In 1997 when these Canucks unleashed their debut album, Imagery, on an unsuspecting underground, I thought they were the absolute shit. The bees knees, his legs and his arms. In league with countrymates Cryptopsy, if not better. Just a savage technical onslaught of brutal Death Metal with guttural vocals that was actually memorable. Fourteen years, five albums, and virtually no original members later, the band still have hella chops, but seem to have forgotten that brutal/memorable part of the equation. Each album seems to get a bit more lightweight, a little safer, a little more bent towards the mainstream area of the Metal spectrum. Don’t get me wrong, 2001’s A Passage Into Forlorn and 2002’s Truth Beyond… were great records, but with Asylon the band is almost completely sterile. Basically 40 minutes of unmemorable melodic Thrash licks with typically boring Tech lyrics. Example: “Suddenly, deception appears as a malformation to the being. Unknown to suffering, the metabolism into crisis…” Excuse me, but what the fuck did you just say?? Maybe it would help if I could pick newest singer Alex LeBlanc’s non-threatening harsh vocals out of a pantheon of Hot Topic Metal bands, but I can’t. The fire is just gone.

Infuneral reminds me of a more straight-forward Black Metal version of newer Necrophobic, perhaps replacing their Death Metal base with a hint of Thrash. The music is somehow intense and majestic at the same time, and very memorable. The short instrumental first song/intro, simply titled “I,” is absolutely amazing, and this album was well on its way to earning a perfect ten… until the vocals kicked in. Truthfully, Grave’s raspy vox have grown on me with repeated listens, but they’re just not quite raw enough to perfectly fit with the astonishing music. A touch lower and growlier, or more agonized, or… something… would have pushed this over the top. I don’t think that I’ve ever wanted Black Metal vocals to be more extreme before, and it seems like a weird thing to say, but it’s all that holds Torn for the Abyss back from perfection. And only just barely. I can’t remember the last time I liked a Swedish Black Metal album this much.

Have you ever remembered something as being cooler than it actually was? I don’t know how many years ago I last heard any Assassin, but I could swear that back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I used to like the band’s 1986 debut, The Upcoming Terror, and the 1988 follow-up, Interstellar Experience, so I was really looking forward to hearing this. Apparently I was thinking of a different band. Breaking the Silence is far from the worst Thrash I’ve ever heard, but it’s bad enough (especially the final track, “I Like Cola,” which is perhaps sort of a sequel to Interstellar’s “Junk Food”) that I actually did something I normally don’t: I re-listened to the band’s first two albums to see how much of a change this one is. Honestly, it’s not that much different (i.e. cut-rate Thrash that Kreator is probably embarrassed to admit is also German), so if you did like Assassin and somehow want to hear more riffs that were already worn thin when they used them in ‘86, then maybe check this out. Admittedly, I completely missed these goofy Krauts’ resurrection album, 2005’s The Club, but I now feel confident in assuming that I don’t need to hear it.

Old School Swedish Death Metal always sounds good to me. Puteraeon play this style very expertly, with perhaps just a touch of Thrash injected here and there. And The Esoteric Order is perfectly serviceable, but not amazing, or even really very memorable, which is strange, since these songs seem as if they’d stick with you. Despite the excellently raw vocals and amazing production, at no time while listening to this did I stop and think, “That was fucking awesome!” Nor did I think that anything was even remotely bad, or done poorly, but I need more than that. The song titles are all H.P. Lovecraft worship, but that only goes so far… This album sounds great while its playing, but it’s somehow missing the intangible that would make me want to put it on “repeat” and listen to the entire thing 666 times in a row.

Sweden’s suicidal misanthropes want nothing less than a love/hate relationship with their fans, and don’t expect any different on Sjukdom, the band’s fourth full length since a botched abortion led to their inception in 2005. When I say love/hate, I literally mean it. As with every Lifelover release since their 2-song, 50-minute demo, you will love it and hate it simultaneously, as is the desired effect. Take despondent, morose guitar passages that would appeal to any fan of Katatonia or Alcest, hammer them home with a Burzum-like repetitive work ethic and aura, then shit all over them, like GG Allin in concert, with more vocal oddities than can be described with words. Seriously, there are more vocal styles on a Lifelover record than there are Wayans brothers. What’s weird is that more often than not it actually works, and seems to paint such an accurate depiction of insanity that poignantly corresponds so well with the musical depression. Sometimes, however, it gets taken too far and the song is completely ruined. But don’t think for a second that these guys give a fuck. Think of it as a bizarre movie that is visually stunning with phenomenal acting, but a plot that doesn’t make much sense. Still, when they hit their stride it will stick with you like herpes, bad vocals or not.

