If this was the only kind of music I had to listen to, I would die miserable. These Canucks can grind and blast with anybody. They have an incredible drummer and Mel Mongeon might be the best female vocalist I’ve ever heard in a Grindcore band. I wonder why there aren’t more convincing female Death/Grind vocalists. Scientists have proven that a woman’s aura can devour souls, and it’s a medical fact that their hearts pump a black, viscous, bile-like fluid that sustains the lifeforce only through human suffering. So why can’t more of them growl? Anyway, what little they do well is far from being enough. You kinda actually have to write songs, too. At their maximum speed they are impressive but unoriginal and boring, and when they do try to mix it up, it gets even worse. Take “Census Blank” for instance. Some kind of excruciating part-Neurosis/part-Thrash funeral procession that is all over the place. Even a return to blasting insanity towards the end can’t save the song. This leads into the even more scatterbrained “Alone,” which is basically an annoying noise intermission with randomly spewed vocals. The title track sees a return to the freakish, high-speed Grind, but by now the record has become so mind-numbingly mundane that you can actually hear the guitarists forgetting how to play. “A Coward’s Existence” introduces a bit of despondent melody to the fold before exploding back into Punkish banality, but at this point I just want to make it stop and listen to something coherent instead. This band has no idea who they are or what they want to do. My French is a little rusty, but I think I know what Mel is saying at the end of album closer “95.” She’s saying, “Hello, we are a talented band. Unfortunately all we really know how to do is fuck around. We hope you enjoyed listening to us practice for a half hour. This concludes the 3,465th release of our 10-year career. Thanks to Relapse for actually paying to have this slop recorded and for believing in Extreme Jam bands like us all over the world.” Lifeless anti-music for vapid poseurs.

This sounds weird. It’s like someone got the tapes mixed up in the studio. Musically, this is Goth Rock. If you removed the vocal track, this could easily have been Sisters of Mercy or Love Like Blood. It’s mellow, dark but not “evil” sounding, and dwells in that area between melancholy and depression. It’s not aggressive or wrist-slitting miserable. The vocals, though, are straight-out Black Metal. That’s where the weirdness comes in. It sounds like the vocalist is screaming in torment, but the tone and style of the music don’t seem to match. I guess the nearest musical equivalent would be if you locked Mika Luttien from Impaled Nazarene inside a Hot Topic filled with Justin Bieber and Twilight merchandise and made him listen to the Happy Mondays all night long. This isn’t bad for Goth Rock, but if I want to listen to Goth Rock, I want to hear someone like Peter Murphy (ex-Bauhaus) singing, not someone who wishes that he was actually singing for Dark Funeral. Likewise, when I want to listen to someone screaming in torment, it had better be to a backing band playing brutal, twisted, evil music. It isn’t Goth enough to be Goth and not Metal enough to be Metal. Even calling this Gothic Metal is misleading because it implies the heaviness of Metal and the atmosphere of Goth. Everything is an attempt at doing two completely different things and accomplishing neither one very well. It doesn’t suck but the whole isn’t the sum of its parts. Either get heavier or kick out your singer and replace him with someone who can actually do Goth Rock vocals properly.

Here we have a debut LP full of surprises. First off, this supergroup of sorts features members of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride. Secondly, this supergroup features members of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride… and it’s not Doom. And finally this supergroup featuring members of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride that is not Doom… is actually really fucking good! Perhaps another surprise would be that it is pure Old School Death Metal. And when I say pure Old School, I mean it’s like Sororicide and God Macabre jamming the first Convulse album with Autopsy’s Mental Funeral gear. It is morbidly filthy and the sound is fucking huge. While the all-star personnel here boasts drummer Adrian Erlandsson (At the Gates, The Haunted, Cradle of Filth, Brujeria, and Paradise Lost just to name a few) and guitarist Hamish Hamilton Glencross (My Dying Bride), make no mistake about it, this is all Paradise Lost guitarist and founding member Gregor Mackintosh’s baby. He wrote the album as a tribute to his late father, which is another solid reason why we should all pull out. Save them from the future grief. Yet another surprise is the revelation that Mackintosh is actually a damn good Death Metal vocalist! He is a dead ringer for John Alman from the legendary Winter, which is to say there is, of course, a Tom G. Warrior influence as well. Musically I guess it should come as no surprise that this is somewhat reminiscent of Paradise Lost’s classic debut Lost Paradise , but with 20 years of added refinement and inspiration that is clearly evident. This is very heavy shit with heavy-hearted undertones that make their way into even the faster cuts. Not every song is a winner, but there are no bad songs, and the good outshines what little is mediocre by plenty. I simply have nothing bad to say about this great record. I only wonder, given the intensity and emotion exuded here, why Mackintosh is not allowed to inject any balls into Paradise Lost’s limp-wristed, plastic output of the last decade plus. Favorites: “All Will Suffer,” “Desecration,” “A Thousand Martyrs,” “My Black Siberia,” and “The Grim Irony.”

