This is the New Jersey Open Grave, not to be confused with any of the other groups out there sporting the same name. This band is primarily composed of current and former members of Helcaraxe, some of whom have also played with Krieg (live only) and Kult ov Azazel. For a Black Metal band, this album has a surprisingly Death Metal sound. The guitars are nice and thick and heavy. The riffing is also surprisingly Death Metal. It isn’t technical, but there are some solid head banging riffs with catchy melodies throughout Fear’s ten tracks. I was expecting this to be fairly Necro (read: no bass in the guitars) but happily, I was proven wrong. When I saw the names Krieg and Kult ov Azazel associated with this band, I assumed that they would share some of the same characteristics. That was not the case, and I’m glad Open Grave doesn’t have the same sound. This is some dark, brutal stuff. The inclusion of atmospheric, though somewhat minimalistic, keyboards and sparse piano bits only adds to the darkness. Hell, there’s even audible bass guitar on this album. My only gripe about Fear is the fact that it’s kind of short. That isn’t even much of a complaint, though. The songs never went overly long. I was just disappointed that it ended so quickly.

As big a fan as I am of Maurizio Iacono-fronted Kataklysm, something gave me a bad feeling about this side project of his. Maybe it was the way I had seen Ex Deo repeatedly described. I’m a proud Italian, but even I know the term “epic Roman Metal” is some kind of code for hardcore dude-on-dude ass annihilation. Or perhaps it was those ridiculous promo shots of Iacono in full breastplate and kilt gear. I’m a grown-ass man, Maury. I don’t fantasize about periods of history anymore. I think that stopped around the age of 9. My fantasies these days are much more practical (Audrey Hollander’s colon), morbid (microwaving that fucking Geico lizard), or downright sexy (a chick blowing two guys while having an abortion). Either way, I successfully dodged the debut album, but got stuck having to review this sophomore outing — a concept piece on the story of Caligula’s empire. It truly is a chore to sit through, but nowhere near as awful as I had feared. If you could somehow extract the pretentious, overbearing theatrical elements, you’d easily be able to salvage an EP’s worth of solid riff-hearty Melodeath, or conversely, a separate EP of respectable symphonic Gothic Metal. But you simply can’t escape the historical reenactment vibe. Iacono’s painfully understandable Spartan-warrior yell and Gladiator soundtrack-obsessed keyboards are always there to remind us it’s playtime. With a more consistently brutal voice —for instance, the one we know Maurizio is capable of— this would have been considerably more enjoyable. Nowhere is there greater evidence of this fact than on the powerful guest vocal spot from Spiros of Septic Flesh (“Pollice Verso” — by far the most listenable track). If Caligvla serves any purpose, it’s making me want to dig out those old copies of Mystic Places of Dawn and Esoptron for a long overdue spin. I should probably also listen to some Kataklysm while I’m at it.

I guess it’s a given that every country on this planet that has a Black Metal scene has at least one Cradle of Filth clone. Some places have multiple versions of Cradle of Filth, all with their own twist on the whole Gothic/Symphonic Black Metal thing. Sinister Frost is Russia’s version. I have to admit that my initial reaction was negative because the comparison to Cradle of Filth is just too easy to make. You can tell right away where this band gets their main influence. I had to listen to this record multiple times to get around the obvious comparisons. Though this is their first album, Sinister Frost is a pretty talented group. Even though Cryotorment sounds like a copy of Cradle of Filth, that isn’t exactly the easiest band to duplicate. It takes a lot of skill to pull off the arrangements and orchestration that goes along with the Gothic/Symphonic Black Metal style. What sets Sinister Frost apart from most of the other bands in this genre is their incorporation of Death Metal into their music. The vocals are very guttural, though still fairly understandable. The production is also stronger and the guitars aren’t buried underneath a colossal wall of keyboards the way so many other bands have theirs. This is a fairly solid debut with the only major flaw being the obvious influences. This doesn’t go anywhere that Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir didn’t already go ten years ago. I’m fairly forgiving when it comes to debut albums these days, and while this isn’t the most groundbreaking thing ever released, it is well executed and the songs are solid. Sinister Frost is off to a good start. Their next release will be the one that will determine whether they can come out from under the long and dark shadow of Cradle of Filth. If they can find their own style and sound, they’ll be contenders for the throne. If they stay on the well trodden path that was blazed by Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir, they’ll be just another clone band in a sea of clone bands.

