I remember first hearing about Dream Death back in the early ’90s. I had just begun to listen to Death Metal, and I also started hanging out at the indie record stores on Haight Street (Rough Trade Records and Reckless Records, both of which have long since disappeared into the mists of time). I’d occasionally see their 1987 debut album (Journey Into Mystery) in the racks and I always wanted to check them out. Each time, though, I ended up having to choose between Dream Death and another album that I really wanted (like Blessed Are the Sick or Left Hand Path). I finally got to hear them from a friend who was a tape trader. Their debut album is best described as “Doom/Thrash” because they had a serious Doom influence (all of the members are or were involved with Penance, Mike Smail, the drummer, was also involved with Cathedral and Pentagram). Brian Lawrence, the vocalist/guitarist, has a voice that’s fairly gruff and it comes off as being Hardcore-influenced. Musically, though, they sounded very much like Celtic Frost, sporting a guitar tone that was heavy as fuck. Somnium Excessum, their first full-length LP since reforming and second album overall, isn’t what I expected. Compared to their debut, it’s seriously disappointing. Journey Into Mystery was a bit uneven, but most of the songs were good and the whole album was brutal. This LP still has good sound but the songwriting isn’t there. The transitions are hit-or-miss, sometimes flowing well, but other times sloppy. The riffing is likewise hit-or-miss. Some of the riffs are good, but others are jarring. The combination of sloppy transitions and erratic riffing makes the songs on Somnium Excessum sound thrown together. I don’t know if these guys were rushed or not, but the songs sound like they needed more rehearsal time and a lot more refinement. I listened to this album almost a dozen times, and each time I did, I went in wanting to like it. I kept thinking that I was missing something, but in the end I came away with the idea that this should have been a demo recording instead of an actual album. I can’t, in good conscience, recommend this. Even if you liked the first album, this doesn’t live up to it.

How do you review the comeback album from a band that’s been defunct for 17 years? This sickness fest of a band that used a copy of a medical textbook as a lyrics sheet broke up in 1995 and released their last record a year later, so what do you expect a new release straight out of nowhere to sound like? The answer is that this is a pretty decent offering from the UK foursome, and long story short, it sounds a lot like if the original band had gone into the studio in 1993 after the release of the Tools of the Trade EP and continued down that road.
Let’s catch up with a bit of history, first. In 1995, Carcass fell apart, largely because of problems with Columbia/Sony and the hurried recording of Swansong. Michael Amott had already split after Heartwork; everyone except Steer started Blackstar, with Steer forming Firebird, both bands significantly different than Grindcore. Ken Owen had a cerebral hemorrhage, spent a year in a coma, and eventually went back to school. Everyone else wandered, and extreme Metal fell out of the limelight, going into a dark era of Grunge, boy bands, modern Country, and whatever the hell else happened between the mid-90s to present. In 2007, the band more or less reformed, to play live and do the festival circuit in Europe, with the Steer/Walker duo rejoined by Michael Amott, who recruited drummer Daniel Erlandsson from his group Arch Enemy to replace the I’m-lucky-I-can-still-barely-walk Owen. (Owen does contribute some backing vocals to this new album, however.) Going into the studio for the new release, swap out the two Arch Enemy guys for Daniel Wilding on drums and Ben Ash on guitar, and you’ve got the whole family tree for the last twenty years.
I should add a disclaimer here, as this is a huge point of discontent among Metal fans. Of the Carcass studio albums, my personal favorite is Necroticism. No huge controversy there; I think most people would agree. But I don’t hold any grudge about Heartwork or Swansong. Agreed, they are different, but I don’t like it when a band who has hit a near-perfect stride with an album continues to try and record that same thing over and over. I always feel that even (and especially) when a group records an almost flawless album (like Necroticism) they should always try something new that stays true to their sound, but reaches a bit more, into new territory. And, of course, studio technology evolves and advances, and either bands get bigger budgets or the cost required to record an album decreases, so you get those improvements over time. I’m not saying this always works, or that the intent is always correct. A good example would be Entombed, who went from the sheer dark and evil perfection of Clandestine to the cock sucking Butt Rock of Wolverine Blues. But I never strongly disliked the later work of Carcass, and simply saw it as the next stage of their evolution, just like they evolved from a Grindgore sound on their first two albums to a more produced and Death Metal-oriented structure by 1991.
