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.

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”.

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.

Toxic Holocaust at Myspace

Long time underground darlings Toxic Holocaust were the first significant American Thrash revival band and “An Overdose of Death” their third full length and their debut for Relapse Records is definitely an album that lives up the hype. Toxic Holocaust have the most original sound of any thrash revival band and instead of taking the usual influence from the big four, crossover thrash and the bay area the sounds of 80’s UK Hardcore Punk (Discharge, G.B.H), 80’s First wave Black Metal (Venom, Bathory, Sarcofago) and Canadian Speed metal (Razor, Exciter) are most prevalent.

“An Overdose of Death” displays a style that is punky without falling into the usual D.R.I/Crumbsuckers clichés that say Cross Examination have, and the Blackened edge is exquisite as it is primeval and raw whilst taking the concept of blackened thrash further than the typical nostalgic Luddite concepts that plague the genre. With the Punk elements Toxic Holocaust are more reminiscent of Abigail/Barbatos genius Yasuyuki Suzuki (who Toxic Holocaust mainman Joel Grind collaborated with on the Tiger Junkies side project) than say Destroyer 666 or Nifelheim. The Speed Metal elements differentiate Toxic Holocaust from Suzuki’s approach with their meaty leads and classic metal-esque yet lightning quick solo’s making “An Overdose of Death” a very different beast from say Barbatos’s “Rocking Metal Motherfucker”.

Like all good thrash revival records this is a record that would have sounded as fresh as in 1985 as it does now. Listen to the riff at 0:40 of “Feedback, Blood, and Distortion” and tell you don’t feel the urge to hurl yourself at the nearest object of a similar mass to yourself whether it’s a water cooler or your grandma. If you don’t, then you should probably listen to Fairyland or whatever kind of lame metal most paintywaist’s like to listen to as this is one for real thrashers.

The Meads of Asphodel at Myspace

The Meads of Asphodel are one of the most unique metal bands I’ve come across. They mix traditional black metal, punk, Middle Eastern music, and electronica in their brand of music, and they do it well. Damascus Steel is their most recent full-length, released in 2005 (two EPs have been released since). The band’s line-up is ever-changing, with vocalist Metatron being the only constant member, and they do not perform live.

Damascus Steel is as varied as any of their previous albums. It’s full of synthesizers, traditional black metal riffs and screamed vocals, and spoken word sections which are pulled off quite well. Most of the band’s lyrics concern war and religion, and they are considerably more thoughtful than most other bands who tackle these topics. Highlights include the opening instrumental Psalm 666, which is littered with samples; the hilarious cover of Louis Armstrong’s “Wonderful World,” with deliciously tasteless rewritten lyrics and Metatron doing a great impression of Armstrong’s gravelly voice, and “The Gods Who Mock Us,” which features a sweet organ solo as well as insanely brutal vocals.

Don’t stay away from this band just because it’s “black metal”- I dislike most bands in that genre, and the Meads are so much more than another black metal band. I highly recommend this release, as well as all their others (except for the 2007 EP “Life is Shit,” which is three fairly straight-up punk covers).

Blut Aus Nord at Myspace

In 2003 Blut Aus Nord released “The Work Which Transforms God” one of the most important black metal releases of this decade. With its icy and mechanical yet deeply occult and malevolent brand of industrial black metal they created a record that was perhaps as relevant to the 00’s as “A Blaze in the Northern sky” or “In the Nightside Eclipse” were to the 90’s. Their immediate follow up 2006’s “Mort” was an even more avant-garde step into the unknown and while it was more unique than “The Work Which Transforms God” it lacked that inhuman air of menace that made its predecessor the classic that it was.

2007’s “Odinist” is a move back towards Black Metal and ironically suffers from the exact opposite problem as “Mort”. Although the Black Metal on display is evil and foreboding to the vilest extremes it lacks the Industrial otherworldliness that made “The Work Which Transforms God” so unsettling and alien. It is a good album as even a flawed Blut Aus Nord record is better than 95% of the black metal records that have been realised in the past 12 months and indeed this decade but if you have had heard The Work Which Transforms God” then it frankly pales. It is still an extremely inventive and nonconformist Black Metal album that absolutely drips with a sinister and misanthropic ambience and is worth checking out. If you haven’t heard any Blut Aus Nord records to date however you would be advised to make The Work Which Transforms God” you’re starting point.

Nachtmystium at Myspace

Nachtmystium are the top American Black Metal band that is active today in the sense that they both apart from the pack and leading it. They were born with the depressive and hate filled persona that is now typical of American Black Metal but they went several steps further than most of their contemporaries with every subsequent release with “Assassins” their fourth and most recent album being the standout so far.

“Assassins” crackles with a vibrant sense of energy rarely seen in the top tier of American Black Metal yet retains the ambience of misanthropic loathing that is the hallmark of this regional scene. It also contains a dramatic sense of dynamism a quality often overlooked by their peers in favour of hypnotic repetitiveness. The influence of Psychedelica and Prog Rock also looms favourably with spacey Robert Fripp style solos and fizzling and bubbling Moogs being examples of this. The influence of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind is seen in spirit if not in body with the mind-bending free flowing but always recurring direction of the melodies on display here.