The last thing I want to do is come off as anti-Martin van Drunen in any way, shape or form. Consuming Impulse, The Rack, Last One on Earth, and even Converging Conspiracies are all stranded-on-an-island selections for yours truly, and no one was more excited than myself to hear that trademark, inimitable scream return to the Death Metal fold in 2008 with Hail of Bullets, and with Asphyx a year later. …of Frost and War — flawless. Death…the Brutal Way — a masterpiece. The Warsaw Rising EP — awesome. On Divine Winds — titties. The split with Hooded Menace — ice cream. But it seems the quality of the man’s output has hit somewhat of a wall in 2012. Deathhammer was such a bland, unremarkable effort that not one but two of the biggest Asphyx fans on the planet couldn’t even review it, and now we have the debut album from Grand Supreme Blood Court — essentially Asphyx with a much lamer moniker. The only member of the Court not currently or formerly of Asphyx is bassist Theo van Eekelen, who happens to be in Hail of Bullets… close enough. This project does reunite van Drunen with longtime Asphyx guitarist Eric Daniels for the first time since 1992, but that doesn’t save Bow Down Before the Blood Court from being a tedious dragger. It starts out okay. “All Rise!” is a surefire Death/Doom crowd-pleaser with verses that get the feet tapping and a chorus that provokes a nice slow-motion clockwise headbang, while the title track is sure to get a circle pit going with its chorus. But by the fifth or sixth track, you’ll be thinking about your shitty day at work. And if somehow you’re not asleep by the end, vapid 10-minute closer “And Thus the Billions Shall Burn” will take care of that. I love Old School simplicity as much as the next ogre, but these riffs are just lifeless. A void of technicality and an absence of dynamics so dreadful it’s hypnotic. An exercise in mind-wandering to say the least. Van Drunen’s vocals are phoned in. Period. Clearly he’s overworked to the point of battle fatigue. Take a break, Martin. I understand the desire to make up for lost time, but not if the material suffers from it. This isn’t a bad record, just a boring and forgettable one. Two adjectives that don’t belong in any sentence regarding this legendary vokillist.

A Shadowplay for Yesterdays is the third album for England’s A Forest of Stars and their debut for Prophecy Productions. After reading the press release that accompanied this album, I had some serious misgivings about listening to this. When you refer to your band as a “gentlemen’s club” and “an exclusive brotherhood of Victorian Englishmen,” the hairs on the back of my neck go up and I immediately sense pretentious and overly dramatic Gothic Metal that’s heavy on the Goth and light on the Metal. In a way, this does partially describe A Forest of Stars pretty well. They are overly dramatic and pretentious, but they turned out to be far more Metal than I expected. I’ve heard this band being compared to Cradle of Filth because of their Classical influences, but unlike Cradle’s more Wagnerian tendencies, A Forest of Stars is more Baroque in style. The vocals are like listening to a bad actor reciting the lines of a horror production written by a fourth-rate hack that believes that he’s better than Mary Shelley at crafting true tales of Gothic horror. There’s more overly dramatic ham acting here than William Shatner’s entire body of work. What really saves this album is the music. It takes a little while to get going, but once A Forest of Stars hits their stride, this gets really, really good. A Shadowplay for Yesterdays sounds like one part Cradle of Filth, one part old My Dying Bride, one part Folk Metal, one part Baroque-era Classical with a ton of Victorian/Gothic atmosphere. Tracks like “Left Behind As Static” and “A Prophet for a Pound of Flesh” are positively epic. The hammed up vocals keep this from absolute perfection, but even with that, this is by far one of the best written records of the year. If this band released an instrumental version of this album, I’d rate it a ten because it’s that good. Maybe that’s something to look forward to in the future.

