When I’m in a Thrash mood, I reach for the ancient classics. I was going to mention a few, but I quickly realized how fucking long that list would have to be, and I’d like to think that we all know them, anyway. My point is that newer Thrash bands like Municipal Waste (yes, I realize that they started over a decade ago, but that’s new for Thrash) or whoever generally don’t do it for me, and over the years I’ve just ignored most of them, unless there’s some compelling, obvious reason to give one a chance, such as Hatriot (ex-Exodus singer Zetro and sons? That’s a must-hear, and their debut was very good, by the way). So, I almost missed out on Canada’s Mortillery, and that would have been a disaster. It makes me wonder how many amazing bands I’ve never heard. Too much music, not enough time! But, I digress… Origin of Extinction has an astonishingly clear and focused sound, with a flawless mix highlighting the intense vocal gymnastics of Cara McCutchen. She’s a total badass, seamlessly going from something like a better version of Overkill’s Blitz, to raspier (even growly) moments that guys like Chuck Billy (Testament) wish they could do, to various screams, shrieks, and tremendously well done melodic singing. Her voice is worth the price alone, but the music is excellent, too. I guess I’ll have to call it “retro Thrash,” because there is thankfully nothing “modern” here. There are zero bad riffs, zero stupid ideas, zero “Nu” and zero “Groove” influences, zero to hate. Every track is intense and instantly memorable, to varying degrees. You’ll be rubbing Icy Hot into your sore neck and singing along in no time! When an album is this granite-solid from beginning to end, it seems weird to mention any standout tracks, but “Creature Possessor” and “F.O.A.D.” (“Fuck all of your religions!”) are the most immediately unforgettable. The “Limited Edition” digipak has three bonus tracks, excellent covers of Razor (“Evil Invaders”), Anthrax (“Madhouse”), and Angel Witch (“Angel Witch”), that should not be missed at any cost. Origin of Extinction is an instant classic.

I used to see this band live on a regular basis. Back when Morbosidad was based out of Oakland, California, I would go to shows specifically to watch them perform. They were one of those bands that was always entertaining, particularly if you spoke Spanish. Even if you don’t, it doesn’t take too much brainpower to figure out what “Puto Cristo” and “Cojete a Dios por el Culo” mean. I think they were my chiropractor’s favorite band for a while. He didn’t listen to Metal, but they inflicted enough damage to my neck to give him plenty of business. Over the years, Morbosidad underwent a number of lineup changes. Thomas Stench, the band’s vocalist, is the only original member left, and while he was always the driving force, the newer guys don’t have the same skills as Chip N’ Death (guitars) or Raul Varela AKA Morthvarg (drums, who was also in Ghoul and Impaled at the same time). Still, they do deliver a potent brand of Blasphemy-influenced Black/Death Metal. Muerte de Cristo en Golgota, as you can imagine, hits you in the face like a shotgun blast as soon as the intro is over. Once they get going, Morbosidad pretty much steamrolls you under a barrage of blasting drums, grinding guitars and bestial vocals. Thomas is, as always, a never-ending fountain of blasphemous lyrics. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you can understand enough to know that he’s spewing out some seriously vile invective against everything holy. If anything hinders this album, it’s the production. The drum sound, particularly the snare, isn’t the greatest, and the guitars are far too low, often buried underneath the drums. When S. Terror isn’t riding the snare, things aren’t so bad, but when he is, The Evil Onit (bass) and Vik Tormentor (guitars) sound almost like incoherent low-pitched rumbling in the background. Even with that, Muerte de Cristo en Golgota is a pretty potent album. If you’re a fan of Blasphemy and the other bands that worship at the altar of Fallen Angel of Doom…., you’re guaranteed to like this. My chiropractor sure appreciates it, too. I think the neck damage I got from Muerte de Cristo en Golgota is paying for his next trip to Cancun.

