I don’t have a whole lot of information on this band - mostly because the band doesn’t give much in the CD’s inlay or the back. Musically, this is fairly standard Black Metal in the Darkthrone / early Burzum/Judas Iscariot vein. You don’t get a whole lot of surprises and the songs are not very complex. I think the average song has only two or three riffs in total. The production on A Grave to This World is not the greatest, but it is better than your average “Grim/Cold/Necro” Black Metal band. The guitar is definitely too low compared to the vocals and the drums. The vocals are probably the most annoying part of the whole package. I think it has more to do with the fact that they were too loud than because Alastor, the bassist/singer, has an annoying voice. He definitely has a banshee wail, though. I think the main problem Beheaded Lamb faces is the fact that none of their songs stand out. They are all fairly plain and ultimately, forgettable. They don’t suck, but at the same time, you can’t remember any of them once the CD stops playing. A Grave to This World is okay. It doesn’t suck. It isn’t good and it certainly isn’t great. If this band can get some sort of identity for themselves, they will go somewhere. Until then, they are definitely going to get lost in the massive ocean of generic Black Metal that currently floods the market.

Extremely brutal Death Metal in the vein of Suffocation with traces of Morbid Angel worship here and there. From the get-go this explodes out of the speakers with a deranged depth and precision which need I say provides this listener with initial enjoyment, but in all honesty this does drag on a little bit towards the end. None of the songs are terrible, but a lot of them are lacking “the big riffs” if you know what I mean. The bloody-knuckle jaw-droppers if you will. Some songs, like “Horde of the Stolen Sun” and the title track, are done just right, and since a lot of bands do build from the crowd-pleasers, I look for the band to improve with each release.

Somebody sank a lot of money into the packaging of this MCD and considering the quality of the music on Fixed by the Devil, they should have spent some of that cash on either a really good hooker or some quality drugs. To be totally honest, The Beast just doesn’t have the musical talent to merit having a product look this good because these guys suck. They make Von, Beherit, Bestial Summoning and Blasphemy look like Wagner, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. When you can make a Von cover sound worse than the original, you really fucking suck ass. The best tracks are the intro (“Enter”) and the outro (“Leave”). The rest are barely listenable. The guitars sound like a muffled chainsaw, the drumming sounded like a robotic arm flicking a light switch on and off really fast and the lyrics on this MCD are on par with a rambling homeless lunatic who thinks he’s Satan. The drums mostly drown out the guitars and while the vocals are acceptable, the whole package (in terms of music) should have been a rough mix demo tape at best. The Beast may appeal to die-hard fans of “Grim” or “Necro” Black Metal bands like Necrofrost (another barely listenable lo-fi Black Metal band) but the rest of us will want to avoid this band like the plague. Don’t let the cool Chris Moyen art and slick packaging fool you. You can dress up absolute shit but the stink eventually makes its way out.

This band, like label-mates Summoning, must be loving the whole J.R.R. Tolkien revival going on right now. With the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings trilogy has never seen so much popularity with the mainstream public. Like Summoning, Battlelore derives all of their lyrics from Tolkien’s books and related literature surrounding Middle Earth (such as Dungeons & Dragons, which was totally based on Tolkien’s world - they just never openly admitted it). Lyrically, a lot of this reads like a glorified round of Dungeons & Dragons mixed with LoTR buzzwords like “Mithril” or “Khazad-dum.” It isn’t bad, just a bit on the hokey side. Unlike Summoning, however, these folks have opted for a more Classically-oriented (more strings, less atmosphere and bombast) symphonic style that reminds me of bands like Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir at times, and Therion at others. Structurally, it also employs plenty of Classical/Operatic musical elements that make this more than just a Mystic Cradle of Dimmu Borgir clone band. Some of the riffs and structures are a bit jarring at times but on the whole, this is a pretty good stab at something that only Therion and Haggard have really pulled off to any major degree of success. This is their first album that I’m aware of, so if this is a sign of what is to come from Battlelore, I’ll be waiting for them with my sword belted at my side, my chainmail shirt on and my shield slung across my back for another romp across Middle Earth.