This Occult Rock fad —given wings by the recent success of bands like The Devil’s Blood, Ghost, and Blood Ceremony— generally produces hit-or-miss, love-it-or-hate-it results. From this spectator’s standpoint, it doesn’t seem all that difficult to slap a group like this together. Sure you need a frontperson who can flat-out belt, but once that’s in the bag all it takes is a basic 4/4 drummer and a couple guitarists capable of microwaving the right Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Mercyful Fate licks. Throw in a couple ’70s Porn moustaches, some crushed velvet attire, maybe an ankh necklace or two, couple skulls, couple candles, drag your dad’s Hammond organ out of the garage… BAM! You got your Occult Rock band starter kit right there. Needless to say, only the cream will rise to the top, and in the case of Jess and the Ancient Ones, I just don’t hear it. I’m guessing they heard The Devil’s Blood, backtracked a little, did their Coven homework and said, “fuck it, we can do this shit.” Or maybe they’ve been around forever. Don’t know, don’t care. The bottom line is their sound lacks authenticity. Lifting riffs and solos from every ’70s Hard Rock act known to man isn’t enough. There is no passion, no conviction, no emotion, no sincerity, and virtually no replay value. I find the biggest detractor to be the vocals of Jess Whatever-the-fuck-her-last-name-is. She does have undeniable talent. She has soul, she has range, she has hold, I’m sure she’d hold her own just fine as an American Idol contestant, but she sounds too much like an R&B/Gospel singer gone rogue. And perhaps not quite rogue enough, as even when wailing dark lyrics like, “black angel by my side / the Devil I see / the Devil I know,” she has me nowhere near convinced. Despite the strutting Journey hook, sprawling 12-minute epic “Sulfur Giants” is probably the closest thing to a highlight found here. But even that woeful standout chorus of “oooohh, I wish I’d never been born…” seems a little tongue-in-cheek. Whether Jess is a real witch or not is irrelevant. It’s this album that fails to cast a spell.

You know, there was a time when having Bill Steer listed in your band’s lineup meant that you were getting something brutal. This is not the case anymore. Gone are the days of old, where Steer was laying the groundwork for the entire Goregrind genre with albums like Symphonies of Sickness and Reek of Putrefaction. Since the split of Carcass, Bill has been stuck in the ’70s. The press release for this album lists the likes of Slade and Deep Purple as influences, which doesn’t put this band far away in influence and style from Bill’s other ’70s influenced musical project, Firebird. I wasn’t initially going to bother with this, but I’ve been on a strange musical kick as of late and have been listening to a lot of old Hard Rock albums that were from the ’70s and very early ’80s. My neighbors think I’m crazy. I go from blasting Dismember and Vital Remains to Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Elf (if you immediately knew that Ronnie James Dio was vocalist for all three of those bands, you are officially old-school). Gentlemans Pistols does share some commonalities with the bands listed as their influences. They are all in the Hard Rock genre, but unlike Deep Purple and Slade, Gentlemans Pistols doesn’t have any standout songs. It’s basic, paint-by-numbers Rock music, but without any strong hooks or memorable choruses. You can listen through this album a dozen times and the only song you’ll remember is “Heavy Petting,” not because it was awesome, but because that song sucked so much more than all of the others. As much as I respect Bill Steer for his work with Napalm Death and Carcass and for being the live second guitarist for Angel Witch, Gentlemans Pistols needs to be completely retooled if they want to be successful. They need good, memorable songs and a vocalist that doesn’t think that he’s the second coming of Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin’s vocalist, for those born in the late ’80s or ’90s). After listening to this album, I have to say that if I didn’t get it to review, I wouldn’t have paid a dime for any of these songs. The only one that stood out did so because it sucked more than the rest. A sticker on the front of this CD saying “Featuring Bill Steer of Carcass” might move a few copies, but I seriously doubt that any of those folks will ever buy another Gentlemans Pistols album based on what’s here.