This wasn’t a first-listen record for me. Not at all. Maybe I was distracted, but after the initial play-through I didn’t remember much beyond the digipak-only final track, a re-recorded version of “Shellshock,” initially from the band’s 1989 In Search of Sanity LP, when someone (band? management? label?) thought that it would be a good idea to replace screamer Sy Keeler with Grim Reaper’s supposedly somewhat more mainstream-friendly singer Steve Grimmett. It didn’t work out to a catastrophic degree, and Sy came back when the band reformed in 2004. I’m not sure what it says about an album when the best song is nearly a quarter-century old and not even available on all versions. Don’t even get me started on how much I despise the concept of format-specific bonus tracks, but for fuck’s sake be certain to not miss this one. After a few more spins, I started warming up to the last half of VI, specifically “Slaughterize,” “66’Fucking’6” (although I do think that Arch Enemy already has dibs on being the “Chaos Legions,” however they misspell it), and “Cruci-Fiction.” They’re intense and memorable, exactly how I like my Thrash to be, and will get you up and moving around, whiplashing yourself, knocking shit over, and hoarsely yelling along with whatever lyrics you can understand (“We are the Chaos Legions / We fight with an iron fist / We play the Devil’s music / We are the union of the six, six, six! / Six, six, fucking six!”). Hopefully they’re also indicative of the future of the band, because I could do with some more like them. Eventually, the remaining songs, which for the most part are merely less memorable and not stylistic departures, started to make a bit more sense to me and worm into my brain to varying degrees. There are a very few not-awesome riffs here and there, and Keeler occasionally missteps vocally, if only momentarily. Also, the jury is still out on the modern production. Maybe try a little more organic sound on the next album? Just a hint of dirt and grime, perhaps? Minor issues aside, these savage sons of Satan have turned in their best work since main-man Nige Rockett decided to give this another shot almost a decade ago. Don’t deny your Thrash addiction.

Imprecation is a band that I’ve followed somewhat since I started listening to Death Metal back in the early ’90s. I say “somewhat” because their initial releases (all of which were compiled onto 1995’s Theurgia Goetia Summa) were kind of hard to get. They also disappeared, only to resurface again over a decade later and continue on as if nothing had happened. Twenty years since the unhallowed birth of Imprecation, they have finally released their debut album through Dark Descent Records. If you’ve never heard Imprecation before, the decidedly old-school Chris Moyen album art might fool you into believing that this is going to be a Blasphemy worshipping band. Imprecation’s influences are more in line with Incantation, though. I always described the band’s sound as Incantation meets Norse Black Metal. The band was never shy about including keyboards and atmospheric stuff where it worked. This is one of the things I always liked about them, and it is here but in a somewhat diminished form. I was expecting more atmospheric elements because that was what distinguished them from other brutal Black/Death Metal bands from their era. It also helped to break up the monotony. One of the issues folks out there have had with this LP is that it lacks diversity. This probably has a lot to do with the tonal range that Imprecation operates in. These guys are looking for brutality and that means that they have to operate in a narrow tonal range. You can only do so much in that range, though. Even if all of the riffs are different, they are all so tonally similar that they sound alike even though they aren’t. It’s still a solid effort, though. If you like Imprecation already, or you’re a fan of old-school Death Metal in the Incantation vein, Satanae Tenebris Infinita is an album that gives you what you want: brutal and Satanic Death Metal, no more and no less.

When a band releases a covers album, especially one like Veneration, it gives you some insight into their influences. What groups and songs are chosen can tell you a lot. Sometimes, though, albums like this throw you for a loop, which is the case here. Ares Kingdom has been around for a while. These guys have been in many cult underground Black and Death Metal bands, from Order From Chaos (Chuck Keller and Mike Miller) to Nepenthe and Vulpecula. As you might expect, the songs chosen for this are mostly from cult underground Black/Death/Thrash bands. There are covers of Slaughter Lord, Sacrilege, Mefisto and R.U.Dead?, which aren’t too surprising. Those songs are mostly Thrash or Death/Thrash in style to begin with and they fit in nicely with the way Ares Kingdom sounds. Also in with their influences are covers of Vulpecula and Nepenthe songs, which are nods to the other bands Chuck Keller and Alex Blume were in. What throws you for a loop is the final cover choice. Technically, it’s two separate tracks, but one is the intro to the other so I classify it as just one song. It’s “Without Warning/Tooth and Nail” by Dokken. Yes, that Dokken. The one with George Lynch. I don’t care how many people think that George Lynch is an awesome guitarist, Dokken isn’t exactly on my list of bands that I classify as Metal. Hard Rock, yes, but not Metal. It’s done in the style of Ares Kingdom (Death/Thrash Metal), but it’s still a song by fucking Dokken. I guess doing “Black Magic” by Slayer is too mainstream. Still, it isn’t as if there aren’t worthier bands to cover out there. What about Bulldozer or Vulcano or Possessed? I could name a dozen early Death or Thrash bands that I would’ve put on here before Dokken - and that’s not even getting to the most famous of them (Exodus, Metallica, Venom, Slayer, Megadeth, etc.). “Tooth and Nail” is easily the weakest track on this entire LP. If they had chosen a different band’s song, I would have rated this a nine, but the Dokken cover cost them a point. It didn’t fit Ares Kingdom’s sound or style, and I really felt that it didn’t work with the other tracks on this LP.

