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Ancestral Legacy - Trapped Within the
Words (Self Release) Review by Nathan Ward |
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Ancestral Legacy have been rather quiet these past few years but the
Norwegian 5 piece is back with a self financed, 5 track EP. For those who
haven’t heard of these guys before, like me, they play dark gothic rock,
with a mix of growling male vocals and clean female vocals. The male
vocals have a sort of Dimmu Borgir feel, similar to that of Shagrath,
whereas the female vocals are similar to Floor Jansen’s (After Forever)
non-operatic singing voice or the late Sabine Duenser (Elis). The songs
themselves are heavy with a mix of both Anita’s and Eddie’s vocals, a bit
of synth and there is also a bit of lead guitar work.
The EP opens with ‘Forsaken’ which is an older song, followed
by ‘Wordless History’. |
One of the songs is a ballad type song called ‘Atrapada En Pesadillas’,
which I think is Spanish for ‘Trapped/Caught in Nightmares’, but don’t
quote me on that. It does have some heavy guitar parts and it is all sung
by Anita. ‘Disclosed’ is a more upbeat song, musically, but is still
heavy. The final track starts with an acoustic instrumental and fades out
after 3 minutes or so. There is silence for a minute or so the song fades
in again, but this time it’s a piano instrumental with Anita singing over
the top of it.
Ancestral Legacy’s plan with ‘Trapped Within the Words’ was to increase
interest in the band. It has worked on me; it has a good selection of
songs on it, my favourites being ‘Wordless History’ and ‘Atrapada En
Pesadillas’. I really enjoyed the EP and I will be looking forward to the
new album due to be released later this year.
www.ancestrallegacy.com |
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| Austhral - Tocado A
Vento (Face The Abyss Records) By: Dave Schalek |
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Brazil’s Austhral appear on their debut full-length, entitled
“Tocado A Vento”, on Face The Abyss Records. Essentially a
pseudo version of symphonic black metal with some NWOBHM
riffing and influences, Austhral is utterly generic and
virtually unlistenable under the best of circumstances.
Consisting of generic riffs, some rough vocals with a few
keyboards thrown in for good measure, late 80s production
values, and a mid-paced tempo, Austhral’s form of symphonic
black metal is really just… well, boring. The musicianship on
“Tocado A Vento” is competent at best, but the songwriting is
horrible and there’s absolutely nothing interesting |
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going on in each of the album’s ten songs. Add to that a
production that completely robs the album of any weight, and
you end up with just a generic record that has no redeeming
qualities whatsoever. Awful.
www.facetheabyss.com |
www.austhral.com |
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Bon Scott - The Early
Years (IMV Blueline) Review by Metal Mark |
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About a month before he joined AC/DC, Bon Scott recorded 3
songs, which were "Carey Gully", "Round and Round" and "To
Know You Is To Love You". Those songs were never released back
then, but now producer Ted Yanni has devoted almost two years
to bringing Bon back to life via three previously unheard
songs. There are also tracks on this release which are of Bon
Scott with the band Fraternity. Talk about humble beginnings
indeed, this collection may capture Bon's voice on recordings
of varying quality. Yet anyone who appreciated Bon knew that
he wasn't great because of an overwhelmingly powerful voice.