I absolutely love the title of this EP. It’s not just a clever play on words, it’s a perfect summation of all that is General Surgery — the missing link between the classic Sunlight sound and all-out Carcass worship. At least that’s the case when the band is on, and I’m pleased to report that when it comes to this 5-song teaser, they are motherfucking on. While this 11-minute appetizer may not be the full-course follow-up to 2009’s Corpus in Extremis: Analysing Necroticism that we’ve been patiently waiting on for what seems like forever, it’s an all-killer/no-filler affair that will gladly do for now. The title track and “Ejected Viscous Mucus” storm out of the morgue like Nihilist jamming Symphonies of Sickness riffs. If this tandem doesn’t get your plasma pumping, you might be a cadaver. “Seizures” is just a 40-second Grindcore fart —which begins with an actual fart if I’m not mistaken— that serves as a brutal bridge to “Rhythmic Epidermal Clamor” and standout closer “Dark Cyanotic Hypostasis.” These two cuts also take pages straight out of the Walker/Steer medical dictionary to anthemic Swedeath effect. Admittedly, Like an Ever Flying Limb is over before you know it, but it begs for repeated listens. If this is any indication of the full-length to come, it won’t be a mere regurgitation of giblets, or worse yet, more microwaved uterogestation. Rather, the band will reach their massive killing capacity and send us all into the grave. If I may, a few working suggestions for the new album title: Where No Lysergide Composition Dwells, And Here I Die… Pyosisified, Across the Open C-Section, or perhaps The Head in the Sky Is Ours?

This is the first full-length record for the Ukraine’s Embrace of Silence, the follow-up to their Inspirational Songs EP. Leaving the Place Forgotten by God is a pretty punishing album. The brand of Doom/Death Metal that Embrace of Silence plays is kind of like the bastard offspring of Thergothon and My Dying Bride. It has the dark and heavy sound of My Dying Bride (including the occasional violin), but certain aspects, particularly the Swamp Thing vocals and the occasional delve into Black Metal territory remind me more of Thergothon. One odd thing I found about this album is that while none of the songs are exceptionally lengthy (the longest is almost eight minutes), they don’t feel like they’re all that long. I remember listening to this and thinking that the average song length was three to four minutes instead of five to seven minutes. Maybe my recollection on the length is skewed because they change things up quite a bit. Unlike a lot of Doom/Death Metal bands, Embrace of Silence doesn’t beat one riff into the floor or make a point of droning on and on and on. If this album has a weakness, though, it is in the more Death Metal oriented parts. The atmosphere they generate is ruined or weakened by the faster tempo, and the straight Death Metal bits that they do aren’t as distinctive. This isn’t a deal-breaker, though. There is still plenty of good stuff to counterbalance the small imperfections that Leaving the Place Forgotten by God has. For a first album, this is definitely above average. I’m looking forward to hearing future releases from Embrace of Silence with great eagerness. If they can build on this, we’ll be talking about these guys for years to come.

If there were ever a pair of demos that deserved to be reissued twice, it’s these two classic slabs from Sweden’s Evocation. If you don’t already own the Breath of Night reissue (2004’s Evocation), stop whatever pointless shit you’re doing right now and hunt this down immediately. The Ancient Gate and Promo 1992 are still to this day Evocation at their most vicious, vibrant, and bloodthirsty. This band was doing the Sunlight sound before the Sunlight sound was the Sunlight sound, and before idiots like me started using the term “Sunlight sound” to describe the Sunlight sound. Make sense? The Ancient Gate in particular is wonderfully drenched in Boss Heavy Metal pedal greatness, whereas Promo 1992 is a tad more polished, with hints of the At the Gates influence becoming evident. You could use comparisons all day long —traces of the real Big 4 (Entombed, Dismember, Grave, and Unleashed) echo throughout— but it just doesn’t seem fair in this case. Let’s not forget, these guys began penning tunes in 1991. The year that gave us arguably the best Death Metal ever recorded (and inarguably the best World Series ever played while we’re at it — even though the wrong team lost). It’s not like this was written yesterday. These guys are closer to progenitors than progenies, and if it weren’t for the decade-long hiatus that followed these demos, we’d probably be saying a lot more bands sound like them. The bonus material offered here doesn’t exactly put this over the top, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. The four rehearsal tracks sound pretty rough. Not sure if they were using the prototype for the first 4-track ever made or recording straight-to-jambox, but either way it’s a bit grating. From a performance standpoint, however, the playing is airtight and passionately fierce. I love it when the isolated tremolo-picking swallows the practice space whole. As for “Genesis” (a new recording of a previously unreleased song from 1992), the notes might be from 20 years ago, but the composition and presentation of the song have been unequivocally altered to fit the band’s newfound, bouncy, Amon Amarth-inspired approach to aerobics class Death Metal. Compared to the morbid intensity and primal brutality of the demo material, it sticks out like a happy thumb. Essential nevertheless.

