I suppose the title of the album kind of gives it away that this Japanese trio aren’t 100% serious, but it seeps through even into the actual sound of the record. The kick drums and toms sound like empty two-liter bottles pounded on a stainless steel counter. Take a rubber band, hold it in place with your teeth, stretch it four inches from your and face pluck it, and now you essentially have their bass tone. The vocals of Masaki Hidaka are also comical in their guttural depth. He is the quintessential cookie cutter Cookie Monster. All that said, I don’t hate the album. It is full of solid riffs, sick breakdowns, and mind-bending bass guitar tweedly-deedlies. In fact, they are near Alex Websteresque in their tweedly-deedliness. But even for the average Death Metal fan, let alone a lifer as myself, I doubt this will penetrate your top 500. It’s just too middle-of-the-road and forgettable. You could do worse though.

Before I start on this album, I want to make it known that I absolutely worshipped this band’s self-titled debut. I had always intended to review it, but rampant drug and alcohol abuse combined with unprotected sex with several partners kept getting in the way. I’m not always the biggest advocate of female-fronted Metal, but I probably would’ve dropped an easy 9.75 on it, as it was nearly perfect in every way. Just wanted to let you know the angle I was coming from because I don’t like this new album at all. I don’t know if it’s the production or if the material just isn’t as memorable, but it can’t hold a black or red candle to the debut. Alia O’Brien’s voice sounds completely different, nowhere near as haunting or eerie. Plus, a lot of her singing is just plain off key (“Night of Augury”). The record’s sound is much bigger, cleaner and more modern, so a lot of that classic ’70s Hard Rock Black Sabbath/Jethro Tull vibe is just gone. It’s almost as if they purposely set out to change everything that I admired so much about the first album, with the exception of singing about Jesus’ love (let’s hope that isn’t next). I pray to Lucifer the new Devil’s Blood isn’t a letdown as well.

It’s sort of odd that a band barely a decade old requires a greatest hits package, but I suppose there are some circumstantial factors involved here. First and foremost the band is moving to Metal Blade (with a new release just weeks away), so they probably owed Victory one more album I’m guessing. Well, the parties involved have done everything possible to make this a worthwhile release for collectors and new fans alike. There are two discs plus a DVD with three music videos and the Colors companion film. There’s also hidden messages that can be decoded throughout the packaging, and I’m told the first few pressings actually come with a live rabbit and Ovaltine. What’s missing is any material from their self-titled debut (not a Victory release), arguably their best album, unarguably their most brutal shit. This compilation does benefit me somewhat as I never did buy the Colors album (I was still pissed at the band for covering Pantera on their bullshit stopgap b-sides album), and low and behold the best songs are right here for me. There’s also live material (BtBaM are an absolutely stunning live band, as I have personally witnessed) and a Cutty Sark cover. Just kidding about the Cutty Sark cover. I can’t argue that this is not the definitive top shelf material from the world’s premier Progressive Metalcore act, because it certainly is, even if the actual product in question is a little less than essential. I’m saving my dough for the new shit.

It’s bad enough to write an entire hour-long album of generic, boring, Proggy Death/Thrash, but to give your band a horrifically shitty name on top of that just adds insult to injury. It’s not like they’re from Guam or Egypt, or even Latvia. They’re from fucking Riverside. So, why the need to sound so exotic? What if I had liked it? How would I refer it to someone without sounding like I had Downs? How am I even supposed to say this? What the fuck is this, Wheel of Fortune? I’d like to buy a vowel, please. Are there any “O”s? I’d like to solve the puzzle: “No Living Person in 2011 Cares About Your Shitty Band.”

This is the main band from Black Sun Aeon mastermind Tuomas Saukkonen, whose harsh but intelligible voice and melodic riffing is almost instantly recognizable. Deathstar Rising is the sixth full length album from Before the Dawn and sadly, 11 years into their career, it is my first encounter with the Finnish powerhouse (that also features Gloria Morti members). Fuck, what else have I been missing?! These guys don’t fuck around. They are here for one purpose and that purpose is melodic Death Metal. No wheel reinvention here, each song follows essentially the same pattern. Harsh verse, depressive melodies, harsh verse, clean sung chorus/hook. It works most of the time. Lars Elkind’s clean vocals can get a bit too Power Metally at times, enough to completely ruin a few songs, but on the other hand he singlehandedly saves others. I’m going to have to backtrack now and check out their older stuff, but luckily I started with a solid album. Highly recommended. Favorites: “Winter Within,” and “Remembrance.”