His range and power were merely decent, but it was his style
and swagger that made him |
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so likeable and helped to establish AC/DC during his all too
short time with the band. Most of the tracks here have me
believing that either Bon needed a certain kind of music to
excel at or that he had not yet really developed the style we
would know him for. The first few tracks have me envisioning
Bon Scott singing at some picnic, town gathering or something
like that as the material is very sedate and quite honestly
not very intriguing. Although track two "Round and Round" has
a few moments where you can hear Bon using his voice and
showing a few pale signs of what he would be just a few a
years later. Most of the other songs have me thinking of
Spinal Tap doing "(Listen to the) Flower people". Okay,
perhaps it's not that bad yet it's very similar in my mind as
it's this slightly familiar voice singing to very standard and
dated 1960's pop music. The last song "Sooky Sooky" is
spirited enough to give Bon a chance to charge ahead a little
and show a bit of his potential. I have no idea how much if
any say that he had in writing of this material so I don't
know if that's a factor or not. Really this is just a
collection of songs that even the most devoted Bon Scott fan
would be hard pushed to really want to own. The sound quality
is hit and miss and the material itself is spotty with only a
few real sparks of any interest. Fortunately Bon moved beyond
this and made his mark with AC/DC and helped to define that
band as well as establish himself as one of the better hard
rock front men of his time. |
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Copremesis - Muay Thai
Ladyboys (Paragon Records) By: Dave Schalek |
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New York’s Paragon Records is usually quite good at uncovering
hidden American domestic gems as well as excellent Continental
black metal and releasing it upon the unsuspecting American
public; therefore, I always look forwards to releases from the
label. Somewhat strangely, the debut full-length from
Copremesis shows up in my mailbox as a promo from Paragon. I
describe this as strange because Copremesis, a scraping of the
bottom of the barrel pornogrind assault, strays pretty far
from Paragon’s usual staples.
“Muay Thai Ladyboys” is my first exposure to this New
York-based quartet (numerous other luminaries from Malignancy
and so on guest) and the band’s fetishistic subject matter |
of choice is not all that difficult to figure out. At any
rate, you can’t understand what they’re gurgling about anyway,
let alone read the song titles, so the music pretty much
speaks for itself here. This is bottom scraping, pig burped
death metal with meat filled, choppy riffs, blinding bursts of
speed, and plenty of tempo changes thrown in to spice things
up. There are more than a few bands out there playing this
sort of TXDM style, porno laced subject matter and all, and
not much differentiates Copremesis from the pack. Certainly,
the music is reasonably well-played and catchy, but it isn’t
anything that you haven’t heard before if you’re familiar with
Insidious Decrepancy, Pustulated, and so forth. What is
notably lacking, however, is a huge, deep seated, bottom
heavy, powerful production to really knock your head off.
Unfortunately, the vocals are way too prominent in the mix and
ultimately rob the riffing of some much needed crunch and
heft. Somewhat, this leaves the album sounding a bit thin.
Ultimately, though, Copremesis are a competent entry in the
TXDM- styled pantheon and “Muay Thai Ladyboys’ is just that,
competent.
http://copremesis.cjb.net |
www.paragonrecords.net |
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Diamond Dogs - Up The
Rock (Locomotive Records) By: Joe Florez |
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When I received this disc in the package and looked at it, I
thought to myself 2 things. 1. Why is this fucking record from
1973 on my desk and 2. Why is it on Locomotive? All I have to
say is that once I popped this in I was in pure heaven. Yes,
the band name comes from a David Bowie record, but the music
is absolutely brilliant. The best way to describe it is The
Faces featuring Rod Stewart meets classic era Rolling Stones
and you are partly there. This is very much classic rock music
from the early 70’s. “Generation Upstart” kicks off the show
with some ragtime style piano playing and then everyone plugs
in. This track is catchy as sin. Great sing along hooks and a
beat that will have your fingers snapping and |
your feet tapping. It’s simple, yet comes with a good, fun
vibe equivalent to The Ark who by the way are also from Sweden
just like these guys. “We May Not Have Tomorrow…” doesn’t
contain any of those old time piano sounds, but rather turns
up the juice on the six stringers and lead vocalist Sulo and the boys
just let loose. More rockin’ riffs and even a sax makes an
appearance. Just dandy. What I love about this record is that
there is a warmth to each track. Too bad this wasn’t available
on vinyl to get the whole experience (Remember those?). While
I am a complete metal head to the max, a record like this does
me some good and what a fine disc this will make to my
collection. As usual, these guys have a plethora of releases
that I will now hunt down. There are two things that make this
record extra special. Famed metal producer Tomas Skogsberg
(Entombed and all that was heavy) produced this thing and
Bobba Fett who once played with The Hellacopters was in this
group some time ago as well. Bottom line here is that this
disc is just like a fine wine. It’s smooth, warm and enjoyable
to the max. The new generation of kids may not get it, but if
you are in your 30’s and older you will have a grin from ear
to ear as you hear it. What also makes this music such a fun
journey to be on is the fact that the tracks are all short and
it’s over in just forty minutes give or take just like in the
old days. Well, looks like I will be spinning this thing a
long time to come. A must have and a top ten for the year for
sure.
