Finally! A band on the Fredo Corleone of the Necropolis subsidiaries worth a piss! These guys are perhaps the most intense Death Metal band to ever echo from the Land of the Rising Sun. Twisting, snarling, complex rhythms and dark, unsettling harmonies combine lethally in the form of what I like to call “anti-tempos.” Those unpredictable song structures that defy the norm and keep you on the edge of your seat. But unlike the “anti-tempos” of a band like Dillinger Escape Plan, for example, which come off as a non-musical blur, these bizarre tunes actually have character. Of course, repeated listens are a must. Hail the beasts of the East!

I hate to say anything less than 100% positive about Death’s main man, Evil Chuck, considering his fight with brain cancer and all - but as far as I’m concerned, this live album could be better. Sure, Death knows to end a live set with “Pull the Plug,” and we’re treated to good renditions of “Suicide Machine,” “Together As One” and the classic “Zombie Ritual,” but I would have liked some more older stuff on here. I guess that’s just showing my age, or maybe it’s that this band has gotten less heavy and intense with every release. Still, this is an excellent recording, and Chuck could certainly use the money. Live in L.A. is also available on VHS and DVD, so provided I can locate one (Nuclear Blast DVDs are impossible to find!), I’m going to check and see what, if any, extras the digital video format has to offer.

As with the above reviewed DVD [DMPO’s on Braodway -Editor], I’ve had a tape of this for a long, long time. This digital version offers somewhat improved sound and video quality as well as short features on the band members and the band itself. And those are interesting, but probably unnecessary to anyone who would buy this. As the title indicates, these live clips are from early on in this seminal Punk band’s career (from 1979 - ‘81), and include such classics as “California Uber Alles,” “Kill the Poor,” “The Man With the Dogs” (which is one of my all time faves), “Holiday in Cambodia,” their cover of “Viva Los Vegas,” a news report on Jello from when he was running for mayor of San Francisco, and more cool stuff. Obviously, this is a necessity!

This latest album by Darkthrone is… Well, it’s a Darkthrone album. It sounds like a Darkthrone album and it has that Darkthrone feel, but at the same time it doesn’t go anywhere that previous Darkthrone albums haven’t gone before. The speed is almost uniformly mid-paced, and if you’ve heard one song off of this album, the rest sort of sound similar. There are no acoustic bits, no clean vocals, no keyboards, no female vocals, or even very many tempo changes. There is an occasional use of flange on the guitar but essentially, if you have Goatlord, Total Death or even Under a Funeral Moon, this doesn’t sound all that much different that those albums. I get the feeling that Darkthrone is in a rut, much in the same way that I feel Incantation is in a rut. They’ve defined their sound and now they really can’t go anywhere else. You can mix and match songs off of this album with songs off of the other albums in their back-catalog and if you look at structure, nothing has changed in almost a decade. Let’s face it folks, Motorhead and AC/DC can get away with releasing the same album over and over, year after year because people want to see them live and they need an excuse to keep touring. Darkthrone doesn’t tour much - if at all - and face it, I already own five or six albums of this already. That’s not much of an incentive to run out and buy this album and I can’t honestly recommend this to anyone who already owns a couple Darkthrone albums.

In these times when Black Metal is clearly dying of suffocation from a global plethora of bands all competing to sound the same, and longtime pioneers of the genre unsuccessfully trying to pave new paths using everything from Electronica masturbation to Ass Rock splicing. Somehow, Norway’s Darkthrone sounds as raw as ever by changing practically nothing. They can take the most simplistic hook and make it the coolest riff of all time, a continuance of the tactics employed by their previous album, and possibly finest moment ever, Ravishing Grimness. The most significant of changes for this band the last couple of years is the clear, solid production that was abandoned after their first album. It works wonders with the primal instinct this band has at making truly evil-sounding melodies. They actually give their music a personality; a misanthropic charisma that so many of today’s Black Metal bands lack. With Darkthrone it seems to come effortlessly. If Ravishing Grimness re-ignited that miscreant flame in your soul, Plaguewielder will keep those embers burning brighter than an 18th Century Norwegian church in the pale Scandinavian winter.

