Agent Steel - Order of the Illuminati
Listening to this new Agent Steel, one has to ponder the ultimate, essential question. When the members of this band fart, does it smell like burnt Stay-Hard?
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Aeternus - A Darker Monument
To me, Norway’s Aeternus has always been a Death Metal band trapped in a Black Metal band’s body. Not that that’s a bad thing, as this identity crisis has provided us with a lethal combination of frost and fury over the last eleven years. But with the appropriately titled A Darker Monument, the real Aeternus may have ultimately been emancipated. Maybe it’s just because the chick is gone, but the Death Metal soul of the group reigns supreme throughout these nine tracks. The vibe it gives begs for comparisons to the mighty Vital Remains. Complex song arrangements, wicked riffs, stellar drumming, Ares’ patented bestial growl, and the overall feeling of tonal morbidity ensures that these guys can bring it with anybody. You can’t really go wrong with any Aeternus release, but A Darker Monument is without question the heaviest shit they’ve ever done.
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Waco Jesus interview
Interview with Waco Jesus’s vocal annihilator, Shane Bottens.
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Acheron - Rebirth: Metamorphosing into Godhood
This Black/Death Metal band has been around since the early days of the Florida Death Metal scene, churning out their particular brand of audio blasphemy for well over a decade now. This latest album is kind of a return to their older sound in that the overpowering keyboards and synthesizer-generated atmospheric bits that began dominating their sound since Anti-god, Anti-christ have all but disappeared. The Death Metal element has once again come to the forefront and it’s good to know that Acheron can still cave in your skull like they did on albums like Rites of the Black Mass and Lex Talionis. Even without the keyboards, Acheron can still generate an atmosphere of darkness and lurking evil. The slower, heavier bits really seem to capture that quality in their music. The faster stuff is brutal, memorable and gets your head banging like good Death Fucking Metal is supposed to. That being said, there are still a few shortcomings to this album. The first is the intro to “Golgotha’s Truth,” which is essentially some guy reading in a monotone voice - and yes, it’s painfully obvious that he’s reading off of a sheet of paper. This just sounded hokey and while “Golgotha’s Truth” is arguably the best track on this album, the intro really doesn’t do it any justice. The next thing I thought was a bit annoying was the track “The 9th Gate,” which is essentially one long track of a strange droning noise that I’m guessing is supposed to be meditative or something. Either my Satanic Antennae (the one by which I receive messages from our Lord and Master SATAN!!!) needs a little tuning or I’m just not getting it. Overall, Rebirth… is a good album marred by a few shortcomings that are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.
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Acheron - Rebirth: Metamorphosing into Godhood
What else could this be, other than nearly flawless Black / Death Metal? By this point in time, a review of any new Acheron album really only needs to consist of “there is a new Acheron album.” I am, however, a little unclear about the last track, “The 9th Gate,” which is little more than a continuos tone lasting for exactly nine minutes. Uhh, yeah… Other than that, which I’m sure is some super evil invocation of the dark powers of Satanic Vagina Moistening or something equally weird/goofy/cool, this disc is hard to beat.
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Acheron - Tribute to the Devil’s Music
This is a compilation of all (or damn nearly all) of the cover songs this band has done, plus a re-recorded (although still a few years old) version of their own “Ave Satanas.” The covers were all recorded at different times, and so the band line-up and sound quality can vary from track to track, but not enough to be a problem or even really very noticeable. It’s pretty cool to hear the Acheron-ized versions of some of these songs, such as the Death classic “Evil Dead,” and Motorhead’s “(Don’t Need) Religion,” but most of these tracks are available elsewhere. So for those fans already in possession of all the Dwell records tribute CDs, I’m not sure how valuable it will be to have the Acheron cuts all on one disc, even though you do get the aforementioned “Ave Satanas,” which makes its CD debut here (having been a Euro-vinyl-only bonus track prior to this) and interesting liner notes on all the songs.
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40 Below Summer - The Mourning After
As much as I abhor Nu-Metal, I can’t help but feel sorry for the genre. I’ve seen a lot of annoying trends come and go, but I’ve never seen one die so quickly, without putting up the least bit of a fight. Well, in fairness to 40 Below Summer, they aren’t 100% Nu-Metal. No, they’re much more of a desperate, corporate cock-sucking attempt at Nickelback stardom. Occasionally they reach depths of heaviness alike Papa Roach or Drowning Pool, unfortunately those are the two gayest bands on Earth. At their absolute best, these guys are a bastardized, watered-down version of old Alice in Chains.
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1349 - Liberation
When I saw that Frost (of Satyricon fame) was the drummer for this band, I knew right away that this wasn’t going to be one of those heavy-on-the-atmosphere Doom influenced kind of albums. Frost generally has one speed: fast. Actually, I take that back. He has two speeds: fast and super fast. Aside from a few moments, Liberation blasts away at speeds that you would think only a drum machine could sustain for any length of time. Honestly, this shit makes old Immortal (Pure Holocaust era or so) look slow. The Mayhem cover they do is probably done at double the speed of the original. If you like that “faster than the speed of light” style Black Metal, this is definitely something that you’ll want to look up because 1349 may, in fact, be the fastest fucking band on the planet at this point.
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Unleashed - Hell’s Unleashed
One of Sweden’s old-school returns after a lengthy period of silence… was the wait worth it? As far as I’m concerned, yes. Unleashed has a unique sound in the Death Metal scene these days. Johnny Hedlund is one of the few vocalists that is instantly recognizable with his almost Hardcore-like delivery and sometimes blackened tongue-in-cheek lyrics. Face it, he’s not winning any friends inside the Catholic church with songs like “Mrs. Minister.” Musically, Unleashed is still fully capable of delivering the old-school goods - which they do. These songs aren’t over-the-top brutality oriented. This band doesn’t go for that sound. This is fucking headbanging music. I don’t give a fuck who you are, you’re gonna be banging your head and singing along with these songs because they’re that catchy and that easy to follow. They’re not heavy as fuck, they’re not brutal as fuck, but they’re gonna give you whiplash. That’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing.
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