Female-fronted Power Metal bands seem to automatically make me think of Nightwish - and for good reason. The vast majority of them sound like a variation on the Nightwish theme. Edenbridge is like a more symphonic version, mixing soaring female vocals with orchestral arrangements, while still retaining much of Power Metal’s conventions. In terms of vocal performance, Sabine Edelsbacher is top notch. Her delivery is on-point and shows a surprisingly broad range. If it came down to it, she can match power and range with the best in the scene. What brings The Bonding down isn’t the singing, though. It’s the music. The symphonic keyboards that could have made this LP powerful and bombastic are buried behind the guitars, which are relegated to “barely there” status most of the time. The riffs are bland and lacking in punch. For a symphonic band, they were remarkably passive in their delivery, which effectively neutered the music’s impact. Nothing on here reached out and grabbed me by the throat and commanded my attention. There were occasional flashes of greatness, but as a whole, the overall lack of enthusiasm pulled this down.

Former Misfits vocalist Michale Graves is back again with his first Horror Punk LP in quite a while. He’s done other things since he split with the Misfits, but none of it was in this particular style. Not surprisingly, this sounds a lot like a post-Danzig Misfits record. Lost Skeleton Returns is pretty rocking for the most part. The songs are energetic in that old Ramones kind of way, using upbeat drumming and simplistic riffs to craft memorable hooks, and by extension, songs that are generally fun to listen to. If there’s one fatal flaw in this album’s armor, it’s that it sounds so much like the Misfits. Half of the songs on Lost Skeleton Returns are re-recordings of Graves-era Misfits tracks, and the new material all has the same vibe. Honestly, unless you knew that the song was new, you might think it was another cover. That was the only real issue I had with this and I think it’s pretty significant. This kind of lands in a strange area where I can’t really fault Graves for sounding like the Misfits because he spent so much time with them, but I also wish he would have taken the sound and put a new twist on it. Lost Skeleton Returns is an entertaining LP that doesn’t go anywhere you haven’t been before. I imagine that all of the songs go down great live. If I found out that Michale Graves was playing at a local club, I would definitely check it out because I know that I’d have a blast, given what’s here. If you don’t mind the unoriginality and you want some good, old-fashioned Punk Rock, Lost Skeleton Returns delivers. Just don’t go in expecting something new and different because that’s not on the menu.

This band’s last LP, Germany’s Next Death Metal, got some of the worst reviews I’ve ever seen. When I read reviews that bad, my morbid curiosity got the best of me and I had to check this out. Let me begin by saying that the production on this LP is really, really good. Sadly, that’s about all I can say about this that is positive. Debauchery is what happens when you try to mix Los Angeles Butt Rock with Death Metal. The music on Kings of Carnage sounds like a combination of AC/DC, Motley Crue, the worst W.A.S.P. LP (Helldorado, maybe?) and some generic as all fucking hell Death Metal band (the band most people compare this to is Six Feet Under). Imagine if Poison wrote an album with “I rape your mom with a chainsaw” lyrics and a Death Metal vocalist and you wouldn’t be too far off from what Debauchery sounds like. And the lyrics… This shit makes “Devil Pig” by Von sound like fucking Shakespeare. Don’t believe me? Here’s a snippet from the song “Let There Be Blood” for your reading pleasure:
“Let there be war
Let there be gore
Let there be guts
Let there be blood

Kill kill motherfucking hate
Kill kill motherfucking war
Kill kill motherfucking bloodshed
Kill kill nothing left to rot”
I wrote better lyrics than that when I was in middle school. The only thing that would save this LP from total mockery would be if this was sold as an obvious joke band. If Debauchery was known for having a Gwar-like stage show and over the top imagery, I could see how this would have some appeal, but sadly, this isn’t the case. I’ve heard people compare this band to Dethklok, but the main difference is that Dethklok is a fake band from a fucking cartoon parody of Death Metal (Metalocalypse) and Debauchery is a real band. Unless you’re a secret fan of Ratt and Bon Jovi, I doubt that this will appeal to you. Some things are better off not being incorporated into the Metal sound and Butt Rock is one of them. This LP is proof of that.