At times reminding me of Testament, while others, Strapping Young Lad, Darkane is difficult to describe. And even more problematic is the fact that there is something about this album that doesn’t sit will well with me, but I can’t tell you exactly what that is. Everything is played well, the recording is good, and the energy is high. But something’s not right. The staccato vocals, maybe? The riffs? Perhaps it’s a lot of little things adding up, and dragging this down…

Many people are hailing this as the best Dark Funeral album of them all, and after giving this a spin, I can definitely say that all the hype is well deserved. This is probably one of the tightest albums on the market right now. I don’t know if this is the best album of 2001, but it sure comes close. Compared to their previous two full-length albums, this is much more varied in terms of speed, mixing slower, heavier parts with hyperspeed guitar-work. Where the previous albums failed was in the speed department. Vobiscum Satanas and The Secrets of the Black Arts were both so fucking fast and furious that you had almost zero song memorability. Rest assured, however, that these guys have not slowed down that much. There is just enough variety to make the songs stand out, but not enough slowdowns to change the band’s sound. Add to all of this the golden touch of Peter Tagtgren and you have a well produced, well executed gem of an album that adds luster to the blackened crown of our master Satan.

While other well-known Black Metal acts have either sold their proverbial souls to the almighty dollar or drifted down the path of Electronic and/or Goth commercialism, Dark Funeral has stayed the course and continues to feed the flames of Hell with blinding speed, intricate melodies, and all-out aggression. Diabolis Interium, the band’s third full-length, shows maturation in song-writing abilities while still retaining their raging, brutal intensity. Featuring hyper-fast drumming courtesy of Defleshed’s Matte Modin, Lord Ahriman’s speedy yet melodic guitar-riffs, and the demonic screams of Emperor Magus Caligula, this is Dark Funeral doing what they do best - Black fucking Metal! Recorded in Abyss Studios and produced by genius Peter Tagtgren, the production is dead-on. These guys are seated firmly on the throne of the Swedish Black Metal scene and show no signs of being usurped anytime soon.

The marketing for this German horde’s album says that it sounds a lot like Dissection. That is only half true. The first half of Tales from Eternal Dusk sounds a lot like Dissection that you can seriously tell the influence is there. The second half of this album sounds more like Rotting Christ than Dissection. There is more slower material in this particular half and the general atmosphere reminds me more of albums like Non Serviam or even the newest Rotting Christ album than The Somberlain or Storm of the Light’s Bane. In some ways, it almost sounds like a different band starts up after the fourth song, and if I had to compare, the second half is much better. Granted, the Dissection influenced stuff is really hard driving and brutal, but the slower, more atmospheric stuff just plain sounds better.

I’ve been a big Danzig fan since the first time I heard the Misfits. Keep in mind that I’m an old bastard, so that was a long time ago. Anyway, I was really excited about checking out this live album. But, as with more or less all live recordings, there is just too much history to sort through, even if you only consider the band Danzig and not Misfits and Samhain, and I’m always a little disappointed that some songs weren’t included. However, this two-disc set, recorded at three distinct times in the band’s career (‘92, ‘94, and various times during 2000), covers most of the bases (including a nice rendition of “Halloween II”), probably better than most live albums do. It is somewhat strange to me that this isn’t all one show - even the second disc (all from the 2000 Satan’s Child tour) has songs recorded from three different gigs. But the most strange things about this set are, first that sometimes the guys sound sort of exhausted, especially Glenn at the beginning of the first show form ‘94, and second the quality of the recording itself is sometimes lacking. It never sounds as bad as some bootlegs I’ve heard, but then again, I have a couple bootlegs that sound better. If they were going to takes songs from different shows anyway, and had a decade of live recordings to choose from, I’m surprised that this collection was the best they could come up with, both sonically and performance-wise. I guess that might make you think that I don’t like this album, but that’s not true. I do like it quite a lot, and think it’s obviously a must-buy situation for any fans. But, I do think that it could have been better. Maybe after the machine-like (and disappointing) Blackacidevil and somewhat “modern” sounding not-quite-return-to-form Satan’s Child, Glenn decided that a “raw” sounding live album would be a good idea. I agree with that conceptually, but this is a little too far in the other direction to be the flawless masterpiece that I was expecting.

