A punishing blend of melodic Death Metal and wicked fast Metalcore. One of the better manipulations of the Gothenburg sound entwined with a blasting ferocity reminiscent of the earlier works of Between the Buried and Me, The Red Chord, and Job for a Cowboy. I tend to prefer more of a brutal voice for this kind of thing, as you could not pick Dustin Curtis out of a Myspace page of basic Metalcore throats, but he gets the job done and is often very understandable.

I haven’t really been into much of what this band’s done since 1995’s Draconian Times, which in itself was a step down from its predecessor. (It’s all pretty much been downhill since Gothic, really.) Still, every time Paradise Lost puts out a new album, I am promised some kind of return to form. And every few years, like some jackass Alzheimer’s patient, I fall for it hook, line and sinker. “Maybe this will be the one,” say I, the naive retard. And every single time I get let down. “Hey… I got my fucking hopes up for nothing!” Well, when promised that long overdue return to form this time, I vowed not to hope, for all hope is pain. Upon hearing the music for In Requiem, my hopes slightly shot up a little. It’s Thrashier, it’s heavier, and it’s as youthful as they’ve sounded in aeons. But then all it took was a little taste of Nick Holmes’ new-found backwoods hillbilly, James Hetfield, trailer park mating call. He sounds like Chuck Billy with Downs! A few scattered traditional Paradise Lost melodies throughout the album only serve as a sad reminder of what, if they wanted to, could be again. Paradise lost indeed.

This band’s last album, Pariah, was impressive, stunning even, and one of the best Black Metal albums of 2005. But Harvest is perfection. The interweaving of melody and intensity is flawlessly executed and Kristoffer’s vocals are agonizingly, supremely effective in delivering his suicidal/nihilistic lyrics. This majestic Black Metal album is truly one for the vaults. My review copy is unfortunately without it, but the retail version comes with a bonus DVD featuring live footage, a video clip, and an interview. While appreciated (or so I would imagine), Harvest doesn’t need the DVD-bonus-features to push it over the top.

It’s safe to say that if by this point you aren’t aware of what you’ll get with an Impaled Nazarene record, you simply don’t matter. An objective analysis of goat worship would therefore only be acknowledging you exist. A real waste of time for everyone. I will say that Manifest is a sort of amalgam of everything this band has put to disc in the last decade or so, but with all the filler omitted. Despite some of the press you may have read, nothing at all has changed about the band’s sound whatsoever. It’s especially in the vein of their last 3 or 4 releases, straightforward Finnish filth. P.S. Any fuckhead who writes that the few slow songs on Manifest are this band’s first “foray” into Doom territory is simply poser scum who has apparently never heard Suomi Finland Perkele. Sorry to call you out, but someone had to.

Do these guys ever tire of putting out quality albums? It’s been one right after another for the last 13 years (yes, they’ve been around longer than that, but I honestly didn’t care for Dawn of Possession). Shadows in the Light is pure Immolation, and that’s really saying something. They have established themselves as Death Metal legends over the years with a unique, trademark style all their own. Almost impossible to duplicate, therefore rarely attempted. You have to hold them in the same regard as Morbid Angel, Deicide, Vader, any Death Metal band with an instantly recognizable sound. This is a concrete culmination of everything this band’s been up to since Here in After, and while I don’t think it quite tops the perfection of Harnessing Ruin, it’s essential Immolation. The two words now officially synonyms. The proof: “Hate’s Plague,” “Passion Kill,” “World Agony,” “Deliverer of Evil,” and “Lying with Demons.”

The follow-up to the band’s 1987 Combat Records debut, Breaking the Silence, this 1991 album (originally reviewed in Metal Curse #5) was a triumph for Heathen. In the interim between albums, they switched singers, briefly employing Exodus’s Paul Baloff (whose style couldn’t have meshed well with the band’s established sound), before screamer David White rejoined them. Sadly, I think that everyone who has ever sung for this band is now dead.
Although from the SF Bay Area, Heathen’s Thrash was a little more intense than usual, other than the kind of early-Anthrax-style vocals, which might be something of an acquired taste, especially now. Victims… has help up pretty well over the years, and not only is the original CD-only bonus track present, we also get the previously unheard (outside of Japan, at least) bonus track “Hellbound.” I do prefer Breaking the Silence, but this is still classic Thrash.

This 1993 follow-up to Considered Dead sees the band thankfully only barely hinting at the changes to come on later albums, and as such is quite good. The production seems a little less thick here, which was probably seen as a positive “evolution” by the band. The somewhat increased complexity of the songs still allows for a heavy dose of brutality, which is certainly appreciated. Not quite the classic that the debut was, but still an important album. And one with two bonus tracks (once again, raw demo versions of album tracks) this time!

This was originally released way back in 1991, before the band was obsessed with being so complex and weird that no one could manage to sit through a song, much less an entire album. No, this was a simpler, heavier, better time. Considered Dead is prime Death Metal, and it’s great to see this back in print after all these years. At the time of this album’s initial release, the competition was so fierce that it may have been somewhat overlooked. Perhaps this is what led the band to more and more “experimentation” on subsequent releases, I don’t know, but this classic holds up very well. Plus we’re treated to a pair of previously unheard (and raw!) demo versions of album cuts as bonus tracks.

This band’s albums are all varying levels of amazing, but live… holy fuck! The energy displayed on this 1990 live album (recorded at the Marquee Club in London, of all places) is stunning and builds throughout the set until the absolutely nuclear rendition of the band’s most known song, “Alcohol.” The two studio bonus tracks on this 2007 reissue are from the King of Bands “hits” compilation, and are appreciated, but sort of distract from the live set. But that’s like complaining about too much of a good thing, and Gang Green would never do that.