Garden of Shadows - Heart of the Corona
When they play slowly or mid-paced, their Death/Doom is crushingly depressive. When they speed up, thus losing some of the Doom, their brutality comes to the fore. The production and vox are more or less flawless, but the drastic tempo changes can be a little distracting, and there are a few other slightly rough edges in the music. But not many, and not with the riffs or drumming so much as with the “embellishments.”
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Gamma Ray - Somewhere Out in Space
For all (like me) who love traditional Metal, this is supreme. Beyond awesome playing, super memorable songs, and nuclear intensity. My only complaint is that the lyrics are too geeky sci-fi, with all the space stuff, but they’re not good guys, so I can overlook it pretty easily.
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Galactic Cowboys - The Horse That Bud Bought
MTV-friendly happy little guitar-driven Alternative Rock.
[Metal Curse #11 had an additional loose page (“Last Second Additions”) inserted into the centerfold of the zine, featuring a bunch of even-shorter-than-usual “bonus” reviews of stuff that arrived after the deadline for that issue. This is one of those “Last Second Additions” reviews.]
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Furia - Thy Second Month of Winter
I’m guessing that this is a demo released on CD because unless this happens to be one of those totally fucking with your head moments, I kind of doubt that Furia Records just happened to sign them. That would be like a label like Nuclear Blast going out and finding a band called Nuclear Blast and then signing them to release an album. Anyway, this is some fairly competently executed Black Metal (minus the excessive makeup) complete with a vocalist who sounds like he took singing lessons from Varg Vikerns. The three songs (plus intro) are pretty tight and sound very melodic. Not Fall of the Leafe melodic (where you sit there and go, “Damn that’s melodic!”), but not Darkthrone either.
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Jaye Foucher - Infectious Licks
I never expect much from so-called “guitar heroes,” so I was surprised to discover that this chick can crank ‘em out with the best. She’s occasionally heavier than Vai or Satriani, but like those geeks, she succumbs to the temptation to try to sing. That fucks up everything. Obviously she can play her ass off, and knows enough to at least make an attempt to be heavy, and every once in a while one of her leads is sorrowful enough to make you hurt. So I think the instrumental tracks are about the best any guitar hero could hope to come up with. But the tracks with vox bring this way down. Jaye loses the heaviness and the intricacy of the music to make way for her all too “Hard Rock babe” vox. I have upped the rating a (very) little because Jaye has wisely decided to rely on her playing ability alone (unlike a lot of other women musicians), and there are no “sexy” photos of her to be found here.
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The Forgotten - To Walk the Forest Black
Maybe I should call this “Black Doom.” The Forgotten can get fast and evil, or alternately slow and depressing. But they keep these two long songs interesting, no matter the speed.
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Flotsam and Jetsam - High
Every review you read for this album will mention that this LP brings the band back home to Metal Blade, after a decade of other labels. Big deal, what’s the music like? Much like their last album, Drift, this is Thrash done in a way that few others attempt these days. I suppose that these guys are sort of throwbacks to earlier times, but as long as they make LPs like this one, that’s fine with me. Far from being a remake of their earlier work, High is more a refinement, and may be their best album since No Place for Disgrace. Nice cover of Lard’s “Forkboy,” too.
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Fleshgrind - Destined for Defilement
Chicago is the place in the USA for Death Metal. If I could hear Ray Vazquez’s basslines a bit better, I’d put this album up against anyone - at least as far as brutality is concerned. Speaking of brutal, Rich’s vocals are mostly inhuman gurgles and grunts, but he occasionally growls out some more normal Death rattles, too. This is just complete decimation from beginning to end.
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Final Exit / Gonkulator - split
For those not familiar with Final Exit, they’re extreme Grind/Noise, mixed with weird bits of other musical styles. Something like John Zorn’s Painkiller. As for Gonkulator, they’re the very first, and best, evil Black Noise band. You can’t go wrong with this blue, 7-inch slab of wax.
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