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Kreator - Hordes of Chaos
(SPV)
By: Dave Schalek |
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German thrash legends Kreator storm back with a very
impressive follow up to 2005’s “Enemy of God”. Entitled
“Hordes of Chaos” and released on SPV, Kreator’s home for
their past couple of full-lengths, the album harkens back a
bit to “Terrible Certainty” territory in that Mille Petrozza
hasn’t sounded this pissed off since the early days of the
band. Even still, nothing has really changed all that much for
Mille and company since 2001’s “Violent Revolution”, their
comeback album of sorts. After all, Kreator are a veteran band
that have honed their sound over decades of work. However,
“Hordes of Chaos” seems to be much sharper in focus and
songwriting, as Mille delivers politically |
charged salvos throughout the ten tracks present on “Hordes of
Chaos”.
Using the political and religious tensions prevalent on the
geopolitical stage as a thematic starting point, “Hordes of
Chaos” is filled with frenetic riffs, bursts of speed
intermixed with moments of melody and Mille’s fluid guitar
work, and a couple of well placed, soft spoken acoustical
passages somewhat reminiscent of Metallica, circa “Master of
Puppets” or so. In addition, Mille spits out his stylized
shout with venom as the world’s seemingly increasing collapse
into chaos provides fertile ground for artistic inspiration.
The main focus of the music, however, is upon the thrash metal
gallop so prevalent in most of Kreator’s music throughout the
years, as this is where “Hordes of Chaos” truly shines as
Mille’s evident anger comes to the forefront. The songwriting
contains much variation, however, as the speed is varied with
plenty of mid-paced, old school crunch, resulting in a well
thought out album.
In short, Kreator have delivered an excellent album and
demonstrate that, like Destruction, there is still plenty of
life left in classic German thrash metal. I, for one, look
forward to Kreator’s upcoming U.S. tour as it has been over
twenty years since I’ve managed to see the band live.
Obviously, I’ve been remiss and I’ll move quickly to rectify
the situation.
www.kreator-terrorzone.de
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www.myspace.com/officialkreator
| www.spv.de/eng/news.html
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Motherstone - Biolence
(Self Release) Review by Steve Green |
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I loved the artwork for
this album so much, I was really hoping the music would be as good as the
albums packaging, which really is fabulous. So a quick perusal of the
biog, which informed me that this was a concept album and that the tracks
were related to various crimes, mainly murder, which took place in Italy
over the past few decades and things continue to look good. So we now have
the look, we have the satisfactory subject matter, all we need now is the
music to be equally as interesting.
Motherstone are from Italy and they have a male/female vocal duo, and yes,
the Lacuna Coil comparison is an easy one to make. But bar at outright act
of plagiarism on Someone
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Sitting By You, which does possess an identical melody line as
one of Lacuna Coil's earlier songs (it escapes me right now,
but it's off either their self titled debut or from In A
Reverie) the comparisons are kept to a minimum as Motherstone are much heavier than
their fellow country men, and woman. Sure, front woman, Vale, has a
similar range as you know who, but she has a more adaptable voice and I'd
guess is slightly more soulful. Her male counterpart, JJ Mammasasso has a
darker, more deathly tone and musically, this is Thrash based with a
confident, Progressive edge. So overall, this is commercial, but it's hard
hitting at the same time. It's also a very enjoyable album. The pace is
varied throughout, with plenty of scope for banging your head as well as
drifting off (in a good way) to the more subtle elements. And it does make
you wonder why Motherstone are still unsigned as this is as good, if not
better, than almost everything I've heard coming out of Italy in the past
few years. And trust me, I hear a stack of Italian Metal, both good and
bad. So on that basis, this one comes recommended.
www.motherstone.it
| www.myspace.com/motherstonemusic
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Napalm Death - Time Waits For No Slave
(Century Media) Review
by James Young |
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Grind gods Napalm Death have returned with Time Waits For No
Slave, their fourteenth studio album, and things have not
slowed down one bit. Living up to the 2006 masterpiece Smear
Campaign was always going to be a tough job, but this sounds
just as heavy, fast and aggressive as its predecessor. Herein
lies the problem however, in that one can guess pretty much
exactly how this one is going to sound. If you’re after
groundbreaking originality, it might be wise to look
elsewhere, but if like me you love Napalm Death and can stand
a little bit of predictability, you’ll probably enjoy it.
Barney Greenway’s vocals are as ferocious as ever, colliding
with the best grinding riffs in the business from Mitch |
Harris and punchy basslines from Shane Embury. If it’s even possible,
the blastbeats of Danny Herrera have got even faster since the
last album, although as an extreme drummer he’s more than just
a one-trick pony, with some welcome rhythm variations
throughout. The song-titles and lyrics, which you’ll probably
have to read in the booklet rather than listen out for, are of
the highly charged political nature that we’ve come to expect
from this band, and as usual can be rather thought-provoking,
whether you agree, disagree, or don’t care with the band’s
opinions.