I’ve never liked reviewing EPs. The problem with reviewing an EP is that there is so little to go on that it’s hard to get a read on what a band is like based on two or three songs. In this case, there are only two tracks, “Desecration” and “Iconoclast.” “Desecration” is the longer of the two, clocking in at just a hair over five minutes, while “Iconoclast” is around three. Both songs are best described as old-school Swedish Death Metal in the vein of old Entombed, Dismember and Where No Life Dwells era Unleashed. If you remember what Left Hand Path sounds like, then you pretty much know what Desecration sounds like. Honestly, you could tell me that this was a leftover track from Left Hand Path and outside from a slight difference in sound, it would be totally believable. Brutal? Yes. Well executed? Sure. Original? No fucking way. This is by the numbers Entombed/Dismember worship. It’s well executed enough for me to want to check out a full-length album, but if the rest of their material draws on the obviously glaring influences, then I’m going to have to deduct points. I like old-school Swedish Death Metal, but at some point even the founders of the style had to evolve out of it. You can only produce so many copies of Left Hand Path and Like an Ever Flowing Stream before people start using your albums like Ambien.

It was almost a full decade ago (2002’s Terror Propaganda) when I heard this Swedish Black Metal band for the first time. I guess time has revealed the most harsh critique of all… I don’t remember it. I do remember that it was presented to me as Black Metal of the Suicidal Depressive variety at the time, but I must have found it much too happy to get the job done. I’ve never heard the albums prior or after that release and didn’t much care to. I didn’t know if they were even still a band. So needless to say when I found Void in my review pile, my expectations (much like any reason to go on living) were pretty nonexistent. Maybe that’s why I’m completely blown away by this album. (Get it… blown away… never mind). The band have apparently found their true calling as a total Darkthrone clone. Which is absolutely fine by me because I can no longer get my Darkthrone fix from Darkthrone. They’re off in the woods making snow angels, playing happy faggot Christian Rock and loving every minute of Christ’s wonderful gift of life. In all fairness to Craft, Void is probably better than any Darkthrone record in the last 18 years, save for the mighty Ravishing Grimness and all its criminally underrated glory. But there is no denying the influence, especially on the vocals and vocal production. Mikael Nox is a dead ringer for Nocturno Culto in his prime, and he also shares the same knack for coming up with the catchiest deliveries for the band’s classic asshole lyrics. Rest assured, “God’s got nothing on you anyway” will be among the season’s top catch phrases for yours truly. I love it, and I love the feeling of pure Negativity this album possesses. It all boils over on Song of the Year candidate, “I Want to Commit Murder.” What more do I need to say? The fucking song is called “I Want to Commit Murder!” The chorus of the song is “I want to commit murder” screamed vehemently in glorious repetition. It’s nice to know I share a common bond with these guys in that respect. I do want to commit murder. And I want Void in the stereo when I do.