Okay, I’ve burned three paragraphs without mentioning anything about what this record sounds like. Surgical Steel is really two albums mixed together into a single disc of music, with a rough concept related to medical tools used in operating rooms. (Don’t think Operation: Mindcrime concept album; it’s more thematic than conceptual, along the lines of Necroticism, maybe dialed back 10%.) The band alternates between a fast, almost blistering Grindcore, maybe not as Grind-derived as their 1991 outing, but certainly higher-RPM than their last two albums. The other half of the tracks are much more melodic Death Metal, which is more in line with the last two. It’s maybe enough to appease those who liked Swansong, but not enough to completely piss off those who hated it. The album is laid out for the most part with the first half being the speedy stuff, and the more melodic tracks making up the B-side, with a few exceptions to mix things up. (Kids: go look up “LP” on wikipedia or ask your grandfather about “records” that had “sides,” which were used a century before you downloaded shit off the internet.)
For example, take the song “Thrasher’s Abbatoir” (which is actually the same name as the first song the band, then called Disattack, ever wrote) is a quick 1:51 of straight-up velocity. The next track, “Cadaver Pouch Conveyor System,” is also a short 2:24 of blast beat drumming that drops out of hyperspeed for a bridge with thick leads before returning to the previous pace. “A Congealed Clot of Blood” slows things down, but then “The Master Butcher’s Apron” gets right back into Necroticism-style double bass attack runs punctuated with chunkier bits. (Oh, the opening track, “1985,” is a guitar instrumental intro, before the album launches into full fury. What’s interesting is that this riff is basically taken from a very early Disattack rehearsal recording.) These first tracks, structure-wise, sound like they could have been slotted in right before or after a song like “Incarnated Solvent Abuse” on Necroticsm.
A few things help to make this true. One is that Wilding’s drumming is very close to the same style as Owens’ work. He’s a very technically precise player that patterns his foundation of the music well, and can get in and out of the different tempos required in these song structures with good aptitude. I have found that some Death Metal drummers master the ability of laying down that insane, speedy double-bass blast, and then feel a need to keep it going constantly, which then causes their slower transitions to sound inauthentic or just plain stupid. I’ve always appreciated Owens’ ability to mix things up and get in and out of different types of rhythm without faltering, and Wilding keeps with the same spirit here.
The other thing is that Colin Richardson returned as producer of this recording. I realize he’s produced all of their albums, so if you hate Swansong, you can assign blame there, but I’ve always associated his production work with Necroticism, and thought he did a stunning job there, in being able to present the amazing lead guitar work on top of an immaculately crisp drum sound. Here, he does not disappoint, and twenty-some years of evolution in recording technology makes everything even better, which I would have never though possible back in 1991. (Do an A/B on the two albums and you will be amazed.)
As far as guitar work, I’d say that Steer is at his prime here. I had great worries that his long foray outside the world of Metal would have made this album as riffy as a remember-the-70s AOR marathon of Bad Company hits. But, like Necroticism, his main competency is laying down extended soloing over the top. It’s not a shredding “look how fast I can sweep pick every note in a Hungarian minor scale a dozen times in a row” soloing, but an extremely melodic sort of lead. Granted, in Necroticism, he was trading off leads with Amott, but here every lead is meticulously sculpted and performed, and fits the structure of the songs extremely well. I should say something about Walker’s bass playing, which is great, although it’s not as up-front as I wanted. If you listen to their latest live festival work (there are no official releases - go hit YouTube) you’ll hear him with a very bright bass sound, up front in the mix. The bass does cut through, and it ties together the rhythm of the incredible drums with the melody of the guitar, but it’s not like Les fucking Claypool front-and-center. It doesn’t need to be, though.
As for that melodic Death Metal stuff: if you thought that Swansong was gayer than fellow Metal Curse reviewer Jack Botos’s unnatural obsession with that Behind the Candelabra movie about Liberace, you might not be as into some of the longer tracks. But for me, this is where the band really shines. The best example of this is the finale, “Mount of Execution,” which is an 8:25 masterpiece starting with acoustic guitars, and no drums, then slowly building to a steady gallop that’s a good foundation for Steer’s haunting melodic leads. It’s the perfect end to the album, and shows the versatility of the band, how they aren’t just a bunch of blast beats and lyrics about guts and autopsies.
A big part of my rating for Surgical Steel is what this record isn’t. I really feared that it would be like that last Morbid Angel album, with just a slight ghost of the Death Metal past, mixed with healthy servings of Dubstep remixes and prostate massages. It’s not. There are no samples or St. Anger douchebaggery, no attempts at Industrial Dance music or DJ scratching. And given the band’s involvement with non-Metal music, there were legitimate concerns that this would be some Blues-based Yardbirds wankery here, which there is not. Even worse, I feared that the band would just phone in a pale imitation of the albums they did twenty years ago, a collection of new songs that are the same as the old songs. But it isn’t. This is a strong contender, a complete album that continues from where the band left off in the ’90s, and I really appreciate that.

