You can bank on a new Heaven Shall Burn album every two years, and you can bank on it being quality material as well. The German Metalcore kings continue to impress in 2008. It is truly remarkable when you consider that this band, over the course of six full length albums (not to mention two splits with Caliban), have not changed one single fucking thing. The only progression necessary has been steadily improved production. They manage to keep things fresh somehow, and even bless us here with a perfectly executed Edge of Sanity cover (“Black Tears”). I will admit that there is an unusually high amount of filler on Iconoclast, which for them isn’t much, but the end result is an album length that is just a tad longer than it needs to be. However, few can match their melodic intensity, and they have a fiery passion about them that cannot be denied. Maybe they should simply start pumping them out every three years.

Anyone talking shit about Kataklysm in 2008 is a pure hater. When you think about the noisy, incoherent shit they started putting out after their debut EP, it’s amazing how far they’ve come. Sure, it’s definitely the most no-frills record of their career, but every song on Prevail is a Death Metal anthem. I embrace the Old School mentality. I like it when the shit sticks. Admittedly it doesn’t top the flawless landmark opus that preceded it (In the Arms of Devastation), but after your Reign in Blood, sometimes a Seasons in the Abyss is the best you can hope for. It still follows the same blueprint of success. Memorable and brutal, that’s all I really need. Is there anyone out there that still subscribes to the Bloodbath motto? Anyone other than Kataklysm, I mean.

Textbook Metalcore-by-the-numbers. There are just too many bands playing this style of music right now. Eight years ago I probably would’ve been all over this like flies on shit, but the system has been seriously fucking overloaded. Truth be told, The Ghost Inside is not a bad band, but they bring absolutely nothing new to the table. If our rating system were based solely on how well a band recycles Unearth’s breakdowns from 2000, this would be a ten. As is…

Fission is a suitable name for this band. Their music is fission. It splits and breaks up into two different parts. One part being a featherweight, tenth rate In Flames rip-off. The other part is overwhelmingly homosexual Power Metal with the gayest vocals ever recorded singing the faggiest lyrics ever written. This guy’s clean voice gave me AIDS. Now I know why that parade is so painful. A supergroup featuring members of DC Talk, Blues Traveler, Hanson, Barenaked Ladies, and the Jonas Brothers would be more Metal than this.

Firewind? I usually get wicked Firewind when I eat hot wings and nachos. Have you ever made Firewind sitting down and the Firewind travels up your ball crease? Sometimes I’ll even hold a lighter up to my asshole so I can actually see my Firewind. Speaking of my asshole, it makes much heavier and more powerful noise than this Greek White Lion cover band.

Old School Thrash with Death Metal vocals. The band plays with a passionate nostalgic sincerity, but it doesn’t save the album’s dated feel or the listener’s boredom through fifteen minutes in. Unintelligent intelligible lyrics definitely do not help matters at all. Yet another band Thrashing like it’s 1986, and I have to be the asshole to remind them it’s not.

Recommended for fans of Dillinger Escape Plan and Mr. Bungle.

A puzzling mixture of Black Metal and NWOGFPM (New Wave of Gay Fag Pirate Metal), also known as “Viking” or “Pagan” Metal. Whatever you want to call it this week, what starts out as a solid Black Metal album is quickly killed by accordion-infused Polka, sometimes bordering on Disco! Even with a cunt in the band, they manage to reach a new level of homo.

Norwegian trendfuckers Enslaved have always held a dubious distinction throughout their entire career. The most overrated band in Metal at any and every stage of their existence, a difficult feat to say the least. Criminally overrated, in fact, whether it be their we-wanna-play-too early Black Metal stylings complete with Popeye vocal, or the we-wanna-play-too Viking Opeth impersonation they’ve been working on for three albums. This album is pure forgettable shit, just like every other album they’ve ever done. Musically it’s a blend of whatever’s hot right now, just like every other album they’ve ever done. Prog/Viking/Melodeath with a mix of Whitesnake singing and the most horribly irritating gruff vocals you can imagine. I’m just waiting for some magazine douchebag who’s never been laid to label this Post-Black. Still, this unimpressive boredom will somehow make it’s way onto every Metal publication on the planet’s Top 10 list for 2008, just like every other album they’ve ever done. Well, I truly do hope you’ve enjoyed the first negative press you’ve ever read on Enslaved, and be on the lookout for their Metalcore album next fall.

