From this critic’s perspective, Dark Tranquillity albums are always something to look forward to. Hit or miss, there’s usually plenty to write about, and full-length #10 is no exception. That said, even I couldn’t find the right words to sum up 2010’s We Are the Void. An undoubtedly solid effort, yet somehow missing that certain something; perhaps just simply overmatched by the might of its powerful predecessor and my all-time DT fave, 2007’s Fiction. I’m pleased to report that Construct is much closer to Fiction in terms of beginning-to-end enjoyment. In fact, it might even be more well-balanced overall, with arguably the finest production these Melodeath originators have ever achieved. It’s time to start giving major props to the ears over at Fascination Street Studios. Why anyone goes anywhere else to get their album mastered is beyond me. Listening to Construct seemingly non-stop since the second I tore off the shrink wrap, I get the sense that the band’s creative core —the amazingly still-intact-for-a-staggering-22 years foursome of Henriksson, Jivarp, Sundin, and Stanne— took a step back, viewed their remarkable body of work as a whole, and attempted to make the perfect career-encapsulating record. On just about every level, they’ve succeeded. There’s something here for every type of Dark Tranquillity fan. For those who’ll always prefer the band’s Thrashier, more aggressive side, you have super-melodic hard chargers like “The Science of Noise” and “Apathetic.” For those who can’t resist the clean-vocal balladry of the Projector/Haven era, you have heartfelt standouts “Uniformity,” “What Only You Know,” and “State of Trust.” (Something must be said for the quality of Mikael Stanne’s singing voice. As instantly recognizable and all-pro as his Deathly rasp, it has grown on me significantly over the years. As the contempt of my youth fades, I no longer consider the band’s aforementioned 1999 and 2000 LPs as musical wimp-outs.) Then there are songs that convincingly echo that mournful Gothic tinge through a heavier approach, such as “Weight of the End” and the emotionally wrought bookends “For Broken Words” and “None Becoming.” Yet with all these different vibes abound, the album feels completely cohesive. A couple filler tracks aside, the only real design flaw with this Construction is on Century Media’s end. Good luck tracking all of it down. I was fortunate to score the US Edition and its two bonus tracks —one being a brief instrumental— but there’s a Japanese pressing out there with 146 extra tracks, and I’m told the Peruvian Edition comes with 147 tracks, a spice rack, and a set of Lionel Train collectible dinner plates. I give up! Still, based on the material at hand, Construct is a satisfying and deliciously meaty Gothenburger with cheese.

Do you worship at the altar of old-school Swedish Death Fucking Metal? Do you love that Sunlight Studios guitar sound so much that you’ve burned holes in your old Entombed and Dismember CDs? Necrocurse sure hopes that you do. Why? Because that’s what they’re all about: old-school Swedish Death Fucking Metal, nothing more and nothing less. With three former members of Masticator (two of whom were also in Runemagick, the drummer was also in Sacramentum and Swordmaster) and Hellbutcher from Nifelheim in the band, the members of Necrocurse aren’t a bunch of kids who’ve only heard of the old Stockholm scene. These guys have been around for a while. In fact, this band has existed since 2004, though they’ve only been seriously putting out material since 2011. With that much lineage, you would expect Grip of the Dead to fucking slay. It definitely kicks ass, which is always a good thing. What it doesn’t do is break any new ground. Grip of the Dead treads well trodden paths from the beginning to the end. If you own most of the “classic” Death Metal albums from the old Stockholm scene, you’re not going to be surprised by anything on this LP. What I thought was lacking, though, was the strong sense of melody that you found in early Entombed and Dismember. Even though those bands knew how to be punishingly brutal, there was always an underlying melodic element that made their music memorable and listenable. Necrocurse is good at laying the smack down, but without that melodic element they sound a bit generic. The no-frills approach works to a degree. The amount of ass-kicking is very high. After this album is over, though, you’d be hard pressed to remember any of the songs individually. It’s like being at a beer festival and sampling loads of different beers, getting absolutely smashed in the process. You wake up the next morning knowing that you had a good time, but if someone asked you which beer was your favorite, you’d never be able to tell that person with absolute certainty which one you liked the most. If these guys can work some of that melodic element into their music, their next album will be one to look out for. If they stay with the “no frills” approach, they’ll disappear into the sea of clones and be forgotten.