When I heard that Negru from Negura Bunget was doing a side project that focused on Romanian/Slavic Folk music, I was intrigued. I wasn’t expecting a Folk Metal band, so when I heard the actual music I wasn’t surprised to find that this isn’t Metal at all. Din Brad is a mixture of Slavic Folk performed using traditional instruments and synth pieces that are reinterpretations of traditional songs. The result is a bit hit or miss. Some of the tracks are dark and atmospheric, kind of like Lord Wind or Wojnar (though not NS like those bands). Others are bland and lacking the same atmospheric qualities. I would have preferred a more integrated approach. If Negru had incorporated the dark atmospheric keyboard stuff in with the traditional songs, this might have been an amazing album. As it stands, Dor is very schizophrenic. On one hand, it wants to be Dark Ambient like the aforementioned Lord Wind and Wojnar. On the other hand, it wants to be a straight-out Folk album in the traditional sense. If this had started out as that straight-out Folk album and gradually morphed into the Dark Ambient material, it might have worked out better. With the Folk stuff interspersed with the Dark Ambient bits, it never gains any consistency. Maybe Din Brad’s next album will be better. This one is okay, but I had expected far more from this band.

Y’know, it’s not like I expected a band this talented, imaginative, and Prog-obsessed to start kicking out the 3-minute Nirvana jams upon signing to Metal Blade last year, but I also didn’t expect this. I suppose I was just hopeful for a combination of the experimental flow of Colors and the more palatable anthems of the Alaska/Silent Circus era finely honed into a compact Metallic weapon. This is just errant creative diarrhea. In all my years of doing this, The Parallax II might very well be the most unreviewable album I’ve ever encountered. It’s essentially the same approach as last year’s precursor, the Hypersleep Dialogues EP, but those three cuts were more fluent with a much more realistic serving size. This bitch is 73 minutes long. I’m at a point in life where I don’t need anything to last 73 minutes. Not even fun stuff. Not sex, not a roller coaster ride, not a buzz, not a workout, not a massage… I don’t even wanna have to drive that long. Nothing short of a good movie, baseball game, or the ultimate career-spanning Katatonia live set needs to last 73 minutes. Shit, I can remember nights I didn’t sleep that long! Aside from lone album standout “Astral Body” and wacky circus-freak ditty “Bloom,” this LP only has two types of tracks: sub-2-minute intros/interludes/segues and 10-minute batshit insane marathons. Now, I’m no BtBaM novice. I’m well aware they’ve always had a penchant for epic-length songs. But they were good epic-length songs. These songs have 10,000,000 parts for the sake of having 10,000,000 parts. With a 7-page outline, I might be able to diagram the blocks and sub-blocks of this album that I find enjoyable, or at best tolerable, but forget about a traditional review. I could listen to this everyday for the rest of my life and still not be able to dissect it on paper. It’s too schizophrenic, too bipolar, too ADHD… clearly someone’s not taking their meds. This is a Grateful Dead concert on steroids. Total Prog overdose. I wanted Rock ‘n’ Roll and I got advanced nuclear physics. Just as an experiment, these guys should ditch the music biz for a couple years and get soul-crushing 9-5 jobs. See if they feel like listening to this jumbled chaotic mess for over an hour when they get home. Future Sequence is a Promethean roadblock on an otherwise worthwhile discography, and I fear it will only get worse. It’s just a matter of time before they go total Zappa. No thanks.

