Tyrant at myspace

Welcome to the early 1980’s as Tyrant (not to be confused with the band who would eventually evolve into The Legion) take us on a magical mystery tour through the best that Black/Thrash has to offer. Taking influence from Bathory, Venom, Motorhead, Darkthrone and Celtic Frost, “Reclaim the Flame” has a melodic groove; not melodic in a Gothenburg way, but melodic in a drunken singalong to “Ace of Spades” or “Black Metal” sort of way. The riffs and melodies get stuck in your head with minimal effort and you can’t help but sing along to mid paced thumpers like “Uprise”.

Like a lot of Black Metal inspired releases, the production isn’t pristine which is a godsend as this album wouldn’t be half as entertaining if it had the same productions as say the new Satyricon album. The grimy and deep guitar tone gives Tyrant the sort of guitar sound that Venom or Hellhammer would have killed for 25 years ago. This is a pretty big claim to make on the strength of a debut album, but I feel Tyrant may proves themselves over their discography in years to come to be the band that Darkthrone now want to be but seemingly aren’t able to be. Not the Darkthrone of lore, but the Darkthrone of “The Cult of Alive” and the following albums. Whereas “The Cult of Alive” was tedious after several listens, “Reclaim the Flame” is a captivating piece of singalong thrash/black metal. Hopefully Tyrant can keep this quality going for the rest of their careers, as “Reclaim the Flame” is a stellar debut.

Hyades at myspace

Italians Hyades are another band who are bringing the thrash back to the metal scene. The first comparisons on the looking at the cover art and track listing would be Anthrax and Municipal Waste, with the irreverent Ed Repka artwork and track titles such as “wops still thrash” (yes the song is actually called that!) giving the impression this is non-serious party thrash like the aforementioned bands and Bonded by Blood and Gama Bomb as opposed to the ultra serious style of thrash of say Evile and Warbringer.

The first impressions prove true with “the worst is yet to come” being a perfect record to use the ole proverbial beer bong to. There are some serious songs such as the anti-Bush anthem “Buried in Blood”, but songs such as “Skate Addiction” which validate my initial thoughts on the record but even the serious songs such as “Pharmageddon” and “New World War” give Municipal Waste a run for their money in the fun thrash stakes in overall atmosphere.

Talking of which, Marco Colombo has a similar Surfer drawl as Municipal Waste frontman Tony Foresta albeit with a strong Italian twang which adds a great deal of character to the proceedings though it is hard to work out the lyrics (as if that matters with a vocal delivery and riffs like these!). As a vocalist he seems to have a bit more versatility than Foresta though it only used sparingly as not to spoil the overall “stoner dude” effect.

The music does owe a debt to the Bermuda short wearing ones along with Bay Area overtones. This is beefed up good time thrash just as good to listen to at 2am whilst eating takeout food and playing Xbox 360 games to as headbanging. This my friends, is my soundtrack to hanging out next summer, and who could want more than “the worst is yet to come”. As the band themselves say in “Wops still thrash”; “This album kicks ass”

Violator at myspace

Originally released on Kill Again records in 2006, “Chemical Assault” was reissued by Earache records in Europe in 2008, this debut album from Originally released on Kill Again records in 2006, “Chemical Assault” was reissued by Earache records in Europe in 2008, this debut album from Brasília based thrash act Violator is 80’s sounding in more way than one. The guitar tone and overall recording quality are nearer to the conditions of Destruction and Exodus recording particularly in the guitar tone than say Evile or Gama Bomb. This is both immersive as one can really imagine just for a second that this is a long lost record from 1987 and distracting as the cymbals and hi hats in particular sound too distant and muffled. Whether this was an attempt to get back to the vintage age of thrash in a similar fashion to Witchcraft trying to capture the the feel of 70’s metal or out of necessity due to lack of funds is uncertain.

