This was originally released as a 10-inch MLP on Hostile Regression Records a while back and has just been re-released on CD format with 4 bonus tracks. The music of Bloodhammer is raw Black Metal in the vein of Darkthrone. As a matter of fact, the vocalist for Bloodhammer sounds a lot like Nocturno Culto, too, come to think of it. Luckily, when recording this album, the band opted for a better sound than your average raw Black Metal band. The guitars are clear and there is even audible bass! The rawer and more chaotic bands in the Black Metal genre generally don’t go for the cleaner sound but it really works for Bloodhammer. I don’t refer to this as “Grim” Black Metal as that usually ends up meaning “underproduced” or “possessing shitty sound so that the band can claim to be ‘cult’ or ‘true’ as well as covering up the fact that they suck.” Yes, the musical style is fairly derivative and yes, this stuff has been done before but it’s really hard to slam a band that can get your head banging like this one can. There are plenty of memorable riffs on Ancient Kings, something that is always a plus in my book. If you like bands like Darkthrone (Blaze in the Northern Sky/Under a Funeral Moon era), Judas Iscariot, early Burzum or the first couple Graveland albums, Bloodhammer will satisfy your cravings.

Considering the all-star lineup (Dan Swano, Anders “Blakkheim” Nystrom, Mikael Akerfeldt, and Jonas Renkse), it’s hardly surprising that this old-school Death Metal is utter perfection. But what is a little surprising, is that after years of moving away form this style (by both the label and bands), Century Media would release this. It’s a real return to the label’s early glory days of Unleashed, Asphyx, and Grave, and I say it’s about time! This is the way it should be done, my friends, and hopefully this won’t prove to be a one-time project - I need more Bloodbath!

Sociopolitical Grind (with some Crust tendencies, such as multiple harsh vocal tracks) this fast and intense has absolutely no right at all to be memorable, but Blockheads don’t give a fuck and went right ahead and made these songs more catchy than I’d have thought possible. And they didn’t resort to any of the normal Grind crutches, like funny samples, to accomplish that daunting task, either. The only thing that I don’t like about this CD (other than the last few minutes of weirdness at the end of the disc) is that everything (over an hour) is rammed together into one single track, so if you want to skip ahead to your favorite song, you’re just fucked. Fortunately, that’s not quite as much of an issue here as it would be with a lot of other CDs, but it’s still enough.

This is being marketed as a full-length album, but 6 songs in 24 minutes is not in any way, shape or form a full length album. And a lot of the time here is also wasted by pointless fucking around. I feel compelled to let my loyal readers know such things. Anyway, when not playing at superluminal speeds or just jerking off, this symphonic Black Metal band does okay. They liken themselves to Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir, but really they’re no where nearly that advanced. Which might not be bad news for you, but a cut-rate Cradle of Filth doesn’t exactly sound too awesome to me.

Do you remember the cult Canadian Black Metal band Blasphemy? They’ve been silent for quite a while now and I often wonder if they are still around. Apparently, these two bands remember Blasphemy as well. Both bands have that early “American” style of Black Metal sound, which is essentially underproduced, raw Death Metal with snarling vocals that are not brutal enough to qualify as pure Death and not screamed enough to be considered Black Metal in the European style. Of the two, Conqueror sounds more akin to Blasphemy, but Black Witchery is not that far behind. Black Witchery even covers the song “Demoniac” by Blasphemy, and Conqueror has an intro called “Ross Bay Damnation” (for whatever reason, Blasphemy and Ross Bay are seemingly connected somehow). The sound is a bit rough on both halves of this split and I hear that the material for at least one of these bands is a demo repress, so this is explainable. Still, this is some good old-fashioned dirty Black Metal in the vein of the much-overlooked horde up north in Ross Bay.

With a name like Black Abyss and an album title of Land of Darkness, one would expect this to be a low-fi Grim-As-Grim-Can-Be Black Metal assault that rivals Transylvanian Hunger in terms of raw production. Wrong! This is nowhere close to being raw or even Black Metal. This band is one of the second (or is it third by now?) wave of Traditional Metal that seems to blatantly worship Iron Maiden, while totally ignoring the rest of the NWOBHM. Seriously, there was so much more to that period than just Maiden but most people just don’t seem to quite go beyond them when rehashing that style. In effect, Black Abyss doesn’t really go anywhere that Gamma Ray and Hammerfall haven’t gone before. The style is derivative and every song on this CD could easily have been on a Hammerfall album. This is not to disrespect the band’s playing abilities. These guys really know how to capture that Iron Maiden feeling. The problem is that so many other bands are doing the same thing. The production is great and the whole package is fairly solid with the exception of the big “O” word, originality. If you love Iron Maiden, you’ll be guaranteed to love this album. Just don’t expect anything you haven’t heard before.

The only thing that keeps this from getting a perfect 10 is the fact that a good portion of this material is outdated already. Face it, pre-election material doesn’t have much of an impact in February 2001. It’s kind of late to vote for Ralph Nader when Dubya has already been running the country for more than a month. There is, however, a lot of really potent stuff on the 3 CDs worth of Jello going off on corporate America. My personal favorite material was on the first CD. The piece on the school shooters really hit home. Fifteen years ago, that could have been me - and it could have been Jello or any one of us. People give me shit for supporting the “Trench Coat Mafia” but I personally think they were right. Jello’s other material is equally hard-hitting. The stuff about Hacktivism and becoming the media really make a lot of sense in this day and age when we’re slowly becoming as stupid as the public school system is trying to make us. Some might find his rhetoric to be too left-wing or anti-American but my personal opinion is that no matter what you think about his words, at least do yourself a favor and hear him out. You may end up thinking differently by the time the last CD is over.

This sounds like it must be an all “remix” album. Hold on, let me check… Nope, this is really what they sound like now. I hope that the members of Beseech realize that if anyone wants to hear to stuff like this, they could just listen to NIN or some band that actually knows what they’re doing. This is just horrible.

This mess of Industrial Death Metal was quite a chore to get through. It lacks focus and any sense of direction. I have never liked mechanical music, and that’s exactly what this is. It almost sounds like a group of guys got together, snorted an 8-ball, and decided to cut loose in a recording studio with no game-plan whatsoever. There is nothing innovative, creative, or in any way memorable about this release. I see no point at all to noise like this. A complete waste of time.