Sahg at Myspace

‘Sahg II’ is unsurprisingly the Second album by Norwegian Doom Metal super-group Sahg. Their first album, unsurprisingly titled ‘Sahg I’, was a superb piece of inventive trad doom inspired principally by Black Sabbath and Candlemass. Their second effort expands both the range of influences and range of contrasting style contained with Sahg’s sound immensely. There are two main directions that Sahg are pulling on ‘Sahg II’. The first is 60′s and 70′s psychedelia with the likes of Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, Cream and Hawkwind being key references points. The swirling, lush and almost seductive tones of the ‘Echoes Ring Forever’ with its epic, seductive drugged-up outro and the chilled out and inventive instrumental that follows it, “from conscious sleep” being prime examples of this.

The second major influence is that of NWOBHM and pre thrash 80’s heavy metal in general such as Witchfinder General, Angelwitch, Manilla Road, and Witchfynde. These elements are usually more subtly placed within the overall ‘Sahg II’ sound with them only coming to the foreground in the fast paced stomper ‘Pyromancer’ but just like the progression between their heroes Candlemass debut and sophomore, the trad heavy metal influences that are more prominent on ‘Sahg II’ than on ‘Sahg I’ change the chemistry of this slice of doom distinctly and when combined with the more overt and noticeable heady psychedelia create a cocktail of metal that is just about irresistible. From the Nostalgic Hammond Organ on ‘Starcrossed’ to the sinister campfire hymn to the dark side of the Age of Aquarius that is ‘Escape the Crimson Sun’, ending with the spacey epic album ender that is ‘Monomania’ this is one sophomore release that ends up bettering the bands stunning debut rather than paling in comparison to it.

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.

Man Must Die at Myspace

In the United Kingdom, there’s a two-tier extreme metal scene – The ‘normal’ one and the ‘scene’ one. The two fanbases rarely cross over, mostly because the normal one is based on how good you are and the ‘scene’ one on how pretty your tshirt designs and members are and how many friends you have on Myspace. Man Must Die are part of the former scene and have, ironically, had more success on continental Europe than in their home country, as support slots on most UK metal tours are taken by the scene bands. The logic being, “Why have 150 on the door for Suffocation if you can have 250, even though 100 of them will fuck off after the support bands as they’ve never heard of Suffocation, don’t like their haircuts much and anyway, it’s a school night”.

The stand out track on ‘The Human Condition’, ‘March of the Clones’ deals with this subject with vitriolic lyrics: ‘Over saturated / With the clone design / Take what’s mine, make it yours / To make a profit you fucking whores’, and while these couplets aren’t exactly Shakespeare it’s great to have a death metal band with lyrics that are actually relevant to modern life in the United Kingdom, especially since the nether-regions of our country are more than scary than most Cannibal Corpse songs. On ‘Waster’ the great Scottish stereotype of ‘neds’ is tackled with the lines ‘Stop sitting with your hand out / No responsibility / You claim poverty every fucking day / Fear, all I see is fucking fear’. Vocalist Joe McGlynn’s vocal style is audible for the majority of the record’s duration while remaining a master class in death metal vocals. It’s a pleasure to have some discernible extreme metal vocals that don’t make you cringe when you work out what the lyrics are.

Musically, Man Must Die have taken the melodic ferocity that Chuck Schuldiner made his own and fused it to both the chaotic nastiness of ‘None So Vile’ era Cryptopsy and the brutal groove of slam death metal. ‘The Human Condition’ could fit into both the technical and brutal death metal camps effortlessly, and the album contains such a range of approaches that there are melodic (think mid-period Death rather than Gothenburg) and progressive moments as well. It is a great feat that the anarchic time sequences at the beginning of ‘March of the Clones’ feature on the same album as the anthem-like, NWOBHM-influenced build up and crescendo in the anti-war polemic ‘Past the Point’. The drumming of former Regorge drummer John Lee is a technical revelation, with his performance on ‘Elitist’ a particular standout. In conclusion, this record is well worth checking out if you are a fan of Death, Cryptopsy, Dying Fetus or Kataklysm.