If Cold Colours just stuck to playing Thrash and didn’t attempt all this Gothic sounding shit, and then wrote lyrics that didn’t sound like a whiney sixteen year-old Emo kid after failing (yet again…) to kill himself while listening to Marilyn Manson, The Great Depression might actually be a listenable album. Seriously, when I was playing this, I imagined a bunch of mascara-encrusted eunuchs trying to emulate Evanescence, but without the benefit of a hot chick singer. The “melodic” vocals and the lyrics are cringe-inducing. If you’re going to dwell on depression, this is not the way to do it. If you want depressing music, try playing something slower - like Doom. Aggressive music, like Thrash, doesn’t mesh well with this whiney, Emo shit and the blending of the two is an abomination. The straight-out Thrash parts on this album are fairly well executed (if generic), but those fleeting moments of decent music are soon deluged in the vile, Emo-infested crap that weighs this album down like the albatross around the ancient mariner’s neck. The marketing on this album said “For fans of Opeth, Iced Earth, Katatonia, Nevermore, Amorphis!” but Cold Colours is nowhere near the caliber of any of these bands - and this is their sixth release! Who the fuck is buying this crap? Do you get a free copy of this album with every purchase of a Twilight t-shirt at Hot Topic? Of course, the marketing also referred to Cold Colours as “Dark Metal,” so I get the feeling that the person who wrote this desperate attempt to polish a steaming pile of elephant feces was either listening to a different album or he was legally deaf. And that excellent cover art this CD is supposed to have? It looks like a shack in the woods with a sign on it saying that the place was condemned. If you were searching for something that represents economic hardship, there are places in Detroit that look more hopeless and bleak than this does - and they’re real! This is everything bad about Emo/Goth mixed with the most generic of Thrash Metal, resulting in a guarantee that anyone purchasing this will get tortured for eternity by Paul Baloff in an entirely new layer of Hell set up just for them.

When your sole existence as a unit is to, for the most part, pay tribute to the Old School Swedish Death Metal, where do you draw the line between exaltation and expansion? I mean no disrespect to Mr. Death. After all, members of this band were a part of the original movement in the forms of Treblinka and Tiamat (before the latter started playing Ballet Metal). I suppose you can go the Bloodbath route and create Death Metal even the elder gods themselves might not be able to top. But unless Blakkheim’s on your squad, that isn’t a whole hell of a lot likely. So, most of Descending Through Ashes sounds like a band trapped in an idea, afraid to try any new tricks even though an underlying feeling of tension throughout the album suggests they might like to. Their debut full-length, Detached from Life, was a great album with an incredible energy about it that transcended mere nostalgia. It was like some undiscovered gem from the actual early ’90s era. An old timer might say, “They had a lotta spunk.” But this record plods along like a shitty day at work. These 35 minutes feel more like 50. A completely uninspired effort. It does boast an extremely authentic guitar tone, but that only goes so far when you’re not doing anything with it. These guys need to either spice it up or give it up. Shit, I don’t care if you have to write a song about a Marvel Comics character (which is the next logical step in this case, if I remember correctly), do something to light the fire again.

Countess has been around forever (I believe this is their thirteenth album) and their sound has evolved quite a lot since their days of Bathory/Venom worship. On Wings of Defiance has a very melodic sound, with more Traditional Metal style riffing and less brutality. Still, the vocals are straight-out Venom worship, which puts this at odds with the music. Venom was unique in their sound because they were coming out of the Hardcore scene and their style was very Punk influenced. Cronos used Hardcore style vocals and the music was also very much Hardcore in style. The music of Countess, though, has become more melodic and doesn’t have that Punk edge. The clash of styles sometimes yields interesting results, but in this case, the vocals are too much at odds with the music. It would be like Chris Barnes (Six Feet Under/ex-Cannibal Corpse) joining Iron Maiden and not changing his vocal style at all. You can have great music, but if you have a vocalist that doesn’t fit the music, it will result in the whole thing not living up to its potential. This is the case here. The music pretty much requires a melodic singer - not someone who wants to sound like Cronos.

