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Sanctorum - The
Heavens Shall Burn (Rising Records) review by Matt Mason |
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Things are starting to look up in the UK metal scene.
Bloodstock goes from strength to strength. New festivals and
bands are springing up all over the shop and selling well and
Dragonforce are wowing the kids and introducing them to guitar
solos and fun where was previously only glumness and beatdowns.
Add to this Priest and Maiden back on top form then it is a
great time to a UK metaller young or old.
Add to this orgy of heavy-osity the debut album by Essex boys
Sanctorum. Rising Records released The Heavens Shall Burn on
September 11th. Luckily there is more of interest here than
the morbid anniversary it shares. |
Only formed in 2002, these Colchester lads play with a skill
and vigour which belies an accomplished and cohesive unit. Skintight metal is the order of the day with equal parts
thrash (old skool) and Scan death. The band wear their
influences on their sleeves, most notably to these ears early
career In Flames, Heartwork era Carcass and Testament. There is
also a soupcon of Machinehead in their metallic broth.
Sounds tasty eh?
This truly does rock like a bad mother and whilst the
production is not Bang and Olufsen crystal clear, it is a darn
sight better than many bands on majors that have assaulted my
lugholes over the years. The screaming solos in Closure are a
case in point. Hard to type at the moment as I wanna air
guitar along to this bastard!
The lyrics are very poignant for ones so young, and whilst
owing some debt to a rhyming dictionary, provide a great window
into the world of this quartet.
The slower passages in songs such as Stand Alone also work
well with the squalling outro that segues into “Rise” sticking
a gun behind the hairs on my neck and forcing them to
attention.
The aforementioned “Rise” is heads down thrash. Sanctorum have
the nowse to know when to go full pelt and when to take their
foot off the pedal and add some grooooooooooooooooooove!
“Watch Me Suffer” is a case in point. This is a deliciously
nasty tune with plenty of melody and a resolutely old skool
solo which will please fans of Cathedral.
There are so many standout tracks on this debut I am quickly
running out of funky praise to fling at them. This is metal
folks how it used to be, but only in the energy and the
attitude. There is nothing remotely hackneyed or rehashed
about this platter.
These guys really sound like they mean it. Sanctorum sound
like they were put together with blood, sweat and beer soaked
denim in a garage rather than some record execs casting room.
This album is not without faults and is raw in places but in
my opinion all the better for it.
Sanctorum are definitely worth looking out for - fancy playing
in Lowestoft boys?
www.sanctorum.co.uk |
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Seven Stitches – The
Face Alone Does Not Reveal the Man (Recital)
Review by Samuel
Munch-Petersen |
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I start by likening Portugal raised Seven Stitches to The
Haunted. Very much the same type of bog standard metal that
you hear from time to time. Could even be likened to Lamb of
God, though I like Lamb of God quite a bit so I won’t say
they’re bog standard metal. There’s nothing on the album that
I feel is out of place or unstable with regard to the whole
ensemble. The World It’s For Sale starts us off and is a good
piece of music with no elements that really stand out or flop.
Guitar work is pretty and expertly executed by Bixo and
Gingado, which allows the bass to pummel through with true
solid ability. Drums are applied well to the final solution
with pedal work placed in seemingly apt areas. The only |
gripe I
guess I have is the fact that the vocals seem a bit queasy;
they border on pure guttural gurgling and normal heavy
screaming and don’t really work that well with the music I
have to say. They just appear off.
Wall of a Fortress takes us half way through the album and
gives me some hope for the latter part of the rollercoaster
and I’m not that disappointed. Down to Earth that follows,
gives us a nice blastbeat orientated tune to bang our heads
to whilst at the same time letting us experience slow metal,
Portuguese style. And then the last three tracks are taken
from the demo released in 2005 titled; While We Don’t Take
Over Death, which sound fine in comparison to the spotless
production of The Face Alone Does Not Reveal the Man.
This album certainly grows on you after every listen. It has a
certain panache that I like, much like a good buttered piece
of toast. I can feel that Seven Stitches would be a good band
live, their tracks are jumpy, fast and powerful, with enough
energy behind them to put the bravest of bangers or pitters to
the limit. Overall I’d say that Seven Stitches are a superior
band that although sounding quite mainstream are in fact
worthy of being on the border of underground. The album is
eight tracks long and doesn’t drag as much as you may think.
The incessant blastbeats pull you along like a twig in water;
pooh sticks it is then.