I always wrestle with the notion of reviewing my guilty mainstream pleasures within the pages of Metal Curse. Ultimately I should be writing about what interests me, and a band that actually gives you a little storyline to work with only makes the temptation greater. But do major label acts really need exposure from underground-dedicated webzines? Well… maybe. This is the digital age (sad face) and exposure is a somewhat outmoded concept. My right ball has a Twitter account with 60 followers, and most “people” only “listen” to music for about 90 seconds at a time on their soul-devouring smartphones anyway (sad face w/tear). With AiC, the decision is much easier to go through with. Whether they admit it or not, most Metalheads love them, and compared to the plethora of Retro-Rock bands currently being signed in the wake of Ghost’s success, what AiC is doing these days sounds like fucking Bolt Thrower! Speaking of Ghost, it’s time I gave producer Nick Raskulinecz a round of applause. He’s been a busy beaver of late. Twiddling the knobs for recent masterworks by Deftones, Papa Emeritus & Co., and now this legendary Seattle outfit, it’s easy to take for granted how naturally fantastic everything this guy touches sounds. Job well done. As for The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, it’s a nearly flawless hour of gloom. All skeptics —myself included— who cringed at the thought of AiC minus the late, great Layne Staley were firmly silenced by 2009’s Black Gives Way to Blue. Downcast hook-laden hits like “A Looking in View,” “Check My Brain,” and “Your Decision” were too good to resist, and the LP turned out to be roughly 80/20 Cantrell/DuVall in the vocal department anyhow. The same holds true for their 2nd post-Staley output, except it’s an even better overall record. There’s no filler here whatsoever. Some songs may feel a bit longer than others —all but 2 of the 12 tracks eclipse the 5-minute mark— but the album as a whole achieves a deeper darkness than its predecessor. Dreary gems like “Hollow,” “Pretty Done,” and “Voices” might be the closest thing to Doom you’ll ever hear on FM airwaves in the Midwest (old Black Sabbath jams notwithstanding). Slow, hard, and dolorously dour —with riffs for the air guitar ages and frequently witty lyrical genius— this album has an ever-present “too old, too cold” vibe that resonates all too well with yours truly more and more everyday. These days I find music most enjoyable alone in the dark with all my vices at hand. Dinosaurs is just as suitable a companion for such evenings as any Extreme Metal recording you’d care to put it up against.

I don’t have much information on this band. Like most groups that are on bandcamp.com, their webpage is fairly sparse. I know that they are from The Netherlands and that there are three members (HTM, SS and MDJ). There isn’t much else about them. Their music is kind of chaotic and jumbled together in a ball of sound that is part Beherit, part Blasphemy and a bit like the improvised style of Bestial Summoning but with keyboards added to the cacophony. It’s very hard to get a handle on where these guys are going because it almost sounds like they don’t know where they’re going with this, either. They do, however, know how to put together some seriously dark and twisted music. The “massive ball of sound” production on this LP is part of the reason it’s so fucked up and evil. Everything blends together in a seething mass of dissonant keyboards, pounding drums, raspy vocals and “a chainsaw with little or no bass” guitars. Face it, this isn’t the new Stratovarius album. You aren’t going to get awesome sound and technical prowess from Ithuriel. What you’re going to get is some insanely chaotic Black Metal that will appeal to fans of The Oath of Black Blood-era Beherit in particular. Though I tend to like my music to be a bit more structured, The Touch of Ithuriel’s Spear was an album that I found very interesting. Like old Beherit, what the band lacks in technical ability, they more than make up for in dark atmosphere.

