I don’t consider myself an expert on the more commercial side of Industrial music (or on anything else for that matter), but I have a hunch all you really need is KMFDM’s Angst, Pretty Hate Machine through The Downward Spiral, and all of the Ministry albums up to and including the timeless masterpiece Psalm 69. If you don’t own this beloved 1992 classic, you might as well be living on a different planet. However, speaking of downward spirals, nothing Al and the boys have done since has really caught my ear. Seemingly incapable of topping their own Reign in Blood, yet it’s not as though they’ve released any truly horrible albums… until now that is. Oh my, Psalm 69’s throne remains safely out of reach, as the overwhelming majority of Relapse begs for the white flag. There are a few decent beats, there are a few biting Thrash riffs, there are a few moments of heart rate-accelerating speed, there is absolutely nothing else. By Ministry standards, this album is a smilefest. Upbeat and fun, the suffering begins with a nauseating amount of fucking around right from the get-go on opener, “Ghouldiggers.” Does Jourgensen think he’s Les Claypool with all his funny hillbilly talkin’? This sickening humor vibe is felt throughout on other joke cuts like “Weekend Warrior” and “Git Up Get Out ‘n’ Vote.” Yeeeee-haaaaw! I can envision little girls playing Pattycake to their cover of S.O.D.’s “United Forces,” while “99 Percenters” would make a cute dance skit for the end of an Austin Powers movie. AND WHAT’S WITH ALL THESE HAPPY FAGGOT GUITAR SOLOS?! I didn’t know I was buying a fucking Aerosmith record! Jourgensen’s voice sounds every bit its age. More vocal effects, please. And while it’s hard not to appreciate his anti-establishment jabs and overall lyrical pessimism, the LP’s playground atmosphere destroys all anthemic possibilities. Only the title track does not induce vomiting.

One of the most underrated songs of all time is Swedish Death Metal horde Aeon’s acoustic, Country-style version of “God Gives Head in Heaven.” This is a song I’ll listen to on repeat for hours. Sure there’s a bit of humor implied, but the extremely anti-Christian sentiment seems to have more anthemic quality, more power, when delivered through clean vocals and acoustic guitar. Sorry, it’s the first thing that popped into my head upon initially hearing Austin’s Ancient Vvisdom, and it seemed more proper than starting the review with, “Satanic Dashboard Confessional? Count me in!” No, Ancient Vvisdom are not Country, nor are they Emo-tinged Pop, but the acoustic guitar and a pretty voice are their weapons of choice, and yes, lyrically they are but slaves to the One with horns. They write pure Classic Rock acoustic jams —granted they do utilize plenty of good ol’ electric guitar and just enough percussion to get the feet tapping— while radio-ready vocalist Nathan Opposition solemnly drops pimp shit like, “Hail to Thee, Lord Lucifer / I sing my praises to Thee and I suffer no longer.” It’s something different, it’s total kvlt, it’s well done, and I fucking love it. It isn’t a completely flawless record —”Lost Civilization” sounds too much like an unofficial “Ziggy Stardust” cover, “Devil Brain” goes a little crazy on the Blues hooks, and opener “Alter Reality” gets things off to a relatively slow start— but it doesn’t get much more immediately addictive than “The Opposition,” “Necessary Evil,” and “Forever Tonight.” The album ends on a superbly apocalyptic note with the joyless tandem of “Vvorld of Flesh” and “Children of the Wasteland,” and I believe a standing ovation is in order. A compelling juxtaposition of darkness and light, this might be the most fun one can have worshipping Negativity.

Ah, Finnish NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal, AKA “that Nazi shit,” for those who haven’t heard the term before). It’s easy to tell that this is NS because of the sunwheel designs on the album cover. Once you know what to look for, it’s easy to pick out an NSBM band even when the so-called “politically correct” record store claims to not stock any of that shit. When I first threw this on, I expected something more in the style of Graveland because the intro track had a very Slavic Folk air to it. However, once the intro was over, the Graveland influence fades into the background and the Burzum influences take center stage. The Graveland influence comes back here and there but not until the last track does it shine again. The music is fairly minimalistic and melancholic and chugs along at the same mid-paced tempo in the way that Burzum sounds. This didn’t surprise me very much. NSBM in general owes Varg Vikernes so much in terms of influence that he should be getting royalty checks from every skinhead this side of Siberia. Nattfog’s music is competently executed, but their weakness is in their production. The vocals are buried, the drums are too loud and the guitars need more bass. I imagine that the guitars wouldn’t sound too bad if they weren’t constantly getting drowned out by the snare and bass drums. If there had been a drum wanker behind the kit, I could understand why this would be the case, but the drumming isn’t technical at all. In fact, the first song had such basic, robotic, drumming that I thought I was listening to Techno/House music. The drum patterns don’t get much more complex than that throughout the course of this album - and with the drums being so loud, you can’t help but notice that. Like so many others in the Black Metal genre, this band could greatly benefit from a studio engineer that knew what he was doing. I’d honestly like to hear this album with a better sound just so that I could hear what they’re going for properly. I caught some clean vocals buried in the title track, but I really had to listen hard to even hear it at all. This could have been a better album, but most of Nattfog’s issues would disappear if they had a competent studio engineer to give them better tones and to mix things so that the drums don’t drown everything else out.

