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Champion - Different Directions: The Last Show DVD/CD
(Bridge
Nine)
Review by Samuel Munch-Petersen |
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You want a good sense of “core”? The you can’t beat Champion.
This final show of theirs recorded at El Corazon in Seattle
has something of an epic feel about it. The band have been
going for ten years roughly and have been through the wars.
Claimed to be Bridge Nine’s hardest working band they have
certainly seen their fair share of band members come and go.
With the likes of a bass change from Ben Colton to Andy Norton
and two guitar changes from Eagle Barber and Timm McIntosh to
Aram Arslanian and Chris Williams there’s no wonder they’ve
progressed and changed over their rather small array of
releases; two EPs and split and one full length. Of course the
drummer was changed more |
times than any other band member; three times in fact from Joe
Preston to Jeff Boltz to Brandon
Wallace to the last stick wielder, Todd Preboski.
Champion have given a shedload of excellent shows to the
public. They’ve played across the globe from Asia to the
Caribbean and have brought nothing but very, very good music.
They’ve becoming something of a martyr in the world of “core”
and there are those out there who wish to fill the gap. For
those who believe in straight edge and everything it entails
then there’s no doubt you’ve already bought this last show
release. For those of you who call yourself punk fans, I’m
sure you too have bought this album. For those of you who
appreciate the musical soundings of hundreds of voices
screaming lyrics and music being played with a passion other
than a gentle swing backwards and forwards then you’ll
appreciate this album too.
The recording of the album itself was done by High Roller
studios who have done Killadelphia from Lamb of God’s
repertoire and Every Time I Die’s Shit Happens DVD amongst
many others. This six-angle show finds every nook and cranny
to be exploited and recorded for those devoted fans as well as
the band members I’m sure as some trophy or memoir.
Hardcore and straight edge seems to develop, at least for
Champion, as an evangelical step up to the ways of the life we
live. The tracks come thick and fast and with fourteen of them
you expect it to be short but the album seems to carry on for
a while, this is of course due to the several minutes worth on
most tracks about edge and broken edge as well as thanks and
recognition to other bands and friends and family. I don’t
personally fall in with all this straight edge stuff. It’s a
movement that doesn’t do anything for me, but if it does for
you, then I hope it’s working in a positive way.
The album is Champion’s final goodbye to the world whilst
Betrayed takes float with Todd and Aram continuing their love
of music. The rest of the band find themselves hiding away and
coming out at night edging it up in the pits and making sure
that music is still alive within their resounding lungs.
This is a great accompaniment to a DVD collection of music and
definitely for hardcore fans. A decent collection of the
classics that will forever be held tight on CD and now DVD
form are ready for you to own (and I’m sure you already do).
Enjoy the relaxation and the gigs to come you members of
Champion that were.
www.myspace.com/champion |
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Daymares - Can't Get Us All (Selfmadegod)
Review by Steve Green |
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If you are looking for something original, then it's best
you leave immediately. If want to hear some raucous hardcore
tinged Punk N Roll in the vein of Entombed, then crack open a
beer or two and enjoy the party. Having been together for less
than a year, these Poles are obviously no slouches when it
comes to knocking together a batch of rockin' tunes for this,
their debut album. And if you are of the opinion that this may
be a rushed release, then think again. They fly out of the
blocks with the raw as fuck, Get Us All, complete with Punk
attitude and hardcore gang shouts. It may only last for under
100 seconds, but its impact is huge. From there on it's easy
into slip into Daymares welcoming groove. They may be
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revisiting familiar grounds throughout the 11 tracks, but that
doesn't stop it from being an exciting listen. Cult Leader is
brimming with tension as drummer Arek pummels shit out his kit and is up there with
anything off the new Death Before Dishonor opus in terms of
energy, and punkier numbers such as Almost There and The Bigger
The Lie, simply slay everything in their way.
I think Can't Get Us, will appeal to fans of many genres.
Metalheads are going to love the comparisons with Entombed and
caustic riffing. Which in turn will appeal to the punks,
especially with the high-octane energy levels and the raw,
in-your-face attitude. This brings us to the hardcore fans,
who will obviously lap up the gang shouts and the sense of
unity that is prevalent throughout. Fucking brilliant.
www.myspace.com/yourdaymares |
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Death Chain - Cult of Death (Dynamic
Arts Records) Review by Robert Beeton |
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Finland’s Death Chain simply bought a thought into my mind
best described by Cannibal Corpse. “Would anyone like to
be fucked with a knife”? Their third album (the follow up to
their 2005s “Death Thrash Assault” and 2003s Dead Meat
Disciples”) is not for the faint hearted. With
so much evil and corruption this could simply drive your
brains cells into accusing each other of being a witch and
therefore comes a mass slaughtering. Then again if you like
dancing around in circles of fire and worshipping anything to
do with the anti-Christ then walk this way and plug these wise
words into your blackened ear sockets.