The Ukraine has spawned a number of Pagan/Folk Metal bands over the years. While Paganland isn’t exactly a newcomer to the scene, they aren’t exactly prolific, either. Metal-archives.com has their founding year listed as 1997, but their this is their first full-length LP. Their previous releases were in 1999 (Gods of Golden Circle demo) and 2008 (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors/Carpathia split with Тіні Забутих Предків (which translates to Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), their side of the split was Carpathia). With such a long time in development, the music of Paganland is very refined. Unlike most debut albums these days, the overwhelming majority of the songs on Wind of Freedom are good. Musically, these guys mix a number of different styles, going from Slavic Folk to Black Metal to some elements of Power Metal and even a little atmospheric Doom. Their sound is comparable to bands like Arkona (Russia) or maybe Butterfly Temple. I’m a bit hesitant to include Butterfly Temple because I’ve only heard one of their albums. I’ve always had trouble keeping track of the Eastern European scene, particularly Russia and the Ukraine, because the record stores around here only seem to focus on a few of the larger bands (like Drudkh). Realistically, I should be glad that any record store in the Bay Area stocks music other than the latest Pop trends, but it still makes following underground music hard. But I digress… For the most part, Wind of Freedom is a solid slab of Slavic Folk Metal. There were a couple spots on this LP where things got a little too “beer tent at the Renaissance Faire” for me, though. This happened primarily in songs where they tried to incorporate flute into the mix. A flute is one of those instruments that tends not to work too well with Metal music because it’s a bit too high pitched. The only ones that seem to work are the Asian ones (Shakuhachi or Pgaku), mostly because their pitch is lower in comparison to their European counterparts. I know that it is a traditional Folk instrument, but its inclusion often makes the music sound hokey. Other than that, this is a good album that fans of Folk Metal in the Eastern European/Slavic style will enjoy. Given how long it took these guys ages to put out a debut LP, I hope it won’t be another five to ten years before they come out with a follow-up to it.

I’ve known Witherscape mastermind Dan Swano for a long time. Twenty-plus years ago we used to tape trade. I’ve got cassettes (Google it, tadpoles!) for which he hand-wrote the track lists. I’m not about to go over Dan’s CV for the uninformed, but suffice to say that Swano has been involved with more amazing bands than possibly anyone else on Earth, and he is without question one of the coolest people in the universe. So it just cracks my black heart in two to say this, but with all due respect (which is immense), despite the absolutely flawless recording/production/mastering, The Inheritance is unlistenable. The combining of Death Metal and I’m going to say ’70s-era lighter-than-hydrogen Prog Rock (I don’t have a good frame of reference for horrible things), is an idea that almost never works. Opeth had some success in employing these kinds of different styles in their music before they went utterly batshit insane. But what style-blending Swano does here just never gels for more than a second or two at a time. The full-on Death Metal bits are fine (although always quickly ruined). It sounds like he’s using the old Bloodbath gear and settings. But this only makes the mellow/weird/goofy Rock stuff sound that much worse. And it’s not even that the music gets as soft as a whisper (sometimes literally). It’s that if you’re going to have such extreme dynamics, the not-heavy parts have to at least be dark. The darker the better! And while Dan’s Death-growls are excellent, as expected, his clean singing (I hate to type this!) often sounds like Trey Parker making fun of someone. There are brief moments when the divergent styles start to kind of work and it seems as if things are going to get good, only to be abruptly devastated by a Moog solo and/or some Butt Rock and/or fifth-dimensional Art/Space Rock vocalizations. I’m sure that Swano loves this album, and he’d better, because I can’t imagine how anyone else could. It seems to me that someone who would like the mellow/Prog majority of this record might be completely turned off when the production becomes heavy and the vocals get raw. And for those seeking brutality or intensity… well, if you only need a couple seconds at a time, you’d be all set. However, any consistency is not to be found here. I listened to this so that you don’t have to, and I have the migraine to prove it. You’re welcome. So, while I could not possibly suggest inflicting this audio-torture upon yourself, I do highly recommend buying The Inheritance anyway and simply never listening to it. Or if you don’t want to take up the shelf/hard drive space, just PayPal Dan $10 and be done with it.