Incarnatus (the founder and sole member of Pagan Hellfire) is back again with yet another album’s worth of droning Black Metal in the Burzum vein. I’ve always had a soft spot in my blackened heart for this band. I’m not sure why, but even though I pretty much know what I’m getting from Pagan Hellfire, I always seem to have gotten some enjoyment out of everything that Incarnatus has put out so far. On the Path to Triumph is no different. It isn’t anything that I haven’t heard before from other bands in the genre, but I like it. The music is pretty standard repetitive power chord riffing with basic song structures. There are some change-ups in the style, but ultimately, like everything else the band has released, it points back to Burzum as the primary influence. There are bits of traditional Heavy Metal creeping in, like the main riff of “The Fire of a New Dawn,” which helps to give the song that additional boost that makes your head bang. Incarnatus does a lot to break up the basic “play the same chord fifteen times and then play another one fifteen times and then go back to the first chord another fifteen times, repeat until the song is over” format. He is good at his work, playing all of the instruments (even the drums) and doing the vocals. Over the years, he’s honed his craft, and while Burzum has languished in mediocrity since Varg was released from prison, Pagan Hellfire has quietly filled that niche pretty nicely.

This is my first time hearing this band, and from the promo materials that I was sent, this is their debut album. It sure doesn’t sound like it, though. The playing on here is exceptional. The riffing and song structures are fairly complex, but while the technicality is fairly high, this isn’t overdone. You never get the sense that things are going to degenerate into gratuitous guitar masturbation or navel-gazing Progressivism (which, in a sense, is a different form of masturbation). The sound on this LP is also exceptional. Fimmrot has a sound that even veteran bands on larger labels would envy. According to the bio, these guys used to be a Symphonic Black Metal band (originally under the name Moonwrath) and it’s easy to tell that this was one of their influences. You can spot the Emperor/Dimmu Borgir/Cradle of Filth influenced parts fairly easily, particularly on tracks like “Snowburied Memories.” They also have some Folk Metal and Power Metal in here too. I’m not really sure which segment of the Metal market that they’re aiming for but I think fans of Symphonic Power Metal (Stratovarius, Rhapsody of Fire, etc.) might enjoy this the most. The guitar-work, particularly on the solos, and epic sound on Fimmrot are right up their alley. It will definitely have less appeal to fans of Symphonic Black Metal because it lacks a Gothic atmosphere. The influence of that style is primarily in the song structure and the amount of Classical bombast there is. Black Metal fans tend to want a darker, more sinister atmosphere in their music and Fimmrot just doesn’t have that. The Folk Metal aspects are there, although not pronounced enough for the “Beer Tent at the Renaissance Faire” crowd, but fans of the new Finntroll album might like this, too. If there is a flaw in their music it’s the vocals. There are times when you wonder why they use the raspy vocal style so much. Clean vocals would’ve suited much of this album better. When you consider how much the music sounds like Power Metal, I was surprised at how little clean singing there was. There was never a point where the vocals and music were at odds with each other, but it was more a case where they were making something using carob instead of real chocolate. It might taste good with carob, but real chocolate tastes better. That isn’t a serious detraction and I did enjoy this LP quite a lot, though. I’m curious to see where these guys are going next so I’ll definitely be on the lookout for their next release.

I don’t know if Cnoc An Tursa can be considered part of the British Heritage scene. They share stylistic similarities and a love of their land’s ancient past with bands like Winterfylleth, Wodensthrone, and Forefather, but technically speaking, they’re not of British heritage. Scots are Celtic in origin, as opposed to the Germanic Britons, Angles and Saxons. Genetically, they’re closer to the Irish (also Celts, and technically their cousins) than they are to the Britons. That, and the centuries that they spent killing the British probably didn’t help either. The Giants of Auld is an exploration of the history, landscape and mythology of the Scottish Celts and their land. There’s plenty of cool stuff to write about without resorting to creating fictional alternate histories like Gloryhammer does. There are no dragons, wizards or invading armies of unicorns here. It’s more than a little nationalistic, to be sure. These guys love Scotland and it shows. They don’t, however, have much bagpipe on this album. I know that’s going to disappoint folks who only associate Scotland with kilts and bagpipes. I doubt that this album would have been as awesome as it is if they decided that bagpipes were the be-all-end-all instrument that encompasses all of Scottish music. Musically, The Giants of Auld is hard hitting but also very melodic. When I first heard about the band, I expected them to be more like Waylander or Cruachan (Tuatha Na Gael era), fusing Black Metal with traditional Celtic melodies and instrumentation. My expectation was that they were going to go for the traditional Celtic stuff as the emphasis (Beer Tent Metal, in other words). This LP doesn’t go there. The Giants of Auld is definitely more Black Metal in style, but of the melodic variety. The riffing isn’t very complex, but the melodies and atmosphere carry this album. Cnoc An Tursa leaves playing at the Renaissance Faire for other bands. This is some seriously epic stuff. The songs also show a lot of refinement. Everything flows well and the music is very impactful. The band was formed in 2006, but this is their debut album. Their only previous release was an untitled 3-song demo from 2008 (all of its songs were re-recorded for this LP). Hopefully, Cnoc An Tursa won’t take five more years to produce a follow-up, but if it’s of the same quality as The Giants of Auld, it will definitely be worth the wait.