Drums that sound like a load of bones clashing together
rejected by the hungry cannibals |
of hell and vocals with
enough heat to make a soul eject from its precious warm,
casing and then wither are enough for any hardcore death metal
fan to be sarcastically miserable and want to puke a gut load.
With a dosage of only eight tracks you may think its short and
you’ll have enough time to even go and piss blood. But with
this amount of brutality and ear beating you’ll find that
those worms creeping around inside of you will be definitely
full!
Psychotic violent slashing and slicing with sharp implements
best describes how the guitars work while being bound to a
backdrop of “sweet and pretty basslines” that are sure to make
you cry in delight. Death Chain throughout “Cult of Death”
easily makes you feel like a dead carcass being dragged
ferociously by the neck, just like a rag doll. If you think
that’s all then you would be wrong. After being dragged
through all kinds of faeces and other tasty things you are
welcomed once every while by the odd dancing undead person and
skeleton. With a batch of lyrics enough to make your eyes
bleed of all colours and a stock load of regurgitated riffs
then any death metal fan won’t be disappointed. Tracks to look
out for include the monstrous “Serpents of the Deep”. With
twists and turns like a slithering serpent, drums that make
you feel like you’re sliding along its rigid back and enough
heaviness to keep you under and stop you floating back to the
surface, its enough to call a dark angels delight. Another
favourite of mine was “Witchery”. Best described by its
title, the feeling of evil witch spirits flying up from within
the green flames and ashes, ready to cause havoc are easily
indicated within the music that this song fires up. If this
doesn’t leave an, eerie cold feeling crawling down your spine
then I think you need more. That’s why you should listen to
the morbid infusion of the albums title track “Cult of Death”.
Your puny little corpse will be taken under and pulled into
the shadows, where you will plead for mercy in front of the
horned one. With heart ripping pace combined with a more slow
dragging this track is sure enough to turn you from an
innocent red blooded human being to a black blooded demon.
Cult of Death sits in place and delivers what any true death
fan could want. With enough variation and power, this
album will put a smile on the darkest of death metal fans
faces! Expect to see this album out on July 15th in all
disturbed record shops!
www.dynamicartsrecords.com |
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DGM - Different Shapes (Scarlet) Review by Samuel
Munch-Petersen |
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Oh I do love metal that comes in the shape of progressive
rock. DGM are an Italian band that have several albums under
their wings; this being their seventh. They formed in ’94 as
an instrumental band and became something more when bassist
Marco Marchiori and singer Luciano Regoli joined the band. The
vocals sound a cross between Dream Theater’s James LaBrie and
Symphony X’s Russell Allen and musically they aren’t much
different either, though they come across more along the lines
of Symphony X and Pain of Salvation. The band is already being
praised as Europe’s answer to these bands. They were at the
Gods of Metal festival in June just gone and were meant to be
playing the Prog Power |
USA festival in October but I can’t see anything on the site
about them being there. Though maybe they’re updating bands as
the months come, who knows?
Either way, if you love fantasy metal and you enjoy 70s
era vocals with pounding drum work (Gianfranco Tassella) and
just stunning guitar riffs and solos (Diego Reali), you'll
love this. In fact
the music is flawless really and there are musicians like
these guys out there making some fucking incredible music.
Obviously it falls under a specific category but fuck genres
at the moment, this is just incredible music and they have
done their homework and done their theory passing with A
grades. Very harmonic and yet underpinning a sense of
heaviness within their tracks DGM have something of a moveable
arc of music but of course it’s not original. It’s been done
before and all that’s different are the ideas behind music
tracks, titles, band members and abilities. There is a formula
that many bands follow and when you’re influenced at a young
age by a specific band and you follow that through to when you
create your own musical prodigy you find that of course that
boyish love of that first band that you heard on the radio or
from a free CD at a gig which made you smile and move like no
other (will I get sued by Sony for using that phrase?) then of
course it’ll creep into the music you make. But some of the
best things come from other things; peanut butter and jam
sandwiches for instance.
Very rock based in places and spruced up with keyboards
(Maurizio Pariotti) applying tinkles at beginning of tracks
DGM have what it takes to make you move and appreciate music
in that theoretical and technical way.
