I love Emmure and don’t care who knows it. It doesn’t matter how they or their Tween Wave fan base dress, these guys hit harder than Mike Tyson in his prime. It isn’t all studio magic either. I saw this band detonate a Mishawaka VFW hall in front of 100 kids like they were playing Wacken. So, since disliking a band for reasons outside of music and lyrics is poserific, you’ll have to forgive me for being looked down upon by the internet-dwelling virgins and bitter, dwindling fossils that comprise Metal’s supposed intellectual elite. My tirade aside, I’m a little shocked to see a new album so soon with the barely year-old Speaker of the Dead still a fixture in my rotation. What’s equally puzzling is that Slave to the Game is slightly different in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. From the swirling Bury Your Dead-style riffs that open “Protoman,” it’s immediately clear that there is no drastic style change. They still employ the breakdown like it never went out of style, and Frankie Palmeri still has the bestial roar from Hell to offset his psycho-babble, yet amidst the endless flow of bottom-heavy brute force and kamikaze pinch harmonics, there’s an undeniable autopilot vibe. I’m not saying it’s phoned in (although I haven’t ruled out it being rushed), but there’s a worrisome lack of standout moments. All Emmure albums are short, but this one’s over before you know it, with little if anything remembered. The exception being “Poltergeist.” A mid-album segue that is inexplicably a prayer set to background noise. With all their rampant profanity, misogyny, and overall Negativity-worship, I wouldn’t think these guys to be Jesus fags, but then again, today’s modern Christ-fuckers tend to make up the rules as they go, so you never know. I do hope it’s some kind of joke or obscure reference —nearly all the song titles are nods to Marvel Comics and video games— and not the dreaded closet exodus. Either way it’s the first track on an Emmure record I’ve had to skip over in a long time.

This album might have been good but for two things. The first is that the drums are far, far, too loud. They drown out the guitars to the point where all you hear is snare drum. The second thing that hinders this album is the fact that the songs, especially the first six tracks, are far too long. When you’re playing War Metal in the Blasphemy / Bestial Warlust style, the best formulation for a song is short and sweet. You hit fast and hard, musically speaking. An eight-minute War Metal song is four and a half minutes too fucking long. When you put the two downsides together, you get an album that drags on far longer than it should. The drumming is repetitive and since it drowns out the guitars most of the time, it makes the songs repetitive by default. The only time you can really hear the guitars clearly is when the drummer stops riding the snare for a moment, something that only happens for a short while in each song. This album doesn’t totally suck, but the downsides make it very hard to listen to all the way through. The strongest element on Ravage & Conquer is the guitar soloing. There are some really sick solos on this album. I mean, they just shred. I’m not a big fan of guitar solos (or guitar wankery in general) but the soloing here made me sit up and take notice. They don’t save the album but they do keep it from entering “absolute crap” territory. I can forgive the longer songs if they are interesting. I could see where they tried to inject some additional soloing and changes to spice things up, but the overly loud snare drum killed it. I don’t care how much your drummer whines about his shit getting buried. Metalheads like guitars. If we wanted to hear drumming, we’d listen to Rap. Turn the fucking snare down and turn up the guitars!

When Jack, a devoted worshipper of this band’s legendary first two albums (and who isn’t?), declined to review The Giant, I should have known to just never listen to it. I am saddened and infuriated and my ears cry out for justice. First off, I thought that Ahab was Funeral Doom, not slow-motion Prog Rock with occasionally raw vocals and guitar distortion. There are a few moments here that are passable —nothing fucking awesome, however, nor anywhere close to it— but even those are soon desecrated by ridiculous vocals I have heard described as both “Yoda” and “Kermit.” Suffice to say that they are Muppety. I have no idea why Ahab, or any other band, would want to juxtapose the heavy shit on this album with all the fruity Prog flaccidity. No, wait, I do have an idea. A horrible idea that I hope is wrong, but am sure is not. I think that these now-pussified nautical numb-Krauts would like to abandon the heaviness altogether, and go totally Prog, likely while eating diet pudding and discussing how to incorporate Sex and the City plotlines into their lyrics, but were afraid to change that much at once. So, this album isn’t just a disastrous, mind-numbing waste of time, it’s also completely chickenshit.

