This album is available in several different configurations. One with just Alpha Noir, this 2-CD version with Omega White, and a limited edition that is the same as the 2-CD variation, but with different packaging and some other swag. And then there is the digital download, and vinyl too… If you’re a fan of Moonspell, you will obviously want the 2-CD version (or the equivalent) because you literally get a second album for just a couple dollars more. Alpha Noir and Omega White are actually two separate LPs that were recorded at the same time. Conceptually, they represent the two different aspects of Moonspell. Alpha Noir is more Black Metal influenced, and Omega White is more Goth Rock influenced. Though you’re not going to see this often, I liked the concept. It gives you the option of not listening to the Sisters of Mercy/Bauhaus-influenced stuff and just listen to the Metal songs (or vice-versa). If you were a fan of their previous album, Night Eternal, you will enjoy Alpha Noir. The two albums are fairly similar in style and the amount of aggression and dark atmosphere is similar. One notable difference between Alpha Noir and Night Eternal is the amount of keyboards that are used. Alpha Noir is far more guitar-driven. While it is still atmospheric, it uses guitar harmonics and strategically placed keyboard parts rather than an ever-present and powerful keyboard section. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Omega White, the Goth Rock inspired album. Whether you like Omega White or not depends on your feelings regarding their older material. If you liked albums such as The Antidote or Darkness and Hope, you’ll probably enjoy Omega White, too. While the production on Omega White is the same as on Alpha Noir, the difference in sound is easily noticeable. Where Alpha Noir is more aggressive and dark, Omega White has a strong Goth vibe. If Sisters of Mercy or Love Like Blood decided to do a Metal album, it would sound a lot like Omega White. The songs are markedly mellower and the vocals are more melodic compared to Alpha Noir. The music is also more accessible. There are some strong hook-laden tracks on Omega White that stick in your head long after the CD stops playing. My personal preference was for the darker, more aggressive material, but I found myself enjoying the Goth Rock stuff almost as much. I’ve followed this band for a long time and though they lost their way for a while, Moonspell is definitely back on track.

Though this band was formed in 2008, Monuments of Doom Revealed is their first official release. Prior to this, their musical output was composed of rehearsal recordings and a 2010 promo recording. I had initially thought that this band was going to be either straight-forward Black Metal or maybe a Doom band, a quick glance at the names of the band members told me all I needed to know about them. Face it, when you have band members with names like “Deathpriest Goatcommander of Black Abyss and Morbid Bestiality” and “Gasmasked Flagellant of the Innocent,” Blasphemy and Beherit played a major role in your Black Metal upbringing. In this case, Blasphemy looms large. Monuments of Doom Revealed is brutal and in your face Black/Death Metal from the beginning of the first actual song to the end of the last track. Once you get past the intro, it’s essentially a musical beat-down with pauses in between tracks. Unlike other bands in this genre, the production on this album is fairly good while still maintaining the brutal onslaught. Thorybos has that “wall of sound” style, but things are still discernible. You can tell that these guys are actually playing riffs and there is some substantive music underneath the distortion. Fans of Blasphemy, Black Witchery and Deiphago will probably find Monuments of Doom Revealed to be right up their alley. While I’m not a huge fan of the Blasphemy-influenced Black/Death Metal style, I appreciate it when a band remembers to kick ass and this certainly does that in spades.

Something tells me that Totenwolf is NSBM. There isn’t a whole lot of information available about this band out there, so I could be wrong. This is one of those rare cases when the internet is absolutely useless when researching a band, and most of the sources that I usually use to get info were lacking in details. Here is what I know about Totenwolf: they’re from Russia and this is their second album. That’s it. They have a website on MySpace, but it is blocked to everyone not listed as a “friend” of the band. Every site that had anything about the band was entirely in Russian, and the various translation utilities (Google & Bing) were pretty useless. The fact that they’re blocking access to their site tells me that they’re being deliberately secretive, which is a hallmark of an NSBM band. Regardless of how popular groups like the Golden Dawn party are getting, most countries still have a problem with Nazism. The band name is a not so subtle hint, as is the fact that they have songs with titles like “Werewolf” and “Post Holocaust Night.” Still, nothing about this band is blatantly NS. Politics aside, Totenwolf is a cut above the average Black Metal band. The production here is very good. No instrument is overly loud and there is plenty of punch in the guitars. Musically, the songs are mostly mid-paced melodic Black Metal, but Totenwolf knows how to slow down and get heavy. The strongest parts of Night Path of Pest are the Doom-infused sections. These guys know how to work a Doomy groove into their music. This is helped by the production. A Necro production would have killed this album right from the start. The fact that there is more bottom-end in the guitars made parts of Night Path of Pest pretty punishing, which is always a good thing. Regardless of their political leanings, this group is a force to be reckoned with. Their relative obscurity may keep them a cult band, but if you’re willing to track them down, this is one of those rare releases that makes taking a chance on an unknown band worthwhile.