Ten tracks of goodness are just right for this seventh release
from the Europeans and the album is certainly a ménage of
different shapes where you get tracks filled with power and
tracks filled with passion and recollection. The riffs are
circular which is always a good thing and DGM have taken this
genre of music and created another very good collection of
musical ideas that give you something to enjoy and think
about. Bring on the festivals and the following albums. Expect
good things from DGM as they have delivered in the past.
www.dgmsite.com |
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It Prevails - The Inspiration
(Golf/Rise Records) Review by Steve Green |
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The hardest type of cd to review... one that you think is
simply ok. There's nothing wrong with It Prevails take on
melodic hardcore, although personally I'd like a little more
aggression. Vocalist Ian Fike is full of vitriol, but the
music is lacking a killer knockout blow and for my own
personal taste, the album is severely lacking in pace. I want
to be completely blown away when I'm listening to this type of
music, The Inspiration just doesn't do that to me. I'm also
not that keen on the lead guitars which are kind of out of
tune and tend to meander in and out of each song, without
adding anything significant to the sound. Ok, now I've
highlighted my dislikes, it seems I'm knocking the album. But
truth be told,
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The Inspiration is basically a solid album, without any real
high points, yet it has a couple of negative features. Nothing
more, nothing less.
Music is all about opinions and thanks to modern technology,
it's easy to find out for yourself whether you like a
particularly band or not. Head on over to It Prevails Myspace
page and see if you agree with my comments. Of the four tracks
on offer, An Anomaly is my recommended starting point, as the
best track on the album, which is the title track, isn't
available to stream.
www.myspace.com/itprevails |
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Metalmania 2006 CD + DVD (Metal Mind) review by Sam Thomas and Steve
Green |
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Metalmania 2006 is, you will be surprised to know, a DVD and
CD set recorded at the Metalmania 2006 festival in Spodek,
Poland. It’s an amazingly feature-rich recording, featuring
twenty-two DVD tracks and a further 12 studio tracks from
bands on the side stage on the CD. Not only that, but there’s
also an interview with each of the bands featured on the DVD,
plus a staggering amount of written information (largely
culled from websites) for each band. And of course, links to
the websites, photo galleries, a history of Metalmania…
I’ve always been a sucker for this kind of DVD – I love to see
bands playing live (and of course this is the next best thing)
and there are so many bands on this bill that there’s always
the chance of discovering someone completely new, or getting
the chance to see a band that have been floating around the
edges of my world for a while. Plus, with the |
interviews, there are some fascinating insights into life on
the road and the difficulties of being an aspiring young (or
not so young!) band. Not to mention the fact that I would
never have known that Polish fans had voted the guitar solo in
“Freedom” by Hunter the seventh best Polish guitar solo.
Unfortunately, I’m now left desperate to find out what were
the best six guitar solos, but no doubt the information is out
there somewhere…
The DVD begins, inevitably, with a slew of Polish and Russian
bands. Vesania get the opening track, playing Polish black
metal to an audience who are only just beginning to wake up.
Having started with corpse paint, the stage is then taken by
the most unprepossessing bunch of Russians imaginable.
Hieronymous Bosch are generally described as prog meets death,
but apparently prefer to consider themselves to be thrash.
There were some incredibly long drawn-out instrumental
passages in their two tracks, during which there was more
movement from the cameras than from the audience.
Hunter only got to do one track, but it was the most
passionate performance of the night. They’re definitely a band
worth getting to know more about, and their interview section
had to be the most fascinating on the DVD.
First big band of the night were Norway’s 1349, who get three
tracks recorded. By this stage, the audience had increased,
and 1349 were feeding off them and gave a good performance,
looking quite wild by the close. Acid Drinkers follow, as
weird as their name, playing a home-grown version of thrash
with vocals that were reminiscent of Entombed. And their
guitarist can certainly shred!
Finally, on to the real big-name bands. Nevermore get three
brilliant tracks, of which “The Heart Collector” is definitely
the best. Warrel Dane throws himself around the stage,
screaming his lungs out, and is obviously greatly appreciated
by the audience. They are followed by Moonspell, who
(fortunately) seem to have cut back a bit on the amateur
dramatics these days, and concentrate more on the music.
Fernando is in good form, but I’m left a bit puzzled as to why
he speaks about the new album “Memorial” in the interview
section, but the tracks that are played are all at least ten
years old. I assume that’s down to the DVD editor’s sense of
humour!