This Italian gloom mob completely blew me away with their masterful debut LP, Days of Nothing. In fact, only their countrymates in Novembre can lay claim to releasing a better full-length in 2007. Three years later the follow up came in the form of Oionos, an album so disappointing by comparison that I still mockingly refer to it as Onions. It had its moments, but “sophomore slump” remains a fair assessment. That said, Second World looks poised to be the make-or-break moment for this band (cue bassline from “Under Pressure”). Well, I’m tickled as shit to report that, for the most part, Second World is a glorious rebound. The Foreshadowing’s otherworldly magic lies somewhere between the romanticized solace of The Angel and the Dark River and the frail beauty of Discouraged Ones. Rarefied air to say the least. The keyboards occasionally add a modernized Gothic tint and Jonah Padella is a bonafide down-tempo drum god, but it’s the deep croon of Marco Benevento —try to imagine Rick Astley but dark, brooding, and Roman… and heterosexual— that always steals the show. The band revels in absolute perfection throughout the first six tracks of Second World. From the mournful waves of “Havoc” to the Katatonic hypnosis of “Ground Zero,” Benevento tattoos each chorus so deep into your brain that you’ll be singing them the second you wake up in the morning. It’s that good! But don’t take my word for it. Dan Swano himself called this album one of the best he’s ever mixed, and that’s saying a little something. If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that the record doesn’t finish very well. The last four songs fizzle in unmemorable fashion, but let’s not pretend all of our favorite vinyls always get flipped over. Essential nevertheless.

Crust Punk doesn’t have a lot of moving parts. It’s fully charged and ready to go, but almost confined by its straightforwardness and simplicity. To separate yourself from the pack in this genre, you’ve got to have the right sound, the right chemistry, the right energy in the studio and on stage, and no lack of passion. That’s why you only need a couple hands… maybe one foot… to count the really good Crust bands. Sweden’s Wolfbrigade are near the top of that short list. Formerly known as Wolfpack, classics like A New Dawn Fades, Lycanthro Punk, and Allday Hell are standard-bearers in this league. Sadly, it seemed as though after they changed their name and released the solid Progression/Regression, they fell off the face of the Earth. While their last two records sounded a bit phoned in, there seems to be a healthy buzz surrounding Damned, their Southern Lord debut. And justifiably so, as it’s immediately clear from the moment you press play that Wolfbrigade is back in full force and possibly better than ever. Not so much a return to form as it is a return to focus, Damned sizzles with urgency and tension. What’s always made them stand out for me is their inclination towards misery and despair, and there’s no shortage of that here. With a thick coating of bleak hopelessness, these guys get more mileage out of the D-beat than most. There’s something magical about sadness at full speed. When Motorhead and Negativity are worshipped simultaneously, everybody wins. Every song rages with primal ferocity, every song is complimented by grim melodic genius, every song is a winner. Unafraid to switch up the tempo throughout, even when the band really slow it down on “Ride the Steel,” they’re unstoppable. Quite frankly, this is the band’s most accomplished, most diverse, most dynamic, and (likely no coincidence) most Metallic work to date. Flawless!

Johnny Hedlund may disagree with our Punk idea, but by the sound of album #11 opener “Fimbulwinter,” he’s completely open to the whole Black Metal thing. Jokes aside, I hate to be the guy who pulls his dick out in front of the kids at the wedding reception, but I’m getting a little sick of all the press I’ve read on Odalheim. Everyone and their gay dad is proclaiming with stern conviction that this is by so far and away the greatest album of the Swedeath horde’s legendary career. One deaf homosexual called it, “Without question, as close as Unleashed have ever come to producing the perfect album.” Even Johnny himself has declared that his band has “never sounded so good.” I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. All bands say that, a few of them actually mean it, but in the case of this sacred legacy, I beg to differ. Yes, Odalheim is stylistically adventurous, their speediest work to date, as technically advanced as they’ve ever been, undoubtedly the best sounding production they’ve ever achieved, and Hedlund’s trademark vokills never seem to age. But compared to the unholy trinity that is their first three albums, this is like going to the fucking circus. It’s not a horrible album, this band is incapable of making a truly horrible album. Sure, there’s a couple clunkers in the discography, but phoned-in Unleashed beats the tar piss out of Gojira, or Deathspell Omega, or whatever fags like. That said, Odalheim is easily my least favorite. When the mood strikes and I reach for Unleashed, it isn’t blast beats, eight guitar solos per song, lush intros, and extravagantly layered, ultra-melodic structures I’m craving. I want Death fucking Metal the Unleashed way! I want the dark one to fucking smile! The only good time you’ll have with this stinker is by taking a shot every time Hedlund name-drops an Unleashed album title in a song. Believe me, you and your friends will be one hammered battalion. A severe letdown.