I don’t mind it when new bands ape Old School Swedish Death Metal. I don’t mind if 1,000 miserable kids write 100,000 depressing songs that all sound like Burzum. I don’t mind a Katatonia clone, and I don’t even mind it when 500 Deathcore bands all use the same 30 breakdowns. In fact, I’m rather fond of all those things, really. But for some reason when I hear kids doing the old, classic Thrash, I feel like I’m in a nursing home all of a sudden. Toxic Holocaust aren’t terrible, and I’d venture to say this is probably their most established work to date, given that Joel Grind has a proper band to work with now. But Conjure and Command feels like visiting a boring museum. I’m just not one of these guys that gets an erection from re-enacting the Civil War. You don’t see Rap guys still wearing Hammer pants, do you? When I want to hear the classic style, I’ll go to the vaults. Your tribute band isn’t coming close to the feeling I get from the real thing, and that’s why there’s no way in hell I would pay actual money for a Toxic Holocaust LP. Even if it were 1987, these guys don’t play with enough heart. They have chops up the ass, but can neither conjure nor command a single emotion from the listener. Life is too long to waste time on any musicians that are not slaves to Negativity and Her supreme will. Need proof? Of the ten tracks here, only the morbidly paced “I Am Disease” stands out from the pack. It crawls with sinister, Venom-meets-slow-Slayer vibes. Morbid + sinister = Negativity. The rest of the album is like re-runs of The Jeffersons.

Back in the day, when one said “Viking Metal,” you were only referring to three bands: Enslaved, Bathory and Einherjer. That was before the whole Folk Metal explosion that brought us Turisas, Falkenbach, Folkearth and dozens more from all over the planet. Sadly, Einherjer had broken up by then. Eight years after breaking up following their Blot album, Einherjer has returned to a landscape that has vastly changed. Though they were once considered the vanguard of Folk/Viking Metal, their sound and style bear almost no resemblance to what folks call Folk Metal now. These days, Folk Metal often sounds like a Renaissance Faire with a double bass drummer. Rest assured, though. Einherjer may have disappeared into the fjords for eight years, but they didn’t spend them drinking beer with Korpiklanni. In fact, with Norron, Einherjer may have invented a whole new sub-genre of Folk/Viking Metal. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Progressive Viking Metal band before, but this album clearly falls into that category. This is way different than anything they’ve done previously. The inclusion of Progressive Metal elements into their sound makes this album an interesting listen, but it also brings with it some problems. The first thing that you tend to lose when you go Progressive is the simple, catchy hook that most Folk Metal bands rely heavily on. Without that hook, you lose a lot of memorability. When the CD ends and you can’t really remember any of the songs, that’s always a bad thing. Another problem is that the songs tend to be overly complex and meandering. This is particularly a problem with the first two tracks. The first one, “Norron Kraft” is a almost a full thirteen minutes long. The second song, “Naglfar,” is slightly over five minutes. That means that for close to twenty minutes, you get some convoluted songwriting before the good stuff kicks in. This isn’t to say that the first two tracks suck. They’re pretty good, but the other songs seem more focused and the Folk/Viking elements come out fuller. If you can make it through the first two tracks, Norron gets a lot better.

Finland’s Melodeath masters have hinted at perfection many times in the past. 2004’s Since the Day It All Came Down has been a fixture in my stereo rotation since the day it all came out, but only for a handful of songs. 2006’s Above the Weeping World and 2009’s Across the Dark also had tracks that the repeat function was invented for, but as far as a completely flawless record, good to go beginning to end, Insomnium have come close but never quite made it happen… until now. Watching these guys open for Katatonia four years ago, the thought occurred to me: What would clean vocals do for these guys? Could they pull it off, and if so, how? My questions have been answered with One for Sorrow, an album title that lives up to its name. It’s not as though they’ve changed their style much at all. It’s still the same melodic Death Metal they’ve always played, flowing with melancholy yet at a mostly energetic pace, but the occasional clean vocals add so much to the record’s dynamic. I assume the clean singing is actually via guitarist Ville Friman, as I can’t imagine this soft voice emanating from lead vocalist/bassist Niilo Sevanen (he of defeated gruff roar). Unfortunately this is the age of technological faggotry, so I’m reviewing an mp3 file here and my online references are limited, but whoever is doing the clean vocals is doing a great job. A passionately sullen, operatic-but-far-from-too-operatic, very mellow style of singing that compliments Sevanen perfectly. This album flows with masterful melody from start to Finnish. An extravaganza of dejected majesty and epic depression. The perfect album to play while sitting in the dark, chain-smoking, chain-drinking, and evaluating the dismal shithole that is your life. You would end it all, but you’d miss out on monumental albums like this. If you’re a fan of Melodeath in general, a longtime fan of Insomnium, or basically anything but a fan of life and all its horrid gayness, I can’t see you finding anything wrong here. I tried to find flaws - as I don’t want to be the guy who just dishes out 10s like some Jehovah’s Witness with a stack of Watchtowers - but with every repeated listen I just fell more in love with the songs. All hail Insomnium. All hail sorrow.