Where Sam's interest ends, mine begins. Anathema's absorbing
performance only offers up one question. Why haven't they been
snapped up by a major label? On this performance alone, they
should have a huge queue scrambling to gain their signatures,
with Closer, in particular, being one of the finest live
transitions to DVD I've ever seen. After the relative
tranquillity of Anathema, it's the time for the pomp of Therion to close
the show. Included in their three songs is Asgard from one of
my favourite albums ever Secret Of The Runes, which features
Sarah Jezebel Deva on lead soprano, which would have been a
better way to end the DVD than the rather subdued Siren Of The
Woods from 1996's Theli.
As you'd expect, this is another quality release from the good
folks at Metal
Mind.
www.metalmind.com.pl |
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Monsterworks - Spacial Operations
(Self Release) Review by Steve Green |
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This album is available for free. Yes all of you
freeloading bastards that never pay for an album (mmm, does
that include me as I get mine free too?) can LEGALLY download
this for free. So what's the catch? There isn't one. I'm sure
this is just a band trying a new idea in an attempt at world
domination. And I wish them good luck with their endeavours.
As this album is free, technically I don't need to review it
as I'm not selling you the product. You can download it and
make you own bloody minds up. Yeah, well I guess that's true.
But after their hard work and generosity in producing this
album, surely they deserve a couple of soundbites.
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I'm finding it impossible to pin Monsterworks down. Style
wise, they are either all over the shop, which is my preferred
option, or they are simply Metal. The vocals range from a deep
roar, to a more high pitched helium induced stance, which
remind me of Rob Halford with his ass on fire, mainly because
of their urgency. I'm also getting loads of vibes of Janes
Addiction meets Blind Melon. And at other times I'm thinking
Strapping Young Lad and bits of Maiden circa Somewhere In Time
and a smattering of Hawkwind. As I said before, this is all
over the place in terms of style, but I gotta say, the
different styles do blend together nicely. At the end of the
day, it's just good collection of Metal songs. Highlight for
me is The Lonely Crown, which builds from an acoustic intro
to, what I can only describe as an intense Metal moment. If
Monsterworks can create an album full of songs as good as
this, then they are going to go far.
I don't know if this will be commercially available, but my
promo copy has a full booklet, tray card jobby in a jewel
case. IE: a standard cd. So if you like what you hear, send
them some money for a proper version.
www.supermetal.net |
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Muerte Villa - La Conquista (Negativity Records) Review by
James Young |
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With Brujeria touring frantically but not having visited a
studio since the start of the decade, it looks like the burden
of shouting about Mexican nationalism has fallen onto the
backs of three Texans, who go under the name of Muerte Villa.
This six-track EP, which lasts as long as sombrero in a mosh
pit, clocks in at a mere seventeen minutes, which only gives a
small taste of the band’s style. What we do discover in the
short running time is that the band play a brand of death
metal, which sure as hell delivers in the crushing stakes.
Unlike Brujeria, the vocals are grunted by Marco, which
enhances the brutality of the sound, whilst the crunching
guitars lend an almost grind element to the release. Luis’
drumming (or should |
I say ‘bateria’) is never stupidly fast,
but adapts quite nicely to the frequently changing riffs with
a mixture of snare blasts and double kicks. The bass drums are
frustratingly low in the mix, but the production job overall
is dirty and well pulled off for the type of metal on display.
The main problem faced by this band is one of originality.
Songs such as ‘Primer Pagina’ and ‘Cuero Bautizado’ are
definitely listenable, but this could be any brutal death
metal band, and fails to stand out from the already packed
crowd of extreme acts around. With the obvious theme of Mexico
throughout the packaging itself, with a map on the back and
the flag on the front of the case, I wouldn’t have minded more
references in the music itself. The lyrics are probably about
the subject, but I’m sure even those who can speak Spanish
would find it hard to make out the grunts, so the odd sample
or cultural flavour in the riff would have made the subject
matter a bit more clear. That said, there are some moments
where a riff grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go, such as in
my favourite song on the disc, ‘Mexico Seguro’, which contains
a stunning guitar sound. There are examples of good riffs in
‘Hipocristiano’ and ‘Dueno De Sangre, the latter of the two
also being framed by some clever drum work, but even in these
cases the music changes shape when a new and different passage
of brutality kicks in. Indeed this could be seen as technical,
but it doesn’t work as well as it does in bands such a
Psycroptic and Cryptopsy, making you wish they’d just hold on
to a single riff rather than bombard you with several in one
song.
This EP can certainly hold its own against other death metal
acts, but for a Mexican themed band, the music itself is
rather standard. There are some promising examples of
song-writing on here, and an album would be most interesting.
Let’s just hope they can make it slightly more unique than La
Conquista - for starters a free sombrero with every CD
wouldn’t go amiss…
www.myspace.com/muertevilla |
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