Give these guys a try and expect to be impressed, though if
you’re a heavy believer in non-mainstream metal, maybe not
your thing. Though you could be surprised.
www.sevenstitches.net
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Shatter Messiah -
Never to Play the Servant (Dockyard 1) review by Matt Mason |
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Now I like Nevermore. Probably not as much as the next man.
But I have seen them twice, bought a couple of t-shirts and 4
albums. Nevermore are great OK. That’s got that out of the
way. Now imagine you once toured as 2nd guitarist for
Nevermore and then joined Annihilator for a couple of albums.
Well that is just what Curran Murphy did. Now he has decided
to start his own merry band of minstrels - Shatter Messiah.
In Never to Play the Servant, Curran et al have created 14
tracks of competent but uninspiring Nevermore/Annihilator
tinged metal. The opening two tracks Never to Play and Crucify
Freedom should send Warrel Dane and the lads from Seattle
scurrying to a |
Copyright lawyer. There is a feast of technical
guitar playing within both but to these it just comes off as
sounding unoriginal and dated.
Track 4 “Hatred Devine” (sic) is darker and meatier sounding
with vocalist Greg Warner testing his tonsils on some nice
harmonies and ravaged snarls. The band, which includes
sometime Annihilator session drummer Rob Falzano are as tight
as the proverbial insects shit chute but that does not a great
CD make.
“Inflicted” sprints off the blocks like a Nuclear Assault or
Agnostic Front track but Wagner’s vocals just do not suit this
crossover style and it comes across as sounding forced.
I am sorry to say that “Drinking Joy “actually has me laughing
and reminds me why I have never got into Yes or ELP. “Bad
Blood” reminds me of Coal Chamber in it’s intro (there are not
enough ! In the world to do this justice!)
In conclusion Shatter Messiah appear to be a group of
competent session musos who fancy a bit of the limelight for a
while and I am sure live they could put on a hell of a show. I
however would not be there to witness it.
If you are a fan of Nevermore and fancy hearing the lite
version then pick this up. Me? I found more use for this CD
using it to liberate a spider trapped in my shower!
www.shattermessiah.com |
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Souls Harbor –
Writings on the Wall (Crash Music)
By: Ray Van Horn, Jr. |
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In a blatant attempt at diversification, Crash Music brings us
Souls Harbor, which a number of preliminary reviewers are
tagging a bazillion comparables unto these lads from the South
Carolina/Georgia region, but they’re citing the wrong ones.
Souls Harbor resurrects late nineties nu-metal agro riffs and
rhythms made briefly popular by Papa Roach, Sevendust and POD
with a touch of Ill Nino minus the latter’s Latin syncopation.
This means Souls Harbor brings very little new to the table.
In fact, most of the new generation of self-dubbed metal
“purists” is likely going to verbally defecate all over this
album.
However, for its obviousness, Souls Harbor’s Writings On the
Wall benefits from an |
upbeat
agenda and introspective positivity such as “For Me” and the opening track “Scared,”
which might’ve been written by Papa Roach with its anecdotes
about losing everything you’ve gained within the blink of an
eye if you’re not careful to treat it preciously.
Ironically enough, Doug Marshall has a very commanding voice
and that is one of the appeals of Souls Harbor. As much as nu-metal
is scourged by today’s cooler-than-thou audiences, you have to
miss some of the actual singing versus the screaming,
bellowing, growling and puking that’s become the norm in
today’s metal. Unfortunately, the monster glut of gut-busting
yowlers has now become hardly a good trade-off, if not for the
articulation of their bands lending them credence.
It’s become such a staple of redundancy that as Souls Harbor
regurgitates the old nu-metal motifs with a few contemporary
breakdown rhythms such as on “Scars of Pain” and “Nothing,”
Writings On the Wall becomes a pretty listenable album.
