Speed for the sake of speed, but with added brutality. Erik Rutan (Morbid Angel) seems to be inspired here by Krisiun, as the playing is stunning and almost inhuman, especially the drumming. Impressive enough for speed, intensity and precision alone.

Well, they have finally done it. After two albums of near-flawless Death Metal, Monstrosity have achieved perfection. In Dark Purity is technical and yet intense - brutal and yet memorable. Apparently losing their old singer, George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, to Cannibal Corpse was a blessing in disguise - for both bands, really. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this is the best technical Death Metal I’ve ever heard, but it’s a contender, to be sure. And I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone pull off a Slayer cover (“Angel of Death”) so well. Every now and then I say that all new bands should be forced to listen to a particular album to hear how things should be done. This is one such album.

It’s been forever since Macabre has released any new stuff, so I think that you should drop everything and immediately go get this disc. It has three newly-recorded tracks: Two from the upcoming Dahmer album, and one, this EP’s title track, from the also upcoming Murder Metal album. Apparently the band has two complete LPs worth of material ready to go, but this is all they have recorded so far. Hopefully the new albums will be coming extremely soon. This EP also has two tracks each from the Gloom and Grim Reality releases, as if you needed more incentive to plunk down the $6 on it.

This was recorded live in Italy, in November 1998, so other than the intro, it’s before their conversion to Techno-gayness. I’d like to point out that Hellhammer’s drumming is just as ultra-fast and exact live as it was on Wolf’s Lair Abyss, which is reason enough for anyone to check this out if you ask me. God damn he’s fast! As for the rest of the album, the sound is not bad, but certainly not great, with the instruments oddly separated. But they do play most of what any old fan would want to hear, such as “Deathcrush,” “Necrolust,” “Chainsaw Gutsfuck,” and of course “Pure Fucking Armageddon.” It’s tough for me to not think about Grand Declaration… and just dismiss this live album, too. But that would be a mistake. Plus it’s pretty entertaining to hear Maniac talk in-between songs, and Attila even contributes guest screams on “From the Dark Past.” Too bad they didn’t stop with this release.

I think this is the fastest, most furious thing Marduk have ever released. And that’s really saying something. The amazing Abyss production really allows their blazing Black Metal to reach its full destructive potential. Favorite song title: “Fistfucking God’s Planet.”

I guess that no one is satisfied with a single disc live album anymore. Anyway the Kings of Metal are back with, strangely enough, another live album, their second in a row. Well, actually, this may be more of a “part 2” to the Hell on Wheels Live 2-CD set which preceded it, since it has none of the same songs. Honestly, I much prefer the song selection on Hell on Wheels Live, although Hell on Stage Live does easily have the superior cover art, so really only the most rabid fans and collectors will want both albums, and they of course already have them.

This album was recorded back in ‘98, but has just recently seen the light of day. If you like Andy Harris’s previous work with Judas, then you will like this one too. Heaven in Flames sees more keyboard work slowly creeping into the steady assault of Von / early Burzum influenced Evil Black Fucking Metal. Note that Evil Black Fucking Metal does not equal “under-produced” so-called “Grim” Black Metal. Judas Iscariot is Evil Black Fucking Metal because no matter what kind of production Mr. Harris gets with this band, it still sounds fucking evil. Yes, Heaven in Flames doesn’t have the clean sound that Distant in Solitary Night had, but the feeling of pure hatred and darkness remains undiluted. Seriously, if we get enough of those 16-year-old Dimmu Borgir / Cradle of Filth kids to listen to this shit, then the church burnings of the early ’90s will start anew.

Now this is gloomy. The droning, sorrowful, deeply sung, clean vocals will just drain the life out of you through the ears. And the riffs are very much like razors slowly slicing fragile flesh. The press release suggests that this is “Dark Metal.” I’d put the emphasis on “Dark,” although it is certainly Metal, sometimes bringing Candlemass to mind, but it also incorporates considerable non-Metal influences, to create a dismal soundscape of inescapable suicidal dirges. After many, many spins I have yet to find a single second of anything less than perfection in this festival of sorrow, and thus give Jack Frost the just reward of their supreme efforts.

Back again with another album of pit-inducing Death Metal. And another new singer. I hope they can keep this line up, since I think it’s their best so far. And thanks to ironing out the past problems of production and fine tuning their songwriting, this may be their best album to date as well.

Three minutes of pretty acoustic guitars and keyboards later, the album really starts. The music is strangely “happy,” but I suppose that matches the vocals, which sound something like a guy in a coffeehouse reading his sappy poetry that he thinks is the best shit ever written. Well, and then there are the raspy vocals, which are a little better, although still not very good, and generally they seem to be at odds with the music. Okay, these guys do speed things up, but the faster parts really emphasize the weird production and mix. And I really should mention the laughable keyboard effects. In at least one song, they sound as if they were taken straight out of a vintage 1983 video game. There are a few good moments here and there, and it does kind of get better as it goes along, but the bad easily outweighs the good.