In this unfortunate, post-Schuldiner existence, Arsis just might be the closest thing we have to Death. Before you soil your pantaloons in outrage, hear me out, there are a few undeniable parallels. The most obvious being that Arsis, for the most part, play the kind of super-technical Death Metal that Evil Chuck invented and refined throughout his all too brief career. Sure, Arsis has never penned a tune as classic as “Spirit Crusher,” “Symbolic,” “The Philosopher,” “Suicide Machine,” “Pull the Plug,” or every song on Scream Bloody Gore —it can be argued that their most memorable moment to date is actually a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Roses on White Lace”— and they lean far more on melody and blastbeats than Death ever needed to, but James Malone does have quite a bit in common with the legend. He’s a virtuoso guitarist plus frontman (not the easiest combo to pull off), he has that ultra-screechy vocal style, and he’s also the tyrannical driving force behind his band. Yes, one has to assume, given the endlessly revolving door of bandmates he’s burned through in 13 years, that Malone —like Chuck— is not the easiest guy to be in a band with. But the ends always justify the means, and up until 2010’s Hard Rock-obsessed stinker Starve for the Devil, the Arsis name has stood for a seal of quality in Tech-Death circles. With Unwelcome, Malone returns to that form nicely. These might be the leanest and meanest songs he’s written since breaking onto the scene in 2004 with the excellent A Celebration of Guilt debut. Sure, he throws a mid-album screwball with the head-scratching cover choice of Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” —it’s actually not as bad as it looks on paper— but the majority of full-length #5 is no laughing matter. Malone and newest second axeman Brandon Ellis achieve an infectious interplay akin to Shermann-Denner on steroids and Adderall. The two trade jagged Thrashy rhythms, arena-ready solos, and slick melodic layering like they’ve been shredding together far longer than a year. Meanwhile, new drummer Shawn Priest unleashes a blistering barrage of rapid-fire snare and double bass punishment unlike no other Arsis sticksman before him. If Malone can somehow manage to keep this lineup intact longer than a New York minute, the future looks bright for this exciting band once again.
Note: Do your best to track down the digipak edition. You get 2012’s Leper’s Caress EP as a bonus, as well as a blazing re-recorded version of ‘04 crowd-pleaser “The Face of My Innocence.” It’s a seamless fit with the new material, although it does make for a somewhat overstuffed serving of Arsis to stomach in one sitting.

With seven prior full-length albums and a handful of other releases (including a live LP) under their belt, I expected more from Sacred Steel. Album number eight, The Bloodshed Summoning, isn’t exactly a barnburner. The term “generic” seems to come up far too often when I have to describe this LP, and I really hate that I have to use it. Sacred Steel incorporated a lot of Thrash into their sound over the years and instead of distinguishing them further from the hordes of Power Metal bands out there, it made them even more bland. The vanilla Thrash riffs might go over better live, but on CD it doesn’t impress me. I seriously think that bands like Powermad, Redrum and Warfare D.C. had better recorded material. Those groups were obscure, to be sure, but their demo recordings and albums had one thing that Sacred Steel lacks: they remembered to kick ass. The music on The Bloodshed Summoning is flat-out boring and dull. And the vocals… Gerrit Mutz still hasn’t figured out the dynamics between Thrash and Power Metal. There is a time for growling and a time for melodic vocals. Knowing when to do one or the other is key to this style, and fucking it up is only forgivable on your debut album. This is album number eight and Gerrit botches things more than once. Between the unadventurous riffing and the poorly executed vocals, I couldn’t help but think that I was wasting my time listening to this LP. It doesn’t totally suck but it’s so “blah” that the disappointment you feel comes from hoping that things get better and then realizing that it isn’t going to happen.

My problem with Cauldron isn’t their Trad Metal-for-the-sake-of-Trad Metal existence. It isn’t their paper thin distortion or endless array of regurgitated Dokken and Angel Witch riffs. It isn’t their wholehearted embrace of every cheesy cliche the Hair Metal and Hard Rock movements ever dished out. It isn’t because they’re goofballs, genuinely or not. It also has nothing to do with them being from Canada, buddy. It isn’t even that their singer sounds like a young Weird Al Yankovic. What really rubs me the wrong way about Cauldron is that they’re only able to write one truly great song per album. Just as I was suckered into their debut LP (Chained to the Nite) by the catchier-than-syphilis single “Chained Up in Chains” —I told you they were fucking cheesy— only to find more filler than off-brand hot dogs, this album only has one real gem (“Nitebreaker”) to offer as well. It’s not as though the rest of the record isn’t catchy —catchy is about the only trick this dog knows— but it’s usually in-one-ear-and-out-the-other catchy. You see, these dudes are able to command multiple levels of catchiness, but seem to ration it in such a manner that only one song achieves Type A “Pour Some Sugar on Me” catchybetes. One can’t help but wonder, given their obsession with the old days, if this is intentional or not. I’d bet my bottom dollar these fellas have record collections fully loaded with shitty ’80s records that only have one good song. Maybe they simply can’t break character? Seriously though, just listen to the fucker. Feel your mind involuntarily wander through the ho-hum opening tandem of “End of Time” and “Born to Struggle,” only to wake up to “Nitebreaker“‘s infectious, big-league chorus and then drift off again for the remainder of the album. Songs like “Burning Fortune” and “Relentless Temptress” aren’t bad, but therein lies the problem. We get one “totally awesome” and a mega-fuckton of “not bad.” Actually… I take it back, there are two things I don’t like about Cauldron. Just the fact that I would even give this lightweight drivel a chance means I’m getting old. Young, extreme music-obsessed Jack would’ve literally taken a shit on this disc and lit it on fire before breaking out the sledgehammer. I’ve become desperate and easy in my lonely old age. Oh well, expect Cauldron’s greatest hits package in 2026 to be fucking amazing.