The music itself mixes Teutonic and bay area elements together to create a sound that might be described as a slightly blackened and a lot less melodic Bonded by Blood era Exodus. This is not a pretty album, it is about raging riffs at fast tempo’s and blistering solo’s rather than beauty. This about war, destruction and thrash; this ain’t a fucking Armored Saint record if you get what I’m saying. Bassist/Vocalist Pedro Arcanjo Has a high pitched stratchy vox similar to the early style of Kreator vocalist Milie Petrozza which greatly adds to the vibe of the record. This a nice piece of retro style thrash and is worth any thrash fan checking out.
based thrash act Violator is 80’s sounding in more way than one. The guitar tone and overall recording quality are nearer to the conditions of Destruction and Exodus recording particularly in the guitar tone than say Evile or Gama Bomb. This is both immersive as one can really imagine just for a second that this is a long lost record from 1987 and distracting as the cymbals and hi hats in particular sound too distant and muffled. Whether this was an attempt to get back to the vintage age of thrash in a similar fashion to Witchcraft trying to capture the the feel of 70’s metal or out of necessity due to lack of funds is uncertain.

The music itself mixes Teutonic and bay area elements together to create a sound that might be described as a slightly blackened and a lot less melodic Bonded by Blood era Exodus. This is not a pretty album, it is about raging riffs at fast tempo’s and blistering solo’s rather than beauty. This about war, destruction and thrash; this ain’t a fucking Armored Saint record if you get what I’m saying. Bassist/Vocalist Pedro Arcanjo Has a high pitched stratchy vox similar to the early style of Kreator vocalist Milie Petrozza which greatly adds to the vibe of the record. This a nice piece of retro style thrash and is worth any thrash fan checking out.

Villains play mid 80’s esque death metal with plenty of influence from the first wave of black metal that sounds like it came straight from a teenager’s basement in 1980’s. I can almost picture it now, the poodle haircuts, the homemade Venom T shirts and the disused ALF merchandise in a corner and that Villains can summon up that vibe as a modern day band is pretty impressive indeed. Yes this hits the spot just right, very primitive nasty stuff; so primitive it would be rejected by the inhabitants of the Stone Age for being too backwards and basic.

This of course is a good thing as with all the technicality and modernity around extreme metal at the moment it’s could to have some bands all about blasting back to the past. At 28 minutes it’s just the right length and if you want a record to knock back the brews to, then well there’s fewer better candidates than “Drenched in the Poisons”.

Katalepsy at myspace

If a bunch of sissy hardcore boys make a facsimile of death metal with breakdowns and shitty gimmick vocals then it is deathcore and thus bad but if a bunch of guys singing about gore and death and whatever with long hair do the same its “slam death metal” apparently. One is the bane of extreme metal and the other is a perfectly acceptable evolution of Death Metal despite both sounding the same. As it turns out Katalepsy aren’t a bunch of pale skinny mid-western white boys with stretched ear lobes and Atticus hoodies, but a bunch of tough as nails Russian dudes.  They might as well be the former as that’s the music they make though.

I have nothing against mixing Hardcore with Death Metal when it is done with the imagination, innovation and an eye to detail that all good music is made with, let’s be honest the shit to good ratio in Deathcore is pretty high. The breakdowns on “Musick Brings Injuries” are more On Broken Wings than Obituary and the Death Metal segments are more repetitive than you would find in Bona Fide Death Metal seeming to sound like a  Down syndrome version of Mortician. There’s conveniently a Mortician cover on this album along with a hilarious Deathcore version of “Symphony of Destruction”. That means that a quarter of the time on this album is other peoples material and its better constructed than Katalepsys original tracks, which being one of the artists in question is Mortician is really saying something.

The thing that really sucks though is the vocals. What these knuckleheads want to be is more “extreme” than anyone else. They can’t play faster, heavier or more technically than anyone else, so they make the vocals more “extreme” which in this case means making them sound like a cross between a pig and a cricket and never singing in time once. Not in an endearing Paul Baloff way but in can’t go more than 5 seconds before going out of sync with the musicians. It seems that since your average deathco…. Oops I mean Slam Death musician can’t play better than anyone else that have to make the vocalist make as many silly ill fitting sounds as possible to be the most “BROOTAL”.