This album was actually released in 2001 but due to the fact that it really isn’t all that Metal, it was rather hard for me to track down until almost a year later. This band is actually a Goth Rock project that was started by Ancient Rites frontman, Gunther Theys. Unlike Ancient Rites, this isn’t at all brutal or evil in the slightest. Yes, there is some darkness in the lyrics but for the most part, this is solid Goth to the core. That being said, the lyrics (and music) try for a more sad or melancholic sound rather than the brutal or Satan obsessed stylings of Black Metal. Musically, this sounds a lot like Sisters of Mercy, Love Like Blood or maybe Bauhaus. Metalheads who cross over into the Goth scene (fans of Moonspell, Tiamat or Lucyfire in particular) will enjoy the fact that this has some heavier guitar work than your average Goth Rock band but still captures the feeling and emotion of good Gothic music.

When I was younger I really liked this wailing-vocals Power Metal style more than I do now. But as is usually the case, it’s just impossible to deny this band’s technical abilities, and at least I don’t have to deal with the usual Dungeons and Dragons lyrics, although they are somewhat suspect, still.

This lone wolf band hails from Iceland, a country with not just a small number of Metal bands but a small number of bands period. The only other band of note that I can think of is Solstafir (I believe they did a split CD with Chorus of Ruin some years back) and I’m not even sure that they’re still around. Musically, I was expecting something more in the vein of Burzum, but this MCD sounds more like old Emperor or Satyricon, though not as well executed. The three tracks on display here were recorded between the years 1999 and 2001 and though they don’t suck, they just don’t kick ass like you’d expect a song to after being worked on for so many years. With so many other great bands out there, this comes off as being mediocre. I’ll hail Eldur for trying to stick Iceland on the Black Metal map, but Cursed Be Thy Name is going to end up as a novelty for collectors of obscure albums by obscure bands.

In addition to being on the short list of stunningly awesome Metalcore bands, and just completely exploding my intensity meter, the Curl Up and Die fellows also have the absolutely most badass song titles I’ve ever seen. For example, “100 MPH Vomit Dedicated to Jon.” I checked into it and they don’t even know our very own vomit-loving Jon “Dear Death” Konrath! How many sick fucks named Jon are out there who have puke fetishes? But even cooler yet is the inspirational “Doctor Doom, a Man of Science, Doesn’t Believe in Jesus, Why the Fuck do You.” And, of course, the name of their previous EP (which I really need to track down, so if anyone can help with that… [update: I found a copy!]), The Only Good Bug Is a Dead Bug. I couldn’t agree more, and I couldn’t recommend Curl Up and Die much more!

Oh boy… Yet another “Grim” Black Metal band that pushes the boundaries of bad production, bad music or in this case, both. Cult of Daath sounds like they heard Satanic Blood by Von and said, “Hey, this one-riff Black Metal thing is kind of cool! We don’t have to come up with more than one set of three chords!” Unfortunately, the result is one-dimensional and the production makes this sound like a badly recorded rehearsal tape. Add slightly distorted Cookie Monster vocals over the top and you get a good idea of what this band sounds like. Judging by their choice of covers, one of their main influences was Beherit and if that’s the case, they’ve done a good job of trying to recreate the style but not the originality. Beherit did this almost 10 years ago! Bestial Summoning, Von, Profanatica and Blasphemy did this sort of thing and at the time, it was cool because it was all about feeling over polished sound and nobody else was doing it. Today, we have bands like Cult of Daath who don’t have the feeling or the originality. It’s okay to borrow an idea but do something with it! Copying something a decade old might get you some nostalgia but ultimately, if I wanted to listen to The Oath of Black Blood, I’d listen to The Oath of Black Blood - not something like this.