This was a tough review. So much so that I found myself revisiting these Finnish gloom lords’ entire back catalog. Sure enough it was exactly how I remembered, a damn fine body of work. Nearly impeccable, in fact, the only “mistake” Swallow the Sun ever made was letting Jonas Renkse lend his perfect voice to one of their songs, rendering all the others mortal. Joking aside, the reason for the memory lane stroll pains me to say, but I’m not really feeling Emerald Forest and the Blackbird as much. I’ve given it as much time as possible, hoping the material would start to sink in with repeated listens, but for the most part it hasn’t. The band have not really abandoned their comfort zone at all —this is essentially the same formula as 2009’s New Moon— on the contrary, I believe they may be trapped in it. The answer might lie in a line from by far the album’s greatest track (“Cathedral Walls”): “…where do we go from here?” Perhaps it’s no coincidence that this is the only song that ultimately feels like the Swallow the Sun of old, with its depressive majesty and dynamic power. And while I won’t be tracking down all the Nightwish albums anytime soon, I must say Anette Olzon’s guest vocal performance compliments this song perfectly. Sadly, no other cuts successfully permeate the mindlair. It’s not like any of them are horrible —save for maybe the opening title track, which feels like a 10-minute intro— they just slightly miss the mark. So much of this LP feels like the same sleepy, acoustic-driven ballad with echoes of Pink Floyd amidst its swaying Waltz, just waiting for the ensuing Death/Doom heaviness explosion to wake it up. Mikko Kotamaki has one of the best clean voice/Doom growl combos in the business, but his spoken word and Black Metal shriek I can do without, as they mar some tracks that are otherwise serviceable. Honestly it’s difficult to put my finger on why all but the one song fail to be memorable. All of the pieces are still there for this great band, who quite frankly just sound tired. I wouldn’t write them off yet though. This might just be a clearing of the creative cobwebs, meaning their next one could be something truly special.

This band hails from Madrid, Spain, but when you listen to this, they may as well be from Ross Bay, Canada. When I saw the Nuclear War Now! label on this album, I knew that Proclamation was going to be straight-out brutal Black Metal in the Blasphemy style. Yosuke, the owner of Nuclear War Now!, is a huge Blasphemy fan and many of the bands that have released material through Nuclear War Now! have had the infamous Canadian War Metal sound a-la Fallen Angel of Doom and Gods of War. The only drawback to this style is that when you listen to it, all you can think of is Blasphemy. Even bands that came after Blasphemy, such as Revenge and Conquerer (both of which had Ryan Forster of Blasphemy in their line-ups), have suffered from the same problem. Once you have the Blasphemy albums, you really don’t need any others. This is where Proclamation ultimately loses the war. If you listen to Nether Tombs of Abaddon without having listened to Blasphemy at all, this is a fairly well executed album that is brutal, caustic and oppressively relentless. No frills, no guitar soloing, no female vocals or symphonic keyboards are to be found anywhere near this. It hits you hard and bulldozes you under. If you already have the Blasphemy albums, though, this is effectively a clone of that sound. This is War Metal for War Metal fans. If you love the Blasphemy sound and want every Black Metal band to sound just like it, then Proclamation is not going to disappoint you.

Here’s the Top 10 things I know about Psycroptic: 10) I’ve never heard them before. 9) They hail from Tasmania. 8) Tasmania is a real place. 7) They’ve shared the stage with some heavy-hitting Death Metal royalty. 6) They generally tend to garner positive reviews across the board. 5) Critics generally tend to use 11 musical styles to describe their musical style. 4) #5 and #6 scare me. 3) This was intended to be a Tasmanian Devil joke, but I decided to take the high road. 2) Top 10 lists are one of the Top 10 forms of subterfuge.
So… I’ve spent the last couple months intermittently locked in a room with The Inherited Repression, committed to finding out if all the hype is justified, and I’ve arrived at a few concrete assessments. At their core, Psycroptic is a Thrash band. Very modern, very intense, very technical, but a Thrash band nonetheless. David Haley is a fantastic drummer who could hold his own in any Death Metal band. I don’t particularly care for Jason Peppiatt’s dry, throaty bark, but I’m still going to resist that Tasmanian Devil joke. Look, I’m at a point in my life when I require my music to possess some elements of pure, unbridled emotion. Whether that be pain, misery and despair, hatred, love, sadness, anger… whatever the evening calls for. Psycroptic’s music contains no emotion whatsoever. Their primary goal is showmanship, and to their credit, they nail it. Each riff is an elaborate design, each track is a testament to the art of shredding, and I’m sure they’re a pleasure to watch in the live setting. It’s also a safe bet that any aspiring guitarist would find the level of Joe Haley an excitable challenge to ascend to. That said, talented musicians are a dime a dozen — I want songs. Psycroptic don’t have any, which ultimately means:
1) These guys are incredibly talented musicians, but their music is boring as fuck.