At the end of the day this variety of metal as exhibited by Katalepsy and their much more musically proficient but still vocally untalented forefathers Devourment has as much influence over the overall death metal scene as Velvet Caccoon or Les Legions Noire had over the Black Metal scene; a lot of dweebs on the internet talking about it, but nothing really happening. If all these “XSLAMXDEATHX” bands sound like Katalepsy, then that’s certainly a very good thing indeed.

Porkfarm at myspace

Playing a style of Death Metal very similar to Dying Fetus, Brain Drill, Necrophagist, and Beneath the Massacre, Young English Death Metal act Porkfarm display an apt control over both the brutal and technical sides of the genre. They keep the technical wizardly and the “slam” side of their sound under control displaying in where the song progresses to a point where either of them is needed but not veering off into either direction willy-nilly and it is this disciplined approach that gives this six song EP an air of supreme professionally.

At Nineteen minutes this release makes you demand more. Along with the Tech-Death and Slam influences some of the songs such as “Suffer” and “Torn Apart” have some old school influences such as vintage Morbid Angel and Deicide, and with many new bands falling into the deathcore/wigger slam trap its great to see a new band making death metal how its supposed to be made. Definitely one to watch in the future

Gnaw Their Tongues at Myspace

“An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood” is a horrific album but in the best possible way. Mixing Doom Drone, Black Metal, Industrial, Noise and Ambient influences to make what is a very good contender for most disturbing album of the year. This Dutch one man project is often classed as Black Metal and whilst that is definitely an influence , especially with the sporadic vocals that description is definitely too limited to explain the deal with Gnaw Their Tongues.

Taking Sunn 0))) or Earth’s most depressing and primitive moments as a blueprints, Gnaw Their tongues add in harsh and aurally disfigured white noise, the aforementioned black metal vocals, an echoing malevolent string section, additional creepy keyboards, haunting slowly precise but organic drums and samples from various televised court cases, real crime TV shows and horror films to create what could be described as Jason Vorhee’s favourite chillout record.

Not that you could ever relax to this record with its claustrophobic oppressive ambience aided by the menacing strings that swirl in and out of aural focus like glimpses of something in the corner of your eye which seems to be always present but you can never quite focus on. The chilling verbal sample of a lawyer grilling a gentlemen who took it upon himself to tie up and murder a family one by one in “Teeth That Leer Like Open Graves” which what is presumably an extract from an American televised court case would creepy enough by itself but under a barrage of hypnotic low pitched guitar lines and some threatening electronic babbling its absolutely terrifying.

Along the way the album adds what appears to be a choir of witches, samples from a number station and what I think may be (it was a bit low in the mix to definitively ID) extracts from the “Wearside Jack” tape. This is the sound of human misery and depravity entwined in a sordid trawl through the dark side of popular culture. This is some fucked up shit my friends and although you won’t listen to it all the time, its worth it for the few times you do.

Zerozonic at Myspace

Although Zerozonic feature current members of Blood Red Throne and Green Carnation they have a sound that is more all American than of the frozen north. Influenced primarily by Pantera but also Black Album era Metallica, Machine Head, Snot, Black Label Society, Godsmack and present day Soilwork, this is an album that bucks the trend to turning the clock back to 1986 by turning back to 1993. Further evidence of this can be seen in the fact that in promo pictures all the members seem to have come dressed as Phillip Anselmo

Bizarrely what should on paper be quite an accessible even commercial metal album, is quite an absolutely obtuse listen. Despite being influenced by some of the most catchy and memorable (as in get stuck in your head like a Hilary Duff song you heard in burger king sort of way) bands in metal, “Dead on Arrival” is instantly forgettable. While the album still plays one can consider it a blessing that they did not choose the most straightforward and dumbed-down route, but that’s quickly dispelled by the sheer unremarkableness of the material and the occasional even more regrettable “nu” moment.