I’m a big fan of atmospheric/symphonic music so when I hear that a band plays in that style, I immediately take notice. Though they hail from Austin, Texas, Vesperian Sorrow could easily come from Europe. Their sound is very much in the same style as England’s Gothic Black Metal institution, Cradle of Filth, and Norway’s Symphonic Black Metal machine, Dimmu Borgir. They even have obnoxious press info. I don’t know if that is an actual requirement for playing Symphonic Black Metal, but most bands who do seem to have a highly inflated attitude about it. Vesperian Sorrow is definitely a band that is good at what it does. Stormwind of Ages is easily as good as anything else currently out there in the scene when it comes down to the music. Where Vesperian Sorrow gets caught is in the production department, particularly with the drum sound. The drums sound horrible. The bass drum sounds like a light switch and the snare sounds like someone pounding on a plastic bucket. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem if the drummer wasn’t blasting away on them like his life depended on it. When things get fast and furious in the drumming department, the snare and bass drums bury the guitars and intrudes on the keyboards. With Symphonic Black Metal, it is pretty much guaranteed that the keyboards are going to dominate the sound. When the drumming intrudes even into that area, it makes you question the competence of the studio engineer. It doesn’t totally ruin the album, but I found it annoying enough to deduct points. I have a pet peeve about bands that play epic, atmospheric/symphonic Black Metal but have a drummer that feels that it’s necessary to blast away like he was playing in a Grindcore band. In my opinion, this could have been a great album but for the drumming and the drum sound. If the drums had been further in the background and had a tone that wasn’t so bad, this would have rated higher in my estimation. This is still a good album, though. The music is up there with the best. If these guys can sort out their drum tone and get their drummer to slow down a little, their next album will be great.

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but doing so is somewhat inherent when it comes to Death Metaller DNA. How many of us back in the day picked out a few of our all-time favorite records at the store based solely upon cover art, logo, song titles, a trusted label, etc? As the internet continues to crush every remnant of heterosexual civilization, record stores become a fading fond memory, but old habits die hard. Darkness by Oath were able to ignite my curiosity without even having to thumb through the “D”s. First and foremost, they’re on Cyclone Empire. That tends to mean awesomeness. Secondly, song titles like “Into the Gloom” and “Holloworld” spark my interest further, as I’m a miserable prick always hoping for his next sadness fix. They’re also from Spain, the country that brought us Avulsed. Doomy Avulsed maybe? That’d hit the spot! Last but not least, they come Dan Swano-approved. Something along the lines of, “in-your-face Death Metal with the right hooks ripping my ears to shreds,” if memory serves. So, those of you who’ve heard Near Death Experience can imagine my eye-rolling dismay upon finally getting to listen to it. I don’t know what’s more of a shock: that there are still bands doing the Gothenburg thing, or that bands still doing the Gothenburg thing are still getting signed. Perhaps the real mystery is what white sorcery convinced these Spaniards that anyone in the 21st century wants to hear half-assed Slaughter of the Soul and Jester Race worship after two decades of it being pinball-machine-raped to death by countless Bitch Stewie bands. What’s worse is that they bring absolutely nothing new or original to the table. Just note-for-note At the Gates, In Flames, and Dark Tranquillity forgery and a vocalist who sounds like Alex Krull with two dicks in his mouth. One has to wonder if the members of this band also wear sneakers with lights in them and fanny packs. This album is such an uninspiring and vapid listen, even if it had come out in 1996 it would still be a turd in the punch bowl.

This is the second album by England’s Wodensthrone, the follow-up to 2009’s Loss LP. This band also released a digital single of “The Storm” prior to this album, but since the song also appears here, I don’t consider that to be a separate release. Though they’ve been reduced to a five-piece due to the departure of vocalist Brunwulf, Wodensthrone hasn’t noticeably lost any momentum or ability. They’re still a force to be reckoned with in the English Heritage Black Metal scene. Though that particular scene is currently dominated by Winterfylleth, there is still plenty of room for a band like Wodensthrone to comfortably exist. Think of them as Dimmu Borgir compared to Winterfylleth’s more Falkenbach meets old Darkthrone/Satyricon sound and Forefather’s Viking-era Bathory style. The first thing that I noticed about this album was how much more in the foreground the guitars were. Where Loss was more keyboard-dominated, Curse is definitely more guitar-based. It almost reminded me of Weakling in style, where the guitars were backed by the keyboards, making everything more epic sounding. And this is a very epic album. Even with the guitars taking center stage, there is still a ton of atmosphere on every track. With the stronger emphasis on being more “Black Metal” in style, there are still strong Folk/Medieval elements present (which is almost a given when you consider the lyrical content), but these aren’t the bouncy Renaissance Faire riffs or “beer tent sing-along choruses” that dominate the Folk Metal style. This isn’t a record for the Ren Faire with electric guitars set. This is an album that stirs that dormant Pagan blood and fans the flames of Heathen pride. Wodensthrone may not get the attention from the Metal media that Winterfylleth gets, but they are definitely a band to check out.

