Bethlehem - Thy Pale Dominion
What do you get if you combine atmospheric Doom and Black Metal? According to Bethlehem you get Dark Metal, and that’s exactly what these two songs are. The sound is excellent, but if you have their Dark Metal CD, these are its two bonus tracks.
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Benediction - The Dreams You Dread
Less intense and less interesting than before. They manage to come up with a new riff, bringing their total to, I guess, 5 now. Too bad they stole it from Metallica’s “One.” I am not kidding. This is Metal-by-the-numbers. The vocals are maybe even worse, and we’re treated to a plethora of such long forgotten horrors as “hey,” “ooooohhh,” “go!” and even “let’s go!” The weird part is that it’s extremely memorable, but I think that’s because these riffs were old when they used them on their first LP.
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Belt - The Killing Verdict
It sure has been awhile since I last heard from Belt, but they were kind enough to use a quote from the now ancient Metal Curse #6 on their press release. Anyway, this is insane, electronically altered hate. I wouldn’t be going way too far to call this Noise, but I think the band may prefer something along the lines of Death Industrial. It sounds like the soundtrack to Hell, and sometimes doesn’t bother to give a fuck about anything like a song, as long as the listener is engulfed in Belt’s pain and suffering.
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Behemoth - ...from the Pagan Vastlands
Nice acoustic bits. I wasn’t expecting that from a Black Metal band. They keep the surprises up, although not constantly. Right as I begin to think, “well now this sounds like Emperor,” they throw in a little twist. The production is poor, but not unlistenable. They may even want this sound. But maybe not, as I think this was a demo repressed on CD. Hey, they even do a pretty blasphemous cover of “Deathcrush.”
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Beats the Hell Out of Me - Rolling Thunder Music
It’s clear that these guys are really talented, and sometimes that’s enough for them. The arrangements are very interesting, and there’s quite a bit going on in these songs. For the most part, they even have a certain level of energy. The music can be kinda heavy, but usually isn’t much more so than say Soundgarden, and the vocals stay in that range too. However, these guys would kick the collective ass of any “Alternative Rock” band, or whatever they’re called this week. And although Beats the Hell Out of Me (which is an apt name for this diverse band) isn’t always hitting the bulls eye, it’s usually pretty close.
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Battalion - Excessive Force
The Thrash of Battalion is sometimes very compelling. They manage to come up with interesting riffs, and always play with a lot of feeling. The vocals are what sets them apart, though. Usually sung in a powerful clean style, they drop into a sort of scream in a couple of places, which erodes what the normal version of the vocals accomplish.
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Bathory - Octagon
Well, this is way better than the Quorthon “solo” album. Not anything compared to the classic first few releases, but at least he’s trying. Too bad he lost all the Black Metal aspects. Perhaps next time he’ll get that back and not cover Kiss, although Quorthon does sound right at home squealing out all the “oh yeah”s and “baby”s in the ancient “Deuce.”
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Baltak - Macedonian Darkness and Evil
I think this is one guy and a drum machine. Pretty basic fast Black Metal, but also extremely aggressive, and Gorgoroth’s vocals are torturous, plus there are a few interesting riffs on here.
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Axen Province - Purification
Imagine a slightly more talented Pantera, without vocal distortion. But, I have to give this band a bit more credit than that. The vocalist has his own style of aggression, the guitar riffs are hard-hitting and the drummer seems to know what he’s doing. And unlike some of the other stuff I’ve heard lately, none of the songs sound the same. They all have been crafted differently, and it shows.
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