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Apocryph - Drenched In Grace (Rotten
To The Core) Review By Steve Green |
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Melodic Death Metal from Belgium that is infectious from
the very first second and the ride, although pretty short at
just twenty five minutes, is addictive from start to finish.
I'm sure those that immerse themselves in this genre on a
frequent basis, will have heard this all before. I'm not
claiming for a second that Apocryph are setting any new
standards in terms of originality. But that doesn't stop it
being an enjoyable experience. Apocryph keep it simple.
Lashing of melodic lead guitars, growled vocals and well
paced, and varied time changes. Very much like Iron Maiden
with a growler at the helm with the occasional injection of
fury thrown in for good measure. And I think they've got
everything absolutely
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spot on with this, their debut release. Production,
presentation, and of course the songs are all of a standard
that most established bands would be proud of.
With a small tour with Dismember all ready booked for 2008, as
well as various other gigs already pencilled in, I hope
Apocryph have a busy year, next year. But not too busy that
they don't get to record a full length album as 25 minutes of
this is simply not enough.
http://apocryph.deathmetal.be/ | www.myspace.com/apocryphs |
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Concept of God – Visions (Massacre Records)
Review by Chris Davison |
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You're the voice of not only one, but two classic doom bands,
and you find you've got some time on hands. What do you do?
Never mind that the two outfits in question are the utterly
legendary Candlemass and Solitude Aeturnus, the obvious answer
it seems is to form...yes, you've guessed it, another doom
band! Ah well, when the voice in question belongs to the most
excellent Robert Lowe, that's never going to be a bad thing
now, is it?
Three of the four band members are (or have been) members of
the Texan doomsters Solitude Aeturnus, so it's maybe not a
massive surprise to hear that they sound somewhat like the
outfit that spawned them. Lowe belts out his voice like
there's no tomorrow, and he |
is to doom vocals what Angeline
Jolie is to hot women. The guitars are impeccably played, and
the riffs more straightforward and less oriental sounding than
with Solitude Aeturnus, and all the better for it. There is a
directness to the music here, whether that be with the
sub-Morbid Angel crawl of the atmospheric title track
“Visions”, through to the lurching rhythms of “Falling down”.
Ex-SA skins basher John Covington provides good sturdy drum
work to back proceedings with, with likewise workman like bass
from James Martin.
The production is suitably beefy, with a nice full mid section
that really punches you in the guts when the volume is turned
up loud. My only complaint would be that other than the aforementioned two songs, there really weren't many cuts that stuck
in my head for longer than they took to play out on the CD. I
certainly liked the idea of a less epic doom band for the
boys, but to be honest, rather unusually too I guess, in the
quest to make the music more punchy, they actually wound up
making it more forgettable, to my ears at least. This is no
doubt going to be of tremendous value to the Solitude Aeturnus
fans and completists out there, and as a big doom-head, I'm
glad to have been able to get my hands on a copy, but to be
honest I would rather hear Lowe performing with either of his
day-job bands.
www.conceptofgod.com |
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Crest of Darkness - Give us the Power to do your Evil
(My
Kingdom Music) Review by Crin |
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Formed in 1993, we are presented with here, the bands sixth
album. The first being, Sinister Scenario, released in
1997,via Head not Found. Here we have a very intense, blasting
melee of clichéd Black meets Death in a thunderstorm. A
simmering fusion of galloping percussion, barking snarl vocals
and furious guitar riffs, all boiling in a pot of ‘heard it
all before’ extreme metal. I an utterly confounded at times on
how to review something that is obviously very well executed,
very well constructed and yet so safe, it is both predictable
and uneventful. Its like looking at a line of cars with
different bodies but having the same engines. The biog sheet
labels the music as extreme metal and I can see |
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why. There is no immediate Black Metal, nor Death or Doom, nor
Goth or retro, it is basically a musical entity that taps into
the most polished, machine like violent metal music and spits
it at you with the force of a charging mammoth. Tight,
epileptic high octane music that is delivered with great
unison. The album as a whole tries so very hard to become
something other than the clichéd collaboration it already is,
but never manages to do so. If you are new to extreme music
then this will enrapture your quest to embrace the scenes many
qualities. If you have been around for ages, then this will
brush passed without raising too many goosebumps.
www.mykingdommusic.net |
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Deinonychus - Warfare Machines (My
Kingdom Music) Review by Crin |
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Deinonychus have been drooling around the bleak doom laden
death mires since 1992. The band have released 6 albums and
various other mcd’s. With this album, the music reaches out of
the complete downcast atmospheres and drags the whole
Deinonychus sound into the modern age, with a very heavy
similarity to Gorefest. Both these bands share a very thick
guitar sound, a deep deathly rasping vocal bite, and music
that flows into the ears like a sluts gism spurting into the
mouth. Main man, Marco Kehren, has created a highly charged
Doom/Death album that is forged around huge crunching riffs
and slow brooding rhythms. The pace occasionally burst into a
more ferocious speed blast ,evoking the |
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calamitous fervour of Gorgoroth, [especially on the track MG-34] but it is this
rumbling melancholy that harnesses the real emotive essence of
Deinonychus. The more I listen to this release, the more
Gorefest slither into my head, such is the clarity of the
production and the persuasive charm of the songs. Whereas the
likes of Bethlehem sink into the dour enclaves of misery and
perpetually lurk in the shade of wretchedness, the music here
is charged with melody that enables the sound to move within
and without the depressive drones of repining dolour.
