While listening to this, I was struck by that “I’ve heard this somewhere before” feeling. You know, where you hear a riff, but you’re not sure just where else you heard it? Then, about midway through the first track, it hit me. This was Von’s Satanic Blood album at double the speed. The riffing is that simplistic and the main riff from “Emerging” is “Satanic Blood” only played faster. There are also several blatant Hellhammer moments on here where the vocalist attempts Tom Warrior’s trademark grunts. Simplicity does have some advantages, mostly because that tends to add to the track’s memorability. Unfortunately, this album just blows by in a haze of blast beats, simplistic, grinding riffs and caustic vocals. Several tracks, “World Cadaver” being the most blatant, sound like blast beat rap songs. There are guitars on there but you rarely hear them. All you hear is snare and vocals. The slower tracks are definitely better in that you actually hear the guitars properly and you can get a better idea of what the band is trying to do. Sadly, that tends not to be the norm. Defilement’s real strength seems to be in their slower tracks, but being a brutal Death Metal band apparently makes them want to dwell in the fast and furious realm. Another minor gripe, I don’t know if the song “The Axe” was meant to be a bonus track but if you have a song called “Closure,” you should probably stick it at the end.

A very promising debut EP from this California quartet. Imagine a crossbreed of Suffocation and Necrophagist and you’ll get a solid idea of what these miscreant lads set out to accomplish with this sensory mindfuck. Jabbing, brutal riffs permeate the frantic blasting and amphetamine-aided vocal patterns courtesy of the brothers Pisarczyk (Jason on sticks, Jesse on esophagus). But Vast Realms… isn’t all high-speed ear canal rape amidst a backdrop of nonstop machine gun fire. They know exactly when to inject a pit riff, or something dazzlingly technical, which coupled with the EP’s very short running time (a second shy of 17 minutes) saves the record from brutality banality. I would call it standard Sevared fare, but I think it’s actually a league or two above that. Musical talent and use of dynamics notwithstanding, this has a decent sounding production (could be a little beefier) and the cover art looks more Seagraven than autistic 6th grader. Obviously they aren’t reinventing Death Metal here. This isn’t anything a seasoned Death vet hasn’t heard before, but it is done extremely well and in a year lacking in quality Metal of Death output, you should lap this up like a dehydrated Boxer. Unfortunately no real standout tracks to single out and comment on, but the intelligent barbarian vibe of the EP, in addition to the aforementioned short length, makes this feel like one kick ass standout cut all its own.

If this was the only kind of music I had to listen to, I would die miserable. These Canucks can grind and blast with anybody. They have an incredible drummer and Mel Mongeon might be the best female vocalist I’ve ever heard in a Grindcore band. I wonder why there aren’t more convincing female Death/Grind vocalists. Scientists have proven that a woman’s aura can devour souls, and it’s a medical fact that their hearts pump a black, viscous, bile-like fluid that sustains the lifeforce only through human suffering. So why can’t more of them growl? Anyway, what little they do well is far from being enough. You kinda actually have to write songs, too. At their maximum speed they are impressive but unoriginal and boring, and when they do try to mix it up, it gets even worse. Take “Census Blank” for instance. Some kind of excruciating part-Neurosis/part-Thrash funeral procession that is all over the place. Even a return to blasting insanity towards the end can’t save the song. This leads into the even more scatterbrained “Alone,” which is basically an annoying noise intermission with randomly spewed vocals. The title track sees a return to the freakish, high-speed Grind, but by now the record has become so mind-numbingly mundane that you can actually hear the guitarists forgetting how to play. “A Coward’s Existence” introduces a bit of despondent melody to the fold before exploding back into Punkish banality, but at this point I just want to make it stop and listen to something coherent instead. This band has no idea who they are or what they want to do. My French is a little rusty, but I think I know what Mel is saying at the end of album closer “95.” She’s saying, “Hello, we are a talented band. Unfortunately all we really know how to do is fuck around. We hope you enjoyed listening to us practice for a half hour. This concludes the 3,465th release of our 10-year career. Thanks to Relapse for actually paying to have this slop recorded and for believing in Extreme Jam bands like us all over the world.” Lifeless anti-music for vapid poseurs.