When you’ve been listening to Metal as long as I have, you have lots of moments where you think you’ve heard a band before but you don’t remember them sounding like the album you’re currently listening to. Such is the case here. I could swear that I’ve heard Soulless before, but I thought that they were more in the Brutal Death Metal vein. In Death’s Grip is essentially a straight-out Thrash album. Of course, the reason I don’t remember Soulless sounding this way could be because I heard one of the fifty other bands (many of them still active) out there sporting the same name. This particular Soulless is from Ohio, and they have been active since 1997, having members that have been in a laundry list of other bands, ranging from The Spawn of Satan (Satanic Death Metal) to From the Depths(Black/Death Metal) to Son of Jor-El (Sludge/Thrash) to Mach II (Heavy Metal/Hard Rock) and just about everywhere in between. With a lineage like that, I was a bit disappointed in this album. I think a lot of the reason why was because I wanted things to get more brutal. The band members have plenty of Death Metal in their background and I kept thinking that they’d start bringing some of that into the Soulless sound, but they never took the next step from Slayer to Morbid Angel. Another thing I noticed while I was researching this band’s back catalog was that In Death’s Grip doesn’t really show any real progression from their previous LP, 2007’s Forever Defiant. You’re not getting anything that you haven’t already heard from Soulless before. This is still a very solid Thrash album, though. The playing is tight, and these guys know how to shred on their guitars. Maybe my expectations were a bit high for this. I’m an admittedly jaded Metal fan. I’ve been around the block so many times that they’ve named a street after me. I’m looking for something new and different, even if it’s just minor. Giving me more of the same, even if it’s good, tends to leave me feeling let down.

Sir Christopher Lee has got to be the world’s oldest headbanger. This guy is over ninety years old and he’s known more for being Saruman (The Lord of the Rings) and Count Dooku (Star Wars) than as a Metal icon. Still, he’s quietly very accomplished. He’s done songs with Rhapsody of Fire and Manowar, and has several releases of his own, including four full-length albums, and a Christmas single of him doing a couple traditional carols set to Heavy Metal music! This LP, the second one in his concept album series based on the life of Charlemagne, is as campy and as absurd as it seems like it would be. The music is pretty solidly embedded in the Traditional Metal genre with nods to Power Metal and occasionally to Hard Rock, as well. Even with the intermittent Power Metal injections, this is musically very unadventurous. Charlemagne: The Omens of Death is content to meander about in well-explored areas of the Metal sound. The draw here is Sir Christopher Lee’s vocals. His narration and singing are fairly good. He has a strong baritone, and while he is perfectly capable of doing something operatic, this album doesn’t really showcase his actual ability. His main problem is that the lyrics are fairly complicated and don’t lend themselves very well to singing. Remember the song “Alexander the Great” by Iron Maiden (from Somewhere in Time)? Remember how the singing was choppy and the vocals didn’t flow well? It happened to a lesser degree on “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” too. Imagine that problem stretching out through a whole album. Even though the content is fairly interesting (and, from what I understand, it is historically accurate), the record falls flat because the delivery really can’t maximize Christopher Lee’s vocal talent. At times, it sounds like he’s trying desperately to carry a melody with lyrics that are actively fighting against him. It’s like trying to stick a cat into a pet carrier when it knows it’s going to the vet. It’s painful to watch and even worse if you’re involved in the process. If you really want to hear him deliver the goods, check out his performance on “The Magic of the Wizard’s Dream” by Rhapsody of Fire. Charlemagne: The Omens of Death is an interesting concept, but as an LP, it doesn’t really work. This is one to buy for the novelty value alone.

