The story of Amenti is one that is infamous at least in British Metal circles. This thread gives the full story, but for a shortened version the tale goes something like this: A UK band allegedly bankrolled by one of the members parents messes allegedly around a bunch of UK promoters but allegedly goes too far when they allegedly somehow got hold of the contract to book Destruction’s UK tour and allegedly messed it up. A furore erupted with allegations being made that this allegedly left wing band, had a member who was allegedly racist. The story allegedly climaxed with Amenti allegedly splitting up 3 of the 4 members allegedly forming a new band a day later with the same tour dates but with their identities obscured by new names and masks.

There’s a whole lot of ‘allegedly’ in there, and to be honest I doubt anyone will ever know the whole or exact truth about this affair. Then there’s the music. Amenti released one album entitled “Under the Dying Sun”. The music formula here is a mixture of Mid 90’s Slayer meets Stampin Ground during the time they crossed firmly from Hardcore into Metal with stylistic touches from Exodus, Hatebreed, Biohazard and Iron Maiden. The album maintains a solid and impressive sense of groove and the guitar work is above average if not amazing. The drums were seemingly recorded using the same techniques used with St Anger and then rerecorded using a fisher price junior tape recorder, but for that the drumming is quite diverse and impacts to a considerable degree on the overall sound. Singer Mike sounds like Randy Blythe if Randy Blythe could actually hold a note and this vocal approach works well with the material.

Overall this is what most reviewers would term “a promising if not stellar debut”. True, I doubt I would listen to it again out of choice and neither would most of you, but it would have gained them fans among more commercially minded metal fan whilst being good enough for the rest of us not to hate upon and until about 6 months ago in the UK there was a sizeable online buzz about them. That buzz was extinguished when allegations about their business models were made by various sources including former touring partner and thrash elder statesmen Schmier of Destruction.

From then their trajectory was firmly downwards as more and more allegations were made by quite a few different people. If they did do any of the things they were accused of doing then they threw everything they ever earned in their 2 years of operating away. It’s a pity as if they had stayed honest (first assuming of course that they were dishonest in the first place) they probably would have been a big a draw on the uk commercial metal circuit in a few years as Panic Cell and Raging Speedhorn are now. As it is, for right or wrong none of the members will be able to show their faces in the British metal scene for quite some time to come.

Annotations of an Autopsy at Myspace (BREEEEEEEEEEEE!)

For a site named Metal Jerks, we really haven’t been that horrible to any of the bands we’ve reviewed. From my own personal standpoint this is because I usually choose to review albums that I like, and even the ones who do disappoint me, I can at least have respect for what they were trying to achieve. Time to review a few bands I have zero respect for then. First up is Deathcore “sensations” Annotations of an Autopsy who inexplicably rose in popularity due to 14 year old’s on myspace who haven’t heard one actual death metal band, and who’s knowledge of hardcore starts and ends with this week’s copy of Kerrang.

The first track after the intro is the titular opener “Welcome to Sludge City” and the first 30 seconds consists of an exceedingly slow generic breakdown with the sound of a teenage boy trying to do Pig Squeals and ending up running out of breath (viva pro-tools and cut and paste!), with some yobbish gang chants that exclaim “she bleeds from every fucking hole”. So far so shit. This then gives way to a cookie cutter 3 bar pseudo-death metal riff that is repeated over and over again before another very similar riff comes into play and so forth. All the time, the asthmatic sow continues to pant and cough and in attempt to try sound “BR00TAL” or whatever gets teenage boys who wear white belts wet these days. Eventually our good friend, the generic breakdown returns and the clearasil powered XHCX choir breaks into a loving chorus of “when I’m done with you, you won’t have a cunt left”. I guess they will have to save their money up and buy another real doll if that happens.

The rest of the EP is the same but with the wheezing swine having his pathetic squeals shifted up to a ludicrous pitch and some out of time attempts at mathcore within the pseudo-death metal. Its deeply unsettling that the new generation took death metal, one of the few genres in any sort of music where all that mattered was how good you were, not how much you were hyped or how good looking your singer was, and attempted to turn it into another revolting cash cow based on image instead of music.

It wouldn’t be so bad, if these kids listened to actual death metal but apparently those bands whether they formed in 1989 or last month are “old mans metal” and we granddads should get with the times and throw our Autopsy (who I’m guessing AOAA haven’t actually heard of) and Morbid Angel records away and listen to a bunch of fuckwits raping death metal as they have a “buff” lead singer and loads of friends on myspace.

You Know what? Fuck that! You know why? Apart from the obvious reasons of taste, sanity, and intellect, most of the “myspace metal” generation will renounce their musical tastes when they reach 18 and go to University and start listening to NME approved Indie. I’ve seen it happen with Nu Metal, Pop Punk and Emo and I’ll see it happen with this. Six or Seven years ago the likes of   Sugar Coma, Sw1tched, The Kennedy Soundtrack and a load of other shitty nu metal acts were popular. Now no one remembers them at all. That is Annotations of an Autopsy’s fate and it can’t come soon enough for me or any other real metal fan.

Gutworm at Myspace

Gutworm mix the aggressive type of fast-paced sludge metal that the Northamptonshire area became famous for in the days of Raging Speedhorn and Scurge with relatively accessible extreme metal à la The Haunted, Strapping Young Lad, At the Gates and Gojira. The result is something that won’t tick any metal stereotype’s boxes. It’s too proletarian and uncool for the scene kids, far too heavy for mainstream metal fans, and too similar to Pantera in places for the extreme metal fans.

Gutworm are a band who will never find a niche, which is in their favour since they’re not pandering to the one crowd. But personally, I think ‘Disfigured Narcissus’ is a step backwards from ‘Ruin the Memory’. There’s less emphasis on their death metal elements, with a perfect example being ‘Imperfect Harmony’, sounding like Crowbar French-kissing Lamb of God. ..And not in a good way!

There’s no equivalent here to ‘What You Are’, the clear standout track of their debut, and as the record progresses you can tell whether part of a particular track is engaging by how metalcore it sounds. Gutworm can pull off sludgy, groovy death metal but I think they might have miscalculated by adding metalcore into their sound. This was never going to be an album that purist death metal fans would enjoy, but it even lacks that crispness and clarity that made ‘Ruin the Memory’ so good.

Austrian Death Machine at Myspace

Austrian Death Machine is a one-man Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute project by As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis. When I first heard of this, I was ambivalent, as I liked the concept, but knew that As I Lay Dying was a metalcore band, and that genre has quite a bad reputation (I have avoided it completely until now). Well, the album wasn’t quite as bad as I feared, but I can’t quite recommend it, either.

First of all, Lambesis doesn’t even attempt to sound like Arnold. The between-song skits and a few songs feature an Arnold impersonator (not Lambesis), but this impression is somewhat inconsistent. Lambesis’ vocals are just generic metalcore yelling, which doesn’t really fit the goofy tone I expected from an Arnold tribute. The drums are a mixture of Lambesis’ playing and a drum machine, and they don’t really stand out, while the bass is barely audible. However, Lambesis’ guitar work is quite good; I would’ve guessed that he was a guitarist and not a singer had I gone in knowing nothing other than that this was a one-man project. The songwriting is also decent; the lyrics are amusing and the soloing is quite good. I also have to commend Lambesis for writing not one, but two songs based on Kindergarten Cop (“Who is Your Daddy, and What Does He Do?” and “It’s Not a Tumor”.)

All in all, this album isn’t horrible, it’s just pretty generic. I’d definitely recommend Arnocorps over this, but metalcore fans will probably enjoy it.