The lyrics are refreshingly direct and unpretentious yet like most USBM bands still evoke a general distaste for humanity and existence as concepts and yet there are also musical interludes with a deep emotional resonance such as the instrumental “Seasick Part I: Drowned at Dusk” and continuing with a saxophone solo on “Seasick Part II: Oceanborne” that’s sounds like its straight out of the seventies. This is a contender for record of the year, and I would certainly be surprised if any American black metal albums are released that are better in the next 6 months.

Skeletonwitch at Myspace

At my second look at a thrash revival trend I have decided to choose a blackened thrash band in the shape of Ohio’s Skeletonwitch and I have to say this is a band that makes me believe! On “Beyond the Permafrost” Skeletonwitch create 13 thrash tunes that would have been legendary if they had been let slip circa 1986. The riffs, leads and solos on here are all exemplary and the construction of the songs allows one ravaging torrent of guitar mastery to flow into another and create a headbanging fiesta where you won’t stop snapping your neck until the album is over.

Stylistically, Skeletonwitch take the most melodic elements from “In the Sign of Evil” era Sodom and early Bathory and mix them in with the bay area thrash sound and some vintage Immortal. The production by GWAR member Cory Smoot is a crucial part of this records success, with the crystal clear yet balls to the wall approach that he took amplifying this albums power tenfold. Vocalist Chance Garnett’s flexible but defiant Black Metal vocal style also helps to make this album a memorable and regular listen.

Skeletonwitch have a sound that is unmistakably their own rather than belonging to one of the 80’s greats. This is definitely one thrash revival band that can definitely hold their own with the big boys. Listen to the 2 and half minutes of “fire from the sky” and tell me you don’t have just the smallest urge to throw yourself around the room with abandon and with no sense of care. This is what thrash metal is all about my friends!

Primordial at myspace

Primordial cut their own path through the overgrown wasteland that is pagan metal that much is certain. Coming from the Dublin Black Metal scene in the late 90’s they have created their own unique take on a genre that is sadly succumbing to being a travelling freakshow for the Trivium generation. Where certain unnamed “pagan” acts like to frolic with comedy costumes and harebrained peons to “oh so metal” clichés older than the gods themselves, Primordial set out a deadly serious yet earnest and passionate direction for the genre to migrate towards.

There are no clichés on “to the nameless dead” and there is nothing (apart from the other Primordial albums) like this in metal but yet is also seems so straightforward and seemingly obvious now that someone has actually written an album in this style. Yes, it is true that Primordial’s roots can be found in Bathory’s Viking period, the best heavy metal albums of the 80’s and even the dreaded O word, but this is something that evolved beyond those past moment yet keeps in touch with the timeless spirit of the glory days of metal from the 70’s to the 90’s.

All the songs on this album run along at an atmospheric and foreboding mid-pace that allows for a sense of tension that like all good catharsis is in a definition a chore, but a glorious one that you will undertake time and time again. Each song is underpinned by a powerful melody that is melancholy, wistful, melodramatic and brimming with pride all at the same time without being pompous, hackneyed or dreary. Each riff and lead builds upon the central melody of the song and constructs a musical journey that both haunts you remorsefully, and stirs up dormant longings for a lawless yet passionate Europe that we will never fully understand.

Alan Nemtheanga’s unique vocal style also impacts positively upon the overall quality of this album. His clean vocals that are somehow reminiscent of Quorthon and Ian Astbury at the same time are immensely impressive in both their range, and Nemtheanga’s rendering of the passionate feelings that are found in his lyrics. Never has there been a vocalist in metal who could so persuade you to his point of view with a simple inflection or even just a few soaring notes. His Black Metal style rasp occasionally comes into play, and the interplay between his two styles is a joy to behold.

There’s only one word you can use to sum up Primordial; Passionate. This is metal that truly believes in the message behind the music, and has such conviction it can easily convince most learned metal connoisseur’s of that message too.

Winterfylleth at Myspace

Hailing from the most grim and frostbitten city known to man, Mancunian black metal troupe Winterfylleth released this terrific wee demo EP in October 2007, and I’ve listened to it literally squillions of times since. Literally. Fuck, I hate people who misuse ‘literally’.

So seriously, then. This is great. Atmospheric and riffy, Winterfylleth successfully pull off the Eastern European pagan / heathen sound of Hate Forest, Drudkh, early Graveland et al but with a very British ‘tromping about in the rain’ twist. The production is by no means polished, but at least it manages to avoid sounding like your next-door neighbour smashing pans together (like so many BM demos) and instead sounds impressively full and heavy.

The mid-tempo drumming, acoustic influences, and long, repetitive riffs do a great job of making you feel like you’re out in the countryside thinking about how awesome England was before those fucking Roman bastards came and fucked everything up. Running water? Culture? Fuck off. I’ll keep my pig-ear and turnip stew, thanks very much.

The shitty thing about ‘Rising of the Winter Full Moon’, though, is that it’s incredibly short. Three songs, totalling about 17 minutes. But they’re apparently working on an album anyway, so whatever. They best hurry up and finish it and then start playing live so I can watch them at a venue near me, supported by some shitty deathcore band.

So yeah. Grab this if you can, it’s good!