Much like Judas Priest themselves, I am never satisfied. No matter how comprehensive a live album is, every time I want more. There are always a few additional songs that I wish the band had played. And when we’re talking about legends who have been defending the Metal faith for over four decades… well, it’s more than just a few. I’m going to resist the urge to make a vast list, because it would include nearly every JP song ever written, and at two-hours-and-twenty-minutes this is already one of the longest concerts I’ve ever heard of and features at least one song from every Halford-era album, so pointing out more than just a couple omissions seems like a total dick move. That said, I was a little surprised to not hear “The Ripper,” “Exciter,” “Screaming for Vengeance,” or “Defenders of the Faith.” But how long has it been since we’ve gotten “Starbreaker” live? It’s here, and the band goes absolutely all-out for it, as they do on every song. This version of “Diamonds and Rust,” for example, is utterly amazing, and a stand out in an ocean of solid gold. The band’s energy was, at times, beyond my ability to describe. Halford, especially, seemed to be holding absolutely nothing back and occasionally appeared determined to give more than he was able. The man is in his early 60s, and had to use a cane during parts of the show. I read somewhere that he was confined to a wheelchair for a while after this concert because he injured his (apparently already hurt) back contorting himself to reach the notes he needed. So, I am not going to give him a hard time about letting the crowd completely take over literally all the vocals for “Breaking the Law,” about two-thirds of the way into this marathon set. I’m sure that it comes off much cooler to be there live for something like that, but to just sit here and watch five thousand people singing was the only time I wasn’t completely enthralled. “Painkiller” followed, and was the final song before the encores. That may be an especially demanding one to sing, because Halford sounded exhausted and looked to be in pain for the duration. The momentary rest while the crowd chanted for more seemed to reenergize him, and he came back stronger than ever. Over the course of the night, Halford even unleashed a couple Death Metal style growls, the director humorously cutting to bassist Ian Hill looking surprised for one of them. New guitarist Richie Faulkner did a fine job of being as much like K.K. Downing as possible, and I think fit right in. No one can really replace K.K., but as I watched this, I didn’t miss him as much as I thought I would. The video and audio quality are, as one would expect, phenomenal. This may be the best looking (I watched it on Blu-ray in glorious 1080p) and sounding concert video of all time, although it is lacking special features in that it has none. I would have really enjoyed an interview, or… something. I’ve gotten used to there being additions to the live performance on these things, and the omission here is notable, but Epitaph is easily still one for the vaults.

Svart Crown is one of those bands that I’ve been meaning to check out for a while now. If you’ve heard me say this before, that’s because it’s true. There are tons of bands I’ve been meaning to check out. When you have a job that doesn’t have a fixed eight-hour a day schedule (I’m generally working more than 40 hours a week) and they don’t let you listen to Metal while you’re there, you have to make some sacrifices. Trust me, I’ve gotten in trouble with Human Resources once already, so anything heavier than Lady GaGa is forbidden in the office. And you should never tell any of your co-workers that you have a friend who has a band called Skool Sniper and that they have songs about Columbine and Newtown. I guarantee you’ll get hauled in by the behavior Gestapo in record time. Luckily, the freedom to listen to whatever the fuck I want to still exists in my own home - that is until the NSA decides that Metal is somehow subversive. But I digress. This is album number three for Svart Crown and from what I’ve been able to piece together from tracks culled from their older albums and from live footage (there are times when the internet is great for research and this is one of them…), these guys started out pretty much worshipping old Morbid Angel. They’ve steadily grown away from the basic Death Fucking Metal template and began incorporating more atonal riffing and some more progressive structures. Ultimately, though, this is still brutal, ugly as all fucking hell Death Metal. Some have criticized the band for not really changing the basic components of their sound. I kind of agree and disagree. They’ve evolved somewhat since Witnessing the Fall, but that evolution is nuanced and restrained. I think these guys didn’t want to radically alter their sound because that might drive away their fans. I’m not a fan of Progressive Death Metal. It all too often becomes an exercise in navel-gazing and wankerdom. Having overly complex songs that meander all over the place and lack brutality, aggression or memorable riffing might appeal to the fans of Dream Theater, but the average Death Metal fan doesn’t want to listen to that shit. If Svart Crown had gone that route, I doubt that a lot of their old fans would’ve put up with it. Profane tries to change, but not change at the same time. The result is an LP that has some more technicality, but less memorable riffing. While I liked Profane for what it was, I liked their older material a bit more. It wasn’t as original or as technical, but I could remember the songs after the album was over. I can’t say that I can do that with the songs on Profane.

