansen, the founder of the band and ex-Helloween guitarist/vocalist. While I gave up on Helloween after one spin of Pink Bubbles Go Ape, I would still listen to Gamma Ray every now and then when I felt like getting a quick dose of Power Metal amidst the sea of Death and Black Metal that I was listening to. Master of Confusion, the band’s latest release, shows that Kai and Gamma Ray still have the ability to pump out some rocking tunes. For a guy who is past the half-century mark, Kai still has a good voice and he can still shred on the guitar. The problem, though, is that Master of Confusion is fairly predictable. The songs are well played, to be sure, but they’re unadventurous. This is Power Metal by the numbers. Gamma Ray has an impressive back-catalog that spans over twenty years. If they put together a greatest hits album, I doubt that any of the new studio cuts on this EP will even be in contention for a bonus CD full of secondary tracks. The live songs, which comprise the bulk of this release, are where the real meat is located. They show that, in a live environment, Gamma Ray can deliver the goods just as competently - if not more - as in the studio. These guys may have gotten to the point where they’re just releasing new material as an excuse to tour. With two plus decades of recordings to draw from, they have more than enough songs to fill up a full set. If you’re looking for something special or if you’re already a Gamma Ray fan, my guess is that you’re going to be disappointed. The new songs on this EP aren’t especially great. The live cuts are better, but still nothing that absolutely has to be tracked down (unless you’re a super-fan and you have to own everything the band puts out). It’s good Power Metal, but unfortunately it isn’t great Power Metal.

I’ve been listening to this album over and over for months now, trying to figure out what is left to be said about the ever-amazing Jungle Rot. If after nearly two decades you don’t know how consistently impressive (and impressively consistent) this band is, there is just no hope for you. The only “review” that should really be needed is, “There is a new Jungle Rot album!” If there were any justice in the world, people would be lined up miles deep at the few remaining records stores to buy this CD, and fucking iTunes.com would be so overloaded that their servers burst into flame and melt down. But… back to justice-less reality. If you have absolutely no clue about JR, you likely won’t get my reference, either (and so why would you even be reading this?!?), but imagine something like an American Unleashed and you’d be on the right track, at least. And if that doesn’t sound like the coolest thing ever… Well, suicide is always an option. But, I digress. Now that mastermind Dave Matrise finally has a solid label behind him with a record-setting two albums in a row on Victory Records, and a hopefully stabilized line-up (featuring my old friend Jimmy Doomed on bass!), the sky’s the limit for these Midwest masters of Death Metal. From the very beginning Dave has known the secret of writing simple, heavy riffs and making them instantly memorable. This straightforward approach has served him very well over the years with a string of invariably nearly-flawless albums, and of course Terror Regime is no exception. I don’t fully comprehend why they would turn in a D.R.I. cover (“I Don’t Need Society”) that’s so close to the original version, but it’s about as far away from a problem as things get. D.R.I. is legendary, and any band paying tribute to them gets nothing but respect from me. It’s often very difficult to pick a standout track on a Jungle Rot record, because they all stand out. There has never been a Jungle Rot song that didn’t immediately claw its way into your brain and cause a severe case of Headbanger’s Neck! But even with the bar set this high, this album’s final song, “Pronounced Dead,” does poke up ever so slightly above the others, way up in the Exosphere, and is the perfect way to close out yet another astonishing album from this unstoppable band.

I was a fan of Norway’s Aeternus in the late ’90s, back in the days of their Beyond the Wandering Moon and …and So the Night Became albums. Their early material was often described as Black Metal, but I always considered them an Atmospheric Death Metal band. Ares, the vocalist/bassist (he played guitar on the older albums), always used the Death growl instead of screaming like his nuts were in a vice, so I never lumped Aeternus in with the rest of the Norwegian scene, even though he did play in a number of Black Metal bands. I kind of lost track of them over the years, and when I heard that they were going to release a new record, I was interested in hearing how they’d evolved. It had, after all, been close to a decade since I’d last heard Aeternus. I even saw ads saying that they were returning to their Dark Metal roots. After having listened to …and the Seventh His Soul Detesteth, I have to say that the idea that Aeternus returned to their roots on this LP shows a lack of knowledge about the band’s history and their back catalog. This LP really lacks a lot of the atmosphere that the older albums had. There are some good acoustic interludes, but the songs themselves are mostly straight-forward Death Metal. I was pretty disappointed by that because what I liked about Aeternus was the atmospheric element that they brought to their music. The first release version of this CD also contains the band’s long out of print 1995 debut EP, Dark Sorcery, as bonus tracks. Of all of the songs on this LP, I actually liked the Dark Sorcery tracks the best. The Dark Sorcery tracks sounded a bit dated and the recording was definitely not as powerful as the newer stuff, but even with that, they had that missing atmosphere that I really wanted to hear. While their straight-forward Death Metal songs are competently executed, they weren’t anything special. Without the atmospheric element, Aeternus has completely lost the thing that made them stand out from the crowd. They may as well be a Morbid Angel tribute band at this point. Maybe one of these days Aeternus will truly rediscover their roots. I’ll be waiting for that. This particular incarnation of Aeternus just leaves me cold.