This is one of those bands that I’ve always had trouble keeping track of. Their releases were invariably hard to get, mostly because Khors had been tagged as Nazis at some point. The band maintains that they are non-political, but their early releases were on Oriana Music, the label of Nokturnal Mortum. Once Nokturnal Mortum came out as being NS, every other band on that label was considered NS too. Khors has evolved quite a bit over the years, honing their sound from their early Emperor/Graveland worship with Folk elements, to a more solid Atmospheric Black Metal sound. I’ve seen quite a number of negative reviews concerning this album, centering mostly around the fact that longtime fans thought their last album was better. The other complaints I heard about this record related to the length (it was too short), and to the fact that there are only four actual songs out of the eight tracks on this CD. Four of the tracks are atmospheric interludes and are generally quite short (between one and a half and three minutes). The actual songs are pretty epic in length, being between six and nine minutes each. Reviewed in a vacuum, this album is actually pretty good. The music is dark, melancholic and has a ton of atmosphere. The playing is tight and the sound on Wisdom of Centuries is very clear. Given what I’m hearing, I have a hard time believing that this band’s last album was actually better than this. I haven’t heard it yet, so that may indeed be the case here. Still, I wouldn’t call this a dud. The songs are well written and well played. This isn’t Khors releasing the equivalent of St. Anger by a long shot. This is a solid Atmospheric Black Metal album written and played by a band that knows what they’re doing. Some fans might be disappointed, but I really enjoyed Wisdom of Centuries.

I’ve been a fan of Sodom for almost three decades, starting with a cassette tape of In the Sign of Evil that I scored for three bucks at a used record store in 1985. In the Sign of Evil is one of those releases that I look back on as having had a profound impact on my life. The early albums by Sodom still get a significant amount of rotation on my stereo even to this day. A side note: as much as I love this band’s music, I refuse to refer to myself as a “Sodomaniac.” I live in San Francisco. The term “Sodomaniac” has different connotations here. 30 Years Sodomized: 1982 - 2012 is a three-CD retrospective that celebrates their three decades of existence. Like all retrospectives, it’s a mixed bag. The first CD is an assortment of live tracks that comprise “The Witchhunter Decade,” which featured Chris Witchhunter on drums. Of the three CDs in this collection, this is the reason to purchase this retrospective. All of the other tracks are otherwise available on other releases, but these live tracks have never been officially released. These are different from Mortal Way of Live and the other live tracks that Sodom has released over the years, so you’re getting something new. Sadly, the purchase price of this collection and the quality of the live material may not be worth it to all but the most die-hard Sodom fans. Due to the age and quality of the recordings, the sound on the bulk of the live tracks is pretty bad compared to a professionally recorded live album. The live songs are from various different concerts so there is little consistency between tracks. Some of them sound good, with nice, loud guitars, and others are mediocre and have guitars that are barely audible. You never know what you’re going to get from one song to the next. If you want consistency, you have to move on to the CDs that have the studio cuts on them. The second disc in this collection covers the early years, and the third one is full of newer material. There is a lot of stuff here to listen to and because it is a retrospective, it covers all eras of this band’s history. My only major gripe is the track selection. Some of Sodom’s best songs are missing. Where are “Bombenhagel” and “Blasphemer”? Where is “Ausgebombt” or “Agent Orange” or “Equinox”? I know there isn’t room for everything, but come on! Why have a bunch of mediocre tracks when you can have the hits? That’s like Motorhead doing a retrospective and leaving off “Iron Fist” and “Ace of Spades.” As a fan of Sodom, I can’t recommend this because the song selection leaves me wanting, and the live material isn’t enough to get me to open my wallet and shell out any hard earned cash. I have all of their old stuff already, and Mortal Way of Live has both consistency and a good selection of songs, something that this release doesn’t.

