It’s always been a puzzle to me how Japan’s Sigh have managed to escape the confines of anonymity throughout their career. Don’t get me wrong, I realize having your debut album on some dude named Euronymous’ label near the peak of the Second Wave’s misanthropic headline-making doesn’t hurt. It also helps if said debut leads off with a Black Metal anthem as timelessly bad-ass as “A Victory of Dakini.” But not long after this, my interest in Sigh dropped off the face of the Earth. I seem to remember a cool bootleg CD of Venom covers, but I’m still waiting on the urge to hear Venom songs result in me reaching for anything other than Venom albums. The music I’ve heard from Sigh over the last decade or so hasn’t even been music. It’s been some kind of shit sandwich on LSD that weaklings at weak mags drool over. In Somniphobia is at least coherent. By far the most Metal they’ve sounded since I was wrapping up the 9th grade. Still, it’s pure shit. I’d literally rather watch reruns of The Golden Girls than subject myself to this unmemorable riff collage. It’s not enough for me to be thankful that a Sigh album actually has riffs. I haven’t seen it yet, but I know in my heart that the aforementioned happy faggot publications will try to tell you that this is the most meaningful music penned since John Lennon’s “Imagine.” It’s not. It sounds like a lower-tier US Black Metal band from 1999 trying to be Cradle of Filth. I don’t care if there’s a hot girl in this band, playing the recorder or whatever she does, I’m NEVER going to fuck her. This LP is a boredom quilt. I’d rather change the battery on a Chevy Lumina naked in subzero temperatures than force myself to like this happy Black/Thrash jam session. Go ahead and close the book. Scorn Defeat is still the only one you need.

When I first heard Brett Campbell sing, it was on “Silent and Completely Overcome” from Loss’s masterfully bleak Despond LP last year. His passionately sorrowful croon took the song to another level, wearing out the Repeat One function on my stereo in the process. Who is this fallen angel of Doom? Where did he come from? Real music tends to inspire research, and a few weeks later I scored a copy of Pallbearer’s 2010 Demo. Three flawless Doom hymns in the traditional vein, that is to say they owe more to Black Sabbath and Saint Vitus than Turn Loose the Swans or Gothic. Quite frankly the best Doom demo since Avernus’s legendary Sadness. It’s no surprise that a deal with Profound Lore quickly ensued and the end result is the full-length debut I now hold in my trembling hands like Gollum. What can I say, it’s a flawless record. It’s essentially the demo, but more of it, with the rough edges polished. Actually “rough edges polished” is a bit of an understatement. These guitars sound like passenger aircraft flying 20 feet above your house. I think Campbell and Devin Holt might be using piano wire instead of guitar strings, with adamantium picks. These riffs are fucking monsters and the suffocating heaviness combined with the record’s morbidly depressive vibe provides an unending sea of eargasms. But Campbell’s voice is the real treasure. It’s equal parts Patrick Walker and a young Ozzy Osbourne, yet with more range and hold than either of them. His soulful, haunting pitch is the perfect vessel for lyrics so dismal and void of hope that they simply had to have been inspired by my “life.” The complete package is pure, traditional Doom euphoria. The slow-motion atmosphere Pallbearer creates is a sonic paradise for the heavy-hearted. This is the band Cathedral wish they could have been. If I had one complaint it’s that at 49 minutes, I wish it lasted 31 minutes longer. They could’ve at the very least included “Gloomy Sunday,” the only song from the demo not re-recorded for the album. But that isn’t so much a complaint as it is extended praise. This band can do no wrong in my eyes. You must own this record. You must worship this record. If by some white sorcery you aren’t immediately hooked, give it time… you will be. Flawless demo, flawless debut… that’s an awfully high bar set for a career. A career I hope is long and prosperous.
“No more time, no more breath
No more hope, no more dawn
Only void…”