Scotland isn’t a place one associates with Epic Power Metal. Christopher Bowes, vocalist and keyboardist for Alestorm, decided to change that because being in a Pirate/Folk Metal band just wasn’t enough. Gloryhammer was born in 2010 to bring back sorcerers, dragons and an invading army of unicorns to the land of bagpipes and kilts. Yes, I said an invading army of unicorns. There is a song on this LP called “The Unicorn Invasion of Dundee.” I’m not shitting you. This is a concept album that starts off with Dundee, Scotland, being invaded by unicorns. There are also dragons and sorcerers involved, but I’m not exactly sure how. This is Epic Power Metal. There have to be dragons and sorcerers. It’s the law. What saves this LP from being absolute crap is the fact that the music makes the epic tale of Angus McFife (the hero of this mythical tale of alternate-history Scotland’s destruction under the hooves of Twilight Sparkle and the rest of her friends from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) actually seem fun. Yes, the music isn’t groundbreakingly original. There is an established formula for Power Metal and deviating from it is essentially blasphemy. Nobody does it, and Gloryhammer is no exception. The lyrics are more than a little stupid. A story that begins with unicorns invading anywhere is guaranteed to get you into the stupid Metal lyric Hall of Fame. And a hero named Angus McFife? My Scottish ancestors are spinning in their graves. Shit, does the guy wear a kilt and have a bushy red beard, too? All of this is so fucking hokey that it can’t be serious and treating it as if it was probably defeats the purpose. If you look at this as a bedtime story told to you by your crazy Scottish great-grandfather (one that he pulled completely out of his partially senile/demented ass on the spot) set to the music of Rhapsody or Stratovarius, it actually works far better than it should.

Nine Covens is supposedly a super-group composed of British Black Metal musicians from more well known bands who have chosen to hide their identities. Why they’ve chosen anonymity is never clearly revealed. If you’re already in a Black Metal band and you and your pals decide to form a new band as a side project, why bother hiding? It’s not like this new group is a Boy Band or an attempt at reviving Butt Rock. Maybe they just like the mystery. That would make them kind of like the Black Metal equivalent of Mekong Delta or Brujeria. …on the Dawning of Light is the band’s second album. One of the criticisms that I’ve heard about this group is that they’re boring. I don’t have their debut, so that may have been the case previously, but …on the Dawning of Light is well played, excellently produced and even neck-damage inducing. The downer part is that I’ve heard most of this before from other bands. Everything about this record sounds familiar, though I doubt they lifted anything note for note. You catch yourself thinking that you heard a riff or hook somewhere before on a different album, and I found that to be pretty distracting. It took me several listens before I was able to look past all of it and just enjoy the music. On purely musical merits, this is a pretty solid album of Darkthrone/Mayhem inspired Black Metal. There is some good stuff in here, to be sure. One of the things that I liked was when Nine Covens added some dissonant guitar playing into their songs, using their standard musical instruments to boost the atmosphere, rather than go the Dimmu Borgir route and overload everything with keyboards. “The Fog of Deceit” was a favorite because of that and because they added some Traditional Metal riffing into the song. Another favorite was the instrumental track “White Star Acception,” because there was a lot of weird shit going on in the background. You can sort of hear it, but not too clearly, which drove me crazy initially. Nine Covens was fucking with my brain subliminally and I thought that it was both cool and disturbing at the same time. It was cool in that this is what the religious nuts always think that Satanic music is trying to do, and it was disturbing in that I don’t like it when people try to implant ideas or feelings into my head subconsciously. Though some may slag this as generic, Nine Covens has definitely produced a very listenable album. It isn’t the most awesome thing ever recorded, but it’s definitely getting a lot of playtime on my stereo.

It seems anonymity is the new black. The concealed-identity trend is spreading like wildfire, as every time you open a magazine there’s a new band of shrouded miscreants on the scene. Ghost, The Devil, Dragged Into Sunlight, etc. Knowing who’s in the band is so 2011. Now, with the UK’s Nine Covens, we actually have anonyMetal’s first supergroup… we think. An audacious concept to say the least, it’s alleged that the members of Nine Covens are comprised of “luminaries” within the UK Black Metal movement. So… let’s see… good British Black Metal bands… Umm… Winterfylleth, of course. Can’t forget about Fen. Umm… is Wodensthrone from England? I guess if I don’t know then… Umm… Winterfylleth… oh wait, said that one already. Can’t think of any other… Oh well, I guess we’ll have to take their word for it. It’s really of little importance, because …on the Dawning of Light is a fairly unremarkable exercise in middle-of-the-road Black Metal. You’d expect more from unknown famous people. No wonder nobody wanted to put their name on it! It’s pretty apparent right off the bat that this probably is members of Winterfylleth —at the very least this has to be Chris Naughton on vocals— the only problem being the music here severly lacks Winterfylleth’s passion, majesty, and atmosphere. It isn’t terrible, but it’s about as memorable as your first steps. The melodies are there, the blasting is there, and it should go without saying that the vocals are top-notch, but comparatively speaking it’s a mere Second Wave rehash. Really no need to microwave collective bits of Immortal, Dissection, Satyricon, and Naglfar when the original material itself is so timeless. Where Nine Covens excels is on slower, more mournful jams like “The Mist of Death” and “White Star Acception” —the latter unfortunately being an instrumental— but even these songs are forgotten the second they’re over. Closer “A Burning Ember” definitely sounds like a throwaway cut from The Threnody of Triumph sessions, further cementing my suspicion. Then again, who really knows for sure? And as far as an album of well-played but boring filler is concerned, who really cares?