This Italian cult has been around for a while (though not as long as the legendary Mortuary Drape). This is their fifth LP and debut for the Moribund Cult. For a 2011 release, it certainly sounds old. This album could have come out in the mid-’90s and it would probably have been lost in a sea of other albums just like this. Mid-paced Black Metal with keyboards a-la first EP era Emperor went out of fashion a long time ago, but the venerable cults still practice it. For a musical reference, look up old Ancient (pre-Metal Blade stuff), old Graveland (Carpathian Wolves and Celtic Winter-era), old Behemoth (Return of the Northern Moon-era), (here comes the obscure reference…) both halves of the Satanaquia/Angel of Light split-CD and Drawing Down the Moon-era Beherit. That should give you a good idea what kind of music Abhor plays. The best part of this album is the use of keyboards. Unlike other bands that go for either the minimalistic keyboards or the overblown Wagnerian orchestral sound, Ab Luna Lucenti, Ab Noctua Protecti has a horror movie score quality that sets it apart from so many of the old “Atmospheric Black Metal” bands from back in the heyday of this style. Having listened to stuff just like this for almost two decades, I admit to being a bit jaded because it’s nothing that I haven’t heard before. Still, this is a great album to listen to at night, in the dark and surrounded by burning candles. It has just the right amount of creepiness and evil to capture the atmosphere for your nocturnal rituals.

I have no idea how I could have possibly missed Eminenz’s 2007 self-titled album, but somehow it slipped past me unnoticed. So, although I quickly sorted out that mistake, I first listened to Nemesis Noctura with the idea that it had been 11 years since the band’s last LP, 2000’s amazing The Blackest Dimension, and I was relieved -but not surprised- to hear that these German blasphemers’ majestic combination of Black and Death Metal had changed little over the years. They’re too smart for that. And you can be damn sure that I’ve since then tracked down a copy of Eminenz (but have been too busy listening to this album 666 times to prepare for this review to spin it - yet)! All the songs here have unique identities, some more straightforward Death Metal (the slightly Amon Amarthish “Land of Lies”), others vehemently Black Metal (the title track), and even a touch of Thrash (“Northern Destroyer”), plus the symphonic interludes, “Blood Ritual” and “Ancient Silence.” And that’s not even mentioning the very Acheron-like (which I consider to be quite a compliment!) “Satan’s Invokation,” or the ominous cover of Venom’s “In League with Satan”! Lesser bands wouldn’t be able to tie everything together and make all of these styles work as an album rather than a collection of songs, but Eminenz is no ordinary band, and they achieve the seemingly impossible with no problem whatsoever. If there were any justice in this dismal world, these guys would have had Sony throwing dump trucks full of cash at them to release this masterpiece, rather than having to do it themselves.