I don’t know what it is about Russian bands and their desire to remain obscure. I tried to research this group, and outside of the facts that this is their debut album and they’re from Russia, I know little else about them. They have no website, the label (BDTO) has no website, and the label distributing the album (Daemon Worship) has an advertising blurb describing the release in terms so vague that you get the impression that they don’t know anything about the band either. I checked several internet sources and I couldn’t find out who was in the band, how long they’ve been together, or even if this is a continuing band or a one-off project. Kostnitsa may have some connection to another Russian Black Metal band called Funeral Poetry, but my evidence for it is circumstantial. BDTO only has two bands on their roster (Funeral Poetry and Kostnitsa), and I’m guessing that one of the band members owns the label. Musically, this is on the Doomy side of Black Metal, reminiscent in sound to bands like Wallachia or old Katatonia. The tempo is slow to mid-paced, and the emphasis on melancholic atmosphere is evident. The guitars have some reverb on them and they are backed by occasional keyboards to enhance the mood. Kostnitsa is pretty consistently able to capture that dark, melancholic feeling in each of their songs without having them sounding too much alike. The pacing is pretty steady, never getting ploddingly slow or fast enough to ruin the atmospheric element. The use of the raspy Black Metal style vocals in conjunction with Death Metal style growls is another element that enhances their sound. The standard raspy Black Metal style vocals tend to get a little monotonous, and the inclusion of alternate vocal styles helps break this up nicely. If you’re into atmospheric Black Metal in the more Doom oriented style (slower playing, more melancholic sound, but not in the whiny Goth style), this is well worth tracking down.

In marketing, we refer to an album like this as an easy sale. Why is it an easy sale? Because it has everything that you could want in one package. Old-school Swedish Death Metal with lyrics about Cthulhu? It practically sells itself. I was sold at “Cthulhu.” Cthulhu makes everything cooler just because he is that fucking awesome. I would stop saying that the Twilight movies/books/everything are gay, if at the very end of the saga, Cthulhu rises from the depths and devours everyone in an orgy of blood, violence, tentacles and insanity. That is the level of awesomeness that Cthulhu has. If he can’t save your album, you really, really, really fucking suck. Puteraeon doesn’t have a problem with sucking. If you worship at the altar of Dismember, old Entombed, Grotesque, Carnage and Unleashed, you’ll like this record. Cult Cthulhu is like a more melodic version of Like an Ever Flowing Stream. It has the dark, brutal atmosphere and punishing riffs down pat. Is it horribly original? You could’ve told me that this album was a lost studio recording of Dismember that had been sitting in a storage room at Sunlight Studios since 1990 and I would’ve believed it. This definitely has that old Sunlight Studios sound. While originality isn’t their strong point, the amount of brutality and ass-kicking on this album puts Puteraeon over the top in my book. The Cthulhu stuff is a bonus.

Graveflower hails from Russia, but they may as well be from Halifax, England. Why Halifax? Because that’s where My Dying Bride is from. Why do I say this? Because Graveflower sounds exactly like them. I kept thinking that I had the wrong album on because I could swear that Returning to the Primary Source was The Angel and the Dark River or The Light at the End of the World. I mean this literally. The music and vocals are so much like My Dying Bride that Graveflower should be sending royalty checks to them. I’ve heard tribute bands that sound more original than this. As much as I like the music that’s on this album, I’m going to have to rake Graveflower over the coals for essentially ripping off someone else’s sound. I remember the days when every other Florida Death Metal band sounded like Morbid Angel, but at least you could tell that it wasn’t Morbid Angel on the album. This sounds so much like My Dying Bride that you could literally fool a hardcore fan. Returning to the Primary Source goes beyond being influenced by a band and into the realms of copyright infringement. If this had been a My Dying Bride album, it would have been at least a nine because musically, this is some good stuff. The reason it isn’t a nine is because everything on this CD is literally indistinguishable from My Dying Bride. I couldn’t give this a one because the playing is too good, but I can’t give this more than a five in good conscience.

I don’t know what the title of this one-song EP translates to exactly. I checked metal-archives.com and they had the translation as “the phoenix will be dead,” but other places have it translated differently (“the phoenix must die” or “death of the phoenix”). Tomb hails from mainland China, and their music can be best described as Depressive Black Metal with a Necro Black Metal production. The guitars are very thin and treble-heavy, which is a hallmark of the whole “we sucked all of the warmth from our guitars because we’re so anti-life” Necro movement. I’m not a fan of this kind of production, but in the case of Tomb, I’m going to make somewhat of an exception. This EP is pretty good. I think the atmospheric elements are what make it work, almost in spite of the production. The abundant use of acoustic guitar to add atmosphere with keyboards in the background makes this far more listenable than it would have been had it been straight Necro Black Metal with no frills. Without that eerie atmosphere, this would be just another generic Under the Sign of the Black Mark-worshipping Bathory clone with shit production. The Ambient interludes seem to divide this twenty-three minute long track into roughly three parts. I’ve heard that this EP was actually supposed to be two distinct songs, but information on the internet is conflicting regarding this, too. I guess the lack of information regarding Tomb and this EP stems from the fact that I can’t read Chinese and most of the other people putting information about this out there don’t know how to read Chinese, either. That aside, I’m interested in hearing more from this band. They have an interesting sound and though the production here leaves something to be desired, the material they had on display was good enough for me to add them to my watch list of bands that have some serious potential.