After the last half-dozen let’s say less-than-stellar albums, I was about ready to give up on Deicide. It seems insane to type that now that I’ve heard In the Minds of Evil, but the band was already going downhill before the Hoffman brothers left, nearly a decade ago, and not even the legendary Jack Owen (ex-Cannibal Corpse) could get things back on track. Glen Benton and company seemed lost, adrift. I can only assume that Kevin Quirion (Order of Ennead, Shadow Society, ex-Council of the Fallen) finally joining as the official second guitarist, and helping with the songwriting for this new LP, is what reignited the black flame. Imagine the best parts of the first four Deicide records (which obviously does not include 1993’s demo compilation Amon: Feasting the Beast). The intensity of Legion, the catchiest bits of Once Upon the Cross and Serpents of the Light, the Thrashy supremacy of the self-titled debut. It’s all here, wrapped in an utterly flawless production, along with Benton’s best vocal performance ever. He sounds furiously reenergized, with an impeccable balance between rawness and understandability. And when he screams “Suuuuuf - feeeeer - riiiiing” about half-way through “Kill the Light of Christ,” you will feel his pain. The drumming, the riffs, even the guitar solos - all masterfully constructed and executed beyond words to describe. The first time I listened to this, the opening sample (“Some men just want to watch the world burn.”) immediately caught my attention because I’m a big Batman fan (apparently not the only one, although perhaps Benton identifies more with the Joker), and then the first song, the title track, started and I sat here, awestruck for 37 minutes, pausing only to think “holy hell, Deicide is back!” before hitting “play” again to scream along this time while violently torturing my neck. Six hundred three-score and six listens later and it just keeps getting better. Perhaps it’s a ballsy proclamation with a month to go in 2013, but In the Minds of Evil is easily the Death Metal album of the year (with all respect to Brutality for having the EP of the year), and a stunning example of musical perfection. Open the vaults!

For any long time Death Metal/Grindcore fan the first thing that should come to mind when you hear the words War Master is Bolt Thrower’s classic 1991 album. I’ve been a fan of War Master since their first demo, Chapel of the Apocalypse, was released in 2009. What was my reason for checking them out? Simply their name, and I have not been disappointed since! Blood Dawn is a 4-song EP that moves through the battlefield of trendy Death Metal like Achilles through the Trojan army. From the opening song, “Bastard Hordes,” to the closing track, “Immortalized in Sacred Flame,” your head will bang. Next thing you know, you’ll find yourself hitting repeat. The riffs are simple and powerful with just the right amount of “dirtiness” (think Prophecy of Doom). This isn’t to say the production is muddled, because it sounds as good as anything Colin Richardson did back in the day. The vocals of Rahi Geramifar (ex-Insect Warfare) are totally in the style of Jorgen Sandstrom from Grave’s You’ll Never See…. The drumming by newcomer Jon West is executed perfectly, just like Andrew Whale. The crusade for perfection has been achieved and I hope it is not short-lived. Now when I hear the words War Master my brain is impaled on a spearhead because I’m thinking of too much at once.

This is the first full-length release by Doncaster, UK’s Damnation Angels, the follow-up to 2009’s Shadow Symphony EP. When I first heard about them, I thought that this would be more in line with Symphonic Power Metal bands like Rhapsody of Fire or Stratovarius, but the music here is closer to the likes of Nightwish or maybe Kamelot. It’s still kind of symphonic in style, but I wouldn’t call it strictly “Symphonic Power Metal” because there’s a substantial amount of Gothic atmosphere on Bringer of Light that you don’t find on LPs by Stratovarius. For me, the inclusion of the Goth sound to their music gives them a darker feel. Power Metal tends to be far more upbeat than this, and I like the more melancholic, depressive edge that Damnation Angels has. They even manage to turn a cover of Metallica’s “No Leaf Clover” into something dark and atmospheric. The only track that felt out of place was “Pride (The Warrior’s Way),” mostly because unlike the other tracks, it has an Asian influence. The problem with that song is that the Gothic atmosphere that the band built up is lost and replaced by something completely different. It breaks up the flow of the album in a way that’s disruptive. It also prevents a good record from being great. A great album is one that flows well and each song feels like it belongs there, exactly in the spot it’s placed on the tracklist. By itself, the song “Pride (The Warrior’s Way)” is solid with no real flaws. It just doesn’t work on this album. The style and sound aren’t suited for the atmosphere that Damnation Angels built up throughout the course of nine songs. Still, this is an impressive debut LP. Producing a great album is a rare thing. Few bands can ever accomplish it. These guys came awful close. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for their next release based on what’s here.