All the anti-Deathcore lifelovers can say whatever they want to, the bands and their rabid fans aren’t going anywhere. And when it comes to vibes of pure seeping negativity, only Funeral Doom and Suicidal Depressive Black Metal offer more misery than the right Deathcore band. San Diego’s Carnifex is the right Deathcore band. These guys have already gone through many changes in only a 6-year existence. Lineup shuffling aside, each full length LP has had its own distinct flavor. Their 2007 debut, Dead in My Arms, was a pummeling beatdown of an album. Just a pulverizing breakdown expo that happened to come with a side of brutal vocals. Next year’s follow up, The Diseased and the Poisoned, was a bit of a sophomore slump. Still brutal, still a festival of breakdowns, but as time would sadly reveal, not a truly memorable song to be found. They seemed to find the perfect balance with last year’s Hell Chose Me. Each song following basically the same formula: start with fast and furious Death Metal, end with breakdown from Hell. It should be noted that the title track from this album was the most played song at any local bar with a jukebox worth a piss by my insignificant circle of friends and I that year (which led to many disgruntled patrons and staff). The first thing that jumps out at me concerning this new album is production by Tim Lambesis. This band over time have adapted a somewhat anti-religion lyrical stance, and as we all know, the As I Lay Dying frontman thinks Jesus looked sexy as fuck on that cross. Still, Lambesis has undeniable talent and his knob-twiddling skills here show no deviation from that fact. These songs have something to say for talent as well. By far the most dynamic material they’ve ever penned. It’s still intense, it’s still heavy as fuck, but the songwriting clearly shows an immediately evident maturity. The guitarists are layering their attacks. Building up to moments of climax and playing off each other as opposed to a berserker barrage of riffs followed by impending breakdown insertion. It’s not like Carnifex are going all clean vocal/acoustic ballads/touring DJ on our asses just yet, but I think it’s safe to say that we haven’t seen tracks as intricate as “Dead but Dreaming,” “Creation Defaced,” the title track, and the ominous closer, “Curse My Name,” from them up until this point. There was nothing wrong with them before, I want to make that perfectly clear. But there’s also nothing wrong with wanting to be better. Until I Feel Nothing just might be Carnifex at their absolute best. Only time will tell.

I had no idea what to expect of this third full-length offering from the Polish Death Metal horde known as Deivos. Their 2006 debut, Emanation from Below, was an outstanding face-melter of an album. The band blew me away with their blend of primal, unhinged brutality played with surgically precise skill. 2010’s Gospel of Maggots was a different story, however, as everything seemed taken down a notch in quality. Perhaps none more crucial than the LP’s highly inferior production. Inferior by the debut’s standards anyway. So, flip a coin. What’s Demiurge of the Void going to be about? Techno infusion? Their Prog album? Jazz? Bluegrass? Earlier works set to Classical music? No, thankfully none of the above. Just being a dick. I’m happy to report the band have delivered Emanation: Part Two to us, the malnourished and evercraving Death legions. Boy, did we need it. This is pure brutality done in the memorable way. The production is back to stellar. Kamil might be, if not the best, the most entertaining bassist in Death Metal. He has all the Websterian chops and a bass tone close to industrial machinery-meets-tsunami. What was that, you want to hear the bass guitar on a Death Metal album, do you? Feast! I was shocked to learn he is not who played bass on Emanation because the style and sound are identical. And it’s what sets Deivos apart really. “No Gods Before Me” cements the tone nicely with those thunderous Behemoth/Hate Eternal-style sweeping rolls. I guess that’s becoming the standard for the opening track on a brutal Death Metal record. No complaints here. Holy shit! They also have a new vocalist (appropriately named Angelfuck), who was not on the debut, who sounds exactly like their original singer. This is getting creepy, but I like it. Even with a completely revamped lineup, the band are recapturing the glory of the not-so-distant past. Maybe after the speedbump that was Gospel they had to clean house? Clearly the right move, as few Death Metal albums in 2011 will serve to be this pulverizing without being instantly forgettable.

