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Ahoora - All In Blood With You (Self Release)
Review by Steve Green |
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Whether this is any good or not is completely irrelevant. This is Heavy
Metal from Tehran in Iran. An Islamic country where most forms of Western
culture are banned. So, just the fact that this is Ahoora's 4th release
highlights the fact that they must truly love their Metal to go to such
lengths for their art. And for that reason alone, you should show them
your support.
I'm not sure how much music the band get to hear, but I'm hearing a ton of
influences going on here. I know the band have a thing for Iced Earth and
I hear that in the opener Heart of Darkness, while Ashkan Hadavand's voice
reminds me of Type O Negative during Out of |
Mind Walls. Elsewhere, there are some beautiful acoustic
guitars and a slight Maiden influence going on with some of
the lead guitars. Without taking into consideration all of the
difficulties the band must go through, they are actually a
decent outfit in their own right, particularly with how they
structure their songs, which are almost unique!
It's hard to give an unbiased opinion with this album because you have to
give Ahoora the utmost amount of respect for what they are doing.
Technically, this is brilliant and the playing is of a very high standard.
Despite the strong song structures, some of the writing is I guess a
little basic. But without a steady stream of outside influences, ones that
we take for granted, I think Ahoora have done exceedingly well, especially
with the addition of female vocals in album closer, Hunger Within, which
probably ends up as my favourite song on the album.
Pay them a visit at: www.ahoora-band.com |
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Descending - Enter
Annihilation (Massacre Records)
Review by Steve Green |
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I'm a firm believer that the old school and the new school
shouldn't mix. Well, Greece's Descending are doing their very
best to try and prove me wrong.
What we have here is the modern approach of Children of Bodom,
mainly in Jon Simvonis' razor sharp rasp, and the old school
approach of thrashing guitars and pummelling rhythms. And I
have to say that, for the most part, the styles merge
seamlessly. The more open minded listener will lap this up,
but I think certain songs with divide the different factions.
I'm thinking the over the top theatrics of Part Of The Game,
especially the lead guitars and the very catchy Metalcore
chorus, which will have the traditional metalheads reaching
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the nearest sick bucket. I'm not a big fan of this type of
song/chorus. Mainly as it's faceless crap performed by the
majority of bands that ply this tiresome trade. I just want to
hear a modicum of originality, not the same shit over and over
again, is that too much to ask? I much prefer the hi-octane,
old school thrasher, Killer Instinct, which (sort of) reminds
me of a heavier version of Judas Priest or is the
Scorpions...meets At The Gates...meets Children of Bodom...I
think! And like Killer Instinct, there are plenty of damn good
tunes on here and the modern approach is kept to a minimum,
bar the lead vocals of course. There are only two songs out of
twelve that are worthy of the skip button. So, if you think
this may be the one for you, you can hear a sneak preview over
at the Massacre Records Myspace page:
www.myspace.com/massacrerecordseurope |
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Impiety - Dominator
(Pulverised Records) Review by Crin |
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Cult, flesh ripping Blackened Metal from Singapore. This is a
band that should not need any introduction. Formed in 1990,
this well established band have five albums, various ep’s and
splits to their name and a no doubt healthy following in the
southern hemisphere. This new mcd, delivers what you expect
from these lunatics and not much else. Fast, spitting rage
anthems to Satan’s existence on Earth, performed with intense
skill. The musicianship is excellent and revealing a well worn
set of players who know this style of head fucking inside out.
This is played at such a feverish pace it strips the skin of
hair and blasts though the atmosphere like a jet of demonic
spunk. The tracks here are better than |
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last years lacklustre Formidonis Nex Cultus album. If you
yearn for the face shredding intensity of the 1999
Skullfucking Armageddon era, then look o further than here.
Impiety have returned to form and that means yours ears will
bleed and your arse will collapse. Sure, there is nothing
remotely new and if it wasn’t for this bands credentials and
unquestionable skill of formulating greats songs, this release
would wither under the weight of the more solid presentations
north of the sun blenched lands. Alongside Thailand’s,
Surrender of Divinity, you will not find an Asian band to
touch the pure spite sizzling within the music’s black soul.