If you’re a fan of Cascadian Ambient/Black Metal band Fauna, you probably have a good idea what this LP sounds like already. Fauna guitarist Echtra (the sole member of Echtra) originally recorded the music for Sky Burial in 2008, but this is finally getting released in 2013 with the addition of a DVD containing the first and only performance of Sky Burial in its entirety from December 2008. This is a review of the music only. Echtra doesn’t sound that far removed from Fauna, though the Black Metal elements are pushed further back. Where Fauna had atmospheric and acoustic parts mixed in with their droning Black Metal, Echtra is primarily focused on the atmospheric elements. The acoustic guitar and the keyboards are the most prominent instruments here. You can hear the electric guitars and the drumming, but they are pretty muted compared to the acoustic guitar. In many ways, this is a Dark Ambient album more than it is a Black Metal (or even Post-Black Metal). It does have elements of Folk Noir, mostly owing to the extensive use of acoustic guitar. One of the main commonalties that Echtra has with Fauna is the song structure. Both bands have songs that are minimalistic but also incredibly long. Sky Burial is forty-six minutes, divided into two twenty-three minute tracks that may as well be one long song. I think the division was there primarily so that this could be released on vinyl, because, digitally, telling where one song ends and the next begins is a bit hard unless you’re actively looking at your media player to see when things switch over. As you can imagine, the whole LP is pretty mellow sounding. It’s kind of in the same semi-dark soundscape style that Shadowlands by Klaus Schulze falls into. It’s great chill-out music that can be used as background ambience when listening to Metal isn’t appropriate. I doubt that the majority of Metal Curse readers will be into this kind of thing, but for those who are into Dark Ambient with a touch of Folk Noir and Black Metal influence, Sky Burial is an interesting album.

One-man band Frostbitten [named after the only member] returns yet again with a fourth full-length album this year. Yes, I said fourth. If you count Frostbitten’s other band, Los, this brings his total to six full-length albums in 2013 alone. That’s a lot of music. Danse! For Macabre Shall Come is Frostbitten in Black Metal mode once again. The last two records (The Void of Insanity and We Feared the Wrath of Lord Lucifer) were in the Doom vein, but this one is solidly Black Metal. Unlike previous albums, this one has more of a Burzum influence. The other ones were more raw and dirty Darkthrone styled, but Danse! is droning and minimalistic. This seems to suit Frostbitten’s more Doom-influenced style better than the fast stuff. The production here helps a bit because it’s got more bass in the guitars than most in this style. The drums still need work, though. I don’t know if a drum machine is being used or not, but the snare tone sounds very artificial. It’s like it has no resonance or depth. You get that sometimes with sampled drums. It sounds like someone banging on a piece of plastic instead of an actual drum. As with all of Frostbitten’s other albums, this one shows some promise, but that promise is ultimately unrealized because the songs are still on the half-baked side. I keep mentioning it about this band, but there is something to be said about quality over quantity. Pumping out six full-length albums in one year is quite an achievement, but if all of them are subpar, what good is that? Danse! For Macabre Shall Come has some interesting elements to it. I think Frostbitten has some talent in the Doomier side of Metal, be it straight-forward Doom Metal or Burzum-influenced droning and minimalistic Black Metal. His problem is that he’s focusing on quantity and shortchanging the quality, which is always a bad idea. I would rather hear one awesome Frostbitten album with great songwriting and sound, than a dozen that are mediocre with shit sound and underdeveloped songs, even if they do all have a hint of promise.

Talk about saving the best song for last! If this entire record were as perfectly gloomy and depressing as the stunning “Like Atlas” I might have to change the rating scale to go to 11. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how one looks at things, the venerable 1 to 10 scale is in no danger. The rest of Mors Viri is perfectly serviceable Death/Doom, occasionally recalling prime-era My Dying Bride with more than few hints of Paradise Lost (think Shades of God), Agalloch and late ’90s Katatonia. It’s all… fine. No major complaints, but also no “holy fuck, rewind that!” moments. There are a few oddly upbeat bits (the beginning of “The Wounded and the Dying,” for example), somewhat strange clean singing (check out “To the Gallows” and its, I hope, anti-religious lyrics), and what I can only describe as a spoken-word performance of a poem with minimalistic background music (“One with the Sea (Part II),” which features the return of the seagull from the much-heavier original “One with the Sea,” from the band’s 1997 debut LP, Ne Vivam, and is probably my second-favorite song here). Until the 10-minute album-closer started, I was likely not going to bother with this at all, despite it being the Dutch Death men’s first full-length in six years, and just check back in with Officium Triste whenever their next release comes out, since we are trying to write longer reviews than “Solid (mostly) growly-vocals Doom of wildly varying density, with a little weirdness, but little to really make it stand out.” And then “Like Atlas” slow-mo avalanched me after about 80 seconds of eerie, mournful build-up. I knew that I’d have to immediately listen to this masterpiece again (and again…) even before it hit the 6:30 minute mark and metamorphosed into total melancholy Katatonia worshipping perfection. And now… 666 plays later… I don’t want to stop…