When you see the name “Wino” on anything, it generally means two things: it’s Doom and it’s heavy as shit. That was why I was surprised to hear this album. Wino’s partnership with Conny Ochs has produced an album that is essentially American Folk or acoustic Country music. It’s all acoustic guitars and clean vocals - which doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad. It doesn’t completely suck, but it’s not Metal by any stretch of the imagination. It’s like listening to an album full of acoustic interludes that should have gone in between heavy-as-all-fucking-hell Doom songs. That being said, what this album was seriously lacking was the heavy-as-all-fucking-hell Doom songs. I kept waiting for things to get heavy and punishing. Sadly, it never happened. This is a two-man acoustical jam that’s one cowboy hat away from being a Billy Ray Cyrus album. The worst part about listening to this is that you unconsciously want a Doom song to break out at some point, and not getting one just gets frustrating. If you have a collection of real Doom tracks that feature Wino (St. Vitus, Spirit Caravan, The Obsessed, etc.), you can intersperse these songs between them on a playlist and things work out. Without the Doom tracks, this just doesn’t do anything for me. It’s unadventurous, bland and worst of all, this isn’t even remotely heavy. My recommendation is that you pass on this one and wait for a true Doom project (or, better yet, a new St. Vitus album) instead.

Wow! Now this is a package! To celebrate their 10-year anniversary, the Swedeath powerhouse have released a colossal, 39-track double disc filled to the brim with extra shit. So much to cover here, none more important than the actual new album. The Kult of the Pneumatic Killrod shows Rogga & Co. evolving a bit towards Death ‘n’ Roll territory a la Entombed’s career path. I can’t say I’m surprised or all that disappointed, really. The fact is, these guys (and the very similar-sounding Paganizer while we’re at it) have essentially been putting out the same kick ass OSSDM album over and over again for a very long time. So much so that no one here at the MC camp could muster more than 3 sentences for last year’s The Van Murders. That said, trying a few new things couldn’t hurt, and a few new things we have on our plate. “Nocturnal Manslaughter” kicks things off with mid-paced, fist-pumping groove Wolverine Blues-style. Fear not, Rogga’s guttural pipes sound as bestial and demented as ever, even on the “oh yeah!” “Hunted by the Dead (Haunted by the Living)” has a bit of a Crust/Punk edge amongst its sleazy hooks, “Into the Filth” rides a galloping Thrash-tastic riff to glory, and “Flesh Psycho” proves you can make a lethal Death Metal jam out of the “Breaking the Law” riff. “The Hegemony of the Hammer” might be the LP’s most memorable highlight, as Stoner dirges mingle with melancholic melodies. I wouldn’t say they’ve “fixed” anything as nothing was broken, but they have breathed some new life into their trusty sound and ultimately made a record you can tell apart from the rest. Up next there’s the Serenity in Obscenity EP. Recorded in 2005 and, much to my disappointment, never released. Upon finally hearing it in its entirety, I’ve no idea why it never saw the light of day until now. Maybe not the production they’d hoped for, but musically as savage as ever. Disc One closes out with the Vicar Mortis EP —for a pure Swedeath anthem, look no further than “The Day It All Ended”— and The Monolith EP, the latter of which showcasing the band in ultra-raw, almost Sludge-like form. Disc Two is comprised of the Bolted to the Cross and Congregating the Sick LPs. The first two Ribspreader albums I ever heard and still to this day my all-time favorites, both on one disc for our maximum homicidal pleasure. What a band, what a package, what a tough review to assign a rating to. Let’s bust out the scientific calculator…

If you like your Black Metal as out of control as humanly possible without it degenerating into noise, behold your new gods. I remember that Blasphemy was once considered “Black Grind,” but that title is more appropriately bestowed on this album. As wild and crazy as Blasphemy was, Revenge is even more out of control. This is as much a Grind album as it is Black Metal. I’m not a huge fan of Grindcore but this is down there with Carcass (Reek of Putrefaction-era) in terms of how filthy and brutal it is. You have to listen to this a couple of times before you appreciate how ugly and disgusting Scum.Collapse.Eradication sounds. This is the musical equivalent of chucking someone into a wood chipper with the audio of Donald Duck being gang-raped as the vocals. If I could make one change, though, I would lower the level of the snare drum. There are times when the only things you really hear are the snare and the vocals, with the guitars incoherent rumblings in the background. A case can be made that the snare drum being as loud as it is lends to the chaos. If you like everything chaotic as all fucking hell, then I guess it works. Personally, I find all the lack of structure a bit too much for an album of this length. I’m not a Grind fan so I like the songs to have more structure and more order, but that’s a personal preference. If you like early Carcass and Blasphemy, this is surely an album you’ll appreciate.