Gama Bomb at Myspace

Hailing from Northern Ireland and at the forefront of the thrash revival, Gama Bomb have created an exuberant and irrelevant brand of thrash metal that is primarily about generating an atmosphere perfect for brainless fun, good times and any occasion with a large amount of alcohol is involved. The most socio-political they get is on “global warming” that is more a lurid exaggerated tale using climate change in the same way that they use Zombies in other songs; over the top entertainment. Lyrically these guys are Tankard if they were born 15-20 years later with songs about video games as well as the expected alcohol, B Movie and cartoonish violence.

Musically it’s hard to compare them to any other artist as they have a take on thrash that would have been relatively fresh if it had emerged in the late 80’s and on the evidence of this album they are certainly a more talented prospect than Evile, SSS or even Municipal Waste. Crunchy riffs feed into brief but compelling leads, and the solos are tasteful whilst remaining rip-roaring. Lead Vocalist Philly Bryne is able to switch from a nasal punkish snarl to a glass breaking falsetto at a moment notice and despite the jovial nature of the subject matter, he adds a certain edge of intensity to the proceedings. “Citizen Brain” is for me in the top ten thrash releases of this decade. If you like thrash, buy this album.

Manilla Road at Myspace

Manilla Road is one of those bands that’s been around forever, but never managed to break into the mainstream in any way despite releasing some great material. Their first album, Invasion, dates all the way back to 1980. The production is about as rough as one would expect from an album self-released by a band from Kansas, hundreds of miles away from any of the major metal scenes at the time. Mark Shelton’s nasal, high-pitched voice is a bit of an acquired taste. There are also some incredibly cheesy parts, including the silly spoken intro to “Far Side of the Sun,” the terrible, cliche-ridden lyrics to “Cat and Mouse,” and the horrible trainwreck of studio effects that ends what was Side A on the original LP.

Yet for all these sins, there’s quite a bit of talent on display here. Shelton’s soloing is quite good, and the rhythm section is fine, if a bit workmanlike at times. It doesn’t really sound that much like the band’s later work, either musically or lyrically (there are no nods to the work of Lovecraft or Howard, for example). I especially enjoyed the 13-minute album closer, “The Empire,” which is closest to the epic feel that the band strove for on their later material. Invasion isn’t Manilla Road’s best album, but it’s a decent place to start.

Svartsot at myspace

Folk Metal is something you either love or hate. Apart the odd artist such as Agalloch or Hammers of Misfortune it’s usually exuberant, joyous and unashamedly cheesy. It’s an easy recipe to get hideously wrong, in a widdly keyboard smorgasbord and ye olde worlde theme park style charm offensive that certain acts end up just sounding smug and self-referentially ironic in one of those oh so ‘random’ ways that appeals to the same kids who thought the Lostprophets “megalulz” t shirt was the height of hilarity until their friend introduced them to metal hammer magazine last summer.

Svartsot, thank fuck are not one of those bands. There are no keyboards on the recording of ‘Ravnenes Saga’ their debut album, but instead an array of Flutes, Whistles and the Celtic percussion instrument the bodhran all played by at this point now ex member Stewart Lewis (who had to quit due to his wives ill health) which add to the air of authenticity that pervades this album. The guitar riffs have more of a folk influence than those of say Turisas or Korpikplaani, and the folk stylings of Svartsot’s home country of Denmark make a welcome change from the now textbook Finnish style. The cheese is kept at a welcome minimum with the searing death metal vocals and beautiful production job of Jacob Hansen who has worked with Yrkoon and Destruction in the past and is at this moment in time working with reunited Dutch Death Metal legends Pestilence, helping to create a non too serious but in no way at all goofy atmosphere.

With a lot of the similar bands in this genre, you feel they are trying too hard to create a party album, but ‘Ravnenes Saga’ is a rare all purpose folk metal album. You can party, headbang, or relax to this album and with not a comedy cover in sight to make one groan; this is certainly one of the finest folk metal releases of the past two years.

Silencer at Myspace

The first time I heard Silencer, it reminded me of going to my first few metal shows. Those shows were loud, indecipherable and full of aggression. But I was so swept up in the adrenaline and the energy in the room that it didn’t matter too much who was on stage, as long as they were loud and fast. It could’ve been a shitty local band with some pseudo-medical, genital related name like “Vaginitus” or “Penile Immolation” and I wouldn’t have cared, simply because the experience was so exhilarating.