Cryptik Howling is one of those bands that, for me, falls into the “could be great, but…” section of my record collection. While album number three for this French-Canadian Melodic Black/Death Metal band shows improvement in the songwriting and in their sound, they still have issues with their production. Somebody, either in the band or their studio engineer, decided that they wanted the drums and the vocals to be the two loudest things on the LP. I’m a Metalhead. I like loud guitars. If I wanted to listen to drums, I’d listen to Rap. Cryptik Howling has a good sense for melody, but a lot of it is lost underneath the barrage of snare and bass drums. Things might have worked out okay had the drummer, Benoit Breton, played slower. Like most Death and Black Metal bands, he’s a drummer in the “blast and grind” vein. He rides the snare and double-basses most of the time. The result is that the overly loud snare sounds like a machinegun and the overly loud bass drums sound like a hyperactive kid playing with a light switch. Don’t think I’m laying the blame for all of this on him, though. Unless he was the one that demanded that the drums be super loud, this comes down to the engineer. On the plus side of the equation is that the music is definitely tighter. The guitars are nice and chunky, with a thick bottom-end that gives them heft and brutality. Cryptik Howling was much more Dimmu Borgir styled Black Metal on their previous releases, but the sound on Synthetic Ascension Design is far more Death Metal. The melodic guitar-work of Samuel Pruneau and Sebastien Gagnon is definitely spot-on where they are clearly audible (mostly when Benoit slows down) and the keyboards add plenty of atmosphere. If they can get their production issues (lower the drums, slightly lower the vocals) sorted out, their next album will fucking rule. The music is there already. They have the songs and they have the talent. They probably kick some serious ass in the live setting, too. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for their next release.

Holy hell, Manowar has released so many concert CDs and DVDs (and VHS tapes, back in the mists of time) that I’ve lost count. But I have watched them all over the years, and am proud to say that I’ve been there in person to see the self-professed Kings of Metal perform on several occasions. The band’s energy is absolutely amazing in the live setting, and so is their precision. Naturally, I was eagerly awaiting the release of this EP, with each of its six tracks recorded in a different country on the band’s 2012-13 tour. Other than the first song, “Thunder in the Sky,” everything is from 2012’s excellent The Lord of Steel album. Of course, the group’s many other live albums cover the earlier material, so perhaps it’s not strictly necessary here, but this makes me want to hear the classics. Every night must have been recorded in full, so conceivably a more comprehensive live CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever could be on the way? In any case, sticking with the nearly-single-album theme, where are “Born in a Grave” and “Annihilation”?! Unfortunately, I missed the tour and haven’t seen any set-lists, but if they don’t play those two live… I just don’t get that. Such questions aside, the recording and sound quality on display are absolutely phenomenal, although everything is edited to seem like a single show, with the crowd noise blended from track to track. I like it, but it’s kind of odd to think about, and makes me wonder how much other studio magic was done. There is no way to know by just listening to it that this was recorded separately in Milan, Stockholm, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Moscow, and Prague. If I had to, I’d have guessed it was all from a gig in Italy, since Eric Adams says, to thunderous applause and cheers, “Fuck the world! Hail to Italy!” after the end of “Thunder in the Sky.” I’m not sure if I wish that he’d done that for every city or not. (“Fuck the world! Hail to Elkhart!” -said by no one, ever.) The bottom line is that the only real flaw with this live EP is that 27 minutes of Manowar just isn’t enough.

Ah, a new Yanni album. I haven’t heard Yanni in years. There’s nothing like soothing soundscapes to make my stress flow away. Yeah, Yanni isn’t Metal, but his music works wonders against insomnia. What? This is Burzum? This can’t be Burzum. Varg isn’t this fucking lame, is he? His post-incarceration Metal albums haven’t been all that awesome, but he hasn’t shown any signs of putting flowers in his hair and prancing around the forest with the other Hippies, right? Shit. This is Burzum… Quorthon’s non-Metal stuff was bad, but at least he knew to not use the Bathory name when the music didn’t fit. Varg is probably hoping that the name “Burzum” on the album cover might move a few extra copies. Yes, Varg is back again and apparently his wife is threatening to sell his keyboards on eBay if he doesn’t use them. Sol Austan, Mani Vestan is all instrumental keyboard shit. If you hated Daudi Baldrs and Hildskjalf, you will despise this one, too. Hell, even if you liked those two, chances are that you’ll despise this album. From what I was able to gather from various sources, the music on this LP is actually from the soundtrack of a movie that Varg made with Marie Cachet. The movie, entitled ForeBears, appears to be one of those artsy films that has lots of boring nature footage intermixed with people in furry outfits doing “Pagan” things. If there is more to this than that, please let me know, because from the promotional materials on YouTube, that’s all they showed. Frankly, if the movie is as boring as this LP is, I may just order a copy and stop using Ambien. Sol Austan is about as exciting as watching paint dry. This puts me to sleep faster than a handful of sleeping pills. The most Metal thing about this whole album is the cover art. If it wasn’t for that, I could totally see this on the racks at your local New Age store next to the scented candles and the incense. The only things missing here are the sounds of a flowing stream and some bird noises. This isn’t dark, this isn’t Metal and it certainly isn’t engaging. Welcome to the New Age section of the record store, Varg.