There was a time when I eagerly sought out every Death Metal album I could find. I’ve seen and heard it all multiple times. To this day, I still have a soft spot in my blackened heart for Death Metal. I still feel that sense of darkness and frenzy that I felt the very first time I heard Altars of Madness or Left Hand Path whenever I throw those albums on. When I hear a new band, my first thought is to compare the feelings I get to those old-school classics to see how the new kids stack up (not that the NT guys are “new kids,” having all been in many other bands over the years). That being said, They Come at Night punishes me the way I like it. The production on this is fucking sick. If Death Metal had a set of templates for how to produce an album the right way, this would be one of them. Musically, Nocturnal Torment brutalizes you from the opening second and really doesn’t stop until the last song is over. There aren’t any acoustic interludes, atmospheric keyboards or female vocals to be found here. What you get is Death Metal reminiscent of older Swedish Death Metal music with an American Death Metal sound. The formulation is especially apparent on the last track, “Primordial Existence.” The name that keeps popping up in comparison is old Hypocrisy, because they were very much like that. Peter Tagtgren spent time in Florida and when he went back to Sweden to form his band, he took the American Death Metal sound and applied it to the Swedish style and got something of a hybrid. They Come at Night reminds me a lot of that sound. If you listen to this and Osculum Obscenum side by side, they have a lot of the same qualities. If any improvement is to be made, I think what this band needs is to include a strong hook or a strong chorus part to their songs. If there is an Achilles Heel to They Come at Night, it’s in the memorability department. Every song kicks your ass, but there isn’t something that sticks in your head long after you’re done listening to the CD. This is something that takes a lot of work to develop. If these guys can get that aspect covered and maintain their brutality, they’ll be turning heads and snapping necks with the top tier bands in the genre. Even without the strong hook or chorus, They Come at Night holds up well after repeated plays. I’ve listened to this twelve times as of this writing and I’ve yet to get tired or bored of it. When you can say that about an album, it’s got to be good.

Progressive Metal isn’t a genre that I particularly enjoy. I only really like two bands in the genre: Hammers of Misfortune and Anvil Chorus (both Bay Area bands that fucking kill live). One of the many reasons I don’t like Progressive Metal is that the songs are long, meandering and overly complex. Beyond the Bridge is that in spades. Musically, this doesn’t suck, but I can’t say that I like it either. The problem is that it requires too much attention. When I listen to music, I don’t want to analyze the structures to death, trying to figure out what they’re doing. This is essentially an album for people who listen to music for the technical aspect. Yes, the production is great. The musical structures are complex and interesting. The playing is technically flawless. My problem with this album is that I don’t care enough about those things to make an otherwise long, meandering and overly complex album worth listening to. If you love Dream Theater or Fates Warning, you might get a kick out of Beyond the Bridge, too. If you’re not a musician who listens to albums for technicality and nuanced structures, you’re going to be bored out of your fucking mind in no time at all.

This Mexican Death/Doom outfit suffers from an all-too common affliction in the Metal world. A chronic disease known as Onlythefirstsongisgooditis. There is no known cure, barring painfully realistic self-evaluation and a defeated crawl back to the drawing board. It’s clearly evident after multiple listens that the opening title track contains the only really good ideas Majestic Downfall have had up to this point. The finest one being the pure Katatonia-style riff straight from the Brave Murder Day / Sounds of Decay era that ties the song together perfectly. The best description I could offer of this glorious title track would have to be the band’s name. It’s a truly majestic cut embittered by raw despondency. But that’s about it for the album. “From Black to Dead” and “An Untravelled Road” have moments of noteworthy Paradise Lost and Cemetary worship, both in their Doomy primes, but these tracks also suffer from ridiculously cruel lengths (nearly 20 minutes combined). Jacobo Cordova’s vocals just aren’t pro enough to carry that much weight. He really sounds like shit on “Dimension Plague,” which is equally plagued by overwhelmingly vaginal lyrics, and even more so on album closer “Cronos.” During the clean part of the latter… no man’s voice should ever sound like that. There’s also a mind-numbingly boring song that Cordova perhaps penned for his favorite retail outlet entitled, “Army of Salvation.” No joke, that’s what it’s actually called. In summary, download for the terrific first song and trash the rest because you’ll never listen to it.

If this wasn’t recorded at Sunlight Studios, it sure sounds like it was. The Chills has all the hallmarks of old-school Swedish Death Metal, but from an American band. The guitars are sick. For a second, I thought I’d accidentally thrown on some old Entombed or Dismember (Carnage or Nirvana 2002 if you’re a Metal hipster). Then the vocals kicked in and I thought I was listening to Asphyx. Horrendous has multiple singers, but the main vocalist sounds a lot like Martin Van Drunen. If you can imagine Martin fronting Dismember during their Like an Ever Flowing Stream days, it would sound like seven of the nine tracks on The Chills. One of the songs, “Sleep Sickness,” is a keyboard track that serves as an into to “The Eye of Madness.” The other track, “The Ritual,” has a different band member on vocals so it sounds more guttural. The pacing is a bit slower than I expected, but in a way, that’s the only possibility for the riffing to make any kind of sense. If they played faster, this would be a giant ball of distortion. This is a solid release, and fans of old-school Swedish Death Metal will surely enjoy it, even if the band doesn’t come from Sweden.

