Ever wish you could go back in time, sit down with the person you used to be when you were young and slap the living dogpiss out of yourself? As an ignorant know-it-all teenager, I shunned the early works of Incantation for not being memorable enough. What I didn’t realize at the time was that records like Onward to Golgotha and Mortal Throne of Nazarene possessed a pure aural darkness unlike any other. An ominously heavy, evil sound so sacred and rare that countless bands are still trying to recreate it to this day. So what if there weren’t any “hits?” Listening to this newest offering from the band, it dawned on me that not even Incantation can match the brutality of old Incantation! Don’t get me wrong, I love this record, and over the last decade, mainman John McEntee has solidified matters in the memorability department with some of the finest songwriting in the genre. Vanquish in Vengeance serves as a testimony to that, as the opening three cuts flatten the listener with rugged ferocity, primal intensity, and actual hooks! “Invoked Infinity” charges out of the gate with a sizzling tremolo-picked riff straight out of the World Downfall handbook. Abysmal delight ensues as high-speed, otherworldly heaviness carries us to a patented Incantation breakdown, replete with squealing pinch harmonics, that transitions to a Slayerific solo before collapse. Drummer Kyle Severn shows off his Sandovalian blasting chops on “Ascend Into the Eternal” and “Progeny of Tyranny,” which bring to mind the divine pain of Covenant-era Morbid Angel. McEntee’s riff crush and devour at any pace (see “Haruspex”), and while he’s no Craig Pillard, his iconic bestial growl is right up there with the best of them. If there’s one flaw it’s that after the monstrous title track, the album’s energy seems to fizzle. The last four tracks don’t pack the same punch as the first six, with the tediously dragging “Legion of Dis” closing the LP out on a very anti-climactic note. Even McEntee’s vocals appear to tire towards the end, and —while I despise the snide remark as much as any Death fiend— when McEntee’s a little off he literally sounds like the Cookie Monster. Still, Vanquish in Vengeance is way more killer than filler, and another remarkable entry into the legendary catalog of Death Metal’s most vicious.

As far as a map of My Dying Bride’s failures is concerned, it seems everyone wants to point the finger at 2011 (the mind-numbing Evinta experiment and the rather worthless Barghest O’ Whitby EP), but if we’re being completely honest with ourselves, the last record from this legendary UK Doom outfit to genuinely floor their legions was most likely 2001’s The Dreadful Hours. I’m not saying the subsequent follow-ups were bad albums, but do you remember them? Can you even remember one song? I can’t. I only remember not disliking them. My point is, they haven’t written a “Your River,” or a “Crown of Sympathy,” a “Cry of Mankind,” or even a “For You” in a long time. Songs that made you want to pick up a guitar and not put it down until you learned them. Sadly, you won’t be finding any such gems on album #11. In fact, this is downright boring, sub-mediocre drivel by My Dying Bride standards. There are a few kingly riffs scattered about (“The Poorest Waltz,” “A Tapestry Scorned,” the title track, “Within the Presence of Absence”), but overall it sounds as if Andrew Craighan is merely going through the (slow) motions. For every one good riff there are ten duds, some of which are so lacking in melancholic weight they almost feel improvised. Speaking of improv, when the band reach into their old bag of classic tricks —short bursts of Death Metal fury circa ‘91-‘92 (see “Kneel Till Doomsday” and “Hail Odysseus”) and the trademark violin— it often doesn’t tie into the songs very well. It’s like they’ve been randomly pasted on after the initial take. Somehow the band has forgotten how true misery sounds, and I’m afraid “adequately gloomy” just isn’t cutting it. Perhaps a much larger deficiency is the continued decline of Aaron Stainthorpe’s singing voice. The man can no longer hold a note without the crutch of some varying level of vibrato. This makes for a wobbly, over-theatrical performance that is incredibly grating throughout. He sounds like a drunken ghost haunting a cheap Karaoke dive. Quite frankly it feels as though he’d rather be reading poetry to us… and on many a track he does read poetry to us. Here and there he reaches fragments of glories past, but I simply do not put on albums from the masters with the intent to wait around for a decent melody or a vocal line that doesn’t sound like Jeremy Irons talking about his cereal. Clearly the band has gone creatively bald, and this desperate comb-over isn’t fooling anyone. Go listen to Turn Loose the Swans, then listen to this, then tell me this is good. Gents (and lady), you will always be legends no matter what, but please don’t wait too long to throw in that bloody towel. That’s how Apollo died.

