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Beardfish - Sleeping In Traffic: Part One
(Inside Out) Review
by Steve Green |
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When fellow L4M scribe Joe offered to wing this one
across the Atlantic to me, I have to be honest I accepted the offer
completely blind. With a name like Beardfish, I just had to hear this
one, and for two stupid reasons: 1, I have a long beard and 2, I overuse
the word fish in my vocabulary - IE: you have the brain of a dead fish.
With that stupid, yet truthful reason out of the way, I have to say my
friend Joe has once again got my taste spot on.
Beardfish are living in the 70s and sometimes the 60s. This is a laidback,
often quirky, mixture of Prog, Folk and a smattering of Hippyness.
Genesis are probably the biggest influence I hear on Sleeping
In The Traffic, mainly due to the keyboards, but the melting
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is so huge I could through The Beatles, Zappa and a whole load
of 70s Prog bands at
you. Yet for all the comparisons, there's almost no hint of plagiarism as this
is all covered in a special Beardfish sauce. Roulette, on the other hand
is so Supertramp it could be the crime of the century (I know, a superb,
yet subtle insertion of a well known song title) As it happens, Roulette
actually turns out to be the best song on the album. Its retro feel is
shrouded in warmth and familiarity and I'm taken back to my pre-teen
years and my first forays into discovering music. Which is exactly where
the heart of this album is, slap bang in the centre of the 1970s.
With Sam blasting out an old Van Der Graaf Generator cd she's just
bought at full blast an every given moment, this (mad)house is gradually
turning into Prog Central. Which ain't such a bad thing.
www.insideout.de |
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Civillian - Mask (Rockwagon) Review by Steve Green |
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When the old school meets the new school. This is a three
tracker from an up and coming band that despite their modern
stance are supposedly influenced by the likes of Thin Lizzy
and Maiden, as well as newer bands such as Bullet For My
Valentine and Trivium. Apart from the occasional twin guitar
sound that could be associated with Maiden and the ending of
the song Mask, this is definitely not old school Metal, or not
as this 40 year old Metalhead sees it. As I seem to be saying
with increasing frequency, this is music for the Scuzz/Kerrang
generation.
While they certainly know how to strike a moody pose in their
press photos, that's were the |
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attitude stays as there's nothing new happening here to make
me sit up and take notice. I'm not saying the band are short
of talent, because everything on this single sounds great,
mainly because of the beefy production courtesy of Skunk Anansie guitarist Ace. But bar
the guitar solo on Don't Die, it's all pretty predictable fare I'm
afraid.
www.myspace.com/civillian1 |
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Darkwater - Easy Weakness/Alone And... (Up Next
Records) Review
by Steve Green |
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Fate. A very powerful word and something I believe in
strongly. And fate is a perfect word to describe how Darkwater found
their singer Lora after they saw her on the X-Factor (you know, the shit
TV programme which features Ozzy's utterly appalling ball and chain)
After their manager tracked her down, and she agreed to join the band,
the rest, as they say, is history.
With Darkwater having played with a diverse range of bands, including:
The Damned, Dog Eat Dog, Rattlesnake Remedy and To-Mera, it's hard to
pinpoint who they'll appeal to, on this, their debut single.
Easy Weakness has a ballsy swagger that'll definitely appeal
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Marilyn Manson fans, even if Lora has a sweet sweet voice.
Alone And... is a much darker entity and will probably appeal
more to the Electro-Darkwave brigade, although
there is a chance those with more broadminded tastes will enjoy this
too. I have to admit, after a couple of listens, it won me over,
especially the rousing finale.
www.darkwateruk.com |
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Evil Dead - Sponuenky Na Predkov (Osiris Productions)
Review by Crin |
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A wonderfully obscure Black Metal release from Slovakia,
with a bawling, croaking vocalist who sounds like he's gargling hogs
shit and nails.
You could say the Black Metal side show of Evil Dead is as
bizarre as the album title [unless you're Slovakian that is}
From the intro of medieval keyboard effects [reminding me of
Gravelands Darken instrumental works] the roughly hewn music
burst into life and after a few minutes it becomes apparent
the band are barking mad.
Between the dreamy, joyless, Burzumeque keyboard instrumentals
that break up the unrefined musical madness, a sporadic
pattern of bizarre song creativity emerges. Each |
track is a ramshackle collection of thoughtful guitar lines,
highly melodic riffs and thoroughly mainstream rhythms
colliding head on with eccentric vocals, brutal drum patterns
and ice colt atmospheres.
The chaotic is absorbed by the melodic and vice versa, the
warmth of the slower sections is blasted by the frost laden
battery of the faster parts.
Its quite captivating at times as you never quite know what
the band are going to do next, and worryingly, you wonder if
the band do either.
There is a feeling for other Eastern European bands within the
musical mayhem. The more accessible essence of Gods Tower
and Root.
The production is muffled, and sets the whole experience
worlds apart from the crisp, polished sounds of more
established acts.