A lengthy hiatus between albums and a new, revamped lineup have really helped this Sacramento quintet come into their own. Their Counting Hallways to the Left debut was a solid, albeit unspectacular listen, but the band is no longer a second rate version of frequent tourmates Heaven Shall Burn. Ley Lines flows with passion, tension, and an actual identity. They still blast, breakdown, and bring the edgy melodies, but this time around things are a lot less predictable. I love how the band use noisy Mathcore excursions and dizzying technical insanity in strict moderation. This way they are able to take any given song to another level without completely leaving the stratosphere. Controlled chaos is a much more effective weapon than a headache inducing clusterfuck, few bands of this ilk realize that. Jesse Alford’s vocal performance is also noteworthy. This kid is able to sound angry, confused, insane, pissed off, and sad all at the same time, seemingly without effort. One minute ready to cry, ready to kill the next.

Let’s get out our “Pagan Metal” checklists. Unpronounceable, unspellable band name? Check. Thirty-six band members? Check. Bagpipes, kilts, ridiculous medieval wardrobe? Check. Forests, trees, small children with swords? Check. A musical blend of Black, Power Metal and Flogging Molly? Check. A CD sold to a used record store for $2.50? Check.

I am by no means a proponent of instrumental bands in Extreme Metal, but this fourth album from the one-man Greek Black Metal entity known as Dodsferd would’ve been an easy 10 without vocals. Just about every riff on this album is flawless. Imagine prime Darkthrone meeting prime Rotting Christ somewhere underneath the darkened shroud of a Carpathian Forest. But Wrath’s vocals are just fucking horrible. A feeble bitch scream with occasional drunken clean yell? Annoying to the point of actual sadness when you consider the quality of the music being wasted.

I can truthfully say I’ve never heard anything like this in my life. Unfortunately I don’t necessarily mean that as a compliment. Noisy, experimental, heavy, sometimes somber, and completely impossible to describe or categorize. The best I can come up with is Neurosis and Dystopia tag-teaming His Hero Is Gone while Remains of the Day watches. Vocals will go from screaming to shouting to actual singing, none of which are done exceptionally well or poorly. Hey, there’s always room for cello. I think this band’s main intent was to write dark, melancholy music. They just go about it in such an unconventional way that it kind of misses the mark. It’s certainly way the fuck over my head.

This album picks up right where Ninewinged Serpent left off. Devastatingly catchy Black/Death meets Old School Thrash in a whirlwind of merciless hooks and fierce melody. I’m even tempted to say that Legion’s vocals have never sounded better. Quite a statement considering his resume. This is just a clinic on the forgotten art of memorable songwriting, and with the band already penning their third album, it appears that Devian will be providing us these unfriendly reminders of how it should be done for a long time to come. No complaints here.

With the drummer, bassist, and guitarist from this band all contributors to the almighty Killwhitneydead attack, The Demonstration come with automatic interest for yours truly. An interest further peaked by my enjoyment of 2006’s Existence album on Tribunal Records. Sadly and immediately noticeable, these guys have made some changes. I don’t know if it’s new vocalist Zach Messick, or new guitarist/vocalist Rob Gabriella, but one of these guys has a singing style unsettlingly similar to the fag from Linkin Park. Not the fag that raps but the other fag, the whiny one. Other than this, Accidents with Intelligence is a solid helping of Metalcore with all the fixings, but it’s a pretty big hindrance. One that stains all but a salvageable EP’s worth of material here. I don’t even mind the softer clean vocals, but the Linkin Park scream-singing is downright unbearable. A band with this much talent and raging heaviness capability should not be putting out albums where a Third Eye Blind cover is the most memorable cut. The aforementioned salvageable EP: “A Very Calculating Snake,” “Car Rides,” “We’re All Alone, We’re All Lonely,” and “Character Flaws.”