www.locomotivemusic.com |
www.myspace.com/diamonddogssweden |
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Disarm - By Any Means Necessary (Imprint Records)
Review by Steve Green |
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What gets classed as Punk these days makes the genre a very confusing
place to define. Here we have something at the glammier end of the
spectrum. It's still an in-your-face, high octane assault, but the
aggression is tempered by a catchy, (classic era) Hanoi Rocks/Rock N Roll
style, which definitely doesn't fit in with the snarl of real English Punk
Rock. No, this one takes me back to the time when Back To Mystery City was
on constant rotation on my old record player and this crazy music from
Scandinavia was starting to have a big effect on me. And as the album
progresses, you realise what a big influence must have been on whoever
wrote most of the songs on this album. I hear a lot of Mike Monroe in
singer |
Jamie's voice as well. Basically, this is almost as good as
anything I've heard out of Scandinavia, bar a few classic
albums in the 80s.
So what's the downside? Not a lot really. Not for the first time recently,
I'm questioning a band name in relation to the music they play, and in my
opinion, Disarm doesn't fit what's coming out my headphones. Maybe the
title of track 4, Bark, Bite, Scream would be a more appropriate band
name. Something with a bit of bite to it, as that's what Disarm excel at.
Fast, attitude filled anthems with a bit of a kick.
www.disarm.info |
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Distorted - Voices From
Within (Candlelight Records) Review by Marco
Gaminara |
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I'm sure that the old adage is never judge a book by it's
cover, and the same definitely goes for CDs. Dunno why, but
their logo and the cover had me assuming this that was going
to be hectic death metal approaching grind, but after the
first minute of "One Last Breath" and Miri starting to sing, I
realised that this couldn't be further from the truth. Her
vocals are soft and soothing and a complete counterpoint to
Raffael's deathlike growls and barks, his guitar work is also
solid and chunky allowing Ben to play flowing leads over them.
Guy's bass work is subtle and aids session drummer Shaked
Furman to keep the fast paced rhythms on "What Remains" going.
The title track "Voices From Within" bounces around with manic |
paced drumming, slow female vocals, long drawn out growls and
flailing leads and choppy rhythm riffs. Now "Fading" is far
more what I was expecting from them, with hyper drumming and
fast death vocals, granted the female vocals do come in to
give it a slower tone, while everything else keeps up-tempo.
"A Soft Whisper" on the other hand is as the title describes,
soft, melancholy, and dark with well plucked acoustic guitars.
Incorporating death and both male and female clean vocals on
"Reveal My Path" does make it rather busy, but then the
constantly changing riffs do exactly the same thing, all
rather well mind you. "Escaping The Mind-Grind" is a milder
mid-paced affair that trudges along epically, with "Obscure"
following suit with well interlaced vocal arrangements. Pretty
instrumental "Theom" plays almost as an intro to "Consistent
Duality" which meanders around its arrangement in a way that
you never know what's coming next. Approaching operatic vocals
on "Letting Go" makes it feel almost Nightwishy, as does the
length of the song. Bonus track "As You Lay" goes back to
basics with Miri singing on her own 'til lightly picked
guitars offer accompaniment and the lead a voice of its own.
It's a rather haunting track and well suited as an ending to a
fine album which takes many twists and turns along its way.
www.distortedband.com |
www.candlelightrecords.co.uk |
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