When I looked this band up on the internet, I expected them to sound like one of the many worshippers of Blasphemy. All of the signs were there: black and white artwork that was reminiscent of old Chris Moyen, band members with names like “Grave Desecration and Necrosodomy” and “Hellfire Commander of Eternal War and Pain,” a logo that looks like they stole the design from Shub Niggurath and a band photo that has the two members decked out in their monster spiked gauntlets. The only thing missing was the photo of one of them in a gasmask. Imagine my surprise when I started listening to this and it wasn’t Blasphemy worship at all! Instead, Tyrant Goatgaldrakona worships at the altar of Incantation. This is brutal Satanic Death Metal, not the “wall of sound” Black Grind assault that I was expecting. The music on Horns in the Dark could easily have been written by John McEntee and company. The main difference between Tyrant Goatgaldrakona and Incantation is the inclusion of the occasional Swedish inspired riffing. There were a couple times where I said, “Hey, that sounded like a Dismember riff” or “That sounded like something off of Clandestine.” The Swedish-inspired riffs gives Horns in the Dark slightly more melody than it would have had if these guys had gone for a straight Brutal Death Metal sound. It also gives them a bit more identity. If it hadn’t been for the odd Swedish riff, this would have been pretty much indistinguishable from Incantation. Being that this is their first full-length album (their only other release was the Sign of Moloch EP), I’m going to cut them some slack in the originality department. Though the members of Tyrant Goatgaldrakona have played in other bands prior to this, it takes a while to establish an identity and an individual sound. The music on Horns in the Dark is well played and it sounds great. The only thing lacking is a bit more originality. If they can come out from under the shadow of Incantation, this will definitely be a band to look out for. Right now, they’re good at what they’re doing, but they still sound too much like a clone.

Sincere. Misanthropic. Groundbreaking. Brilliant. Intense. Underrated. You could use a ton of complimentary adjectives to describe Shai Hulud. Prolific isn’t one of them. We’re talking about four full-lengths over an 18-year career. Still, as rare an occasion as LPs are from this band, it’s damn near impossible to remove them from my stereo once they finally do surface. When it comes to Reach Beyond the Sun, the wait was more than worth it. This is easily their best record since 2003’s landmark masterpiece That Within Blood Ill-Tempered (which I believe deserves Best Modern-Day Hardcore Album of All Time consideration). As is usually the case with these guys, a new record means a different vocalist, but this time around it’s a familiar set of lungs. Original Shai Hulud vocalist (not to mention guitarist for Pop-Punk kings New Found Glory) Chad Gilbert returns to the mic for the first time since 1997’s Hearts Once Nourished with Hope and Compassion. It’s only a temporary fix —the band is currently shopping for a full-time vocalist— but one that serves to rekindle the feeling of old… not that these guys have ever really changed. Gilbert also handles production duties, removing a little of the polish from 2009’s Misanthropy Pure in favor of a more live-sounding feel. If you’re unfamiliar with Shai Hulud (to suffer fools is to exist), I can’t even begin to describe what you’re missing. The Hardcore or Mathcore tags alone simply don’t do justice to the group’s forward-thinking, Progressive-tinged mastery of all things melodic, aggressive, and emotive. Nobody writes music like Matt Fox. It’s a delicate balance of technical and simple rarely achieved. No one communicates a pure hatred of mankind so eloquently, either, as Fox’s song titles usually delve deeper than the competition’s entire lyric sheet. For the initiated, you already know what you’re getting. A sense of urgency enveloped in cathartic calm. A perfected mix of hard-charging, pit-friendly rage and bittersweet melancholy. I was taking notes in preparation to list my favorite tracks when I realized I’d written every single song down! (It should be noted that I can never listen to heartfelt tearjerker “A Human Failing” just once.) As an extra-special treat, the album is littered with a slew of guest vocals and gang shouts, most notably from former Shai Hulud vocalists Damien Moyal, Geert van der Velde, and Matt Mazalli. They like to keep it in the family, and I’ll be keeping Reach Beyond the Sun in heavy rotation all year and then some.