Death Is the Only Mortal may ultimately be more of the same from The Acacia Strain, but it does mark a couple firsts in their decade-long career. It’s their first self-produced record, as guitarist Daniel Laskewicz has apparently spent enough time in the studio with the likes of Adam Dutkiewicz and Zuess to learn a thing or two about knob-twiddling. It’s also their Rise Records debut, and consequently the first Rise release I’ve ever purchased. How ironic is it that one of the labels responsible for saturating Deathcore with sub-mediocrity to the point of self-parody now boasts one of the genre’s most well-respected elite? In all fairness to the band, I’m sure they’d prefer to be as disassociated with the Deathcore tag as possible, but since their music bears the extreme sonic weight of Death Metal and the groove of more modern Hardcore, I don’t know what else to call it. Maybe Hard Death? That’s definitely what frontman Vincent “You Don’t Want to Shoot Me” Bennett wants you to experience. I can’t recall ever being more on the same page mentally with a lyricist: “Stop chasing your dreams, they will never come true / Your god has fallen from grace, I wish he was real so I could spit in his face / Life is a nightmare, death is a gift / I hate myself more than you ever could / With every breath I pray for death / I welcome death with open arms / I always knew I would die alone / Let the icecaps melt, may none survive…” Doesn’t leave much to the imagination, does it? Still, these are my verbatim thoughts on a daily basis. Musically the band continues in the same crushing vein as recent output. Sludgy sewage-drenched bends, palm-muted staccato pummeling, and a bass tone that could frighten Thanos all fuel the stomp-and-chop of what is essentially a 45-minute breakdown. Now I know how those slabs of beef in Rocky felt. They do add some uncharacteristic-yet-refreshing melodic nuances this time. Check out the somber ending of “Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow,” the explosive chorus on “Brain Death,” the eerie break on “Time & Death & God,” and the swirling, atmospheric undercurrents of “The Chambered Nautilus” and “House of Abandon.” Nice touches all. Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein drops by for a guest vocal spot on “Go to Sleep.” Not a huge fan of his voice, but it works surprisingly well with the Acacia aesthetic. As with all of their albums, it’s the density and brute strength of their sound and Bennett’s sour, guttural-yet-understandable praises to Negativity that steal the show. Happy faggots beware (I hope the rats eat you alive).

To answer this Punk Rockumentary’s subtitle: in 1982 I was three years old, and not so much concerned with any music scene as I was just trying to get the basic hang of tying my shoes and wiping my own ass (two things I’ve still yet to fully master). It was about 1987-88 when I first took a shining to my mom’s Beatles, Roy Orbison, Byrds, and Bob Dylan 45s, and my love of Punk wouldn’t come until much later — during my freshman year of high school when the fat, blue-haired whore that took my virginity made me a mixtape with Bad Religion, Minor Threat, Pegboy, Operation Ivy, Misfits, Funeral Oration, and Dead Kennedys on it (which I probably still have tucked away in some closet in a box marked “FAILURES FOR CUNTS”). If it counts, I knew all the words to “Pet Sematary” at the age of ten, but I didn’t know the Ramones were Punk at the time… or what Punk was. I was way more into McDonald’s cheeseburgers and watching re-runs of Diff’rent Strokes and Three’s Company after school. What’s that, gentle reader? You don’t give a rat’s dick about a complete stranger’s life story? Ah… well then, this DVD definitely isn’t for you. It’s an utterly unbearable 80 minutes of people you don’t know talking about bands you’ve never heard (and for good reason). My apologies to all the Sweet Madness, Teenagers, Strangulon, Pop Tarts, PP-KU, Terror Couple, and Vampire Lezbos fans out there… oh wait, there aren’t any. It takes the contributors of this film 20 minutes to establish that Spokane, Washington is an isolated, dreary, boring conservative town. What a fucking shocker! “There was nowhere to buy Punk clothes, I had to buy jeans at JC Penny and scuff them up… The jocks would beat me up ‘cuz I had a pink mohawk… We would drink and do drugs and try to have sex with each other… We’d dress up in rubber suits and pretend we were chickens…” LIKE I GIVE A FUCK!!!!! Kill yourselves! That would be entertaining to watch. I spent the majority of this barely-glamorized home movie hitting the remote’s display button to see how much longer I had to suffer, until finally giving up 45 minutes in. None of these bands/people became shit, and that’s not because they were from a shitty town —all towns are shitty, all life sucks everywhere! It’s because they were dopey, uninteresting, talentless hacks that no human being outside of their desperate circle could possibly care about. After watching this, I drove to the mall and bought the new Green Day album purely out of spite.

