Internal Bleeding - Driven to Conquer
Back again with another album of pit-inducing Death Metal. And another new singer. I hope they can keep this line up, since I think it’s their best so far. And thanks to ironing out the past problems of production and fine tuning their songwriting, this may be their best album to date as well.
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Himinbjorg - In the Raven’s Shadow
Three minutes of pretty acoustic guitars and keyboards later, the album really starts. The music is strangely “happy,” but I suppose that matches the vocals, which sound something like a guy in a coffeehouse reading his sappy poetry that he thinks is the best shit ever written. Well, and then there are the raspy vocals, which are a little better, although still not very good, and generally they seem to be at odds with the music. Okay, these guys do speed things up, but the faster parts really emphasize the weird production and mix. And I really should mention the laughable keyboard effects. In at least one song, they sound as if they were taken straight out of a vintage 1983 video game. There are a few good moments here and there, and it does kind of get better as it goes along, but the bad easily outweighs the good.
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Gwar - Phallus in Wonderland (video)
Ahh, the DVD release of this classic video from 1992. There isn’t much in the way of extras: You can jump right to the song you want, and check out stills of the cast, and that’s pretty much it. But, this is the concept video that brought Gwar to the world, I guess, and it certainly sees them at a point in their career that was a lot better musically and comedicly than they are currently. The plot that ties everything together centers around Gwar’s fight against the dick-stealing Morality Squad. That’ll make more sense once you’ve seen this, which I’d certainly recommend unless you just insist on taking everything too seriously.
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Gwar - We Kill Everything
Man, I thought Cärnival of Chaos was a disappointment. This is considerably worse. Oh sure, they try to be funny, but it just never seems to work. And the “experimentation” with all these musical styles (Country, Ass Rock, and other assorted inane pap) only makes it seem as if they are desperately throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. They are smart enough to make the first few seconds good, but things deteriorate very quickly after that. I just do not understand how Gwar could have felt good enough about this material to ever let it see the black of night. How much worse will they get before they give up?
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Immolation - Failures for Gods
It’s been a long wait since their last disc was released back in ‘96, but this ultra-heavy monster has been worth it. Immolation have taken their time and come up with a massively brutal slab of Death Metal.
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Graveland - Epilogue
I guess that Graveland decided to release this officially as someone out there was selling a bootleg copy of this demo for $20+ (the bootleg is a split with Behemoth’s Return of the Northern Moon demo). I have the second release of this demo (on tape by Darken’s own distribution, Isengard) as well as the bootleg and having heard both of those recordings already, I have to say that the sound on this absolutely sucks shit. No, I take that back. The intros sound great. The Black Metal parts are the ones that sound like shit. In other words, nothing at all was done to improve the sound from the original tape. Even though the sound is total crap, there is still an unholy atmosphere about this recording that gave this band such cult status back in 1993. I don’t know what about it that does it, but it’s fucking there. It isn’t the trashcan lid drums, the ultra-thin guitars or what sounds like Rob Darken getting a hedgehog shoved up his ass, nor is it the minimalistic Emperor-ish keyboards. I guess it’s the combination of all of the above that gave Graveland that sound. If the Epilogue demo itself wasn’t enough, No Colours has decided to include a different version of the In the Glare of Burning Churches demo as well. Of the two, I think the Epilogue demo sounded better, but even though both sound like absolute shit, they’re both still better than that horribly overpriced Viking Crown CD. For die-hard fans who absolutely must own everything that Graveland ever released only. This won’t convert anyone, so buy Immortal Pride instead if you’re curious.
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Hypocrisy - Hypocrisy
I’m glad to see these guys decided to keep on releasing albums. This musically covers a lot of Metal’s unhallowed ground, which is what Hypocrisy fans have come to expect. Naturally, everything is nuclear powered, and you’ll be screeching along in no time. An amazing album that sort of ties together all the different styles Hypocrisy have employed over the years, and then takes them all a little further. And my review copy is so “advance” that the songs haven’t even been mastered yet! I’m not sure how it could possibly sound any better, though. The shouted vocals in “Time Warp” are nearly all that keep this from perfection.
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Hypocrisy - Hypocrisy Destroys Wacken
I guess mobile recording technology must be improving. I would say that “for a live album” this sounds great, but that’s a vast understatement. This sounds like they took the studio versions and added in-between track crowd noise, but I know it’s live. I’m already impressed, only three seconds in to the first cut. As with all live LPs, there are a few songs I wish had been on this, but that’s to be expected. And how are Hypocrisy sounding, you ask? Well, pretty god damn good. Their newer style is a little hard to pigeonhole, and they stick mostly to that, which for once is okay with me. However, they also treat us to an inspirational rendition of “Pleasure of Molestation,” which is probably worth the cost by itself. And just to make sure that this is utterly essential, there are four new studio tracks on here, too.
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Grip Inc. - Solidify
Riff-wise, this occasionally departs from their first two LPs, generally into the start-stop territory that’s less favored by me. Very fortunately, Gus makes no similar concessions with his vocals, and Waldemar injects enough variation into his guitar work to almost make you forget the less-than-great parts, and there are a lot of great moments on here, too. But the bottom line is that I really don’t like this “’90s” riffing style. Thankfully they don’t employ it all the time, but a little goes a long way with me. And things certainly do get better as the album goes along. So, I’m torn on how to rate Solidify, and I’ll wait for their next disc to say anything too bad about Grip Inc.
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