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By Any Means Necessary - Self Titled EP (Self
Release) Review by Steve
Green |
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A notice to all bands, and labels come to that, please try and include a biog and
contact details with your cds. By Any Means Necessary took the time to
send me a very nice fold out promo cd, but that's about it. But anyway,
enough of my moaning, here's what I think of the cd.
With the 3 songs on here only just scraping over the 9 minute mark (that's
collectively) you barely have time to blink, never mind form an opinion.
But what is obvious, even without the aid of a biog, is that By Any Means
Necessary dwell on the caustic side of Thrash,
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kind of like a deathly version of Slayer, with the biggest
difference being the unholy rasp of frontman Adam Wright. His voice suits
the music perfectly, but the poor guy sounds like he's in dire need of a throat lozenge.
He voice slays, as does the heads down nature of their controlled Thrash,
which always threatens to spill over into chaos, but is kept in perfect
condition by Scott Sargeant's powerful production. This taster is definitely a good starting point for the band because it
does make me want to hear more. By Any Means Necessary are definitely a
band worth investigating. Check 'em out at: www.myspace.com/byanymeansnecessary |
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Devils Gift - Self Titled (Tiefdruck Musik) Review by Steve
Green |
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Devils Gift is a collaboration between singer Lennon Murphy and producer
Jason Suecof. The end result is a catchy slice of female fronted rock, but
does the world really need another Lacuna Coil or Evanescence clone?
Despite the quality of the songs on this album, some of which have been
known to stick in my head for a day or so, particularly the lead track,
Looking For Jesus, I just cannot bring myself to get overexcited by such
recycled music. I was chatting to fellow L4M writer scribe (Metal) Mark
McKinney the other day and he remarked upon the fact that he was fed up
giving negative reviews. Well I'm in the same boat because I'm fed up
hearing bands
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that sound exactly like someone else. For the most part, this
a very predictable album, albeit of decent songs. The saving
grace though, are the more aggressive tracks, where everything
seems to go completely apeshit. Final Words is a much better song, simply for the fact
that Devils Gift are offering up something a little different.
Unfortunately such bursts of energy are few and far between with the
rehashed Lacuna Coil and Evanescence tunes ruling the roost. Which just
leaves to say that this album is very polished, but way too predictable.
www.myspace.com/devilsgift
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Exsequor - Deeds
(Demo) Review by Crin |
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Midlands [England] based Black Metal with a primitive spine
rooted in an Eastern European sound. The English are a fickle
lot when it comes to Black Metal. They seem to come and go and
leave virtually no trace that they ever existed. That goes for
most scenes, and yet when there is hardly a scene to belong to
it becomes even harder to get noticed. Name me three English
Black Metal bands of note…….., no?, If I said Norwegian,
German, Polish, Swedish, American, a dare say the answer would
be done and dusted by now. Not so easy for the mighty English. Exsequor [try saying that after a few
spliff] reveal a
melodic Graveland paganism woven into their sound. Now, the
drum programming will |
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always drag the perceptive ears towards a synthetic
atmosphere, a failure of many bands of limited personal. This
three track demo starts with the agonizing Deeds, a simple yet
effective straightforward Black Metal work out. Again, there
is a definitive Pagan feel to the sound but it never veers
into any experimental avenues. This is direct and to the
point, so to speak. The second track, Wrath, oozes out of an
open wound, wrapped in a symphonic mist, a rather riveting
arrangement that stirs the heart and evokes a bleak Dark Age
presence. The demo ends as it began, in a melee of snapping
snare beats and violent guitar strums. The croaking vocals
issuing their vehemence across the aural hammering. The whole
demo reminded me of a great era in English Black metal, in the
late nineties, when talented acts such as Kraken and Phantasia... were all one man bands with
maybe a second member, creating this individual take of a well
trodden path. The energy and dynamism is also present here,
and yet the chances of this at being swallowed into the
obscure depths as the aforementioned outfits is probably high.