Let me preface this review by saying that I’ve never been a fan of Fates Warning. Personally, I could never see what the fuss was about them. I tried to listen to them many, many times over the years with little success. I could never get into them, much in the same way that I can’t get into Dream Theater or most other Progressive Metal bands. To me, Fates Warning was like Queensryche, just without any hit songs or even memorable riffs. But all of my friends who played guitar and listened to Metal loved them. Inside Out was initially released back in 1994, however if you love Fates Warning, there’s plenty of additional stuff on this “expanded edition” to entice the money out of your pocket if you already own this. The album is completely remastered and comes with a second CD of live and demo tracks as well as a DVD that has concert footage and interviews on it. Since the label decided not to include the DVD footage with the review materials, I can’t tell you if any of it is worth watching. The live audio tracks on the second disc sound like they are soundboard recordings so they’re almost studio quality. There are some uneven bits (usually in the vocal department) but for the most part, they sound very much like the studio versions. The demo tracks definitely sound like demo recordings, sonically nowhere near as good as the final album versions. The quality is definitely lower, but when I hear a demo recording with audible bass guitar, it always makes me take notice. I imagine that if I actually liked Fates Warning, I would think this was an awesome release. Even after years of trying, I’m still not a fan. They don’t suck, but I don’t like listening to an album for technicality or for the “little things” that a musician would notice but a casual fan wouldn’t give a flying shit about. If you like Fates Warning, this has plenty of stuff that you’ll enjoy. If you’re like me and wouldn’t buy this anyway, nothing here will change your mind about the band. Metal Blade went the extra mile and added quite a lot that a fan of Fates Warning would definitely want in a re-release. I wanted to give this one a five on just the music, but because I got my bachelor’s degree in marketing, I had to add extra points on because of the quality of the bonus materials and because the label cared enough about the fans to give them something extra. I just wish someone would’ve done anything like this when they re-released Possessed’s Seven Churches years ago.

Usually whenever Ray hands me a…
Bag
Bag of shitty demos
Full of rotten demos
Bag of shitty demos
…I often contemplate A) murdering us both and leaving a note that reads “excuse all the blood,” or B) lighting the discs on fire and rolling around in them until I achieve a zombie-like texture. But I always decide to C) listen to them for 30 seconds each in search of something cool or gay enough to actually write about. Sadly it’s rare that I find either, and I’m often left pondering what the goal of an unsigned band even is in the piracy age. Do they hope to sign to Metal Blade and make $87 in t-shirt sales one day? Regardless, this time one band in particular made the most of their 30 seconds, as I’ve probably listened to this fucker 30 times since! Brazil’s Lacerated and Carbonized have absolutely floored me with their refreshing sound, exceptional skill, and a take-no-prisoners style of songwriting that goes straight for the jugular. A mixing/mastering job from Andy Classen (Krisiun, Belphegor) certainly never prevents a self-released album from standing out from the pack, but it’s the band’s energy and talent that truly propels The Core of Disruption to the top shelf. A fast, fierce display of Thrash-infused Death Metal from quite possibly the last band on the planet with the balls to use traditional E-tuning. Okay, this could be E-flat, but the point being these guys get more out of it than some bands that use 19 strings or whatever the norm is nowadays. For the most part, they keep their songs short and speedy, load them with razor-sharp, addictive riffs and a baby-bear’s-porridge Death/Thrash roar, while frequently decorating them with bursts of Behemoth-level blasting and occasional left-field percussion —some sort of Brazilian bongo drum?— that successfully conjures a tribal atmosphere without sounding contrived or corny. I can’t say enough about the riffs! A worship of early ’90s Floridian Death Metal, and Thrash giants from the Bay Area/Germany collective. The kind of riffs their countrymates in Sepultura used to make. Hunt this pleasant surprise down at all costs, and would some label please give them $87 before somebody figures out a way to download shirts?