Tuomas Saukkonen may be a one-trick pony, but it’s one good god damn trick. Those who think otherwise should proceed to pick up a guitar and try to write a melodic Death Metal song that hasn’t already been written. Go ahead, I’ll wait… In the meantime, let’s dissect Rise of the Phoenix, the 7th full-length from Before the Dawn, and quite possibly their finest work to date. Saukkonen definitely doesn’t like wasting time, as this album arrives almost exactly one year on the heels of Deathstar Rising, and don’t forget the Black Sun Aeon —basically a Doomier Before the Dawn— double-LP sandwiched in between. I believe we have the Finnish Melodeath version of Rogga Johansson on our hands. Luckily Phoenix shows no sign of an overbearing workload, rather a man dedicated to his craft catching absolute creative fire in his prime. While Deathstar was a very enjoyable ride, this follow-up is a notable improvement that sees the few minor flaws of its predecessor ironed out, with a bit of the fat trimmed away as well. Gone are the clean vocals of Lars Eikind that, while admittedly missed at times, would often piss in the gravy of otherwise solid cuts. His dynamic’s absence is more than compensated for by some of the most alluring passages that Saukkonen has ever penned. Ever-soaring melodies in the same goosebump-inducing vein as fellow gloom-dealing countrymen Insomnium, with glorious echoes of pre-mindloss Amorphis honed and perfected. This remarkably catchy record is a nearly flawless fusion of the aggressive and the depressive, the morose and the intense. Just listen to those grief-laden, blastbeaten verses transition to majestic choruses on “Pitch-Black Universe” and “Phoenix Rising.” The double-bass-fueled pummel/epic melody combo on the headbangable “Cross to Bear” is capable of giving Amon Amarth a run for their money anytime, while the despondent elements of “Throne of Ice,” “Fallen World,” and somber closer “Closure” just might have the most hardened of Viking warriors crying in his mead. Another in a long list of must-hears that is Mr. Saukkonen’s resume.

Light the Fires! is a very weird album. I guess the best way to describe what Blood of the Black Owl sounds like would be to say that they are “Progressive.” I don’t know if Post-Metal describes them adequately because that would imply that the majority of this album is kind of Metal (or at least Rock). Truth be told, the only track that even comes close to being Metal is the last one. This whole album is very passive, straying into New Age territory a good chunk of the time. It almost has a Tribal/Ritual Ambient feel to it in places, almost as if the point were to create some sort of shamanic ritual, but with ambient soundscapes replacing the visual aspect. The result is a boring, repetitive, overly long excursion into ambient navel-gazing. This is the kind of shit that your Hippie college roommates listen to when they get high out of their minds. I think it was supposed to help them commune with their ancestors or the spirit of the planet. My ancestors were telling me to throw on some real music so I had to stop listening to this after the second spin. Even with the last track straying into Metal territory, it just wasn’t cutting it. I don’t know about your ancestors, but mine wanted to listen to Black Sabbath, Motorhead and Deep Purple instead.

