August - Inquisitory Times
Twenty minutes of fast, keyboard-laden, atmospheric Black Metal from right here in the USA. They have a polished, professional sound, and interesting, memorable songs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see August get signed soon.
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Ataraxia - Lost Atlantis
Very well done Ambient Folk, I guess I’ll call it. It’s certainly interesting, and makes for sedating background music, but that’s about all I get out of this, as it’s really more Ychoril’s area of expertise.
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As Divine Grace - Supremature
Gothic-Rock from Finland. Trendy, unintelligent, and uninspired music for 15-year-old girls and boys who wear black lipstick. To sit through this entire album takes the kind of testicular fortitude that few possess. Oh how I wish bands like this would just fucking die!
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Artension - Forces of Nature
Can someone please tell me why so many excellent musicians insist on wasting their talents on playing neo-Classical, self-indulgent, pseudo-Metal like this? I mean who the fuck buys this stuff? I certainly can’t dismiss the musicianship on this stroke-fest, but how about less chops and more emphasis on contemporary songwriting. The only thing more annoying than the goofy Rainbow rip-off vocals (a la Joe Lynn Turner) might just be the goofy Rainbow rip-off keyboard solos. Yawn. Uh guys… it’s 1999, not 1979.
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Armistice - Airraid
Very impressive, speedy, and aggressive Thrash, that includes a great cover of “Symptom of the Universe.”
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Arcana - Isabel
Clocking in at just over 8 minutes, this is one short CD, and two of these three tracks will be on their next album anyway. So, I was a little hesitant to even review this at all. But we do review everything we’re sent [Yes, we were that insane back then! -Editor], so I put it in the player. And, god damn, man, when the concept of “Dark Ambient” was invented, Arcana must have been exactly what everyone had in mind. The instrumental title track alone is almost beyond description. Using words like “majestic,” “chilling,” and “perfect” hardly seems strong enough to describe it. The remaining two tracks were slightly less beyond belief, but still absolutely excellent.
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Arallu - The War on the Wailing Wall
One of the things that sets Arallu’s raw Black Metal apart is that Butchered does everything himself, which is impressive. There was a time when one-man bands were generally not very good, but it seems that recently I’ve been hearing more and more that are really cool. And it might not mean much to some, but the fact that the bass is mixed really loudly is a real plus for me, and helps to make the songs more memorable, amid the blazing speed and unholy shrieks.
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Akercocke - Rape of the Bastard Nazarene
Does anyone out there know what the fuck an Akercocke is? I’ve never heard of one but whatever it is, this band’s members decided to name themselves after it. Akercocke (the band) is from England and plays Satanic Death Metal with a definite Dark Ambient leaning. Or is that Dark Ambient with a Satanic Death Metal leaning? Most of the album, in fact, is in the Dark Ambient vein with weird bits, gloomy keyboard passages, female vocals and Satanic spoken word parts. The rest of the music is fairly brutal Death Metal in the veins of the older Florida scene with hints of the Buffalo scene (deeper, more guttural vocals and muddier guitars). The song structures are kind of weird as it sounds like you’re listening to a Dark Ambient piece and all of a sudden, in the middle of the piece, a Death Metal song will break out. After a bit, the Dark Ambient part will start up again. Kind of schizophrenic, if you ask me. Imagine the bastard crossbreed of Endura and Immolation with the baby taking after Endura but not without Immolation’s brutal tendencies popping up every now and then. An interesting combo of styles to be sure.
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Azaghal - Harmagedon
The only real flaw with this EP is that the sound is pretty low, even for a 7-inch, but when you turn it up a bit, the quality is there, in both the recording, and especially the songs. Of these four cuts, I really prefer the slower, more sorrowful sounds of the title track, over the other, speedier and more aggressive cuts, but they are all really quite good - or more to the point, evil. As an added plus, they have thoughtfully included the lyrics and also English translations thereof.
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