Seth Putnam liked Earache better when Dig answered the phone, and I liked Forgotten Tomb better when it was just Herr Morbid. However, …and Don’t Deliver Us from Evil is a step toward a darker tomorrow. In truth, this Italian Depressive Black Metal unit only have one completely flawless album (2002’s Songs to Leave) and one truly awful album (2007’s Negative Megalomania) to their credit, while the rest tread on the more worthwhile side of the middle ground. Last year’s Under Saturn Retrograde showed signs of a return to suicidal form, and this prompt follow-up is even better yet. Of course you wouldn’t know that judging by album opener “Deprived,” which showcases the same greasy Sleaze Rock edge that made Megalomania so unlistenable, but the ensuing title track sizzles with the bitter melodies, scornful rage, and lyrical misanthropy I’m in search of when I reach for a Forgotten Tomb record. “Cold Summer” and “Love Me Like You’d Love the Death” are decent bleak tunes, but not great ones, and at 8+ minutes each they’re officially declared filler. Meanwhile, “Let’s Torture Each Other” reeks of Garage Rock/Gutter Punk influence. Perhaps last year’s Stooges cover and GG Allin tribute didn’t quite exorcise all such demons? In all fairness, it should be noted that Morbid & Co aren’t completely terrible at the whole Rock/Punk thing. It just sounds like a BM band having fun… which is unfortunately somewhat of a detraction from the Suicidal Depressive vibe these guys are masters of. By the way, there’s a reason dirty Punk songs aren’t normally six minutes long! Luckily the LP ends on a we’ve-saved-the-best-for-last note with the one-two punch of “Adrift” and “Nullifying Tomorrow.” The former being the best song they’ve written since the immortal “Alone.” Sharp morose tones, a mournful sonic weight, and a highly improved clean singing voice. Admittedly, it might be a touch too much on the Depeche Mode side of things for some, but I love the way it drives the profanity-laced chorus into the memory banks. The latter is just a pure anthemic wrist-slicer, with many a nod to the miserable magnificence of early-career Katatonia. If you ask me, Morbid just needs a side project to blow his Hard Rock load with. Fill the Tomb with only sadness. (This pleases Negativity).

I’ve never been a serious student of Kabala or any other form of ancient Messo-Arabic mysticism (mostly due to lack of time or available resources), so the lyrical content of Death Scroll of Seven Hells and Its Infernal Majesties is somewhat out of my depth. My only real references to things like the Qliphothic Tree of Death are from other Black Metal albums (such as Blood Ritual’s At the Mountains of Madness or Black Grimoire). Of course, this isn’t a college dissertation on an obscure mystical topic so in-depth knowledge of this stuff isn’t necessary. Musically, Hellvetron sounds like a Black Metal version of Disembowelment or Corpse Molestation. The guitars have a similar dark and fuzzy sound and their playing style is definitely in the old Doom/Death style that Disembowelment and Corpse Molestation had. I’ve also heard people compare this band to Thergothon because of the riffing and atmosphere. I would say that while Hellvetron does have similarities to Thergothon, they don’t have the same atmosphere. Death Scroll of Seven Hells and Its Infernal Majesties is primarily focused on the delivering dark, brutal Doom/Death with occasional atmospheric stuff. What hinders this album isn’t the musical content or the lyrics, but the sound. This isn’t horribly produced, but I wanted more definition. This whole album sounded muffled to me. The drumming was all right, but the guitars, vocals and the occasional keyboard work needed to be louder and clearer. I’m not expecting crystal clear production, but I do like to hear what is going on. This is a solid debut album that has me interested in seeing where they take this sound and style.

When I first heard this Swedish Melodeath band back in early 2009 on sophomore effort The Cancer Empire, I was impressed if not totally blown away. The album had a very respectable Hypocrisy-inspired vibe. Well-produced, heavy, melodically rich, and while not entirely original, it provided a handful of enjoyable listens before being archived and ultimately forgotten. After a week’s worth of spinning Arrival of the Red Sun, I’m not 100% certain if it’s the band or myself that has changed, but either way this follow-up does absolutely nothing for me. It could be that those three-plus years of living the life least imagined has lessened the allure of bouncy, futuristic-sounding Death Metal. It could be that I saw the band’s recent promo photos —dressed up as some kind of gay pride Mad Max refugees in a Photoshopped apocalyptic wasteland— and subconsciously wrote them off beforehand. It could be that the past ten months spent listening to depressive masterpieces by Alcest, Pallbearer, Evoken, Katatonia, and An Autumn for Crippled Children have made anything less seem like a Barney & Friends sing-along by comparison. Or it could be that the group’s songwriting has simply gone south. The happy faggot grooves that stain throwaway tracks like “Gunpoint Salvation,” “The Blood That Must Be Paid,” and “My Vengeance Remains” would certainly suggest the latter. Whatever the case, Arrival fails to impress on any level, unless of course you’re seeking the perfect Death Metal album to play Double Dutch to. Indistinguishable lightweight arrangement follows indistinguishable lightweight arrangement ad nauseum. Insert gay guitar solo, insert fagspeak, insert AIDS-infected synth, felch and repeat. There isn’t a split second of darkness, pain, or brutality on display here. You might as well be listening to that Kenny Loggins song from Caddyshack for 40 minutes. The absolute nicest thing I can say is that Simon Berglund’s vocals still sound fairly razor sharp. But all the decent pipes, super-sleek production, chops, and Armageddon-themed lyrics in the world couldn’t save this syrup enema.