I’ll always respect this band for their outstanding live performances, and for bringing said performances to my shitty neck of the woods on numerous occasions for some odd reason. It’s hard to top the perfect storm of heaviness, passion, technical ability, and catchiness they achieved on their first two LPs (2006’s All Things Set Aside and 2008’s The Common Man’s Collapse), and it’s nice to know I was into the band long before some virgin invented the wretched term Djent Metal. But I started to notice on 2010’s (id) EP (somewhere amidst its 372 instrumentals) that the band’s focus began to evolve towards more technicality and Progressive elements… less passion, less catchiness. With the Eclipse EP (sorry guys, gotta be a half hour or longer, you’re in the big leagues now) that evolution unfortunately continues. This feels less and less like a band trying to get a pit started from the heart, and more and more like virtuosos jamming in a practice room, trying to come up with as many scales and Meshuggah polyrhythms as possible. I realize the need to progress as musicians, and I also recognize the importance of abandoning the quickly sinking ship that is the Deathcore/Metalcore scene. And while it’s unfair to deny their pure skill —most notably Marc Okubo’s fretboard acrobatics, the subtle but effective keyboard nuances, and Sam Applebaum’s amazingly improved drumming— or to resist a thumbs-up for keeping the vocals brutal, this record doesn’t lend itself to too many memorable moments. I’ve been spinning it for over a week now and all that stands out is the hilarious sample near the end of “Punisher.” Maybe it’s because dude has a point? Whereas they used to make the most out of their trusty bag of breakdowns, bends and bear growls, they now try to cram 1200 notes into a sub-3-minute cut. I know the major Metal press will say the band is “coming of age” and that this is their best material to date. Let us never forget that the major Metal press do not have souls. I’d much rather turn back the clock, watch the band finish a set with “Entry Level Exit Wounds,” then go get drunk and hopefully die.

I read somewhere that this is the darkest Lacuna Coil album yet. Realistically, that’s like saying that “Baby” was the heaviest Justin Bieber song ever written. Suicidal/Depressive Black Metal Lacuna Coil is not. I imagine that compared to their back catalog, Dark Adrenaline is probably the darkest Lacuna Coil album yet. I got the distinct impression that these folks were listening to Evanescence a whole lot while writing this because they have a similar vibe, that pseudo-Goth Rock & Roll sound, but Evanescence is still both darker and better at what they do. In terms of the music on Dark Adrenaline, this is very commercial sounding. Hot Topics all over the country are going to be playing this every time you walk by one at the mall. This is guaranteed. It’s very radio friendly and slick, but I was waiting and hoping that things would get darker and heavier. The last track is probably the closest I got to what I wanted. Even the REM cover (“Losing My Religion”) didn’t measure up to the original in terms of darkness. When REM sounds darker than you do, you’ve got a ways to go before you can be considered “dark.” Lacuna Coil just sounds too candy-coated and commercial to really go down into the depths of darkness and depression their image might suggest. They’re darker and heavier than Nightwish, but that’s about it. If I seriously wanted to listen to something in this vein, I’d probably listen to Evanescence instead. Dark Adrenaline doesn’t go as far as I’d like them to go in terms of atmosphere and heaviness.