For those unfamiliar with The 11th Hour, this is longtime Death Metal drummer extraordinaire Ed Warby (Gorefest, Hail of Bullets, Ayreon, Demiurg) trying his hand at Doom Metal, and doing a damn fine job of it I might add. This is his second full-length offering, Burden of Grief being one of the more pleasant surprises of 2009. Now, when I say this is Ed Warby’s baby, I mean it. He’s doing drums, guitars, bass, keyboards, and singing. And yes, I do mean singing. His voice is actually quite good. A work in progress, perhaps, but sounding even more improved this time around. He’s kind of like a poor man’s Patrick Walker (Warning, 40 Watt Sun), and his operatic style gives half of the project’s sound a more traditional Doom feel. What about the other half, you ask? The added dimension of guest Death Metal vocals takes Warby’s ideas to new heights depths. It accentuates the heaviness of the compositions and exposes the heartache that lies within, taking things from “meh” to “whoa!” On the first album it was Rogga Johansson doing guest Death Metal pipes, proving he can do more than write the same kick-ass Paganizer/Ribspreader album over and over again. This time around it’s Pim Blankenstein from longtime underground Death/Doom mainstays Officium Triste. A wise choice for Warby considering Pim knows his way around a forlorn tune like few others. He fills Rogga’s shoes seamlessly, his mournful Death roar in perhaps its finest form ever, adding even more poignant weight to Ed’s contrasting clean croon. The melodies flow like crimson from slit wrists underneath a blanket of monolithic heaviness, while the two vocalists trade light and dark to near perfection. A couple tracks miss the mark slightly, but you can’t do much better than “Rain on Me,” “The Death of Life,” “Reunion Illusion,” “Nothing but Pain,” and “Bury Me” on a rainy, alcoholic night of solitude, when the street light coming through the window and a lit cigarette are all that illuminate the room.

In 2006 when ex-Nasum drummer Anders Jakobson first emerged with Coldworker not long after the tragic, untimely death of Mieszko Talarcz, it was a powerful thing to behold. What better way to mourn than with the brutal and catchy Grindcore tour de force that The Contaminated Void was? But follow-up LP, Rotting Paradise, was one of the biggest disappointments of 2008. Still fast, still heavy, but about as memorable as your first piss. Unfortunately The Doomsayer’s Call follows in its footsteps. There’s just nothing about these seemingly indiscernible 13 cuts that stands out whatsoever. Oddly enough there isn’t one obvious, identifiable reason as to why that is. The production is perfect, Joel Fornbrant’s vocals sound as bestial as ever, there are decent riffs, the songs have good structure, and the drumming is spot-on. Still, it’s all immediately forgettable. This is a record that begs the mind to wander, creating those awkward “what-am-I-listening-to-again?” moments. It’s an album that, despite it’s coherency and stellar musicianship, becomes a wall of background noise after the first handful of tracks. It’s completely baffling considering this is one of the guys who brought us Human 2.0. The news isn’t all bad on this front, however; Nasum will very soon be embarking on a reunion tour with Keijo from the mighty Rotten Sound filling in on lungs! I was fortunate enough to see Nasum play the Milwaukee Metalfest circa 2000. Jakobson was pummeling his kit so hard that people had to sit in front of the kick drum to keep it from moving! On that note, perhaps these more recent works of Coldworker might fare better in a live setting as well? Regardless, on disc it bores to tears.

This is album number two for Arlington, Virginia’s King Giant. Since I’m more of a Death/Thrash/Black Metal fan, this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this band. After having listened to Dismal Hollow, I think I might try and find KG’s debut album because this is pretty good. It has a strong groove element and the slow, but heavy, riffing gets your head banging almost right away. The Rock & Roll element really shines through when it comes to catchy hooks and memorable riffs. While this band doesn’t come from the “Deep South,” I was surprised by how strong the “Southern” influence was in their music. You can hear a bit of a twang in the vocalist’s delivery, though his voice kind of reminded me of Glenn Danzig (if you don’t know who that is, shoot yourself…). Maybe if Danzig moved down South and started playing Southern Fried Stoner Doom… Well, you get the picture. King Giant is what happens when people who grow up listening to Country music start playing Stoner Doom. The song lyrics are all pretty similar to your standard Country fare - songs about the Civil War, a woman who murders her abusive husband with an ax, etc. When you add this to the music, you get an album that is very solid, heavier than a ton of bricks, yet accessible to people who don’t normally listen to Metal. If you’re a fan of Black Sabbath/Heaven and Hell, Dismal Hollow will definitely satisfy your love of heavy music.