Shadow Kingdom unearths another obscure relic from forgotten soil in the form of Coven — not to be confused with Jinx Dawson’s occultist mob or the British Prog outfit. Originally self-released on wax in 1987, Worship New Gods has never seen an official CD version until now. This is definitely a bargain-bin slab of unpolished NWOBHM, but there’s just something about it that wouldn’t allow me to simply write it off as left-alone-for-a-reason and be done with it. There was a time when that would’ve easy. Back in the Portrait of Defiance days [Jack published PoD from 1995 - 2002, which you should already know unless you only first penetrated the Underground yesterday. -Editor], my review for this would most likely have read: “Old Metal of homosexuals deep throats leper cum gun. Singer chugs ass milk from pre-op tranny taint. Album bathes in ballsack sweat of 10,000 faggots.” I’m either getting old or becoming more open-minded, because by the third time I tried to dismiss this as tired retro slop, I realized I was singing along! It’s impossible to resist the Sabbath/Candlemass-inspired pomp of “Riddle of Steel,” even with its cheesy lyrics culled straight from the Manowar playbook. This singer is so bad he’s good! Imagine a young, pre-Mercyful Fate King Diamond fronting a Manilla Road cover band. It’s corny, but it’s likable. Whether intentional or not, Worship New Gods possesses a comedic element that renders this listener unable to discard it. For a good laugh, play this album for some friends and hold up a ruler every time the gang-shouted chorus of “Ruler” comes around. HA! Elsewhere, Camelot-themed ballad “Wicked Day” subtly borrows the beginning of Def Leppard’s “Foolin’” before dropping the Rocka Rolla off at the BOC chorus. Merlin sleeps forever, bitches. Admittedly, there’s far more filler than killer here. Some of that boils down to cringe-inducing production (try benchpressing the flange on “General’s Eyes”), or just plain clunky songwriting (“Kiss Me with Blood,” “Jail House,” and “Loki” are all duds). However, this charming antique will still serve as a highly enjoyable novelty listen for my biannual good mood.

This album was actually released in 2011 by Seven Kingdoms (UK), but it took an entire year for it to see an official US release. For those unfamiliar with Forefather, think of them as the elder statesmen of the English Heritage Black Metal scene that produced bands like Winterfylleth and Wodensthrone. They were waving the flag of English pride before anybody else, but few people paid any attention to them. Their debut album, 1999’s Deep Into Time, was one of the prized pieces in my collection of obscure Black/Folk/Pagan Metal records. They’ve evolved considerably since those days, morphing into a more hook-laden Folk Metal band over the years. This, their sixth LP, is one of their strongest yet. The songwriting is noticeably tighter and the riffing is very memorable. Where their old material lacked strong hooks and choruses, Last of the Line is full of them. This gets your head banging from the first song and by the time “Into the Rising Sun” is finished, your neck is absolutely shot. Though there are strong Folk elements on this album, Forefather isn’t one of those “beer tent at the Renaissance Faire” Folk Metal bands. This is more like Viking-era Bathory but focused on English lore and mythology. If you’re a fan of Winterfylleth or Wodensthrone, I definitely recommend checking out Last of the Line.

If the folks at Napalm Records’ advertising department are going to have the balls to call an album “a brutal Metalcore killer” in this day and age when the genre has worn its welcome Kate Moss-thin, it better be fucking brutal. I’m talking 18 Visions’ Until the Ink Runs Out and It Dies Today’s Forever Scorned fistfucking Heaven Shall Burn’s Antigone to Poison the Well’s Opposite of December while On Broken Wings’ Some of Us May Never See the World watches. I want breakdowns the size of triceratops dick, a vocalist with roars that can induce the loss of bowel control, and melodies so depressing I kill myself twice. The Sorrow doesn’t come close. This quartet probably haven’t even heard any of the aforementioned albums. It’s more likely that they downloaded select Killswitch Engage, Unearth, and All That Remains songs last week and decided to form a band. Misery-Escape might seem “brutal” to the passing Linkin Park fan, or perhaps your grandfather’s grandmother, but to the initiated it’s just a baby fart-bubble in the bathtub. Featured here is every lightweight, non-threatening, super-duper-melodic, good cop/bad cop Metalcore trick in the book… like it’s still the hottest shit in the streets. Perhaps what Napalm meant to say about Diet Caliban here was that they “kill Metalcore brutally”? But that makes no sense either, as the genre sadly bled itself dry years ago. Only the strong have survived, and I guarantee none of them at any point in their careers would’ve put their name to a passionless, unoriginal piece of shit like this. Too many bands just like The Sorrow already. I’m sure spinning this fetid, cliche rehash would remind many of the Metalcore genre’s past greats exactly why they either broke up or went Rock.