I feel as privileged to review this DVD as the six band-selected fans who filmed it. My love for Dinosaur Jr. predates my love for most things, and I never dreamed the opportunity to cover the Alt Rock legends would present itself in the realms of Metal. But by now I’ve learned that when it comes to my luck there’s always a catch. Directed by Dave Markey (The Year Punk Broke), In the Hands of the Fans captures the band performing their third LP, 1988’s Bug, in its entirety at Washington DC’s 9:30 Club last June… Bug being easily my least favorite Dinosaur Jr. album. Don’t get me wrong, opener “Freak Scene” is one of their best songs ever, but the rest of it sort of lacks the instant memorability and heartfelt poignancy that initially hooked me to Dinosaur Jr (and consequently the solo works of God among men J Mascis). I’m more of a Green Mind through Hand It Over guy, although the first two records —and while we’re at it, the most recent two— are about as timeless and essential as records get. Regardless of the fact that Bug never did much for me beyond its first track, this is still must-see TV (especially if you’re an unlucky bastard like me who has never seen them live). The band’s performance is so flawless that I thought they were splicing the live footage to a studio recording! It isn’t until Mascis’ first in-between song banter halfway through the set (which consists of, “Hey thanks”) that I realized it was just that spot-on. In my opinion, J Mascis is the greatest non-Metal guitarist of all time. Getting my first real chance to thoroughly observe him in the live setting, I see that the majority of the magic he creates is with the pick hand and —originally a drummer— his feet. I wouldn’t know what to do with that many pedals, but then again I’m mortal. Still, this is the Bug material and it tends to drag a bit. What I wouldn’t give to see him tear through some Where You Been solos! We do get some extra goodies though. There’s a crowd-selected encore of “Sludgefeast” and “Raisans” (from 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me) and bonus footage of “In a Jar” (also from ‘87) and “The Wagon” (1991’s Green Mind). There’s also two interviews with the band —one on-stage by Henry Rollins, and one backstage by the six fans— which reveal them to be the down-to-earth regular joes I had a feeling they were, a third interview with J and Dave Markey, plus a spot with Rollins on the history of the 9:30 Club(s). We also get glimpses of Mike Watt, Keith Morris, and Ian MacKaye, all in attendance that night. I was unaware Dinosaur Jr. had such a hardcore Hardcore following. Overall, a fantastic package from one of the greatest bands in Rock ‘n’ Roll history, even if Bug isn’t their finest hour.

Svarga Music describes this band as “Ukrainian Industrial Folk Death Metal” and I guess that has enough adjectives to cover all of the areas that Thunderkraft goes on this album. For the most part, Totentanz sounds more like Symphonic Black Metal. This is a keyboard-heavy album and if you remember how overpowering the keyboards were on Emperor’s In the Nightside Eclipse, you know how Totentanz sounds. The guitars are nice and heavy, but once the keyboards kick in, they’re buried almost immediately. If that was all that this album did, it would be a fairly solid release. When Thunderkraft gets “experimental,” things get weird. The song “Dance of the Dead,” for example, starts off with this oddball Techno/Industrial beat and goes into a song that is mostly Symphonic Black Metal, but with odd effects, keyboard parts and other electronic bits thrown in almost at random that only really serve as distractions. This is a case of a band bolting on “experimental” stuff to sound different and having their sound get all fucked up and diluted. If they hadn’t included all of the weird shit, this would have been a better album. Experimentation isn’t bad, but this is a case of trying to be too many different things. You can tell when a band naturally evolved in a new direction. This isn’t it. It sounds forced and unnatural. Totentanz is an album showing a band trying to find an identity. Clearly, they haven’t found it yet. Hopefully, they’ll figure things out and their next album will be better.