I’m a huge fan of the real, Japanese, Animetal. They did Metalized covers of classic anime theme songs, often incorporating well-known riffs here and there as a tribute to bands they like, such as Iron Maiden and many, many others. Ever since I was a small child, I had prayed to Satan for Metal versions of the Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and Space Battleship Yamato theme songs, and so the first time I ever heard Animetal play exactly what I had always hoped to hear, I just about died of pure joy. Of course, I was disappointed when Animetal split up in 2006, but more because I’d never be able to see them perform live than anything else, as they had long since covered everything I really needed to hear, and honestly had started to branch out into some slightly less than mandatory territory. And that brings us, at last, to Animetal USA, which is a “supergroup” of sorts, comprised of Mike Vescera (Obsession), Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot), Judas Priest’s Scott Travis, and Chris Impellitteri. I must admit to not really being sold on that lineup, especially Sarzo, since the real Animetal’s bassists, Take-Shit (yes, Take-Shit!) and especially Masaki were total badasses. With that in mind, I was cautiously enthusiastic about hearing this album. I’m not sure if I was relieved or not to discover that Animetal USA more or less covers Animetal’s covers, rather than doing Metal versions of the theme songs from US cartoons like The Simpsons, The Jetsons, or South Park. (There is another band called Powerglove that already does that, by the way.) Musically, this is phenomenal, hyper-energetic Power Metal, and sounds very close to the original Animetal. Sarzo’s basswork even turns out to be okay (not as masterful as Masaki’s, however!), and even Vescera’s wailing vocals are not bad (and not too far removed from Eizo Sakamoto’s singing), but he does make one mistake, and it was almost a deal-breaker for me: he sings in English. I don’t understand why he’d do that. This album, which is essentially Animetal-Japan’s “greatest hits” re-recorded, may never even be released outside of Japan (where, believe it or not, Animetal was/is kind of a big deal), so assuming that Vescera doesn’t speak Japanese, why not learn all the lyrics phonetically? I’ve listened to the original, awesome, Ichiro Mizuki version of Mazinger Z’s theme song so many billions of times that I can sing it in Japanese, so it’s not impossible. To my ancient ears, this stuff doesn’t sound quite right if it’s not in Japanese. And that brings me to the ultimate question about Animetal USA: Why? I suppose that the demand was there for the true Animetal to reform, but apparently they didn’t want to, so did Sony form this group to replace them? Or did the guys get together and approach Sony with the idea? I just don’t know what to think about it either way, but if it’s okay with the original band, I guess it’s okay with me, but they can never be as good as the original Animetal. That said, if Sigh ever breaks up, I demand to be in Sigh USA - we’ll only play the early stuff and their Venom covers!

I have no idea why Scion thinks that giving away music will help them sell cars, but if it means a free Immolation download, then I’m all for it. Ironically, handing out the CD (and vinyl?!) version of this EP for free at shows (and possibly at Scion “partner shops,” whatever that means) has only (so far, at least) meant that it’s pretty difficult to find, and is currently commanding much higher prices on eBay than if you could just buy the god damn thing anywhere. So, you know, fuck anyone so unimaginably retro as to not have a 9G iPhone666 with (under)worldwide access to the Satanic Data Cloud, or maybe just the desire to want an actual physical CD. That aside, of course the music is amazing. Immolation never disappoints and has been mandatory listening for well over two decades. These tracks sound as if they could have been leftovers from the untouchable Majesty and Decay sessions. If that seems like I’m possibly implying that Providence is microscopically less perfect, well… I am. But please don’t misunderstand, this is an amazing example of Death Metal supremacy that would utterly blow my brain out the back of my skull were it from an unknown or lesser band, it’s just that Immolation is held to the absolute highest standard, and even so it’s still astonishing, just not completely flawless, with minor imperfections in the mix (where’s the bass guitar?) more than anything else.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that I’m holding an Abruptum CD in my hand in 2011. It really doesn’t. Why wouldn’t he release something now? It’s perfect timing. This is an era where the douche from Sunn O))) can strum one chord, let it ring out for eight minutes with feedback, and one of the happy faggots at Terrorizer will call it ‘a brilliant mastery of permeating soundscapes.’ This is an era where Blake Judd could hold a microphone into the toilet during one of those Kuma’s Corner shits and some Decibel lifelover will say it’s ‘tripped out, otherworldly psychedelia.’ Potestates Apocalypsis will be on more than one of the cumstains at Metal Hammer’s year-end top 10 lists, I guarantee it. This is simply the age of misjudged quality. People will look you right in the eye and tell you that Jimmy John’s is “really good,” as they finish eating the brussel sprouts they ordered with their bread, lettuce, and mayo sub (now with transparent sliver of meat). Don’t get me wrong, I like War and Ophthalamia, but It and All aren’t even involved with this anymore. This is just some guy from Marduk sonically masturbating. It’s a mean joke is what it is. And that’s the only way this piece of shit could be of any worth is as a mean joke. Example: go hand this out at the mall to cute girls and tell them it’s your demo. It’s just sounds. No skill, no worth. Just annoying sounds. Close to 50 minutes of them. Life is way too long for such blatant fucking around.