When they do stray from the usual formula with “Zero” sounding like Sonic Syndicate attempting a seven minute power ballad and “Stripped” having a middle section which sounds like Zakk Wylde masturbating onto the corpse of the genre of Barroom Blues Rock. At the end of the day all “Dead on Arrival” had to offer is “Far Beyond Driven” without the intensity or “The Black Album” without the hooks. If you already despise those two records then just think how much you will hate this one.

Merciless Death at Myspace

Any album starting off and ending on with a musical homage to Death Angel’s “The Ultraviolence” by a band named after a Dark Angel song is enough to tell any thrash fan they are in for a good time. I would have expected a generic time too truth be told, but Merciless Death are one of the premier thrash revival bands in the world today and have their own distinct style that is pretty hard to compare with anyone else. It’s intense, violent, and is musically as occult as its lyrical themes with eerie Jeff Hanneman-esque solo’s as landmarks amongst the passionately speedy riffs and drum fills. Not a minute is wasted with Merciless Death playing at a faster tempo than most thrash bands thus meaning their album is 28 minutes whereas in the hands of someone such as say Evile it may be pushing towards the 40 minute mark.

Bassist Andy Torres is also the bands vocalist and his punk rock vocal technique has divided some of the more purist Thrash fans. The way I would describe his singing style is to imagine Jerry A of 80’s Hardcore punk band Poison Idea but with a bad throat infection and marbles in his mouth. It’s an acquired taste but although it definitely needs work I think it suits the music much better than someone warbling like they were in say Metal Church. This is thrash for the thrash fans, it’s not going to appeal to people who don’t love this genre a lot, but those who are addicted to the thrash will adore this record.

Exodus at Myspace

This is a strange review to do as this is basically if you’ve heard what “Bonded by Blood” sounds like, then you really aren’t doing this whole metal thing very well. “Bonded by Blood” is one of the cornerstones of heavy metal as we know it and although re-recording ones early works using better modern technology (see Testaments “First Strike Still Deadly” Destructions “Thrash Anthems” and Anthrax’s “The Greater of Two Evils”) the usual method is to record a greatest hits style package rather than a whole album especially one as influential as “Bonded by Blood”. This is a risky manoeuvre for sure and I’m not sure if it’s paid off.

The guitar’s sounds are more meaty and lower tuned and the recording is understandably of better quality but the one thing I miss the most is Paul Baloff’s vocals. Don’t get me wrong Rob Dukes is an extremely talented and charismatic vocalist and his work on “Let There Be Blood” is a measured and powerful take on these classics but it just doesn’t seem the same without Baloff’s vocals. Off key and slightly out of time are criticisms often thrown at Baloff’s performance on “Bonded by Blood” but his bizarre retching vocal style had a genuinely unhinged vibe that made lyrics such as “there’s blood upon the stage/bang you head against the stage” and “kick in your face and rape and murder your wife” sound as if they were the demented threats of a rampaging lunatic.

In the hands of any other vocalist those lines however sound goofy to the point of parody. It was Baloff’s frenzied and unsettling performance (which proved to be very influential on the likes of Chuck Schuldiner and John Tardy) that made “Bonded by Blood” into a work of malevolence that was as dark and frightening as any of Slayer and King Diamonds best. Without him the riffs are still stellar, and songwriting still streets ahead of this time let alone the standards of 1984 and 1985 but it just doesn’t have that evil threatening atmoshphere that made the original recording what it is. To finish the album, a track from 1983 never officially released as a studio recording entitled “Hells Breath” has been added presumably as an incentive to attract fans who already have the original “Bonded by Blood” to buy “Let There Be Blood”. It’s a charming Venom-esque number, but to be honest if you already have the original “Bonded by Blood” album, there’s no need to get this one.