Lycus is a 4-piece Funeral Doom/Death Metal band from Oakland, California (they were originally from Sacramento but the two main members relocated to the Bay Area). I heard about these guys a while back, but they were one of the many local bands I always wanted to check out but never got a chance to. Some friends compared them to Doom/Death heavyweights Asunder, so I was curious to hear them. Listening to Tempest, I have to say that my friends were right to compare them to Asunder. They’re definitely as heavy as Asunder and they do have a similarly depressive, sorrowful atmosphere about them, both of which are always good things in my book. I like my Funeral Doom heavy on the despondent feelings, and Lycus delivers that by the metric ton, slowly crushing you under the weight of Tempest’s brutal guitar tone. The only part of this LP that I thought didn’t fit was a segment in the title track. Things start out in a dark and depressing way, but around five minutes in, the band kicks the speed up considerably, breaking up the otherwise solid air of nihilistic depression. I thought it was a bit odd that they did that because there seemed to be no real reason for them to abruptly change the tempo, especially to a speed that breaks up the carefully constructed atmosphere. After about two minutes of blasting away, the band returns to their dark and atmospheric ways and the song goes back to dragging you down to Hell inch by harrowing inch. Another detraction was the rather overly long Ambient outro segment that comprises the last five or so minutes of the song “Tempest.” It had a nice atmosphere, but when you consider that this segment really didn’t go anywhere, it could have ended after a minute or so and it would have had essentially the same effect. This was still an impressive debut album, though. There are some kinks that Lycus has to work out in their songs, but they’re on the right track. They’re a band to look out for, and with Asunder broken up, there’s a vacancy in the Bay Area’s Doom/Death Metal subset that needs to be filled. I think that Lycus could be the band to replace them.

Oregon’s Nuwisha refer to themselves as “Cascadian Grey Metal,” though I imagine that even the members of the band will admit that this LP isn’t very Metal. The overwhelming bulk of Solitary Are the Winter Woods is acoustic guitar and clean vocals. The music on this LP has far more in common with Neo-Folk bands like Death in June, Sol Invictus or The Soil Bleeds Black than anything Bathory or Venom ever wrote. That being said, Nuwisha shares the downside of Neo-Folk as well. The music lacks passion, and most of the acoustic stuff seems flat and empty. The band tries to spice things up by occasionally going into more Black Metal styled songs with distorted electric guitar and raspy vocals. During those parts, the tempo dramatically increases and the songs liven up a bit, but these moments are spread a bit too far apart for my liking. Just when you think things are getting good, the tempo drops and the songs go back into the Neo-Folk doldrums where you languish in boredom until the next pseudo-Black Metal song comes on. Fellow Cascadians Echtra and Faun have pretty much pushed the acoustic guitar-heavy Black Metal style as far as it’ll go before it stops being Metal and starts becoming something else entirely. I think Nuwisha would find a more receptive audience in the Neo-Folk scene because that’s the direction they seem to be headed in already, and the Black Metal influences they bring into their music are few and far between. I’m not a huge fan of Death in June or Sol Invictus, but folks who are will probably enjoy this LP far more than I did. It’s just too passive for my taste. I can only listen to a two-man acoustic jam session for so long before I get bored and I start rooting through my collection for something more brutal and aggressive.

People who know me will firmly attest to the fact that I’m a huge Japanophile. I love stuff from Japan, be it anime, manga, kaiju movies, music, or pretty much anything else. When a band like Destrose comes along, I look at it as something of a bonus. It’s Metal and it’s Japanese, two things I happen to like a lot. This group was formed back in 2005, but this is their first full-length LP. One thing I noticed about them was that their earlier material (mostly singles and videos) seemed to showcase the band’s look rather than their music. Destrose is an all-girl band, and like other all-girl groups, their image is a big part of their marketability. In typical Japanese fashion, all of the girls are decked out in frilly Goth-Loli outfits (it’s like a combination of Goth Chick and Slutty French Maid, for those who have never seen the look before) and though they aren’t as outrageous as some bands I’ve seen, it still appears kind of humorous. Musically, Destrose is a bit on the Power Metal side, but not overly so. It’s more in line with traditional Heavy Metal in style. It’s some rocking stuff that gets your head banging almost right away and it keeps you engaged all the way through. The main attraction is vocalist Marina, who must have some seriously good lungs because she really has a powerful voice. She occasionally drowns out the other members, but for the most part, this doesn’t dull their impact. Guitarists Narumi and Mina are solid shredders, delivering some potent riffing that doesn’t get too technical or too flashy. I liked this LP a lot, mostly because it sounded like the ladies in Destrose gave it 100% and their energy showed through, especially in the vocals. I really want to see this band live because if they sound half this good on stage, I’ll be spending the next decade in a neck brace. If you like good Heavy Metal and don’t mind the fact that the singing is in Japanese, this is a band to look out for.