Katatonia is another band who manage to achieve this shift of
mood, from the dismal to the invigorating. I found the whole
experience to be solid, decisive and extremely full bodied,
albeit very safe.
www.mykingdommusic.net |
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EndeverafteR - Kiss or Kill (Razor and Tie)
Review by Metal Mark |
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This California based band came to many people’s attention
when they opened for Cinderella and Poison back in the summer
of 2006. A little odd that they landed a large opening spot
without having an album to support, but obviously someone saw
something in them. Now we can call hear what it is they have
to give. When I first saw song titles like “I wanna be your
man”, “Baby, baby , baby” and “Tip of the tongue” I thought “oh, no”.
The lyrics leave a bit to be desired, but if a high cheese
content doesn’t bother you then you'll be fine with this. If
the music and the overall presentation is what you are looking
for then this entry may be to your liking particularly if you
like late 70’s-late 80’s hard rock. Obviously |
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these guys listened to their share of hard rock bands from
twenty some years ago. The vocals are clear yet contain enough
of an edge to work on most of the tracks. They know the hooks,
have decent timing and a good sense of how to write catchy
songs that will stick with you after a listen or two. However,
it’s not all throwback to high hair and big ballads here
because there is a huge dose of power-pop tossed into the mix
here as well. It's not that I am opposed to that style of
music, but there are several songs where the vocals take the
focus and the music kind of falls to the side. Several songs
start out with great riffs, but then too often the guitar
falls back into the shadows only to emerge here and there
throughout the track. There are a few tracks where it just
feels like the steam is gone out of them too early. I don't
think it's lack of playing ability, but rather a focus on the
vocals over the music. My hope would be that they can find a
better medium between the vocals and the music the next time.
Still it's overall a good rock album that I took a liking to
on the first listen.
www.myspace.com/endeverafter |
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Gamma Ray - Land Of The Free II (SPV)
By: Joe Florez |
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I don’t know what it is about Kai Hansen and Gamma Ray, but I
have for some bizarre reason never fully embraced them as much
as Helloween. No, I don’t have a thing about Kai leaving, but
the music never just held up quite as good as the former.
Sure, I have listened to a batch of their offerings and
thought that they were ok at best, but they never grabbed me.
Well, I will try this again and now with the sequel to Land Of
The Free. I never heard the first one and the power metal fans
say that it was great. “Into The Storm” is typical of the PM
genre as we get up beat happy riffs and a rhythm section that
never quits. Kai’s voice has always bugged me as it’s paper
thin and has no depth. I have always been |
a firm believer that he needs a solid singer as opposed to
himself. “From The Ashes” is a bit of a better track than the
opener due to the Iron Maiden like galloping riffs that run
rampant on here. The chorus vocals on here soar to the heavens
and the boys continue to wreck havoc. It seems like GR picks up steam as
the songs keep going 'cause “To Mother Earth” just takes off
flying and doesn’t land until the end. The singing on here is
simply atrocious. I almost cringed when I heard them. Jesus
Christ for pete’s sake get a decent singer please!
This is not
a terrible release by any means, but it’s just so typical
power metal, void of any emotion and feeling. It’s all paint by
numbers and feels robotic after a bit. Fans will disagree with
me and I don’t care, but I think with as much talent as this
man and the band has you would think they could come up with
something better, but instead we get the same music that’s
heard on the rest of the back catalogue. Sorry, I will take
Primal Fear, Priest, Helloween and new acts like Stormwarrior
over this any day. www.spv.de
| www.gamma-ray.com
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Hardingrock - Grimen (Candlelight)
Review By Steve Green |
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With a hurdy-gurdy-I-am-from-Sweden voice-over from hell
starting the album, I didn't have a clue what to make of this
on my first listen. Actually, I was wrong on the guess of
Sweden, as Hardingrock are from Norway. The best way to
describe this, is as an experimental folk album. There are
fleeting elements of Metal, of the Blackened and Viking
variety, folk, Prog, classical and everything else, all
included here, Grimen is not an easy album to categorize, or
to explain.
Grimen is an album based around Norwegian folk music, or more
importantly, the Norwegian national instrument, the Harding
fiddle. Here, the instrument is expertly played
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by famed fiddler, Knut Buen and he brings bagfuls of melancholy and
atmosphere, the likes of which can only be created in
Scandinavia. I've a cd of old Scandinavian folk songs from
over the past fifty years (Nordisk Sang is the title) and this
album recreates that sound, but adds to it a more metallic
edge and with Heidi Solberg Tveitan's soothing voice, a more
hippyish approach. But the "new" influences are used sparingly
and this really is an album of traditional and olden sounds.
The oddest thing for me to get used to are the spoken work
voice-overs which seem so out of place and seem to be recorded
for a completely different album, such is the difference in
tone compared to everything else. But I think Metalheads in
general will probably to perplexed by the whole album, but
I've made small trips of discovery into this style of music
already (I don't just listen to metal ya know!) and this album
fits very nicely into a collection I really should begin working
upon.
I really want to steer away from this fact, but I have to
mention it, one of the people behind Hardingrock is Vegard
Tveitan, or Ihsahn to you and me. And the female vocals are
provided by Mrs Ihsahn, Ihriel, which makes Hardingrock being
comprised of two-thirds of Peccatum. But I want this to be
enjoyed and bought for what it is, not who is playing on it,
because trust me, this album has absolutely nothing to do with
Emperor. Listen without any preconceptions at:
www.myspace.com/hardingrock
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