This sounds weird. It’s like someone got the tapes mixed up in the studio. Musically, this is Goth Rock. If you removed the vocal track, this could easily have been Sisters of Mercy or Love Like Blood. It’s mellow, dark but not “evil” sounding, and dwells in that area between melancholy and depression. It’s not aggressive or wrist-slitting miserable. The vocals, though, are straight-out Black Metal. That’s where the weirdness comes in. It sounds like the vocalist is screaming in torment, but the tone and style of the music don’t seem to match. I guess the nearest musical equivalent would be if you locked Mika Luttien from Impaled Nazarene inside a Hot Topic filled with Justin Bieber and Twilight merchandise and made him listen to the Happy Mondays all night long. This isn’t bad for Goth Rock, but if I want to listen to Goth Rock, I want to hear someone like Peter Murphy (ex-Bauhaus) singing, not someone who wishes that he was actually singing for Dark Funeral. Likewise, when I want to listen to someone screaming in torment, it had better be to a backing band playing brutal, twisted, evil music. It isn’t Goth enough to be Goth and not Metal enough to be Metal. Even calling this Gothic Metal is misleading because it implies the heaviness of Metal and the atmosphere of Goth. Everything is an attempt at doing two completely different things and accomplishing neither one very well. It doesn’t suck but the whole isn’t the sum of its parts. Either get heavier or kick out your singer and replace him with someone who can actually do Goth Rock vocals properly.

Here we have a debut LP full of surprises. First off, this supergroup of sorts features members of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride. Secondly, this supergroup features members of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride… and it’s not Doom. And finally this supergroup featuring members of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride that is not Doom… is actually really fucking good! Perhaps another surprise would be that it is pure Old School Death Metal. And when I say pure Old School, I mean it’s like Sororicide and God Macabre jamming the first Convulse album with Autopsy’s Mental Funeral gear. It is morbidly filthy and the sound is fucking huge. While the all-star personnel here boasts drummer Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, The Haunted, Cradle of Filth, Brujeria, and Paradise Lost just to name a few) and guitarist Hamish Hamilton Glencross (My Dying Bride), make no mistake about it, this is all Paradise Lost guitarist and founding member Gregor Mackintosh’s baby. He wrote the album as a tribute to his late father, which is another solid reason why we should all pull out. Save them from the future grief. Yet another surprise is the revelation that Mackintosh is actually a damn good Death Metal vocalist! He is a dead ringer for John Alman from the legendary Winter, which is to say there is, of course, a Tom G. Warrior influence as well. Musically I guess it should come as no surprise that this is somewhat reminiscent of Paradise Lost’s classic debut Lost Paradise , but with 20 years of added refinement and inspiration that is clearly evident. This is very heavy shit with heavy-hearted undertones that make their way into even the faster cuts. Not every song is a winner, but there are no bad songs, and the good outshines what little is mediocre by plenty. I simply have nothing bad to say about this great record. I only wonder, given the intensity and emotion exuded here, why Mackintosh is not allowed to inject any balls into Paradise Lost’s limp-wristed, plastic output of the last decade plus. Favorites: “All Will Suffer,” “Desecration,” “A Thousand Martyrs,” “My Black Siberia,” and “The Grim Irony.”

I’ve never liked reviewing EPs. The problem with reviewing an EP is that there is so little to go on that it’s hard to get a read on what a band is like based on two or three songs. In this case, there are only two tracks, “Desecration” and “Iconoclast.” “Desecration” is the longer of the two, clocking in at just a hair over five minutes, while “Iconoclast” is around three. Both songs are best described as old-school Swedish Death Metal in the vein of old Entombed, Dismember and Where No Life Dwells era Unleashed. If you remember what Left Hand Path sounds like, then you pretty much know what Desecration sounds like. Honestly, you could tell me that this was a leftover track from Left Hand Path and outside from a slight difference in sound, it would be totally believable. Brutal? Yes. Well executed? Sure. Original? No fucking way. This is by the numbers Entombed/Dismember worship. It’s well executed enough for me to want to check out a full-length album, but if the rest of their material draws on the obviously glaring influences, then I’m going to have to deduct points. I like old-school Swedish Death Metal, but at some point even the founders of the style had to evolve out of it. You can only produce so many copies of Left Hand Path and Like an Ever Flowing Stream before people start using your albums like Ambien.

