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Mephisto - Apices Abyssus
(Self Release) review by Sam
Thomas |
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Now I’ve always secretly been impressed by a guy’s package,
and this offering from Mephisto definitely puts the efforts of
some large labels to shame. I received a properly-packaged CD
along with an A4 folder telling me everything I could possibly
want to know about the band, their music, how they’d recorded
it even down to how difficult it is to record black metal in
your home in Illinois.
And the professionalism didn’t stop at the packaging. The CD
was produced to a good standard, such that I wouldn’t have
guessed that it hadn’t come from anything other than a pro
studio. By this stage, you’ve probably come to the conclusion
that I’m just building it |
up so that I can tear the content to ribbons, but, no, that’s
pretty damn good as well.
Mephisto have been around for a scant five years, adding and
dropping musicians along the way. Main man is Valafar,
responsible for lead guitar, vocals, songwriting and more
besides. There are four other members, all of whom are more
than competent at their assorted instruments. Stolas deserves
a special mention right at the start: keyboards are so often
just a hideous infringement on what would otherwise be good
music, but he uses them to great effect in a rippling, Emperor
kind of way.
That’s probably not a bad place to start trying to describe
the sound of Mephisto. We’re talking black metal here,
sometimes sounding very much like Emperor, other times veering
towards Immortal or Ancient (vocal style particularly) but
also drawing in influences of death and thrash. The pace
varies from paint-strippingly fast on “End of Days” through to
a more ponderous, sedate romp on “The Fallen”. Having said
that, there’s nothing here that could remotely be called a
ballad, or even a slow number – it’s more a case of slowing
things down to emphasise the brutality. Which is, of course, a
good thing. I also have to mention that “Noxious Scripture”
particularly appeals to me as a humanist: I get very pissed
off with lyrics that are specifically anti-Christian, and this
particular ode is quite vehemently against all religions which
pretty much matches my mind-set.
One of the things that really stands out about this CD is the
way that Valafar has very cleverly managed to produce a
variety of different sounds, without straying too far from his
central theme – some tracks have no keyboards, pace changes
throughout and there are tracks that are more death metal
oriented and yet others that are just downright brutal. Oh,
there’s even clean vocals tucked away in there somewhere as
well. But the album as a whole works really well and is
extremely listenable.
To sum up, then, this is a quality piece of black metal
broadly influenced by Emperor, with interesting death touches.
It would be well worth tracking this down, and I look forward
to Mephisto’s next release.
www.myspace.com/mephistohate
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Nadja - Desire In Uneasiness
(Crucial Blast)
By: Dave Schalek |
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Perfectly executed drone in the form of one of Nadja’s latest
full-lengths found its way into my stereo recently. “Desire In
Uneasiness”, the latest in a string of releases, and the fifth
full-length this year alone (!), from this very prolific duo
from Canada, comes my way from Crucial Blast Records. I wasn’t
familiar with Nadja prior to this release, but I had heard the
usual comparisons of Nadja to some of the other giants of
drone. Naturally, I was curious to find if Nadja had an
original, fresh take on the genre, and I was pleasantly
surprised to find that they do.
The drone present here is, to these ears, definitely melodic
and dreamlike in tone and |
texture. Mostly consisting of two strummed basses, percussion,
effects, and very muted vocalizations, Nadja, although heavy at times, is a lighter
touch than Sunn O))), yet dissimilar to Earth. Moments of
Sleep come to mind with some of the rhythms present in the
bass and percussion, as well as psychedelics from very early
Pink Floyd and even Vangelis or Tangerine Dream, particularly
early in the album. “Desire In Uneasiness” also masterfully
builds to a crescendo of intensity with the album’s truly
crushing fourth and fifth tracks, “Uneasy Desire” and “Deterritorialization”,
before fading somewhat at the very end of the album.
Given that this my first exposure to Nadja with the impressive
“Desire In Uneasiness”, I am tempted to immediately begin
tracking down the duo’s back catalogue (eMusic has a number of
albums readily available); however, it is worth noting that
“Desire In Uneasiness” is the first studio full-length to
feature a drummer. Prior output from the studio incorporated a
drum machine. To some extent, that mutes my enthusiasm since
“Desire In Uneasiness” benefits so well from an organic sound.
Further investigation is warranted. At any rate, “Desire In
Uneasiness” is highly recommended.
www.crucialblast.net
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http://206.123.101.29/~coldsnap/aidan/nadja.htm |
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Nahui - A Blue Fire (My Kingdom Music) Review by Steve
Green |
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Residing on the softer side of Progressive Rock, this one has me sitting
on the fence. For the most part, I really like Luca Giancotti's voice. He
has a warm tone that is full of emotion, but as much as I like his voice,
I don't think the music and the vocals quite marry up. Musically this one
takes me back to a more mainstream 80s sound. No real names spring to
mind, but I'm thinking along the lines of Then Jericho or some other
similar obscure act from around the same time. I'd even throw a bit of
early U2 into the mix, mainly for the driving bass lines. But whoever I
think it sounds like, it's not really doing a lot for me. There's no bite,
no cutting edge to make me want to like this. It's a wishy washy
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collection of directionless songs, which feature decent
vocals. Sorry, I cannot find anything here to get excited
over. www.mykingdommusic.net
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Norther - N (Century Media)
By: Joe Florez |
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It’s hard to believe, but the band that was once on a steady
diet of Children Of Bodom are back with album numero five. For
the longest time, I thought that these guys would never break
away from the C.O.B. syndrome both musically and vocally, but
I think they have done it here. This is nothing more than pure
unadulterated melodic death metal from Finland. Lead opener
“My Antichrist” just fires on all cylinders and refuses to let
up at any given moment. The vocals will peel the paint off
your walls, but don’t be mislead that this is going to be
sounding as sinister as a classic Mercyful Fate song or Venom
for that matter. This thing is slickly polished and has tons
of hooks in here. You will get the fancy |
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keyboards especially in the beginning of the second cut
“Frozen Angel”, but the guys throw down some serious shit.