Ahh, the DVD release of this classic video from 1992. There isn’t much in the way of extras: You can jump right to the song you want, and check out stills of the cast, and that’s pretty much it. But, this is the concept video that brought Gwar to the world, I guess, and it certainly sees them at a point in their career that was a lot better musically and comedicly than they are currently. The plot that ties everything together centers around Gwar’s fight against the dick-stealing Morality Squad. That’ll make more sense once you’ve seen this, which I’d certainly recommend unless you just insist on taking everything too seriously.

Man, I thought Cärnival of Chaos was a disappointment. This is considerably worse. Oh sure, they try to be funny, but it just never seems to work. And the “experimentation” with all these musical styles (Country, Ass Rock, and other assorted inane pap) only makes it seem as if they are desperately throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. They are smart enough to make the first few seconds good, but things deteriorate very quickly after that. I just do not understand how Gwar could have felt good enough about this material to ever let it see the black of night. How much worse will they get before they give up?

It’s been a long wait since their last disc was released back in ‘96, but this ultra-heavy monster has been worth it. Immolation have taken their time and come up with a massively brutal slab of Death Metal.

I guess that Graveland decided to release this officially as someone out there was selling a bootleg copy of this demo for $20+ (the bootleg is a split with Behemoth’s Return of the Northern Moon demo). I have the second release of this demo (on tape by Darken’s own distribution, Isengard) as well as the bootleg and having heard both of those recordings already, I have to say that the sound on this absolutely sucks shit. No, I take that back. The intros sound great. The Black Metal parts are the ones that sound like shit. In other words, nothing at all was done to improve the sound from the original tape. Even though the sound is total crap, there is still an unholy atmosphere about this recording that gave this band such cult status back in 1993. I don’t know what about it that does it, but it’s fucking there. It isn’t the trashcan lid drums, the ultra-thin guitars or what sounds like Rob Darken getting a hedgehog shoved up his ass, nor is it the minimalistic Emperor-ish keyboards. I guess it’s the combination of all of the above that gave Graveland that sound. If the Epilogue demo itself wasn’t enough, No Colours has decided to include a different version of the In the Glare of Burning Churches demo as well. Of the two, I think the Epilogue demo sounded better, but even though both sound like absolute shit, they’re both still better than that horribly overpriced Viking Crown CD. For die-hard fans who absolutely must own everything that Graveland ever released only. This won’t convert anyone, so buy Immortal Pride instead if you’re curious.

I’m glad to see these guys decided to keep on releasing albums. This musically covers a lot of Metal’s unhallowed ground, which is what Hypocrisy fans have come to expect. Naturally, everything is nuclear powered, and you’ll be screeching along in no time. An amazing album that sort of ties together all the different styles Hypocrisy have employed over the years, and then takes them all a little further. And my review copy is so “advance” that the songs haven’t even been mastered yet! I’m not sure how it could possibly sound any better, though. The shouted vocals in “Time Warp” are nearly all that keep this from perfection.

I guess mobile recording technology must be improving. I would say that “for a live album” this sounds great, but that’s a vast understatement. This sounds like they took the studio versions and added in-between track crowd noise, but I know it’s live. I’m already impressed, only three seconds in to the first cut. As with all live LPs, there are a few songs I wish had been on this, but that’s to be expected. And how are Hypocrisy sounding, you ask? Well, pretty god damn good. Their newer style is a little hard to pigeonhole, and they stick mostly to that, which for once is okay with me. However, they also treat us to an inspirational rendition of “Pleasure of Molestation,” which is probably worth the cost by itself. And just to make sure that this is utterly essential, there are four new studio tracks on here, too.

Riff-wise, this occasionally departs from their first two LPs, generally into the start-stop territory that’s less favored by me. Very fortunately, Gus makes no similar concessions with his vocals, and Waldemar injects enough variation into his guitar work to almost make you forget the less-than-great parts, and there are a lot of great moments on here, too. But the bottom line is that I really don’t like this “’90s” riffing style. Thankfully they don’t employ it all the time, but a little goes a long way with me. And things certainly do get better as the album goes along. So, I’m torn on how to rate Solidify, and I’ll wait for their next disc to say anything too bad about Grip Inc.

What happened? The last thing I remember, Godflesh were back to crushing heaviness. Apparently not anymore. The first track is just terrible dance music with distorted vocals and guitars. It gets somewhat better after that, but the horribly overdriven vocals remain, and they never come close to their former glory. They should be embarrassed of this bullshit.

I should probably give these goat fuckers a ten just for the opening sample, but I have resisted. This improves upon the Black Death style of their last album, The Grand Grimoire, by making it more easily remembered, and that was just what they needed to do.

Contact info: King Ghidra. Thanks list: Motorhead. You can’t go wrong with those two! I don’t really know how to describe this band’s low-down Rock ‘n’ Roll, other than to say that I guess I can hear traces of Kiss and Danzig, and who-knows-what-all-else. And that I like ‘em. It’s very well played, energetic and hard to forget.