Emperor - Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk
The only excuse for not completely worshipping these Nordic Black Metal gods is being deaf. Why can’t I compose music like this? So flawless and majestic. I have yet to hear an Emperor song that I do not like! A crowbar could not remove me from this band’s nuts. And I would cut off my left arm to see these guys live. Don’t be a dumb ass. Buy this album now.
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Embrace of Fear - The Mysterious Underflesh Emotions
This Death/Doom would be easy to improve by simply mixing the keyboards a little lower. They overpower the guitars, vox, and even drums, which is really too bad, since E of F are quite good at creating depressing, suicidal feelings with their musical art. When they’re not playing fast, that is. That’s my only other criticism: The band switches from slow to blast sometimes just out of nowhere. Still, it’s a must for $3.
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Elegeion - Odyssey Into Darkness
Three mournful dirges laid down with suicidal intentions. The clean female vocals, violin, and keyboards might make one think that this couldn’t be heavy, and in the traditional guitar sense, it’s not really. And yet it is. Perhaps like drowning close enough to the surface to see the light, but not reach it.
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Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics…
This is the thickest, most oppressive, outright heaviest guitar sound maybe ever recorded. Not that St. Vitus didn’t perfect this Sludge/Doom weed-powered depression, or Black Sabbath before them, of course, but Electric Wizard’s sound is just awesomely massive. And check out these lyrics: “I hope your fuckin’ world fuckin’ burns way / I’d kill you all if I had my way.” (Note to all record labels: This is only one of the many reasons why it’s important to send the complete package to review.) How can you top something like that? Well, they could give you a whole extra CD. Which is exactly what EW does. It’s a remixed version of the Electric Wizard LP, which is more obviously Black Sabbath influenced, and somewhat less heavy sounding than the Come My Fanatics… disc. But it would have to be. I can’t imagine not owning this.
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Edge of Sanity - Infernal
This album is noteworthy in many ways, but before I played it the first time, I noticed that it was not recorded at Unisound (the studio of EoS main man Dan Swano), but at Abyss. That guarantees it’s heaviness, and as always the band delivers interesting songs. There is more experimentation with different vocals styles here, and many of them don’t work well. Dan has a few different bands, and I think that he might be well advised to stick with a single style for each. When one song goes from Journey with heavily distorted guitars to Death Metal, it’s a little weird. At any rate, Infernal is quite enjoyable, but it does sound a bit thrown together at times.
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Ebony Tears - Tortura Insomniae
Another of the “melodic Death Rock” bands, maybe like In Flames meets Sentenced. Ebony Tears certainly write memorable songs, and are technically impressive players. Even the vox are well done, varying from whispers to a raspy style. The best part, for me at least, is that ET haven’t forgotten that being heavy is a good idea, too.
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Eblis - ...and Our Time Announces Black
Eblis, I believe, is a Polish band that plays Atmospheric Black Metal in the vein of Emperor with influences from Cradle of Filth and a little Darkthrone. The material for this release was originally recorded back in ‘97 - as were a number of recordings that are just now making their way into record stores. CD demo represses by Namataru and Black Pentecost are also from that year and I got those two at the same time as this CD (at the same fucking record store, no less)! Musically, the songs are much like Emperor in terms of structure but Eblis adds some acoustic guitar, clean male and female vocals as well as some other flourishes that prove that they can take the early Emperor sound and advance it beyond a cloning. The lyrics on …and Our Time Announces Black, like the title, are in badly broken English, but the feeling is more important in this case. Nazgul (the singer) has a very grim voice that reminds me a whole lot of Fenriz. The lower, throaty rasp that he uses adds more menace to the songs. Eblis may not be well known yet, but I can see them kicking some bigger bands off their pedestals should more people hear this album.
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Dying Breed - Hatefuck
I’ve never understood why any would voluntarily put a “Parental Advisory” sticker on anything, but here we have one. Maybe they think that this will somehow make its way into Musicland, and thus “need” such a sticker. At any rate, Dying Breed are musically aggressive Hardcore / Metal, but their singer gives away their tough-guy mentality, which I have a hard time tolerating.
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Drogheda / Dismembered Fetus - split tape
The Drogheda side is a pleasure to hear, as the intensity of their Death/Grind shines through the improved production. The Dismembered Fetus side is even more intense, extreme Death/Grind, and has some very cool between-song samples. For only $2, you’d have to be insane (in the bad way) to not get this.
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