So, if you like the unpredictable, then these raving Slovaks
will rain their furious Black Metal dementia over your world
and drown you in a musical myriad of unhinged melodies and
confused vocal sequences. Invigorating stuff indeed.
www.osirisproductions.ic.cz |
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Evocation - Tales from the Tomb (Cyclone Empire)
Review by Chris Davison |
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Was it really 2004 since Evocation had their old demos
released? Blimey, time sure does fly in the crazy celebrity
world of reviewing extreme metal. In between getting noshed
off by Kate Moss and snorting Ajax with George Michael, I've
listened to their self titled demo quite a bit, even getting
evangelical about the utter quality of the recordings to my
chums of an old school disposition. Since then, the Swedish
masters of the true spirit of the necrotic nature of death
metal have returned with some brand spanking new material.
Killer!
For those of you not in the know, taking their history and
potting it down into easily digestible chunks, Evocation are a
death metal band who were formed way back in 1991, |
but never quite got round to releasing their music at the
time, until they were contacted in 2004 and asked if a record
company could release their demos collected together as a full
length CD. To say that it caused a stir was a bit of an
understatement, as this really was amazing death metal that
was every bit as good as, if not better than many of the their
contemporaries.
Well, it seems as if that really got the ball rolling, and
heartened by the positive response, they finally got round to
writing and recording new music. I'm happy to report that this
is a grade A, bona fide treat for anyone disposed to gnarly,
memorable death metal with an old school grounding and one eye
on the future. In the very most condensed of terms, this is
the kind of release that all the pretenders that are currently
peddling a very retrospective version of old school death
could never produce; it drips authenticity and workmanship
from every possible pore.
“Chrome Hell” is a case in point, its very core built up on
the impossibly excellent drumming, the guitars which have a
tone that not even Entombed at their finest could match, and a
bass that rumbles lower than elephants can hear. The vocals
are an inhuman, mighty roar, evoking images of the bestial and
the esoteric at once. But the riffs! Oh the riffs! By jove,
can these blighters craft a hook. Seriously, there are entire
fishing villages with less hooks than those in this song. Yet
as I mentioned, this is not an album that's entirely stuck in
the past; several of these riffs are more catchy than anything
strictly old school could ever hope to be, and the production
is nothing other than a modern bloody miracle, to be honest.
It manages to capture both the whirling-blades-of-death
ferocity of raw unbridled fury with a clear, punchy and
immediate power that can often be found lacking. The song
writing has been honed to absolute perfection, so that when a
track opens with a sonic firestorm such as the explosive “Feed
the Fire”, a true sense of dynamism is constructed through
tempo changes, a true sense of atmosphere and menace.
Of course, what album would be complete without a cover
version these days? Evocation pay homage to the originators
of the classic sound, with a rousing rendition of the old
Nihilist classic “But Life Goes On”, and this is an absolute belter. Not only is the music absolutely heavier and more
spiky than the original, but the vocals are completely
deranged and mental! No one can touch Evocation at old school
death metal in the Swedish vein, and I mean no one. Unleashed? Great comeback. Dismember? Dependable. Grave? Nice Try. Demiurg? Whatever. Give me Evocation, give me death.
www.cyclone-empire.com |
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Gloomy Sunday – Beyond Good and Evil (Solitude
Productions) Review by Chris Davison |
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Ah, more far flung doom from the Solitude Productions label. This is
rather a surprising find. Beyond Good and Evil, with their
bloke holding a crucifix-aloft front cover had me thinking
“traditional doom” in a heart beat, but it really isn't as
simple as that. First, of course, came the obligatory Google
search, which told me that this bunch of malcontents are based
in Sweden, and secondly that “Gloomy Sunday” was a smash hit
in the thirties for a Hungarian composer, and known as the
“suicide song” thanks to the apocryphal tales that young
lovers were so depressed upon hearing the mournful tones that
they threw themselves from the nearest available open window.
(Fatalities for bungalow dwelling lovers are not |
recorded).
Well, I don't think that I can expect a deluge of
defenestrated downers any time in the future, but this is some
enjoyable downtuned, superfuzzed scuzzy shit on a platter,
that's for sure. The guitar tones are so subterranean that
only as yet undiscovered tribes of Morlocks can properly
reproduce them using conventional instrumental ism. In rather
simple terms, this is crust-doom, with more than a passing nod
at classic Electric Wizard at their most aggressive. There are
nods here and there to the more extreme ends of the hardcore
movement with the vocal style (hoarse, unhinged maddened
screaming), and the drumming style that veers between the
“power-of-the-hit” Bill Ward school of thrashing your kit like
a Canadian hunter at a seal sanctuary, and the
almost-breakdown style of the short haired back pack wearing
brigade. Opener “Living Dead At The Trade Centre Morgue” sets
the tone perfectly, sick as sleeping with your sister and
twice as ugly, resplendent with the Ministry-esque Bush sample
towards the end.
Thick, python sized riffs come thick and not-so-fast
throughout, and I have found the album probably at its best
while completely drunk and throwing all my caution to the
wind. For sure, there's little here that's going to reinvent
the wheel, but at heart, this is a devastatingly heavy,
rumbling grumbling sonic punch to the throat. Call me a
masochist, but I kind of like that action.
http://solitude-prod.com/ |
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Hordes of the Morning Star - Torture (Pray for Death
Productions) review by Sam Thomas |
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It’s not often that I receive a CD to review that has me
closely examining the packaging, but this one certainly did!