Ufomammut at Myspace

One of the metal bands I was always embarrassed about liking is Deicide, and one of the reasons why was that any satanic rite undertaken to “Satan spawn the cacodemon” or the like would be one of the lamest blasphemous acts ever committed. It would be the ritual that the guys who went to the A/V club at school and the Young Conservatives at University went to. You want to know the music all the cool kids sacrifice virgins too? Its “Idolum” by Ufomammut, a record that drips with a supernatural malevolence rarely seen in doom metal. Sinister riffs evolve throughout the course of each song producing an air of foreboding that pays off magnificently when each new segments comes into play and chills you to the bone. Behind these gargantuan riffs are haunting keyboard lines played on vintage synths and moaning and howling yet somehow ethereal male and female vocals that bring to mind Jarboe of Swans fame. Add some unsettling laughing, crying and cursing in the background and what you have is possibly the most evil doom record since “Black Sabbath”.

It’s also one of the most original ones I’ve heard in a long while. While the influence of genre staples Hawkwind and Neurosis can be heard within this vile connotation, there are some more unorthodox comparisons that come to mind, like the thought that “Idolum” does for psychedelic doom what Blut aus Nord’s “The Work Which Transforms God” did for industrial black metal, in that it created the genuinely wicked and malicious atmosphere that was always capable of being spawned from the genre’s roots.

The pinnacle of “Idolum” is “Void”, a 21-minute epic that is the penultimate track on the record. It starts with a low-key yet evocative build up, which by the 9 minute mark turns into a sludgy murmuring segment that is somewhat reminiscent of Moss, then subsequently turns into a pulsating yet hypnotic drone that might be considered too much for even Sunn0))). This continues with various intoxicating changes in frequency and tone for 8 minutes before reaching a crescendo with some disturbing spacey synth and distressed female pleading, before kicking into the motherload of all riffs with “Elephantom” acting as a post rock-cum-sludge bookend to the record. This record is so complete for the occult metal experience that the only thing missing is your own virgin to sacrifice, but hopefully you can find one at your local Young Conservative / Republican branch office to enhance your “Idolum” experience. If you want evil metal, as in actual malevolence rather than teenage cartoon theatrics, then this is the album for you.

Manowar at Myspace

Manowar’s most recent studio album is a mixed bag. For one, there are far too many synths, with some tracks having virtually no metal content at all. This makes Manowar sound like a limp-wristed fairy power metal band like Rhapsody, instead of the oiled-up and insanely muscled metal band we’ve all come to love. There’s fairly little narrative for a concept album; most of the lyrics are fairly generic stuff about Norse mythology. Also, there are few hilariously cheesy lines like “may your sword stay wet like a young girl in her prime.” Another problem is that there’s way too much narration, which is as uninspired as the lyrics (an exception is at the end of the excellent track “Sons of Odin”).

The album’s low point is definitely “Glory, Majesty, Unity.” A filler track with virtually no music, this track also has narration by a completely different person than the rest of the album. After a few listens, it dawned on me that the narrator was the one from “The Warrior’s Prayer” from Kings of Metal, an album that was nearly 20 years old when this was recorded! I have no idea why they didn’t re-record it with the new narrator.

The album isn’t entirely bad, though; strong tracks include the aforementioned “Sons of Odin,” as well as “Hymn of the Immortal Warriors” and the bonus track “Die for Metal” (the only non-Viking related song on the album, with typical Manowar lyrics, although the main riff is a little to close to Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” for my tastes). In my opinion, this would’ve been better off if they’d done what they did with their earlier half-hour track “Achilles: Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts” and made one very long song with this album’s material, cut the filler out, and filled out the rest of the album with unrelated tracks.