www.pulverised.net |
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Infernal Execrator - Antichrist
Execration (Pulverised
Records) Review by Crin |
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More yawning Black meets Death and not much else metal from
Singapore. [this place is like Poland where the people still
wear Adidas track suits and denim frocks only here its old
school music and bullet belts] This bash everything till it
hurts Mcd is stuck in a time capsule of mid nineties
Dissection style technical mayhem but with none of the
refinement or song craft. The cover boasts art work by cult
underground artist Chris Moyen [Vital Remains, Blasphemy,
Bestial Mockery] and musically these acts creep into the mix
here with that slap the snares hard and fast, vomit into the
mike, rip the fuck out of the six strings and basically try to
make the ensuing noise interesting and audible. |
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Formed in 2005, the band are relatively new to the Asian scene
and will no doubt stay well within those far off confines as
even the mighty Impiety cannot match the smoking atmospheres
of the European acts. To be fair, if you are new to the scene,
this will blow your cheek bones inwards and cause instant
blood spurting from the cracking teeth within the fracturing
jaws. And that is the point of the whole review really, that
being of regurgitated selective music [albeit played well and
with vigour] that cannot be taken too seriously.
www.pulverised.net |
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Laaz Rockit - Left for
Dead (Massacre) Review by Metal Mark |
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I remember the first time I heard southern California’s Laaz
Rockit was back when their second album “No Stranger To
Danger” came out. I loved it as it was real metal with medium
tempo songs and a few fast ones. Then in 1987 all of a sudden
they showed up without the old costumes they had worn for
several years and they had suddenly transformed into a thrash
band with the release of “Know your enemy”. I guess their
popularity grew after this sound change, but I found their
thrash albums to be a little thin and the hooks were not as
sharp as that solid metal sound of “City’s Gonna Burn” and “No
Stranger To Danger”. They broke up in 1992, reformed in 2005
and began playing |
dates in the states, Japan and Europe over the last few years.
Now they have returned with their first new studio album in 18
long years.
This one seriously hits like a ton of bricks as it’s
immediately obvious that this is the band’s heaviest effort to
date. Now the concentration is more heaviness than speed for
the most part, but that’s fine with me because they are laying
down riffs with a sledgehammer like force that will have you
immediately banging your head. They continuously create huge
walls of heavy, pounding sound and they just keep it going
throughout the song with a great deal of force and confidence.
If they had been able to do an album like this in the late
1980’s then they would have moved beyond second tier thrash
band status, but at least we get it now. “Left for dead” has
far more of a layered feel to the music than their previous
albums and they also approach their material with a maturity
level that has helped to give them a very well rounded album.
I get the impression that instead of following the trends that
they actually went with what they wanted to do here and the
results are that it’s a killer real metal album that will
hopefully earn them the respect they deserve.
www.massacre-records.com |
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Resurrection - Mistaken
for Dead (Massacre Records)
Review by Chris Davison |
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Ok, hands up all of you who remember Resurrection from their
first stint as a death metal band back in the early 1990s? No,
me neither. Apparently, they were part of the initial
Floridian flurry of death metal bands, releasing albums in
that time period recorded at the world famous Morrisound
studios, before splitting up in 1996 – which as any part-time
scholar of death metal will know was a particularly barren
time for quality death metal acts.
The fact that I've never heard of them does give them the
advantage that I'm able to review them without having to carry
all the baggage that some outfits have when they have a
“comeback” album. The good thing about death metal, of course,
particularly the old |
school varieties, is that the quality of the music is
timeless, but it's only generally the production that can let
them down. Well, this is exactly what you may be expecting –
quality old school death metal that sounds as good today as
they would have no doubt sounded back in the day. With their
heads firmly down, their hair no doubt spinning in eccentric
windmill type movements and their instruments being battered
into submission, this is no holds barred, brutal stuff. When I
first played them, I thought, “fuck, that's unusual”. I
thought that because it's kind of common for bands to sound
like Morbid Angel, or to some extent classic Deicide, but not
for bands to have that much in common with Obituary. This is
the case with Resurrection. They aren't a clone band by any
means, but they share plenty of things in common – the
grinding, mid paced songs with plenty of attack to them; the
insanely growled vocals; the unmistakeable traces of Morbid
Tales era Celtic Frost. Regular readers may know that I am a
big fan of Obituary, so when I say that this album is every
bit the equal of their more recent albums, you will recognise
that I am a big fan of this stuff.
Before I get down to the music in detail though, let me just
offer a big “Alemange Nil Points” to Massacre Records. I don't know which
Teutonic chap you employ to mutter “you are liztenink to ze
new record frum Massacre Rekordz!” every two minutes, but if I
ever end up on a German train and hear him speaking, I will
surely recognise his dulcet tones. At that moment, he may well
find himself defenestrated and then decapitated by sudden
interface of his head against the nearest tunnel. Please,
please, please – I abhor pirates as much as you do (matey!),
but nothing interrupts my reviewing juices more than the
frequent whinging of your anti-piracy announcer. Thank you.
