Atmospheric and melancholy Black Metal. The addition of clean male vocals is somewhat unique and adds to the sorrowful feeling.

This starts off as your typical Swedish Metal album, complete with all the structures from At the Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul, just slightly rearranged, and then blossoms into something gayer. The song “Powertool” features repugnant Poppy female vocals like those you’d hear on a Contemporary Christian radio station. Then with “Deserted” a complete closet exodus is achieved with the interjection of Power-Glam vocals that may induce the loss of bladder control through laughter. I can understand and respect a band’s desire to add a dimension of passion to their music, but the clean male vocals on this LP sound like the guy from Boston with an even bigger dick up his ass. Trust me, the only thing this CD would accomplish in your collection is the absorption of dust mites. Even they don’t deserve such torture.

What the fuck is this?!? Some keyboards, a guy talking… I had to really concentrate to even remotely pay any attention to this crap, and even then my thoughts would quickly drift to something -anything- else. I repeat: what the fuck is this?!? Other than annoying, I mean.

With both Michael Denner and Andy LaRocque contributing guitar solos to this, I wasn’t expecting to hear any harmonica, but here it is. At times this band is all Rock and Roll, while others they get a lot more Thrashy. And the vocals are weird, too. If they want to appeal to Rock fans, I would think that these raspy, hoarse vocals would hinder their efforts. Maybe I just don’t get it.

This is a two-piece band hailing from the kingdom of endless Black Metal, Norway. This CD is actually quite a mixed bag as it compiles tracks from the Tordenkrig 7-inch, a split 7-inch with Ork, unreleased material and advanced tracks from their forthcoming full-length album. To describe the style of this band, imagine Isengard (the Folk elements), Darkthrone (the Black Metal parts) and Hammerheart-era Bathory (the atmosphere) all mixed together. The 7-inch tracks don’t have the best sound quality in the world, but considering that nobody pays for quality recording on a 7-inch except for Moribund Cult Black Priest Odin, that is completely understandable. The guitars were a bit on the thin side up until the tracks for the forthcoming album kicked in. These have a much thicker guitar sound and the keyboards are less prominent than the older material. The songs from the 7-inches were good, but I think the advanced tracks for the album are leagues ahead of the older stuff.

Keybaords and wind. Without even checking for corpse-paint, I’ll bet this must be a Black Metal album. Come on, people! There must be other “truly evil” ways to start an album than always with keyboards and wind! And then the generally fast Black Metal assault starts. When FFB slows things down a little (and don’t get the idea that I like “slow” better than “fast” - I just like what’s best for the song) and the keyboards are allowed to create an eerie atmosphere, things do seem to work better for them. Maybe it’s the production, which is on the thin side, and tends to make the fast parts sound tinny. In any case, this has moments of genius. If they can concentrate on those, and get even a little thicker sound next time, perfection would not be out of reach.

Pretentious Black Metal “art.” It’s fast. It has keyboards. And screechy vocals. And totally unmemorable songs that try their best to sound “epic” and important, but can’t manage it. I’ve heard it all a thousand times before, and didn’t care then, either. And what’s up with this ultra-dorky cover art?

Totally fuckin’ cult blackened Death Metal. A snare drum sound similar to 1980s’ German Thrash, barbed fishhook guitar riffs and keyboards intelligently blended into the melody. Forest of Impaled traces over the razor line separating Black Metal and Death Metal with the precision of a surgeon consummating the blasphemous, bloody union of the best elements from both genres. Congratulations to Pat at Red Stream for seeing the potential of this band. An audio scalpel almost unparalleled nowadays. Hail to perfection!

What do you get when you mix Falkenbach, a little Dissection, a sprinkle of Emperor and a liberal helping of Celtic Folk music? The answer is Forefather, merry olde England’s latest entry in the Folk-influenced Metal category. Really, this would be called Viking Metal if it wasn’t for the glaringly obvious lack of any Viking stuff associated with this band. The band’s name is written in runes that could be associated with the Norsemen but then, most of Europe used these same runes at some point in their history so the most appropriate thing to call Forefather is Anglo-Saxon Metal with a strong Celtic leaning. Not as far as Cruachan or Primordial but there is a definite Celtic music influence in the music and lyrics of this band. During the faster segments, of which there are plenty, Forefather shows their Nordic Black Metal influences, but the inclusion of Folk melodies and clean vocals in the slower parts sets this band apart from the rest of the pack. Fans of the previously mentioned Falkenbach will enjoy this stuff, as will folks looking for something different from your everyday Darkthrone clone band.

Music that’s lighter than air, and even wimpier female vocals. And then the guy starts singing… I didn’t think it could get worse, but at least the chick knew enough to sing in key. This isn’t “experimental,” it’s ridiculous.

Even the mighty Fleshless cannot resist the intro plague, but after a few seconds of a dying heartbeat, the Death/Grind starts up, and you’re just pummeled for an hour. The sound they have achieved here is amazing. You can hear everything right down to the impressive basslines, but it’s still extremely thick and of course heavier than you could imagine. And the vocals are horrifically sick abominations, with lyrics and artwork to match, which is to say they’re awesome. So, all told, this is just about all you could ask for. But you get more anyway. In addition to an excellent Master’s Hammer cover, this CD also contains all of Fleshless’ Grinding demo, and for some reason, the song “Free Off Pain” from their last album. This is extremely close to perfection, and to be honest, I might just look back on this and wish I’d given it a ten. Time will tell.