This is perhaps the ugliest band on Breath of Night. I don’t mean by looks, but by sound. This sounds like a Panzer assault most of the time. If the harshness of getting your body shredded by artillery and the feeling of what remains of your shattered corpse getting run over by a tank could be set to music, that would pretty much describe the bulk of what is on this album. This shit is just fucking harsh! It has a lot in common with Australian scene’s War Metal style assault - particularly that of Bestial Warlust or Abominator - with the raw chaos and brutality of old **Blasphemy. The whole thing is loud, intense and flat out fucking evil. Even when there are interludes of acoustic guitar, you know that things will explode into chaos and mayhem any second afterward. This has all the hallmarks of being an underground classic. I’m not surprised at all that Breath of Night picked these guys up, because while they may not sound like other bands on the label, the quality is there.

This MCD sort of reinforces the notion that Cruachan isn’t really very much of a Metal band anymore. Ride On has much more in common with a band like Wolfstone than with Iron Maiden, and if you look at their albums it is pretty clear which way they were headed. The main focus of this MCD is the song “Ride On.” This is the only new track on this release and though it is a cover song, it also features Irish Folk demigod, Shane Mac Gowan on guest vocals. The feeling and atmosphere on this track are much more in line with a Folk tune, though it has enough Metal in it to lay down a solid foundation of power and intensity. The rest of the tracks are just re-recordings of older songs. The re-recordings sound good too, but though they have improved sound, we’ve heard them all before. I know that the band probably didn’t feel that one song was enough to release by itself so they added all the other material that they recorded during this session - and they’re right. The one new song might be great, but fans want a little more than that (not to mention the record label needed to recoup the cost of recording and pressing the CDs). When you just consider the material by itself, it fucking rules. If you’re a fan of that Celtic sound, this is the shit. However, with only one new track, I’ll wager that most folks will probably download it as an MP3 instead of shelling out any money for the CD. Musically, this is great, economically, this one will probably be for hardcore fans of Cruachan only.

Here we have a live / greatest hits / rare tracks 2-disc set to showcase the long-running career of these German Goth Metallers. The first disc is entirely live, and the second is comprised of the rarities, singles, and my personal favorites, tracks from their 1992 demo when they were a much more extreme band. Obviously any big fan of Crematory will need this, but I’ve always been pretty middle-of-the-road on these guys. They can write the coolest, most haunting riff ever, and then go completely gay pride all in the same song. I suppose the demo tracks are worth the cheddar.

I sort of wish that I knew more about “Nu-Metal” so that I could more accurately say who Converge is ripping off. I’m going to go out on something of a limb and say it’s Slipknot, but I’m not really sure. I’d be lying if I said that I listened to this band’s previous two albums (both reviewed in Metal Curse #12 [see reviews]) at all after reviewing them, and I no longer have them for comparison purposes, but I’m pretty sure this is drastically more intense. There are actually some okay parts on this album, but they’re far outweighed by the goofy and/or stupid shit. Still, I’ve got to say that this band does seem to improve somewhat with each release and this is easily their best. That doesn’t mean it’s any good, though. But if you like the new breed of Roadrunner bands [circa 2001], you might dig it.

Featuring members of Elegy, Vanden Plas, and Kamelot, this supergroup delivers a Progressive Metal concept-album of epic proportions. This sci-fi novel put to music includes powerful vocals, amazing keyboard-driven melodies, and stellar guitar work. I don’t know about the rest of you, but Progressive Metal usually bores me to tears with all of its stop-start drumming and ridiculous guitar-noodling. Such is not the case here. These guys know how to play complicated music, but they also know the meaning of restraint. Continuum in Extremis grabbed my attention and never let go. What Nocturnus did for Death Metal, Ian Parry has done for the Progressive genre.