[and that is no disrespect, just a pure and stark fact]
www.myspace.com/exsequoruk |
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Gruesome Stuff Relish - Teenage Giallo Grind / Horror Rises
From The Tomb (Reissues)
(No Escape Records) review by James
Young |
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No Escape Records have gone to the trouble of reanimating the
two albums of Spain’s Gruesome Stuff Relish, 2002’s Teenage
Giallo Grind and this year’s Horror Rises From The Tomb. The
band are clearly major fans of Italian splatter and thriller
films, as you can detect from their stage surnames, which
include Santiago Argento and Pablo Deodato, copied from top
directors of the ’70s and ’80s. This is reflected in the
artwork of the albums, which is packed with eye-gougingly good
Italian movie-style imagery, and the song titles, which
reference some of the great spaghetti splatter flicks. For
albums loaded with such cinema worship, what shocked me was
the lack of samples, which usually become tedious after a
while, especially when in a foreign tongue. This is not the
case here, with samples few and far between on the two
releases, with the second album having just a few more than
the first. This greatly increases the replay value of the
albums due to the lack of interruptions, but furthermore, the
few samples that did find their way onto the albums seem to
fit the atmospheres of the songs, and help add to the
intensity and moods of the music. As for the music itself,
Gruesome Stuff Relish play the grinding variety of death metal
which lives up to their blood-spattered imagery. Rather than
the scatty chaotic grind which some bands play, this is a
fairly disciplined variety, which combines the furious blast |
beat-laden passages with some fairly punky riffs, which will
get your head banging (and no doubt exploding) very quickly.
With both albums just over half an hour,
Teenage Giallo Grind
contains the most number of songs, with thirty tracks blasting
by, in addition to five bonus tracks which have been taken
from a three-way split CD from 2001 with Gronibard and
Gorerotted. The vocals on this album are far less decipherable
than the proceeding release, but they are nice and textured,
with all three members of the band lending their own brand of
scream, growl or grunt to the mix, which sounds like the
croaking slow-moving undead coming head to head with possessed
screaming demons. Most of the songs range from one to two
minutes, and feature the punk-like violence we have come to
expect from bands like Dead Infection, with Pablo Deadato
mixing blasts with punky off-beat snare drum taps. The
insertion of the occasional sporadic guitar solo such as in
‘Enchanted Bodies’ helps to create a feeling of despair, both
in the cinematic sense and that which you would feel in a
moshpit at one of their shows. The bonus tracks make up for
their shoddier production values with some meaty hooks and
pounding drumming, which is good enough to rival that found on
the album proper.
Fast forward six years, in which the band broke up and
reformed, and we end up with the skull-cracking
Horror Rises
From The Tomb. The songs on this album are fairly long, some
even surpassing the two minute mark (shock, horror!), and
these tend to show more Dismember-like hooks than the last
album. Opener ‘Triumph Of The Dead’ for example is a three
minute romp of gore-oovy Carcass-style guitars courtesy of
Santiago Argento and Noel Kemper. The distortion-laced
grinding guitar riffs work well against song structures which
are more akin to death metal. The three types of vocals work
well, especially in songs which utilise them all including
‘The Dead Will Walk The Earth’. Overall though, the vocals are
far clearer than the previous album, adding to the crunchier
mood on the latter release. For those who are about to yell
‘sell-outs’, there are a few tracks which fly by in half a
minute or less, the eleven second ‘Bloodshed In Weert’ for
example grinding every bit as much as the last album, showing
that this release is a true progression from the last. There
are only two bonus tracks on this album, so a purchase
probably isn’t essential if you already own it. That said,
‘True Gore’ and ‘Invasion Of The Flesh Hunters’ are two
excellent tracks, reminiscent of the punkier tracks on the
album, and deserve to be heard.
This is a splat-terrific chance to catch some top-notch albums
a second time around. Brought back from the dead and with some
ear-poppingly great bonus tracks, Teenage Giallo Grind is a
must for those who already own a copy. Having only been
released this year, Horror Rises From The Tomb hasn’t even
started to decompose, and with only two bonus tracks, those
who have already been possessed by the album needn’t worry.
Needless to say, those of you who haven’t had the displeasure
of experiencing these in the past should get their hands on
them before they come and get you. You have been warned!
www.myspace.com/gruesomestuff |
www.gruesomestuffrelish.grindgore.net |
www.noescaperecords.com |
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Girlschool - Legacy
(SPV) Review by Metal Mark |
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Girlschool were one of the first all female hard rock outfits
and even though the Runaways were around first, Girlschool had
a reputation of having a bit more grit and bite to their music
at times. That being said you would think that an album called
“Legacy” would call upon the strengths of the band’s past.