Meanwhile, back in the review, this is excellent, old school
stuff guaranteed to have you nodding your head more than a
nodding dog on the parcel shelf of a clapped out Montego being
driven very rapidly over cobble stones. Seriously. The drums,
which come courtesy of Gus Rios (Ex-Malevolent Creation) are
probably the stand out, being played extremely well, having a
flair for the occasional blast, but generally being thrashed
with great aplomb and taste. The guitars are wonderful,
grinding out memorable riff after memorable riff, (as with
“Death by Desire”, “X-ile”), and the bass is likewise utterly
unrelenting and rock solid. Paul DeGolyer comes across as a
slightly more sane but no less lethal equivalent of John
Tardy, while the production is as clear and powerful as any
recent death metal release. So sure, 15 years might seem a
long time to wait between releasing albums, (and on the
strength of this little beauty, let's hope a follow up takes
less time!), but this is a wonderfully violent album. You need
it. Just don't bid for the review copy on ebay. You'll want to
eviscerate yourself.
www.massacre-records.com |
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Sotajumala - Teloitus
(Woodcut Records) review by Sam Thomas |
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Sotajumala are a death metal band from Finland. They’ve been
around for roughly ten years now, during which time they’ve
produced one previous album and played “several” live shows.
The lyrics are, apparently, in Finnish and the band name means
Wargod, but that’s as much information as I’ve managed to
glean – the website is not exactly heavy on facts.
Although Teloitus is not the longest album in the world (about
thirty eight minutes) it gets off to quite a promising start,
rattling away with the (now) standard brutal death style
vocals that used to be the prerogative of bands such as
Hypocrisy, courtesy of one Mynni |
Luukkainen (wish I played Scrabble in Finland – all those
double letters), along with some interesting, almost off-stage
vocals which may or may not be the responsibility of Tomi
Otsala. The drums are pretty competent as well, albeit in what
I still think of as more a black tempo, ie frantic blastbeats.
And the guitar sound is very nice too, being quite bright in
the mix. For me, the second track, Arkku Vailla Vainajaa, is
probably the best, being (surprisingly) quite catchy, but as I
don’t speak Finnish I haven’t a clue what it's about.
I had something of a hiatus in the listening to this album
(weekend away for Neil Young and ferrying family members to
Iron Maiden) and I’d been quite enjoying it beforehand. When I
came back and started listening to it again, I was a bit
nonplussed as to why I’d liked it, but by the second listen,
it was growing on me again. This isn’t a spectacular, flashy
album, but it is good, solid death metal. There’s no single
thing about it that I can say makes it instantly memorable,
but by the same token, there’s nothing grindingly awful about
it. It’s just good, honest death metal. From Finland.
www.sotajumala.com |
www.woodcutrecords.com |
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Vader - XXV (Regain
Records) By: Dave Schalek |
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In celebration of Vader’s 25 years as a band (the first demo appeared in
1986, though), Vader has re-recorded a slew of classics stretching from
before “The Ultimate Incantation” up to and including “The Beast”. The
finished package, entitled “XXV”, comes in two different formats on Regain
Records, the band’s current label. Both packages consist of two full
discs, but a special edition includes three bonus tracks as well as a DVD.
The DVD consists of different performances of the band from 1986 until
2001.
Regain Records’ promo is the regular edition of “XXV” and
consists of 26 total tracks. Regardless of your views
regarding the re-recording of past glories by artists (I’ve
certainly |
no problem with the concept, artists can do whatever they’d
like with their material), this is a great package from Vader
and Regain Records. Combine modern production values with the
mature, expert death metal of Vader and you have an album that
Vader fans simply can’t pass up, even if you have all of the
original recordings. Of particular note is the serious
upgrade, if you will, given to tracks from “The Ultimate
Incantation” and the track “Tyrani Piekie³ (Tyrants of Hell)”,
the title track from Vader’s first demo from 1986.
In addition, “XXV” is also a great way to get introduced to Vader for all
of you pre-pubescent teens that may be heading out to the Summer Slaughter
Tour to see your favorite deathcore band (and you think that you’re
hearing death metal). Instead, check out “XXV” and see how it’s really
done. Buy or die.
www.vader.pl |
www.regainrecords.com |
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