Motörhead at Myspace

Motörhead isn’t a band that’s known for changing its sound much over the years. Despite the fact that Lemmy is the sole constant member, its sound has remained very consistent over the years. That said, there are differences from album to album; you just have to be playing close attention to hear them.

Orgasmatron (originally released in 1986) was Motörhead’s first album as a four-piece, and the first without drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor (except for “On Parole,” which was recorded in 1975 but not released until 1979). The dual guitars are a nice addition; they’re played by Wurzel and Phil Campbell (who is still in the band today). The production by Bill Laswell has its ups and downs; I liked the obviously sampled backing vocals on the songs “Deaf Forever” and “The Claw”, but Lemmy’s bass playing is just buried in the mix so far that it’s almost completely inaudible.

My favorite song was the title track, which denounces the negative effects of organized religion. This topic was so controversial that no other metal band has dared take it on before or since. All in all, despite a few minor changes from formula, it’s a pretty typical Motörhead album. The songs are simplistic but fun, and Lemmy’s voice is just as scraggly as ever.If you like Motörhead’s other work, check this out; if you hate the band, skip it.

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

Jaldaboath at Myspace

When I heard that Jaldaboath (real name James Fogarty) was recording a solo EP, I was anxious to hear the results. He was a founding member of one of my favorite metal bands, The Meads of Asphodel. However, when I actually got around to hearing this EP, it turned out to be a terrible pile of hoary “medieval” cliches.

Things actually start off fairly well, with a brief intro track leading into “Bring Me the Head of Metatron.” Folk metal has never been one of my favorite subgenres, but this opening track isn’t bad at all. However, things take a turn for the worse for the next three tracks, which use cheesy synthesized “medieval” instruments and have terrible lyrics that not even a Monty Python sketch would touch.  The final track, “Da Vinci’s Code,” isn’t quite as bad as what preceded it, but it’s too late to save the EP. What I loved about the Meads was that they were always going off in different directions; not all of their experiments worked, but they were always interesting. None of that experimentation is in evidence here; it’s just cliche after cliche after cliche.

Now, I don’t hate silliness in metal. I love many bands I find to be incredibly silly; I find the anti-Christian sentiments of many bands to be hilarious, and the macho posturing of bands like Manowar sends me into conniptions. But Hark the Herald is just played too straight for me to get any laughs out of it.  If it’s meant seriously, it’s terrible. If it’s meant as a joke, it’s not funny. This is one of the most disappointing releases of 2008 in my opinion.

Capricorns at myspace

London supergroup Capricorns featuring members and ex members of Iron Monkey, Orange Goblin and Bridge and Tunnel play a form of instrumental stoner/post metal that takes significant influence from post rock yet is not another band that follows in the footsteps of Neurosis and Isis. There is a slight influence drawn from those two bands yes, but the music on display has a sinister foreboding edge to counter the usual spacey thoughtfulness of the genre, Pelican would be another obvious comparison but there is far too much aggression both naked and under the surface in Capricorns music for that to suffice. This is not to say there aren’t moments of calm yet eerie tension as exhibited on “A savage race by shipwrecks fed”.

For fans of stoner and post-metal who want something that isn’t the same old Oceanic/through silver in blood worship but don’t want something too out of the box, “river, bear your bones might be just what you are looking for.

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).

Malefice at Myspace (chugga chugga WEE!)

Malefice are getting quite big in the UK with the kids. That if anything else should tip you off that these guys aren’t going to appeal to most of you. Malefice specialise in the sound of metalcore circa 2003/2004 and if this record came out then I’d at least see what the hypes about. “Entities” takes Unearths poor structuring, As I lay Dying’s Melodic Death plagiarism, Lamb of Gods boneheaded good ol boy ambience and Chimaira’s 100% pure distilled shite-ness and turns them into something quite horrid. If you like those 4 bands you will probably like this, but if you hate them, well you’ll despise this.

I think subconsciously they took influence from Dragonforce as apart from the occasional curveball such as Howard Jones-esque clean vocals (which is as curveballs go is positively straight in this instance) the tracks are near enough exactly the same. They start off with a pseudo-melodic death intro go into a Lamb of God style verse, going into a  breakdown with some melodic leads over the tops of it style chorus and so forth. Now if it was A B A B it would be pretty awful in itself, but in-between those are the occasional half-arsed solo’s and a whole battalion of breakdowns. You have your Lamb of god breakdowns, your Chimaira breakdowns and occasionally just for variety some unusual and relatively unorthodox Unearth breakdowns.