It was almost a full decade ago (2002’s Terror Propaganda) when I heard this Swedish Black Metal band for the first time. I guess time has revealed the most harsh critique of all… I don’t remember it. I do remember that it was presented to me as Black Metal of the Suicidal Depressive variety at the time, but I must have found it much too happy to get the job done. I’ve never heard the albums prior or after that release and didn’t much care to. I didn’t know if they were even still a band. So needless to say when I found Void in my review pile, my expectations (much like any reason to go on living) were pretty nonexistent. Maybe that’s why I’m completely blown away by this album. (Get it… blown away… never mind). The band have apparently found their true calling as a total Darkthrone clone. Which is absolutely fine by me because I can no longer get my Darkthrone fix from Darkthrone. They’re off in the woods making snow angels, playing happy faggot Christian Rock and loving every minute of Christ’s wonderful gift of life. In all fairness to Craft, Void is probably better than any Darkthrone record in the last 18 years, save for the mighty Ravishing Grimness and all its criminally underrated glory. But there is no denying the influence, especially on the vocals and vocal production. Mikael Nox is a dead ringer for Nocturno Culto in his prime, and he also shares the same knack for coming up with the catchiest deliveries for the band’s classic asshole lyrics. Rest assured, “God’s got nothing on you anyway” will be among the season’s top catch phrases for yours truly. I love it, and I love the feeling of pure Negativity this album possesses. It all boils over on Song of the Year candidate, “I Want to Commit Murder.” What more do I need to say? The fucking song is called “I Want to Commit Murder!” The chorus of the song is “I want to commit murder” screamed vehemently in glorious repetition. It’s nice to know I share a common bond with these guys in that respect. I do want to commit murder. And I want Void in the stereo when I do.

If Cold Colours just stuck to playing Thrash and didn’t attempt all this Gothic sounding shit, and then wrote lyrics that didn’t sound like a whiney sixteen year-old Emo kid after failing (yet again…) to kill himself while listening to Marilyn Manson, The Great Depression might actually be a listenable album. Seriously, when I was playing this, I imagined a bunch of mascara-encrusted eunuchs trying to emulate Evanescence, but without the benefit of a hot chick singer. The “melodic” vocals and the lyrics are cringe-inducing. If you’re going to dwell on depression, this is not the way to do it. If you want depressing music, try playing something slower - like Doom. Aggressive music, like Thrash, doesn’t mesh well with this whiney, Emo shit and the blending of the two is an abomination. The straight-out Thrash parts on this album are fairly well executed (if generic), but those fleeting moments of decent music are soon deluged in the vile, Emo-infested crap that weighs this album down like the albatross around the ancient mariner’s neck. The marketing on this album said “For fans of Opeth, Iced Earth, Katatonia, Nevermore, Amorphis!” but Cold Colours is nowhere near the caliber of any of these bands - and this is their sixth release! Who the fuck is buying this crap? Do you get a free copy of this album with every purchase of a Twilight t-shirt at Hot Topic? Of course, the marketing also referred to Cold Colours as “Dark Metal,” so I get the feeling that the person who wrote this desperate attempt to polish a steaming pile of elephant feces was either listening to a different album or he was legally deaf. And that excellent cover art this CD is supposed to have? It looks like a shack in the woods with a sign on it saying that the place was condemned. If you were searching for something that represents economic hardship, there are places in Detroit that look more hopeless and bleak than this does - and they’re real! This is everything bad about Emo/Goth mixed with the most generic of Thrash Metal, resulting in a guarantee that anyone purchasing this will get tortured for eternity by Paul Baloff in an entirely new layer of Hell set up just for them.

When your sole existence as a unit is to, for the most part, pay tribute to the Old School Swedish Death Metal, where do you draw the line between exaltation and expansion? I mean no disrespect to Mr. Death. After all, members of this band were a part of the original movement in the forms of Treblinka and Tiamat (before the latter started playing Ballet Metal). I suppose you can go the Bloodbath route and create Death Metal even the elder gods themselves might not be able to top. But unless Blakkheim’s on your squad, that isn’t a whole hell of a lot likely. So, most of Descending Through Ashes sounds like a band trapped in an idea, afraid to try any new tricks even though an underlying feeling of tension throughout the album suggests they might like to. Their debut full-length, Detached from Life, was a great album with an incredible energy about it that transcended mere nostalgia. It was like some undiscovered gem from the actual early ’90s era. An old timer might say, “They had a lotta spunk.” But this record plods along like a shitty day at work. These 35 minutes feel more like 50. A completely uninspired effort. It does boast an extremely authentic guitar tone, but that only goes so far when you’re not doing anything with it. These guys need to either spice it up or give it up. Shit, I don’t care if you have to write a song about a Marvel Comics character (which is the next logical step in this case, if I remember correctly), do something to light the fire again.