Largely written while the band was in the military, the
strange effect for their cause in being a tad behind the times
paradoxically works to their benefit. As the sharply-written
“Call For You” becomes an outright ballad for these guys,
Souls Harbor displays a commercial sense of songwriting that
will endear them to a certain branch of metal fans if not the
entire contingency. That being said, Writings On the Wall is a
mostly enjoyable album if you’ll spare them crucifixion for
not being the next Black Dahlia Murder or Autumn Offering.
www.crashmusicinc.com
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Uncreation’s Dawn –
Death’s Tyranny (Northern Heritage) Review by Frank Allain |
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Yet more filthy blasphemy pours forth from the Finnish
underground. For a country with such a small population, there
seems to be an unrelenting and steady torrent of high-quality
grimness emanating from their shores. Either most young
Finnish males play in a black metal band or the same few
characters are cropping up again and again in different
projects, in much the same way as the musically incestuous
‘inner circle’ of Norway in the mid-nineties. Uncreations
Dawn, whilst obviously well connected, I don’t believe feature
any ‘names’ as such and play fearsome, rabid, primitive black
metal in their own words ‘Inspired by bands from the days of
Venom and Slayer to Burzum and Beherit’. These four fanatics
are most |
definitely not messing about and ‘Death’s Tyranny’, their
second full-length album for the legendary Northern Heritage
label, is a resolutely old-school, ‘fist-in-the-face’ blast of
savagery and uncompromising ideals.
The most immediate aspect of this release is the immediacy of
the production – having expected a murky, indistinct and lo-fi
rumble, I was pleasantly surprised when the punchy, powerful
strains of ‘Lifeless Dominion Opens’ crashed out of the
speakers. Uncreations Dawn have summoned an unholy, ugly sound
here, marrying primitive brutality with sheer noisiness to
gruesome effect. Theirs is not an approach laced with subtlety
and the directness of the sound further enhances the
brisket-thick meatiness of their riffing. At their best when
ratcheting things down to a brutal, militaristic stomp on
tracks such as ‘Luciferian Conquest’, their occasional forays
into more blast-orientated sections meet with mixed results.
The distended mid-section of ‘Wolfage Warcommand’ with its
echoes of Voivod-style discordance is a refreshingly vigorous
frenzy but the single-note tremolo picked riffs that crop up
towards the end of ‘Strangulation’ come across as thin and
clumsily executed.
‘Death’s Tyranny’ also suffers from being rather too long – at
nearly sixty minutes in length, the band’s primitive and
stripped-down approach starts to become a little grating and
repetitive, wearing thin long before the album reaches it’s
conclusion. Their aesthetics and their sound are suitably
hostile and for half-an-hour or so, this is certainly
invigorating stuff that is guaranteed to get heads nodding in
primal appreciation. The passion in the music is unmistakable
- this is a release on Northern Heritage after all, a label
almost legendary in it’s strict signing policy and requirement
for acts to truly believe in what they are doing. However,
Uncreation’s Dawn perhaps need to raise their musical game a
notch or two before they can truly rub shoulders with the
‘elite’.
www.cfprod.com/nh/index3.htm |
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Walls of Jericho -
With Devils Amongst Us All (Trustkill)
Review by MetalGeorge |
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Hmm, it seems that on this, Walls of Jericho's third full
length for Trustkill Records, we finally see some cracks in
the Detroit act's previously impenetrable Hardcore skin. The
shocking thing is that "With Devils Amongst Us All's" biggest
flaw also happens to be the band's strongest asset: vocalist
Candace Kucsulain. The choice to incorporate nasal, monotonous
clean singing amidst Kucsulain's usual histrionics is a bad
one, and single handedly ruins album opener "A Trigger Full of
Promises". Things look up a bit on "I Know Hollywood and You
A'int It", but the generic and powerless musical delivery and
well-worn breakdown sections ruin what impact the song
initially creates. Ultimately, that is the tail of |
the tape
for the record's remainder, as well. The precise guitar and
rhythm attack seems to have been toned down to an almost
ineffectual dull edge. Rather than leading, WoJ seem content
to follow. Funny, because what always struck me about Walls of
Jericho (besides their vicious live shows) was their
fast-as-fuck, cut-and-run attack on albums such as "The Bound
Feed the Gagged" and 2004's "All Hail the Dead". On this
release, the band sounds out of steam and tired, a far cry
from the raging presence so forcefully laid down previously.
Sure, the Slayer-isms remain, and Kucsulain is still one of
the fiercest frontwomen out there, but for the first time that
energy fails to translate onto record. This is a shame,
because I've seen in person what this band is capable of: they
get things moving, take no prisoners, and offer no quarter.
"With Devils." suffers not only from a lackluster performance,
but also a relatively safe and ineffectual production courtesy
of Ben Schigel (Zao, Ringworm, Chimaira). All of these things
combine into quite the disappointment from a band that is
certainly destined and deserving of better.
www.wallsofjericho.tv
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