Indeed the opener “Everything’s The Same” although a little
more slick than I was expecting wasn’t too far off from being
a good chugging rock song. It’s followed up “From The Other
Side” which works even better as it is perhaps even more
deliberate in it’s approach. However after track two it’s like
something falls apart and everything seems to become a bit
scattered and disjointed. Most |
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of the other songs from this point on come across like the
band was attempting to throw in everything but the kitchen
sink as the styles vary greatly. Although very few of the
songs play to their strengths which is solid, straight forward
hard rock. Instead they try modern metal and other avenues
that have them sounding rather uncomfortable and off their
game. They didn’t attempt this alone either, they have a
number of guest appearances on numerous tracks including Lemmy, Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi
and more. However instead of helping it kind of reminds of
when TV shows get past their peak and they bring in “special
guest stars” to boost the ratings. The guests can’t really
help the material isn’t all that stellar to begin with. The
album has a whole just seems like a real jumble of tracks that
don’t fit well with another and it all just feels like a grab
bag of leftovers and songs that made never should have seen
the light of day. www.spv.de
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Ivanhoe - Lifeline (Silverwolf) Review by AJ Carlile |
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‘Lifeline’ is the fifth studio album by the progressive metal
band hailed as the German answer to Dream Theater, Ivanhoe. So
it’s with some degree of shame that I have to admit this is
the first I’ve actually heard of them.
The first thing to note about ‘Lifeline’ is that it is a
collection of rather diverse songs inspired by a number of
musical influences. So there are a number of lighter tracks to
open the album with, and the album grows progressively
heavier. The former being rather bland, and lacking any real
punching power. But from track four onwards, the album begins
to get that bit heavier, it improves by leaps and bounds,
though it seems to hit it’s peak with |
‘Time Machine’, which strikes me as a fine balance between all
their other songs and is definitely the standout track in my
opinion.
The riffs found in the latter tracks are powerful, and for the
most part compliment the music well, while still retaining the
trademark melody you’d expect from a prog band. There are of
course, exceptions, such as some of the odd juxtapositions in
‘Suffering’. And at times, the guitar can forsake melody just
so it can be heavier, such as in a number of riffs in the
closing track, ‘Cheops’. But for the most part, the band is
musically solid.
However, I was expecting more from Mischa Mang. That’s not to
say his vocals are bad. Mang’s performance is a particularly
powerful one. But for someone billed as a ‘Singing God’, I
found his voice far from divine. It seems to be lacking in
certain tracks, and somewhat strained in others. For instance,
Angel’s Hologram is a valiant vocal effort, but some of the
higher notes seemed slightly agonised. And on the opposite end
of the spectrum, in tracks such as ‘Mad Power’, his voice
seems rather bland in comparison to some of the other songs on
the album.
I’m not sure how ‘Lifeline’ holds up against their previous
albums, but I’ve come away from the album with the distinct
impression that it may not have been the best starting point.
The varied nature of Ivanhoe’s latest album is both a blessing
and a curse. While there were certainly a number of great
tracks (and one particularly brilliant one), there were a
handful of mediocre ones to drag it down. That being said,
however, it has left me curious enough to look into some of
their earlier works. I’d be very interested in seeing how they
compare to their latest offering.
www.ivanhoe-band.com
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Nastrond - Muspellz Synir
(Moribund Cult Records)
By: Dave Schalek |
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Swedish raw black metal duo Nastrond have been around for
fifteen years, releasing numerous splits and EPs along with
four full-lengths, including the recently released “Muspellz
Synir” on Debemur Morti Productions and Moribund Cult Records.
Ascribing to a minimalist theme and raw delivery with elements
of the first wave of black metal, “Muspellz Synir” has a
strange mix of minimalism and primal ferocity. Minimalism
appears in the form of thin percussion and overall production;
but, conversely, the prominent bass and guitar complement once
another and seethe with power and malevolence.
Nastrond are at their best when the music cascades with
dissonant chords, the periodic |
appearances of weird tempo changes resulting in unsettling
atmospheres, and a throaty rasp from Draugr. In addition, “Muspellz Synir” has that
definite old school vibe reminiscent of the first wave of
black metal with many of the tricks from Bathory’s first album
present. Combine chunky, sloppy riffs, a mid-paced tempo that
predominates, and a rough production, and “Muspellz Synir”
fits right in with some of the legends of years past. In
short, you end up with a competent album that, while not
entirely original, is a decent take on the raw black metal
genre with homage to the past.
Those of you that have been following Nastrond’s spotty output
throughout their existence will probably want to pick up
“Muspellz Synir”, as I doubt that Nastrond have changed all
that much over the years. Overall, “Muspellz Synir” is
recommended.
www.myspace.com/nastrondofficial
| www.moribundcult.com |
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