Much like a deep-fried Baconator with griddle cakes used instead of buns, Emmure’s music is in no way healthy, nutritional, or good for you. But god damn is it delicious! The fifth release (fourth full-length) from Frankie Palmeri and company boasts the most ridiculously heavy bass drum/palm muting synchronizations ever recorded, and the lyrics are just as bitter, foul-mouthed, and ghetto as ever before. These guys seem to take a lot of shit for aping The Acacia Strain’s style, and comparisons are undeniably obvious, but would either band’s current sound exist without 2004-2006 era Bury Your Dead? Just saying, everything sounds like something, and in this case at least it’s something good. The production on this album is fucking immaculate, even more so than 2009’s Felony, and that is really the only change. The happily non-forsaken breakdowns crush, while skillfully manipulated squealing harmonics pop, lock and drop, and Palmeri’s voice can go anywhere from demented wigger to demon from the deepest abyss of Hades. Some of that more sonorous Deftones-style melody rears its pretty face here and there, although the majority of the record is the business end of the wine bottle. Forty minutes of ferociously heavy, bitter negativity somehow makes me happy.

I must admit that the only reason I initially checked out Necromorph was because I had hoped Grinding Black Zero was a concept album about the kick-ass Dead Space video games. It’s not, and the band’s name actually predates the games’ use of the word by over a decade. But that got me to listen to Necromorph and I’m glad I did! These German sonic scholars borrow the seminal Sunlight studios guitar sound, and perhaps a few other ideas from early Entombed as well, and filter their Death Metal onslaught through Extreme Noise Terror and some Napalm Death, for a heavy Crust influence. It’s my understanding that the Necro-men started out as a Black Metal band back in 1995, and I can detect more than a little Impaled Nazarene here and there, but it may be the Crust connection the groups share. As one might surmise, the intensity throughout this album is typically off the chart, with the songs wisely kept short. Occasionally everything else is sacrificed to that intensity for a moment, but it’s rare. I’m surprised that Fritz handles all the vocals himself, as they are sometimes double-tracked, with him providing both parts of the traditional Crust high/low dueling-vocal attack in impressive fashion. The lengthy sample from the 1976 film Network in the otherwise-instrumental, flawless final track, “Black Zero,” really made me want to give this a 10, but all of this short (28:24) album isn’t quite as perfect. Awesome way to end it, though.

I was a little shocked to learn of a new Burzum release so soon (barely a year removed from 2010’s return to civilization, Belus), and perhaps a little more surprised to discover the album was recorded in only two weeks. I guess after so many years incarcerated, and considering the large financial debt owed to Norwegian authorities, the creative juices must be overflowing. In retrospect, I suppose Varg does vomit out releases at a fast pace, with the first five Burzum albums unleashed in only four years. So, the cause for concern may not be warranted, that is until you listen to Fallen and realize it is by far the most different, diverse record of his career. Another strange minute-long intro leads into “Jeg Faller,” probably the best song on the album, yet plagued by a chorus that sounds like he’s saying, “egg farmer.” Given his levitation towards extreme hypnotic repetition, this produces an unintentionally humorous song. Which leads me to the high percentage of clean vocals used on this album. It’s not so much a complaint, as Varg’s voice isn’t bad at all, more like a fear that he’s eventually going to go full-on Bathory on us. The next two tracks (“Valen” and “Vanvidd”) have a very melodic Filosofem vibe, but don’t really go anywhere and aren’t very memorable. “Enhver til Sitt” has a lot of pure, raw aggression like that found on Belus’s heavier tracks, and the 10-minute “Budstikken” drones on leading to a rather pointless outro. So, easily the weakest album in the Burzum catalog, but still volumes above many. It is great to have the Count back, but I just hope quantity doesn’t replace quality.

I hate longs intros to albums, and Wrath Upon the Earth starts with one of the longest (2:24) and weirdest in recent memory. Svartsyn plays fairly by-the-numbers, straight-forward, repetitious Black Metal. However, the production is excellent - amazing, even. I can actually hear the bass guitar! How often has that ever been said of a Black Metal album? The repetition of the riffs gets a little annoying from time to time, though, and Ornias has a tendency to just cram ideas together without any kind of flow from one to the next. His vocal patterns are even worse in that regard, and often aren’t really incorporated into the music at all, sounding as if they’re from a different song. That’s not a knock on Ornias’s tormented vocals in and of themselves, which are painfully well done (excusing a minor bad idea or two). Even with these flaws, there are quite a lot of interesting elements here, but they rarely all work together simultaneously, and a collection of good ideas, riffs, drumming and vocals isn’t exactly the same thing as a good song or album.