While I would consider myself a fan of Hypocrisy, Catch 22 taught me that not every LP is going to be awesome. Even with that, I still feel a bit disappointed by End of Disclosure. Under normal circumstances, I’d think this was a fucking deadly album. The riffing goes from dark and melodic to face-rippingly brutal and everywhere in between. Horgh’s drumming is precision as always, Peter Tagtgren’s vocals are as corrosive as ever, and Mikael Hedlund’s bass playing holds everything together like superglue. On top of that, you have the stellar sound that you always get when Peter is involved in the recording. Add to that some Wes Benscoter artwork for the cover and you have the makings of a classic Death Metal album. Why would I be disappointed? I should be having the time of my life and making my chiropractor rich from all the damage I’m doing to my neck. I’m disappointed because End of Disclosure is essentially A Taste of Extreme Divinity Part Two. If you listen to both of these records back to back, the only hint that they’re two separate albums is the fact that the title track (“End of Disclosure”) is the first song on the newer album. Even though four years separate them, they sound so similar, in terms of style and substance, that they could have both been recorded at the same time. I still like the music, but I wanted something to stick out as different. This is what Hypocrisy does best, but I’d hoped for a little something that differentiated this record from the last. I guess the best way to look at this is to think of End of Disclosure as the second disc in a double album. If you think of A Taste of Extreme Divinity and End of Disclosure as two separate and distinct albums, you see little to no progression in Hypocrisy’s sound. If you think of them as two halves of the same album, the fact that they sound so similar doesn’t register as much.

Every time Hypocrisy releases a new album, I can’t help but reflect on the truly remarkable run Peter Tagtgren & Co. have had. How many Death Metal bands can you name that began their career with four perfect records in five years? A couple decades later and I can still pretty much recite Penetralia, Osculum Obscenum, The Fourth Dimension, and Abducted from memory. That’s pretty fucking special. Of course, that isn’t to say the magic stopped there. It’s worth noting that 1997’s The Final Chapter was a nearly flawless affair as well. There’s only one real blemish on the Swedes’ resume, and we all know —including Tagtgren himself— which album I’m talking about. But as otherwise solid as the output has been from 1999’s self-titled LP through 2009’s A Taste of Extreme Divinity, these efforts haven’t had the same staying power. Want a test? How do any of the songs on Into the Abyss go? How about The Arrival? Virus? No peeking! Surely a scan of the tracklists will serve to remind us of the highlights, but straight from the memory banks, I’m drawing a blank. My point being, we haven’t been served anything as growl-in-the-shower good as “Left to Rot,” “Pleasure of Molestation,” “Apocalypse,” or “Roswell 47” in quite awhile. Unfortunately, End of Disclosure doesn’t buck this trend. It’s another good record from a great band, but it’s nothing you’re going to remember in 20 months, let alone 20 years. The opening title track is probably the strongest song here. A keyboard-laced Melodeath anthem with a catchy chorus that bears the band’s signature mid-paced atmospherics throughout. “Tales of Thy Spineless” is without question the fastest cut —although the song is slightly weakened by some awkward spoken bits— but Doomy closer “The Return” might be the heaviest. Meanwhile, mid-album skipper “44 Double Zero” is easily the weakest link, due in large part to some Painfully sub-par shrieking and an excessively repetitive chorus. Apart from these four tracks, nothing really stands out. It’s an enjoyable listen, but ultimately lacks the substance and memorability to dethrone whatever your favorite Hypocrisy moment might be. If I may offer a suggestion, maybe it’s time to start writing about something other than aliens? Never seen one. Don’t really give a fuck. Lots of other shit to talk about. Still, a relatively mediocre, possibly phoned-in album at this stage of the game isn’t enough to tarnish this hallowed legacy. Hypocrisy standards are awfully lofty to judge by… perhaps even for Hypocrisy.