This band hails from Finland and much like the other bands on Northern Heritage, they play Black Metal in the lo-fi vein. Northern Heritage is clearly interested in bands that espouse the doctrine of “Necro” or “Grim” Black Metal with barely above rehearsal tape sound and generic songs. In terms of sound quality, Baptism is better than average for a band playing in this style. The guitars actually have some lower end in them, adding some depth to the sound rather than the normal “freezing cold / we turned the treble all the way up” style so many bands utilize these days. Musically, these guys aren’t doing anything horribly original, nor are they attempting to. This is a very safe, color by numbers Black Metal release. You have all the prerequisites and few frills if any. None of the songs are very different from each other and Baptism seems fairly content to simply rehash things in terms of song structure. Ten years ago, I would have been more forgiving of these things because back then, 500,000 other bands hadn’t done it already. Today, however, 500,000 bands have already done it - many of whom have done it better than this. Baptism is average. No more, no less.

This band has recently been signed to This Dark Reign Records, and I can see why. This is Death/Grind with terrific riffs, the perfect guitar sound, fantastic drum programming, and brutal vocals like a crossbreed of Frank Mullen and Joe Ptacek. The band will inject intriguing oddities into their attack, such as a Black Metal moment, keyboards, and perplexing atmospheres that insure that Balatonizer may write the best 30-second songs in the business. In fact, their only flaw may be the material’s length. At ten tracks, this clocks in at just over eight minutes! If anything, it definitely leaves you wanting more, as I know I’ll be seeking out their full length. It is truly great to see three dorky, fat, Death Metal guys without a drummer get a deal. Maybe life is fair.

This band has been described as playing “Militant Heathen War Metal” and after spinning this, their latest album, I have to agree. These guys have been lumped in with the NSBM scene quite often and though they are apparently not part of that particular genre, they do use a lot of imagery that is associated with it. Face it folks, any time you have songs about World War II and use related imagery, you’re going to get people associating you with Nazism. The music of Axis of Advance is fast and the production on The List makes things sound a whole lot like a Blitzkrieg assault on the senses. Things start off fast and though there is the occasional slowdown, the bulk of The List feels like the audio equivalent of getting run over by a tank while artillery rains down all around you. Though their style seems primitive at first listen, there is a surprising amount of technical stuff going on amidst the rampaging chaos. If you go beneath the blur of chaotic guitar riffs, machinegun drumming and tortured vocals, you can hear some interesting guitar work. Fans of War/Black/Death Metal in the vein of Conquerer, Black Witchery and cult Canadian horde Blasphemy will fucking worship this release.

A long time ago - Hell, a really long god damn time ago - I used to buy anything that Combat Records released, because I knew that I had about a 99% chance of being very happy with my purchase. You could count on Combat to deliver. Well, eventually their win-streak went sour, and I’ve never really known another “big” label that I could trust like that. And never thought I would. But, you know what? I think that Victory may have made a believer out of me once again. Okay, I can think of a couple albums that Victory has released that I didn’t worship, but when listening to Atreyu, they fade from my memory. As you would expect, this is intense Hardcore. No surprise there. Also foreseen is that Suicide Notes… kicks ass, but what really puts this over the top is that the band tries some different ideas with the vocals and songwriting, that for once, actually work (for the most part). Maybe such experimentation is easier for a Hardcore band to get away with than it is for a Metal band, and I guess that’s not fair, but nothing is.

Not since Dismember has a Swedish Death band’s releases instilled so much confidence at the record store. Fans of Amon Amarth know exactly what I mean. One of the few “sure things” anymore is that the new AA is going to fucking rock. You know it’s going to be heavy, you know the production will be top notch, you know the lyrics will be of the highest war torn quality, and you know it will be loaded with this band’s trademark majestic melodies. It almost makes the reviewer’s job tougher to keep coming up with new ways to describe this band’s unmatched power and glory, leaving them to petty diversion tactics that are pleasing to the eye such as… Deepest Cuts: “Death in Fire,” “Vs. the World,” “Across the Rainbow Bridge,” and “1,000 Years of Oppression.”