Adema - Adema
One of these living abortions is related to one of the queens in Korn. And even if that were not the case, this still might be the worst things I’ve heard since Uncle Kracker. “Yo, you dealin’ wit da shit facta!”
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Achiral - Wander Ignite
Look, I don’t care how awesome the music is, if your vocalist sounds like a fucking Fraggle, you’re probably better off keeping your recordings at a safe distance from the general public.
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Acheron - Compedium Diablerie - The Demo Days
As one of the few bands officially sanctioned by the Church of Satan, Acheron’s history has been long and storied. This CD compiles a lot of old demo material, mostly tracks from before their debut album, Rites of the Black Mass. The oldest tracks are from 1989 and the last three, tracks from the demo for Those Who Have Risen, were recorded in 1993. The sound quality, naturally, reflects the demo status of these songs. The resulting rawness does nothing to harm the actual listenability of the songs, though. I was a bit disappointed that no mention of where these songs came from was made in the band bio that was included in the inlay. Another disappointment was the lack of intros to their songs. One of the things that distinguished Acheron from other Death Metal bands from Florida was their inclusion of atmospheric interludes and segments of the Black Mass or other Satanic rituals / ideologues (the 9 Satanic Statements on the Hail Victory CD, for example). This is almost pure Death Metal with the only real atmospheric bits coming in at the end (when they had a keyboard player). For fans of the band and lovers of old-school Florida Death Metal, this is a real must.
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Absurd - Asgardsrei (2001 reissue)
This CD is a “remastered” repress of their “kult” release on IG Farben a couple years ago. If you own the original, you’re really not getting a whole lot of new stuff with this re-issue. The packaging is definitely a step up from the original but musically, the only new track is the intro, “Leben Ist Krieg, Krieg Ist Leben”, which was composed and recorded by Rob Darken of Graveland/Lord Wind. Musically, Absurd is still working that Skinhead Punk/Black Metal hybrid that they’ve been playing since their demo days. Their sound kind of mixes Skrewdriver and Bathory with catchy hooks and memorable riffs. The sound has improved only marginally, having been cleaned up but truthfully, it is still lacking in the guitar department. In fact, outside of the solos, it sounds like this album was recorded with a drum machine and a bass guitar. I’m kind of hoping that Absurd can produce a really good album that would justify their position in the scene but honestly, they’re more hype than ability. Maybe if they can keep their asses out of jail long enough, they might be able to do that. Being a Nazi in Germany might have been OK in 1938 but in this day and age, it’s a pretty tough proposition. If you can buy this cheap, it might be good for a tidy sum on eBay.
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Aborym - Fire Walk with Us
Italy’s Aborym returns with their sophomore effort, featuring ex-Mayhem (and current Tormentor / Plasma Pool) vocalist Attila at the helm for the vast bulk of this album. The first Aborym disc saw Attila appearing only as a guest vocalist, but this time he’s there for every song except the cover of Burzum’s “Det Somme Engang Var.” If he had a problem with the band’s choice of cover tunes, I can fully understand why he didn’t participate in the recording of that particular song. The cover is pretty faithful to the original, packing in a lot of that Burzum atmosphere and dark, evil feeling. The other songs are atmospheric as well but in a different way. Musically, Aborym incorporates a lot of keyboard-driven atmospheric parts with some occasional Techno-Industrial drumming, some samples and a heap of fast and furious guitar-work. The speed on this album is fairly close to what bands like Baltak or Kult Ov Azazel are doing (hyperspeed for the most part, with the occasional slowdown) though they never stay in “blast” mode for very long. The main attraction for me is Attila’s vocals. This guy just sounds plain fucking evil and everything he’s done (with the exception of the last Tormentor album which was musically bad, not vocally) has really been worth picking up. Oh yeah, this album is supposedly infused with “theta waves” so if you feel strange after listening to it, it’s not something in your pot that’s causing it.
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Aborym - Fire Walk with Us
Mid-tempo Industrial Black Metal featuring Atilla Csihar, whose vocals haunted the classic Mayhem LP, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, way back when Black Metal wasn’t lame. These guys experiment way too much with the synths and Homo-Rave effects. Wasn’t Black Metal supposed to be primitive and barbaric? The overdone mechanized vibe of this record ruins what is a fairly solid vocal performance from good ol’ Atilla. His demonic snarl cannot rescue the album from it’s from it’s revoltingly fake atmosphere.
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Abigor - Satanized
It seems almost strange to think that Abigor has been around for over a decade. Their newest effort, Satanized, sees them still blasting out the raw Black Metal, but tempered with some slower tempos, keyboards and almost Thrashy parts. I guess Abigor has never been one of my favorite Black Metal bands, but this album has increased their rank.
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Abigail - Welcome All Hell Fuckers
I don’t know if I would classify this as a new album or not, because only four of the six tracks on this are studio recordings (the other two are live cuts) and the whole thing is pretty short - even if you include the live material. Like previous outings, this CD has a lot of raw Bay Area Thrash influenced riffs mixed in with the Bathory-esque stuff and the songs are short and to the point. You don’t get any 10-minute epic tracks or long keyboard intros/interludes from Abigail. These guys just come in, beat the shit out of you and then leave. If there’s one thing I found “wrong” with this CD, it’s the abruptness of the whole thing. You get a fast and furious ass kicking and by the time you realize what hit you, it’s over! There’s just enough to get you banging your head but not enough for you to get whiplash. I sure hope this is a precursor to the next full-length Abigail album because this has me interested in hearing what’s next.
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...And Oceans - A.M. G.O.D.
W.H.A.T.E.V.E.R.
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