Packaged in a DVD case with paper stained with tea to look
like parchment (it works!) and a press release on similarly
antique-looking paper sealed with a sticker with magical
signs, “Torture” from Hordes of the Morning Star definitely
stood out. And there was a strange smell to it as well, but
let’s not get personal.
This is a very interesting release for an American band,
because it sounds so much like early Norwegian black metal. In
fact, I would have sworn blind that they were Norwegian, but,
according to the information I have, they are in fact probably
from Texas. Not particularly |
known for its cold dark landscapes, but that’s exactly what
this duo manage to evoke, with more than a hint in the
direction of “Soulside Journey” era Darkthrone, and with vocals that put me in mind of Ancient
or possibly Burzum (when Varg had vocals, of course).
It’s a little gem of an EP which does exactly what a demo
should do: it demonstrates what the guys are capable of, but
without becoming a disjointed collection of tracks which are
impossible to listen to as a whole. This work is described by
the band as “a product of the anxiety, fear, hatred and rage
that grows exponentially in an increasingly meaningless and
hostile world”. Just as well they aren’t happy chaps, though,
we would have been deprived of a lovely little piece of
doom-tinged black metal. Because, although this release is
dripping with homage to Norway, it still has enough
originality to be interesting. I would not dismiss this as
derivative at all, it’s plenty good enough to stand on its own
merits.
The construction of the EP is also very good: there’s still
room for an intro, which is the perfect scene-setter (dark,
ominous noises and rumbling growls), followed by three tracks
of high-energy drumming with screamed and sneered vocals,
leading up to a final track which has the sounds of knives
being sharpened in anticipation of the bloodletting that is to
come. It’s a brilliant way to end, a little cliffhanger in
musical form that leaves you waiting to see what Hordes of the
Morning Star will be capable of when they (and I’m sure they
will) eventually get their record deal.
http://pfd.cjb.net |
www.myspace.com/prayfrodeathproductions |
www.myspace.com/whoreinquisitor
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Monstrosity - Spiritual Apocalypse (Metal Blade) Review by
James Young |
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‘Monstrosity still stand taller than ever fifteen years later’
says the info-sheet for Monstrosity’s new album. I can’t
absolutely agree with the fact that they’ve always ruled the
roost, as I’ve been disappointed in the past with the output
of these Floridian death metallers. But what I can one hundred
percent endorse is the fact that this, their new album,
absolutely kicks the behinds of so many contemporary metal
acts. To list the line-up changes that have plagued this and
would be both long and pointless, but let it be said that
there have been many, and this is the best I have heard the
outfit sound since the Corpsegrinder days, and that is saying
something. This is forty-six minutes of catchy, |
entertaining brutality, start to finish, and there are no
hints of hardcore influence in the slightest, but just
old-school Florida death metal as it should be played. The
production is as good as ever, with Mike Hrubovcak’s vocals extremely powerful in the
mix, which is a wonderful thing, as this guy is throat-wreckingly
good. The cookie-monster technique is present in full force,
grunting throughout the record, with the occasional tortured
scream, and not a clean vocal in sight. Perfect.
Where previous releases have been shown up by a lack of
variation, this is clearly not the case here, evident from the
magnificent riff that the opening song and title track
‘Spiritual Apocalypse’ is built around. What I love about this
album is original member Lee Harrison’s drumming, which has a
brilliant ‘human’ quality – it doesn’t feel mechanical like
the Behemoths and Dying Fetuses of the metal world, but you
can actually feel the blood and sweat that has gone into the
playing. This is not a bad thing at all, because the speed and
intricacies are absolutely outstanding, such as the little
hi-hat clicks in ‘Firestorm’ which are in perfect sync with
the guitar riffs. Sometimes Lee is given license to just fill
empty voids in the sound, as in ‘Triumph In Black’, and the
result is an awesome display of speed and control. We are
treated to a mix of blastbeats, such as in ‘Within Divisions
Of Darkness’, and mind-drilling double bass drum goodness,
showcased on ‘Remnants of Divination’. Working in perfect
harmony with the drums are the guitars, courtesy of Mark
English, such as in the intro to ‘The Inhuman Race’, which is
just a perfect display of disciplined headbangable evilness.
The guitar solos crank things up many notches from previous
albums, sounding more grandiose than ever, ‘The Bloodline
Horror’ is a particularly memorable number, with the riffs
sailing along in wonderful unison with the varied drumming
patterns, and it really is a treat to hear.
It’s a breath of fresh air (or old air should I say) to hear a
band sticking to their death metal roots as Monstrosity have
done in their new album, and not going along the mainstream
metal-core road as too many good bands have done. What we have
here is a monster of an album that could rival Morbid Angel or
Deicide in their prime. The only way it could get any better
is if the band tour this year, but failing that, just make
sure you’ve heard this album. It really is that good.
www.metalblade.de |
www.monstrosity.us |
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