If you read Forgjord’s press release, you’d think that this album was the bar-none absolute best Finnish Black Metal album ever created. When you listen to it, though, you don’t get that impression. I’ve heard plenty of bands that sound exactly like this, starting with Darkthrone’s infamous Transylvanian Hunger album. This is raw, noisy, Black Metal with a singer that has a seriously large amount of reverb on his vocals. And I mean a seriously large amount of reverb. This guy sounds like a kid trapped at the bottom of a well. When things get chaotic (which is often), the vocals bury just about everything. Part of the problem is the extremely “necro” production. When you suck the bass out of the guitars, you create a situation where anything lower-end (be it vocals, drumming or both) can drown them out. Most of the time, the guitars sound like white noise in the background. The vocals and blasting drums effectively bury any coherence they might have had. This band could benefit greatly from a studio engineer that knew what he was doing. There are some interesting elements here, particularly the weird atmosphere that they’re able to generate by being so raw and out of control, but the poor sound and incoherence of the guitars sink this. The truly “kvlt” will probably love Sielunvihollinen, but Necro Black Metal was never my favorite subset of the Black Metal style.

Ah, the legendary Terrorizer. No band has ever gotten more mileage out of 16 songs… except for maybe Mayhem. Of course I’m referring to 1989’s sempiternal, Death-infused Grindcore classic World Downfall. Arguably Pete Sandoval’s most impressive drumming clinic to date, inarguably one of the records that proved the US could Grind toe-to-toe with the UK all-stars of that era. When Sandoval and the late, great Jesse Pintado reunited in 2006 with Resistant Culture’s Anthony Rezhawk at the vocal helm, it was cause for celebration. But while Darker Days Ahead was a monster of an album that made a compelling comeback statement, time has not been kind to it. Admit it, you can’t remember how a split second of the record goes (and no, the re-recorded version of “Dead Shall Rise” doesn’t count). Unfortunately we’ll probably be saying the same about Hordes of Zombies in six years. You certainly can’t fault the personnel. Rezhawk reclaims the mic with an often intelligible, one-dimensional roar that suits such militant Grindcore perfectly. His Resistant Culture cohort Katina Culture fills Pintado’s shoes more than admirably on the ax. Original World Downfall alumni David “Radikult” Vincent handles bass duties (because after all, he’s been crossin’ the line since 1989), but no worries, there aren’t any Rap or Techno parts. Last but not least, Pete Sandoval is “back” to being Pete Sandoval. To know that he’s healthy, fully recovered and drumming like a human tornado again is worth the price of admission alone. Still, I don’t know if this album is memorable enough to warrant a ton of repeated listens. After the intro, the tag team of the title track and “Ignorance and Apathy” explode, boasting some very Grindcrusher Tour-worthy riffs. But shortly after dizziness ensues while whirlwind-headbanging to “Subterfuge,” the songs start sounding very same-y despite the stellar performances of the parties involved. The once excited mind begins to wander as you start to question how much of a shit anyone would give if this weren’t the legendary Terrorizer. As far as the mid-to-latter portion of the record goes, only the riffgasm achieved on “Prospect of Oblivion” stands out as a true highlight. All complaints aside, I can’t say enough about Sandoval’s metronomic machine gun fire performance. For me the best-Metal-drummer-of-all-time debate ends with him.

This is album number two for Spain’s Aggression. I don’t have their first album, but it’s clear that these guys learned what Thrash was from reading Guitar World. If your idea of Thrash is Baloff-era Exodus, Slayer, Peace Sells…-era Megadeth, Kill ‘em All-era Metallica, and Possessed, you’re going to think that Aggression sucks almost immediately. This isn’t brutal, fire-breathing Thrash Fucking Metal. This isn’t even Melodic Thrash like Heathen or Anvil Chorus. This is Thrash for the Fate’s Warning/Dream Theater crowd. It’s “check out how technical my riffing is!” Thrash Metal that is talented but ultimately soulless. You can be technical and still be brutal. If you need an example, Peace Sells… by Megadeth is probably one of the best Technical Thrash albums ever made. The music is memorable, technical and brutal as fuck. It kills posers on contact. [Too bad it can’t retroactively kill Dave Mustaine. -Editor] Viocracy doesn’t. You might get a favorable review from Guitar World for your use of inventive picking techniques, but this lacks in the most vital areas: passion and aggression. You don’t “feel it” with these guys. Their band name may be Aggression, but they certainly don’t deliver it.