For some reason I felt this was going to be these Aussie Funeral Doom veterans’ defining album. Coming off 2009’s breakthrough album, The June Frost, and a rare tracks compilation that really grew on me, I just had that feeling. Well, I was half right. Opening cut, “The Catechism of Depression,” is the best song they’ve ever written. A simply amazing song that explodes into total Doomgasm after an acoustic bridge at about 12:17… holy shit! The remaining seven minutes of this arrangement are among Funeral Doom’s, nay, recorded music’s, finest moments. When the vocals come in, Damon Good’s defeated guttural roar, it is absolutely mesmerizing. And then when the ghostly clean backing vocals come in, they take the song to yet another infinitely dismal level. There… right there. That’s what my life sounds like. This transitions into a variation of the riff, with the subtle bend, the pinch harmonic, the drummer nonchalantly mixing it up a bit, and then the second guitar comes in and you realize you just totally got lost in the music. Which should be the goal. The fadeout… musical perfection achieved. Unlike my life, I didn’t want it to end. The second track, “The Waterless Streams,” is a bit adventurous for these guys. I could be wrong but this may be their first ever song with no Death/Doom vocals. It’s a very Stainthorpe-esque warbly moan, close to spoken word, but it works for the dreary, funereal vibe the song possesses. A very Hammett-like gem of a guitar solo near halfway in. Soloing is no easy task at such slow speeds. You can’t fake it. The song dissolves into a very Katatonic ending, and at this point I feel like standing to applaud. Then we come to “The Bitter Veils of Solemnity.” Damn it! There’s no way I can sugar coat it, it’s twelve minutes of acoustic guitar with whispering. Let me type that again, and this time I want you to really focus on the ellipses. Twelve minutes… of acoustic guitar… with whispering. It’s pretty, but it’s too much pretty. Plus I want to listen to the first song again. The last song, the title track, is 33 minutes long. God damn, that’s a risky move for any band, but for a Funeral Doom band, it’s suicide (no pun intended). That’s really long, fellas. I don’t really even need a blowjob to last 33 minutes. There is more brilliant slow motion axework here, but at that length it’s a challenge to sit through. I tried but my destroyed mind wandered. Plus I want to listen to the first song again… on repeat… for several days. If these guys could ever make an entire record as good as that, and quit trying to merely outslow everybody, they could rule the world.

I will always hold a special place in my heart for Brutal Truth. I think it’s safe to say that the band’s early material was America’s best answer to Napalm Death. The dynamic duo of Kill Trend Suicide (1996) and Sounds of the Animal Kingdom (1997) were also constant stereo fixtures for a huge part of my late teens high school mischief. Watching them and Coalesce tear it up at the Fireside Bowl around that era remains one of the highest ranking happy moments in a truly insignificant life. I was more than bummed when they threw in the towel a couple years later, and more than psyched to hear they were getting back together a few years ago. But ever since the reformation, something just isn’t quite right. It’s like they were buried in that pet cemetery for seven years. (Voice of Fred Gwynne): they came back, but they came back different. I don’t know when, how, or why Brutal Truth turned into the new Dillinger Escape Plan, but it has unfortunately occurred. Nowhere in this hour-long mess is there anything even remotely resembling a good song. Just high-speed, incoherent, spastic, frenzied instrument abuse. For all I know the guitars may not even be tuned. And since when can they not write a song longer than 8 seconds? I’ve had longer orgasms than some of these songs! I mean, I can fart longer than this. Plus my farts are actually memorable and way more brutal sounding. Maybe if each band member didn’t have 46 side projects to deal with, they could focus better? Just a suggestion. I miss quality Brutal Truth in my life and it saddens me that they’ve become some kind of jumbled Math-Grind circus sideshow. The band now are a lot like the X-Games. Sure I’m impressed by the death-defying skill level, but I’m still going to change the channel to find something that is actually entertaining.