I usually don’t get into shit like this. Lo-fi Black Metal with absolutely zero production value had its day nearly two decades ago, but it seems the older I get the less time I actually care to invest in bands that are just fucking around. But there is something different about this two-man Dutch outfit. Something I just couldn’t immediately dismiss. Maybe it’s because they have apparently gone back in time and stolen Hellhammer’s gear and tuned it down even lower. Maybe it is because I can actually hear the torture in the ominously woeful roars, bellows, and wails of these vocalists. Maybe production value is overrated when such a dismal vibe is so perfectly obtained. Maybe this is what Hell really sounds like. Whatever it is, I can’t take this out of the stereo for some reason. At the end of the tedious day it becomes the perfect soundtrack for my meaningless, sorrowful, hateful existence. This is pure, misanthropic, aural darkness and it’s somehow all achieved with the same sound quality as a Gonkulator demo! Imagine Venom, Hellhammer, Order from Chaos, Bestial Warlust, Black Witchery, and Loss all thrown in a blender and chased with Absinthe. Getting the picture? Well, get this album and try not to kill yourself (or others). Best hymns for sacrifice: “Vision of the Twelve Priests Before the Altar” and “Yaldabaoth.”

Oh, how the Death Metal world hath missed the mighty Gorgasm! Be slaves no more to the gayness, Deathly legions! After a 5-year hiatus following the 2006 break up, Tom “My Real Name Is Damian” Leski is back with all new members to fuck some fucking shit up. This is sickeningly brutal, fast Death Metal at its finest. It’s almost like they never stopped. Picking up right where their double homicide duo of Bleeding Profusely (2001) and Masticate to Dominate (2003) left off, these Midwestern maniacal misanthropes are only good for one thing, and that one thing is fucking crushing. Crushing riffs, crushing blasts, crushing guttural vokills, and lyrics that crush Christ and like-minded cunt ilk. “The meek shall inherit my wrath…” that’s pimpin’ pimpin’. If I had one Asian dick-sized complaint, it would be that I wish they would listen to more shit, because then they’d realize that half of their samples have already been used 850 times. No big deal, happy as fuck to have Gorgasm back! Mixworthy morsels: “Dirty Cunt Beatdown,” “Decapitation Sodomy,” “Exhibit of Repugnance,” and “Scourge of the Christians.”

Well, these cheerful Hard Rock lame-asses are smart enough to put their best song, the peppy title track, first, and if the entire album had been at least that (barely) minimally tolerable, maybe I wouldn’t have had to pause it 666 times to think things like, “What the fuck are they doing?!?” and “Are they serious with this bullshit?!” But amid my sighs of disbelief, I did contemplate those questions, and many more, because the other tracks incorporate disgusting, sister-fucking Southern Rock groove and insipid Butt Rock idiocy, to name only two of their litany of offenses. And I can’t even explain the acoustic AIDS of “Happy Zombies,” which is possibly the worst, most mind-withering thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and I have reviewed some truly awful crap over these many years. The annoying, wailing vocalist tries very hard to sound like Alice in Chains’ dead singer, but completely fails in all but the most superficial ways, because he obviously doesn’t understand that Layne Staley was a tortured, wretched husk of a person, and that his anguish fueled his emotional vocals. This limber-dick sounds like he’s in the gayest cover band in all of Arkansas, but the group is actually the great embarrassment of Germany. The New Black guys are at least competent musicians, but maybe that makes it worse, because their talents (and the good recording/production) are utterly wasted here. Better in Black is such pathetic, useless junk -such nothing- that’s it’s not even really worth making fun of. So, I’ll stop.

It seems as if there are no bad Death Metal bands in Poland, but they do all tend to sound somewhat similar. So, it is no surprise that Pandemic Genocide doesn’t stray too far away from the established Vader/Behemoth territory, although perhaps slightly simplified in execution and with a hint of Immolation mixed in, as well. This is not exactly a problem, in my opinion, as that is prime real estate to explore, and there are 666 metric tons of great, memorable riffs here. To carve out a more unique identity, PG occasionally slows down and gets a little atmospheric, which maybe works the best in the excellent “Arcana Mortem.” These guys also have no problem with faster tempos, as is evidenced in the amazing title track, and really all over the place, with surgical precision. It took eight years (filled with demos and split releases) from when this band was formed to release this, Mighty Apocalypse, their debut full-length album. Hopefully the next one will arrive a little faster, because I’d certainly like to hear more.