This trio from the UK are pretty tight. Lots of changes and breakdowns in different directions. A bit more insane and heavy than your average Alterna-Metal band. A lot of interesting dynamics keep this fresh and original. A little silly on occasion though, making the vox the only weak point really. Kinda cool.

The first thing I thought of when I threw this on was that it sounded a lot like the soundtrack for an evil Disney cartoon. That assumption proved wrong after a few more minutes of listening, but a lot of this does sound like the soundtrack to a medieval fantasy type of movie but with Black Metal vocals and shit. There is a heavy Folk influence (medieval or renaissance period European Folk to be precise) which makes Finntroll sound like the band Falkenbach mixed with Otyg or In Extremo. The riffs are simplistic in the Hellhammer style with memorability the key feature. The dominant instrument, as you may imagine, is the keyboard. The rest of the instruments are kind of buried underneath somewhere. I can hear the chainsaw guitars but I can’t make out the riffs very well sometimes. I’m not sure what the songs are about as they are all written in the band’s native tongue, Finnish. Sure, there are lyrics enclosed and the band has thoughtfully included a brief explanation of the songs’ meanings (these were written in English) but due to a very shitty layout job, the vast bulk of this stuff was unreadable. Black ink over a dark background = illegible text, if you require math for this one. That little mishap got them a minor point deduction, but on the whole, this is an album for all you Folk-influenced Black Metal people out there to pick up.

If you just don’t pay any attention to the lyrics, this is pretty solid Death Metal. But upon further inspection, you’d notice that despite their heaviness and, I’ll admit it, brutality, these guys are preachers, trying to save everyone from “evil.” I don’t understand how their “message” can possibly fit with this kind of music, but then again, I don’t really want to. So, although this isn’t bad at all musically, I doubt I’ll ever listen to it again, ‘cause I like to growl along, and I just can’t bring myself to say goofy stuff like, “The reward of Christ’s love,” without giggling.

The press release says: “This is Entombed at their jaw-dropping best.” Not even close. I mean, you’d sure think that it would be, since it was recorded in 1992, after Clandestine came out and L.G. had rejoined the band. Since I consider Clandestine to be one of the best Death Metal albums of all time (maybe the best), I was freaking out at the idea of hearing the once-mighty L.G. try his lungs on those tunes. When I saw Entombed on this tour here in the US, it was before he had rejoined, and if I remember correctly, Alex was doing the singing. He’s a Hell of a lot better than L.G., let me assure you. I just don’t understand this at all. On Left Hand Path, L.G. was the definition of controlled brutality, but even by 1992 his voice was apparently shot. On the older songs he does slightly better, but the Clandestine stuff is really terrible. He forgets the words in quite a few places, and generally does a piss-poor, feeble, off time job, as if he wasn’t into it at all. No wonder they had to change their sound so radically; L.G. couldn’t sing Death Metal any more. Even the music seems a little off in some places, almost as if L.G. were bringing the whole band down. I hate to just pick on the guy (well, not really), but he basically ruins what I had thought would have to be a flawless live album. And what the fuck is “Monkey Puss” supposed to mean?

Just like always, Enthroned deliver the fast evil Black Metal, but it seems to have intensity at the expense of being memorable. I mean, while you’re listening to this, it’s great, but even after a few spins, it’s not exactly easy to remember.

The stupid chanted intro gives way to ultra fast drum machine and pretty keyboards. Which in turn gives way to some friendly little Folky synth flutes. I can just imagine kids whistling along and skipping on their way to church. And the drum machine comes back in along with some really bad sing-songy vocals, complete with annoying multi-tracked backing vox, mixed too loudly. This is just a fucking mess. This isn’t Black Metal, or Metal of any kind at all. Metal is guitar based. Big riffs. And then come the thunderous drums. The occasional Black Metal cackled vocals amid all synths, flutes, and Folk rhythms, does not make you Black Metal, nor does it make your music “evil.” It just makes you look like idiots grasping too hard for the straw of originality, while not wanting to get too very far away from the established trends and formulas. Please fuck off.

These guys are cool. Their fast Death attack is good enough by itself, but they go right ahead and have sick and funny lyrics, too, and that makes Death Metal Attack 2 mandatory. By the way, this CD also includes all of their Death Metal Attack release from 1997 as bonus tracks. Favorite song title: “Raping the Full House Twins.”

More or less in the Flotsam and Jetsam vein of Thrashy Metal, Engine can deliver when they want to. But there are some flaws here, too. Considering that this band’s singer is none other than Fates Warning’s Ray Alder, it sort of boggles the mind to hear him overdrive and distort his vocals, but he does sometimes, and that’s really a bad idea. Otherwise, this has moments of semi-greatness, but only moments. And there are also moments of badness that aren’t vocal-related. Their next album will really tell the tale, since we’ll get to see if they know what to fix and what to keep. I’ll bet that they don’t, but I’ll give then the benefit of the doubt for now.

Here we have the first two albums worth of recordings from Ambient masters Endura, digitally remastered and re-released as this two-CD set, making over 110 minutes of “darkritual” soundscapes.