I love Napalm Death as much as anyone, but it’s time to face facts. Every positive, glowing review you see of their more recent material is basically an extended Lifetime Achievement Award, no one more guilty than myself. But faced with the unenviable challenge of reviewing Utilitarian, I can’t hold back anymore. My introduction to the band came as a high schooler in the early ’90s, with Death Metal-infused Grindcore classics like Harmony Corruption, Utopia Banished and the stellar Death by Manipulation comp. To this day, those are the records I reach for when I need my fix. I did enjoy the more accessible direction they went in during the Greed Killing/Diatribes era, and while people speak highly of that period now, at the time there were cries of sell-out and the band gradually returned to fast, brutal form. Since then, fans have established a pattern. Every couple years, Barney & Co. release an undoubtedly solid but ultimately forgettable album that we spin a few times then shelve eternally. Of course there are exceptions —2005’s The Code Is Red… and the Leaders Not Followers covers collections spring to mind— but I couldn’t tell Enemy of the Leech from Time Waits for No Smear if I had to, decent as those albums are. On the contrary, Utilitarian is definitely unforgettable, but not exactly for the right reasons. Greenway’s lungs, subjected to over two decades of rigorous roaring, may have finally had enough. In parts of this album he sounds like a horse getting flogged. Mitch Harris’ patented backing screams sound even more strained, rendering “The Wolf I Feed” and “Orders of Magnitude” completely unlistenable. Speaking of unlistenable, I just don’t ever need to hear saxophone on a Napalm Death track (“Everyday Pox”). Call me closed-minded, I’m fine with that. It sounds fucking weird and I don’t like it. Otherwise the band is musically as tight as ever, balancing relentless speed with slower tempo experimental nuances, but none of it is memorable. The clean vocal arrangements and interspersed Swans/My Bloody Valentine worship found on a healthy handful of cuts do stand out, but only because they don’t really sound proper for a Napalm Death record. Clearly the band acknowledge the need to mix things up a bit and I applaud them for it but, much like 15% of the United States, it just doesn’t work. You might be able to extract about 25 minutes of serviceable Grindcore bliss from the limited edition version of this album, if you were willing to sift through about 25 minutes of the band out of their element to do so. Look, these men are legends. They are forefathers of extreme, politically-charged art the world over and I am the definition of nobody. However, when it comes to Utilitarian, I ABSTAIN!

This is the Warfare from Mexico, not to be confused with any of the other ten thousand bands out there with the same name. Um’ Maarak starts off fast and furious and doesn’t slow down at all until the last song is over. The riffing is a bit on the Thrashy side but the speed that they operate at doesn’t allow that to sink in very well. This is one blast beat after another, and structurally could be a single song played over and over again. Every track is an unrelenting assault -the same unrelenting assault- from the start to the finish; a hail of blasting drums, ultra fast riffs and rancid vocals. By now, you should see what the fatal flaw in this band’s album is: it’s too much of the same thing with no variation from their one-trick formula. These guys need to change things up a bit once in a while to throw in some variety. I’m not asking them to turn into Cradle of Filth or Yob for one song, but a little diversity in their sound would do Warfare a world of good.

Reviewing a new album from these guys always feels a little pointless. This is Cannibal Corpse, by far the top-selling Death Metal band of all time. And not just album sales, we’re talking video, t-shirts, lunch boxes with thermoses, the whole nine yards. There’re folks buying Cannibal Corpse records who don’t even like Death Metal. People who couldn’t point out Sweden or Norway on a globe. So a review just seems unnecessary. You know you’re at least going to download Torture, if you haven’t already pre-ordered the super-duper-Metal Blade-collector’s edition-limited-deluxe-Yakuza version which comes with a dub, a hot sandwich, and some pussy. But you’ll be pleased to know you are going to get a quality product. The Corpsegrinder era has produced a hiccup or two (1999’s Bloodthirst and 2002’s Gore Obsessed come to mind), but the overall decomposed body of work has been damn impressive. Torture is essentially Evisceration Plague 2, or perhaps Kill 3 would be more accurate. That is to say it’s a clinic on technical proficiency and all-pro songwriting enveloped in a tsunami of jagged brutality that never lets up for a second. They waste no time here, as opener “Demented Aggression” bludgeons for three minutes with no remorse, like a cadaver in the washing machine. “I don’t think you’ll live” indeed. “Intestinal Crank” has that repeatedly-punched-in-the-face feel that drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz so effortlessly yields before the song dissolves into mid-tempo hookfest. Songs like “Rabid,” “As Deep As the Knife Will Go,” “Torn Through,” and “Followed Home Then Killed” pretty much speak for themselves. This isn’t an album to make love (to a living person) to. “Sarcophagic Frenzy,” “The Strangulation Chair,” and “Caged… Contorted” really mix up the tempo well, controlling a vast array of sinister vibes. But the real treat here is “Scourge of Iron.” Much like Evisceration Plague’s title track, the band slows to a crawl, coasting on headbangability and the power of their sound. The intricacies of their supreme talent shine through on the slower stuff, and I hope it’s something they continue to toy with for another 20 years to cum.