The breakdowns usually last for between a third and a fourth of the songs length. Unless you are Earth Crisis you really can’t get away with that. There was a reason that Obituary and Grave only let the breakdowns on “Cause of Death” and “Into the Grave” respectively last for an exquisitely short period of the songs timespan. If Malefice cut the amount of breakdowns in their songs down, they would be horribly average instead of just horrible. If you want to play metalcore where you play endless breakdowns then play tough guy hardcore there’s a whole sub-genre of that sub-genre of a sub-genre dedicated to that. It just doesn’t work at all if for the remaining part of the songs timespan you play melodic death-lite you learned by osmosis from various metalcore outfits.

Put this together with some retarded tough guy lyrics that even Phil Anselmo would be ashamed of, and the gradual realisation that Malefice are so addicted to breakdowns that sometimes their verse guitar lines are basically incredibly fast breakdowns, then this is another sorry example of British metal gone wrong.

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.

Mithras at Myspace

Mithras has to be one of my favourite recent finds. They actually managed to make their music sound otherworldly and unique, unlike so many other derivative death metal bands. At first, I thought that the album used synthesizers extensively, but after reading an interview with the band, I found out that they were only used during song intros. Guitarist Leon Macey creates some incredible sounds with his guitar that have to be heard to be believed. The band clearly takes more than a little inspiration from Morbid Angel, but still manage to have a sound that stands out among the death metal crowd. Rayner Coss’s vocals are pretty standard death metal fare, but they fit the material quite nicely.

I felt that this album’s only real weakness was the drums. I thought that they might be using a machine, as the blast beats sound awfully mechanical and the band has only two members, but it turns out that Macey plays the drums as well as the guitar. The band would do well to obtain a full-time drummer, but that’s the only real criticism I have. I highly recommend this album to Morbid Angel fans and anyone who enjoys unusual sounds in a death metal setting.

Evile at Myspace

Thrash is cool again in the sense that new thrash bands are actually getting some exposure (its not like there was ever a shortage of them) and the old stalwarts of the genre (and I don’t mean the big four!) are getting some welcome attention from younger fans. But is it all that its cracked up to be? In the case of Evile I’m afraid it doesn’t seem to be. I wanted to like this record, I really did, like a doubting Christian I want so hard to believe. To believe that thrash is alive and kicking in the 21^st century. Maybe it still is, but I’m afraid “enter the grave” by Evile isn’t the proof I was searching for.

If you want to emulate your heroes, you have to make something that’s up there with the best of them or least is a good way there. A good example of this from another genre is Reverend Bizarre who despite releasing their first record 15 years after trad doom’s heyday were still up there quality wise with Trouble, Candlemass, the Obsessed etc. The crucial difference was although the sound Reverend Bizarre created could have been theoretically come about anytime since the early 80’s, it was their own unique sound. They took influence from the Archetype (Sabbath, duh!), their aforementioned followers and a few forgotten gems to create their own unique sound.

You see, that’s what I want from a thrash revival band. I want a band that takes the influences of all those 80’s giants and creates their own unique take on thrash and Evile just don’t do this. To be blunt, this isn’t the sound of Evile it’s the slightly modified sound of Slayer. More specifically this is the sound of “Hell Awaits” slowed down a bit, more tuneful solo’s and with a greater emphasis on groove. If you love Slayer, you’ll probably like this, but to be honest for everyone else it isn’t anything that’s going to amaze or shock you. Another part of the problem is the song lengths. Unless you are Sabbat or Voivod and thus have a genius on guitar you really shouldn’t go into old school thrash if you want to make lengthy tracks. “We Who Are About to Die” is a case in point. It features the best riff on the album, but the effect of that is negated by a song that should be around 3 minutes long being dragged out to almost 8!

I’m going to casting a critical but fair eye over the thrash revival scene from now on as its reached a level of press hype (at least in the UK) that they would have been a backlash against if it were say Metalcore or Power Metal. As I say before, I want to believe in it, desperately so, but on the first look at the evidence here today I’m afraid the search might be in vain.