Not a whole lot has changed since this band’s Tribunal debut, and not a whole lot needs to. Why mess with perfection? This band have a patented, instantly recognizable sound comprised of spine-tingling harmonies, morose, despondent melodies, distinctly woven structures, spacious heaviness, and just the right amount of Katatonia worship. Too slow to be Death Metal, too fast to be Doom, and too good to give a fuck what you call it. This is the musical embodiment of disappointment, loss, and pain, with a subliminal vibe of hope (the greatest pain of all). The band did change vocalists prior to their last output, and throughout Lost to the Living (moreso over the latter half of the album), Nathan Ellis showcases his clean singing abilities for the first time. Very impressive, very professional, very smooth, and downright Akerfeldt-esque. So successful one has to wonder if the future will in fact yield change for this band. The abrasive Death Metal vocals perhaps becoming the secondary weapon of choice on releases to come? As for now, another solid, depressing, nearly flawless album from a band that has established nothing less as their standard.

Not to discredit the talent of drummer extraordinaire/hired gun specialist Peter Wildoer (Pestilence, Arch Enemy, etc…), but Darkane fucking blow. Always have, and apparently always will. I thought a new vocalist might save them, but this new douche is even worse than the old douche. Still the same annoying bark, but now with occasional Power Fag clean voice. There are definitely more dynamics to their songs than I can ever remember before, but it’s not like they have written an actual memorable song in ten years. Still a sub-Haunted, Nu-Thrash salad that no amount of dressing could save.

Even though this German Black Metal troupe have been at it for 14 years, my only prior exposure to them was a very mediocre Katatonia cover (“Endtime”) on a very mediocre Katatonia tribute CD (December Songs). Well, after listening to Eidolon on and off for about three days now, the only word that comes to mind is, you guessed it… mediocre. It’s not that it’s terrible. They do have a better sound, production, and approach than about 90% of the Black Metal I hear these days, but it’s not very memorable. Recycled bits of Emperor and Mayhem stirred in with second rate Dimmu Borgir and Naglfar just doesn’t cut it.

I’m not the right guy to be reviewing this. Let’s get this out of the way. I don’t like Prog, I don’t like Power Metal, I don’t like Nevermore, and I don’t like Queensryche, which is what this frontman from Nevermore’s solo album sounds like to me. Modernized Queensryche. Hooray. I want to spend $15 on that. There is a cover of “Lucretia My Reflection” on this album that makes the original Sisters of Mercy version sound like Swedish Grindcore by comparison. Look, what aging homosexuals listen to behind closed doors is none of my business, but I don’t want any part of it. I’ll leave it at that.

There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding this album throughout the Metal press. I think it’s time I cleared the issue. It is not because this new Cryptopsy album contains clean vocals that everybody’s tearing it to shreds. It’s because the clean vocals fucking suck! If it was halfway decent clean singing, most probably would not have a problem with it. It’s not even the much maligned clean singing from new vocalist, Matt McGachy, that ruins this for me. It’s the fact that Cryptopsy no longer have the ability to write memorable material anymore. I was ahead of the curve, I gave up on this band after hearing their last piece of shit, Once Was Not. A scatterbrained, over-the-top clusterfuck of a mess furthermore desecrated by Lord Worm’s pitiful, short-lived attempt at a return. Look, when you start your career with two flawless Death/Grind masterpieces as these guys did, there’s nowhere to go but down. Whisper Supremacy and And Then You’ll Beg were pretty good albums, but now it’s clear the well has gone dry. The talent is still there, as the more nostalgic moments of The Unspoken King undoubtedly indicate, and Flo will always be the drum-god, but perhaps it’s just time they tear down and rebuild.