But as you go to more shows, the novelty begins to wear and you start to look for flaws, like how you might notice protruding nose hairs on your girlfriend when all you used to see were her tits.

When I first heard Silencer, I was taken by their relentless riffing, catchy hooks and heartfelt aggression. Songs like Mnemodrone and The Harvest are the kind of things that makes you think back to your first show, in all its sweaty, drunken glory.

Unfortunately, the act grows stale pretty quickly. The speeding guitars and thrashing drums start to sound repetitive and—let’s face it— singer Chad Armstrong isn’t doing much to stoke the coals with his generic but serviceable screams.

That’s not to say this is a bad record, it’s just fairly typical death metal with a twist of thrash. I won’t skip it if it comes up on shuffle, but I’m not going to seek out a Silencer song.

Why you should listen to it
Catchy hooks and waves of guitars make Silencer a nice band to blast when you feel like being an asshole at red lights, solid musicianship and production.

Why you shouldn’t listen to it
Repetitive songs, that wave of guitars starts to feel like maple syrup after awhile, bland vocals adds some staleness and redundancy.

6.5/10

(For Samples Click Artwork)

The Berzerker at Myspace

“The Reawakening” marks The Berzerker’s fourth studio album and also his first, truly, independent release.  After the release of “Animosity”, Luke Kenny was apparently very disillusioned by Earache Records, and the entire record industry as a whole, and decided to create his own record label for his music; he even posted a small movie on how the profits in the music industry is really distributed.  In reality, this is no surprise because the current state of the recording industry is at the weakest state its ever been with everyone having home recording equipment and software that could literally master an album in no time with little to no money needed.  But that is a topic of another time, the music of The Berzerker is really what matters and on this record, he comes out with more force, more focus, and more creativity than he ever has in his last few records.
The album starts off with “Wisdon and Corruption” features a more gabber flavor than his last two albums; not to say that the last few albums were crap or unfocused but the idea of “The Berzerker” was to create a living Death/Gabber band and he did achieve it on “Dissimulate” but the idea can sometimes cloud the creativity or uniqueness of the art.  This album is actually more “artful” than “World of Lies” and “Animosity” put together because Luke decided to not hide his Gabber/DnB side and instead incorporate it into the music.  I, personally, think what he achieved on this record is what he was trying to do with all the albums but maybe the record label wanted a more “conventional” sounding electronic death metal act.

Honestly, after “Animosity”, I thought The Berzerker was going a bit stale because his idea of trying to make the fastest, brutal death metal band/album and when you compare “World of Lies”, “Animosity”, and “Dissimulate” you hear someone trying to create/program drums that are 150x faster than any human drum can create and to a degree it works but after a few attempts, and possibly rehashing of the same patterns, the art of music gets lost.

So when I first heard “The Reawakening”, I was blown away that this record a pattern or structure that made some sense given the music.  The guitars are still ever fast/Carcass-est but the focus on the drums was actually a HUGE breath of fresh air because Luke changed the patterns, for example “Disassembly Line” features a short DnB pause that helps build the song and carries it through force.  The song “Your Final Seconds” starts off with fast Gabber kicks but suddenly stops and goes almost “Breakcore-ish” and then returns to its Industrial Grind.  These little changes and additions to the song structure are the things that made the first Berzerker album soo standout.  In 2000, the self titled masterpiece of “The Berzerker” opened my ears to a new sound in Death Metal and I think was the first, focused example of creativity and imagination being used to recreate a genre that is so set in its own ways.

So what more can I say about this album more than its refreshing to hear this band return to its roots and imagination.  One thing I forgot to mention about this record was that it features, for the first time in the bands history actually, remixes from fans and fellow hardcore techno artists that Luke Kenny has known for sometime.  The promotion for the album began with a songwriting campaign, very similar to Trent Reznor’s Year Zero Remixed campaign, that allowed fans to remix one or two of his songs in anyway that they envisioned it.  Also, the band would choose their favorite remix and the fans would choose theirs and both would end up on the album, which they did.  So not only is this Luke’s best “Berzerker” album but also his gift to fans by giving some of them a chance to appear on a release of this magnitude.

For purchasing information, go to www.berzerkerindustries.com and get the album and the newly released 12″ with bonus remixes.