Hell! This is a lot of Iced Earth! Live in Ancient Kourion clocks in at a whopping two hours and twenty minutes of music. When you consider that a live album is usually in the one hour to ninety minute range, this is essentially twice as long as normal. Recorded live in an ancient theater in Cyprus, this massive set covers just about every era of Iced Earth’s lengthy history, from Night of the Stormrider to the present. I was actually surprised that the band was able to pull off a set this lengthy because two hours and twenty minutes is a long time to be playing. From what I’ve seen of the video footage (a DVD version of this is also available), the crowd was wild and crazy the whole time, so they must’ve really been feeding off of the crowd’s energy. As you might imagine from a professionally recorded and released live album, the sound on this is awesome. It’s almost studio quality stuff. While I did enjoy just listening to this, I think the best medium for it is the video version. I’ve heard a lot of live recordings over the years (some of which I recorded myself for local bands) and even though you get a chance to relive the concert through the audio, the combination of the visual and audio portions makes the experience more “real” for me. If you’re a fan of Iced Earth, this should definitely be on your list of things to get. If you’re not a fan, but you’re curious as to how the band sounds, this release can be a serviceable introduction. Since they play songs from pretty much every album, you’ll get a good idea what the band is all about from just this 2xCD release.

By now, everyone must know that Mpire’s main men are former Venom members, the legendary Jeff “Mantas” Dunn, and Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan. They’re joined by the previously unknown (at least to me) drummer Marc Jackson for this collection of almost entirely Venom covers from the D-Man era, consisting of 1989’s Prime Evil, 1991’s Temples of Ice, and 1992’s The Waste Lands. (Are they technically covers if D-Man and Mantas wrote them?) The band had fans pick some, or perhaps all, of the songs they would re-record. “Blackened Are the Priests” is hands-down the best one here. How could it not be? Naturally, there are a few missing that I’d like to hear (and voted for!). “Prime Evil,” for one, is inexplicably nowhere to be found, which is absolutely beyond my comprehension. Mpire of Evil started out named Prime Evil, and it doesn’t take Stephen Hawking to figure out that the oddly spelled Mpire is an anagram of “prime,” so the band is almost still called Prime Evil. Also absent, but should have been included: “Harder Than Ever,” “Tribes” (with it’s excellent starting sample and bass slide!), and “Cursed.” Considering that this is only 42 minutes long, there would have been plenty of room for those and more on a CD. I’ve been informed that the Japanese pressing has two bonus tracks, possibly live covers of “Black Metal” and “Witching Hour.” I’d like to check those out, but they admittedly don’t fit with the D-Man era concept of the rest of the selections. But why re-record these songs at all? Why not simply re-record all three albums in their entirety? Or re-release the originals? From what I understand, these new recordings only exist because there is some type of copyright issue preventing the reissuing of the D-Man era Venom albums. No idea if it’s a problem with record labels, or Venom’s Cronos, or something else entirely, or some combination thereof. In any case, we do get two great “new” songs, that were previously available earlier this year as a very lavishly packaged 7-inch vinyl EP. The Venom re-recordings are fine, I guess, but now that this review is written, although I was excited to hear these new renditions, I’m likely never going to listen to them instead of the original versions, although in some cases they are a little different. Other than for completists (like me), I think that this collection’s real value is for people who don’t have those Venom albums, but for some reason still want to hear these songs, just not badly enough to have ever done anything about it before now. I don’t know who fits that description, but what I do know is that I’ve mentioned Venom quite a lot, and if Mpire of Evil ever wants to be taken seriously as a legitimate band, and not a couple of ex-Venom guys with a drummer-for-hire (Jackson is their second skin-smasher in three years, following none other than Cronos’s little brother Antton) living in the past (their 2011 debut EP, Creatures of the Black, was also almost entirely cover songs, of various bands that time), they need to concentrate on writing new material. That said, I was looking forward to hearing what they’d do with this old stuff, and it’s an interesting enough, enjoyable novelty/nostalgia listen.