Petri supplies the harsh vocal screams that would shred most
people’s vocal chords and then Kristian comes in and does the clean work during the
choruses. They are very dramatic and drawn out. The riffs are
fast, furious and catchy as one would expect in this field.
Everyone is spot on with their performance and deliver a
highly energetic tune with killer soloing. The only problem I
have with this disc is that there is nothing original here.
It’s all cookie cutter, cut and paste music that we have heard
a thousand times over. Granted, the production is grade A,
the musicianship is spot-on from beginning to end and they try
to mix things up between clean and dirty singing, but there
are countless bands out there from around the world doing the
same thing trying to cash in on the C.O.B. sound that, quite
frankly, is over. This is not a terrible record by any means
and I would suggest this to anyone who has been living under a
rock for a thousand years and isn’t quite sure what path to
divulge into (thrash, full-on death metal or metal). You can
make up your mind as you run through this offering. This will
appeal to the Iced Earth and power metal fans cause it manages
to be safe still without going into the raw and noisy
territory, but for the true death metal fans, no dice here. My
suggestion is to listen before you buy.
www.centurymedia.com
| www.norther.net
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Rumors of Gehenna - Ten Hatred Degrees (WormHoleDeath) Review by Steve
Green |
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If I say something you don't like, will you promise not to run away?
Rumors of Gehenna are an Italian Metalcore band. Now before you decide to
skip to the next review, Rumors of Gehenna are exactly what a Metalcore
band are supposed to be, a marriage of Hardcore and Metal. With the Metal
being of the Thrash variety. There's no wimping out on this album, this a
molten juggernaut sized beast and it's primed to slay anything in its way.
Think The Haunted or Cataract with a bit of catchy Hardcore thrown into
the pot for good luck, just good old fashioned, pit inducing fun.
There aren't really any surprises to be found here. For your money you get
ten tracks, all
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of them as heavy as shit. The biggest surprise is that this is
the bands debut album, because they do have the feel of a band
with a few album under their belts already. But as the band
have been together for about six years and with the amount of
gigging they've done, I guess that's been a great help in
honing their sound.
I'm sure the band are at their very best in the live environment, but this
album is a very nice introduction all the same. A good solid debut.
www.myspace.com/rumorsofgehenna |
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Stormlord - Marie Nostrum
(Locomotive) Review by Metal Mark |
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This disc came on with some keys sounding like they popped
right out of a horror movie soundtrack. Then once we got into
the meat of the album they began to settle into some fairly
firm epic metal although those horror/gothic keys keep popping
in here and there. However the keyboards were not the most
unsettling part of this band, no that moment came when the
vocals came on and they were of the deep growling black metal
variety. Alright for black metal, but the band came pushing on
with some rather inspired and tight epic style metal. Can you
march into battle when you can’t understand what your leader
is saying? I don’t know for sure, but Stormlord push on
sounding like they are going in |
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several direction at the same time. Time doesn’t help a whole
lot because they just remain steadfast in having these parts
that don’t mesh or really compliment one another. I liked the
majority of the music, but it seems overshadowed on several
occasions by slightly out of kilter keyboards. The vocals work
even less with this type of music. I understand the desire to
blend different sub-genres of metal and I appreciate any
attempt at something different. Yet that doesn’t mean that
it’s always to work and here it’s just like the different
elements are at battle with one another throughout the entire
album and the most I got from it was a mild headache. |
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Tangaroa - One Hand for the Knife, One Hand for the Throat
(Anticulture
Records)
Review by Luke Goaman-Dodson |
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As Live4metal's resident weird fucker, a lot of stuff passes
my way which is, well, fucking weird. This is often a certain
brand of staccato nutjobism which, while lumped in with the
death-metal genre, draws as much from John Zorn as from Slayer
or Possessed. Leeds' Tangaroa have been in this field for ten
years now, finally releasing their full-length debut on
Anticulture. The immediate comparison that comes to my mind is
Necrophagist meets Meshuggah, with perhaps a bit of Faxed Head
thrown in. In fact, come to mention it, the bizarre mark of
Trey Spruance is all over this CD, particularly on the
blistering title track. 'D'ya Hear That Wolf' is probably the
standout number on this album, beginning with a |
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thunderous maelstrom that packs more in its first minute than
most bands do in an entire album, before disintegrating into a
jazz-metal breakdown that calls to mind a less symphonic
version of some of Ihsahn's hypnotic noodling on Emperor's later albums. This
style of music can easily become boring and monotonous if done
poorly, but Tangaroa luckily possess the talent to keep things
tight and unpredictable. Fans of both the all-out brutality of
Kataklysm and the tech-lunacy of Buckethead should find much
to like here. All in all, another solid release from the
perennial scene in Yorkshire.
www.myspace.com/uglypeoplebreedfast
| www.anticulture.co.uk
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