Servants of Chaos isn’t a new LP from Ventura, California’s Cirith Ungol, but rather a two-CD retrospective that covers their various releases, starting with their 1978 demo recordings and going up until their last official album, 1991’s Paradise Lost. This was initially released in 2001, but this reissue also comes with a DVD of one of their live performances from 1984. I guess the best way to describe this band, for those who’ve never heard of them before, would to call them Traditional Heavy Metal or Hard Rock. The music, especially the old stuff, has more in common with 1970s Hard Rock than any of the LA Butt Rock/Heavy Metal that came in the ’80s. Though never a top tier band, Cirith Ungol always seemed to have a cult following amongst fantasy nerds and fans of bands like Hawkwind or Jethro Tull. The coolest thing about the band was their album covers. They usually used artwork that once graced the covers of Michael Moorcock’s Elric series and those were invariably awesome. Their music wasn’t the greatest, though. The singer was too whiney and their music was never as powerful as I would have liked. This band was an anomaly in the Metal scene and to this day I can’t imagine where they would belong in my record collection. This isn’t Rock & Roll enough to qualify as Hard Rock, but not really Metal enough to be Heavy Metal. I can’t comment on the live DVD because the label decided not to include it in the review package, so the rating is for the music only.

This release is something that I’ve really been looking forward to. I first discovered France’s Les Discrets in 2010 through one of those Terrorizer covermount CDs (the only reason anyone still buys that happy faggot publication). It was the song “L’echappee” and it completely floored me. Not long after, I bought the album (Septembre et Ses Dernieres Pensees) and was pleased with it as a whole, although no track was able to top the beautifully mesmerizing “hit.” The mastermind behind this group is Fursy Teyssier, ex-member of Alcest and Amesoeurs. I figured I should point that out first before I mention that Les Discrets really really sound A LOT like Alcest. I’m talking nearly identical here, but feel free to check my Alcest review history and you’ll find I’m certainly not complaining. Neige is the better singer/songwriter, I think most would agree, but Fursy is not far behind. So with much anticipation and high hopes, I’ve been spinning Ariettes… non-stop, and… well… it’s just not that great of an album. I thought perhaps I just needed more time with it to let everything sink in, but a track-by-track analysis reveals that this is no hallucination on my part. They’ve simply phoned most of this one in. It begins with an intro, a very “let’s-get-on-with-it” intro. This leads into “La Traversee,” which is a phenomenal song. By far this album’s “L’echappee.” The band’s soothing-but-saddening Shoegaze melodies, Fursy’s graceful Neige-like vocals, and a masterfully morose rhythm to the chorus that brings to mind the legendary Katatonia, circa Discouraged Ones. But unfortunately that’s it. The next track, “Le Mouvement Perpetuel,” isn’t bad, but has a repetitive, jangly melody that afflicts my imagination with visions of slow motion Country line dancing, therefore making it humorously unbearable. The title track and “Apres l’ Ombre” are acoustic pieces that feel like mere segues. Very pretty, but once again testing my patience. Where’s the beef? “La Nuit Muette” and “Au Creux de l’Hiver” are back-to-back fairly decent songs, but I just don’t hear any pain and the former suffers from a tediously dull ending. All we are left with now is “Les Regrets,” which is… you guessed it, an outro. A very “that-can’t-be-the-whole-album” outro. So there you have it. Only one good song. You might think an 8 is a little high for an album with only one good song, but it speaks to the masterpiece potential I know this trio have within them. Also, it’s not like anything about this album is terrible, just a somewhat uneventful letdown with only one true highlight. At this pace, the Les Discrets Greatest Hits package won’t see the light of day for a few decades. And it may be an EP.