We should perhaps start with this album’s pitfalls before we
grunt its praises, and the first gripe I had was that things
begin to grind (in the bad sense of the term) towards the end
of the album. The fourteen songs last a little too long at
fifty minutes altogether, and the extended edition even longer
clocking in at an hour. A couple of songs could perhaps have
been axed such as the rather unmemorable ‘Fallacy Dominion’
which is passable but adds nothing new to the mix. This said,
it would be a tad harsh to pass this off as just a carbon copy
of the previous outing - there are a few moments which took me
by surprise. Barney’s vocals did deviate from the norm
sometimes, with a spoken part in ‘Strongarm’, and strange
droned vocals in the title track ‘Time Waits For No Slave’,
which when combined with the rhythmical drums bring an almost
industrial flavour to the song. There are times when a
slightly more traditional rock-meets-metal guitar effect can
be heard, such as in ‘Work To Rule’ and ‘Life And Limb’,
creating an interesting and fresh juxtaposition against the
otherwise raw chaos. Adding to the variety, the closer
‘De-evolution Ad Naseum’ contains a fast clean riff which
wouldn’t look out of place in a technical death metal band. If
this wasn’t enough, ‘A No-sided Argument’ is guaranteed to
take you off-guard with a stand-out solo taken straight from
the punk genre, so it can’t be said that this album is
completely uninspired.
You’ve probably made your mind up already as to whether you’ll
be picking this one up, and whilst it’s not entirely
essential, Time Waits For No Slave is a testament to the
twenty-eight or so years of the most important band in the
extreme music genre, and despite lacking in the originality
department, is nevertheless a blistering listen that will
satisfy all your grinding needs.
www.napalmdeath.org |
www.myspace.com/napalmdeath |
www.centurymedia.com |
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Narcosis - Best Served Cold
(Earache) Review by Steve Green |
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Although I've not really kept up with their musical output,
Narcosis and I go way back. They were the first band I chose for a
compilation tape I put out, fuck, I guess about 1995 or 96-ish, when the
band were in their infancy. I also spent a very drunken time in Wigan with
the band and stayed at then bassist, Tez Hindley's gaff. Ah, glorious
memories... or maybe just drunken memories.
So many moons on, it's time to lay Narcosis to rest with a 51 track
compilation which features a couple of albums worth of tracks, plus songs
culled from various splits, as well as a couple of unreleased demo tracks.
So what you are getting is basically 51 tracks of
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noisy fucking grind from a bunch of nutty Northerners. No
offence, of course.
All joking aside, that is really what you do get from Narcosis: noisy as
fuck, as brutal as it gets, unrelenting grind. I'm sitting here at my
desk with my mp3 on high alert, blasting my senses away, listening to such beautiful
ditties as "Ode To A Worthless Fucking Piece Of Shit", "Shitfucker" and
"From Your Hate Filled Heart To My Shit Filled Life". No one made out that
this was going to be pretty. But through all of the noise, you cannot help
but admire what the band did. Uncompromising as it gets, they just did
what they did and fuck what anyone else thought. So if you were a fan of
the band, then this is a perfect way to remember them by. And if you were
curious about them, but never got around to discovering them, then the
same shit applies. Find out what all the fuss was about in one easy hit.
As it's Narcosis, I'll end my review with a complaint. Why no tracks from
their first 3 demos? Especially my old favourite, In God We Trust.
Narcosis R.I.P. www.earache.com |
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Novembre - Classica
(Reissue) (Peaceville) review by Sam Thomas |
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Classica, which was originally released in 1999 through
Century Media, is Novembre’s third album, and, the
accompanying blurb would have it, their most important
release. Well, yeah, maybe in terms of getting onto a major
label for the first time, and I won’t argue with the idea that
they gravitated to a new level on the strength of it, but,
personally, I’ve always preferred Novembrine Waltz.
Novembre played a huge part in my personal music history – I
went to a gig at the Underworld which was a whole string of
firsts for me – first London gig, first gig on my own, first
death metal gig, first gig since uni. It could all have ended
so differently. The first |
band on were Novembre, who had such
appalling sound problems (an embarrassed Carmelo apologised at
the end of the set) that I wasn’t even sure who I’d been
watching (thanks Live4Metal for enlightening me) but the whole
night was brilliant, so naturally I went out and bought
Classica (and Novembrine Waltz).
Apparently, that was a good move on my part, as part of the
reason for the reissue (apart from the sordid possibility of
making a few bucks) is that Classica has been kind of hard to
get hold of in recent years. Which is a shame, as it’s still
as powerful and clear today as it was then: a brilliant
Italian take on technical death metal. Everything has been
re-recorded here, resulting in a more polished version of the
original rough diamond. But it’s not been played about with
too much: there’s none of that “yeah, but I liked it how it
was” kind of problem that you get on these occasions.
Inevitably there are bonus tracks – demos of “Tales from a
Winter to Come” and “Winter 1941” (I always find it curious
including demos of tracks that are actually on the album in
question) and “Colour of an Eye” which sounds very like
Novembre (but not like vintage Novembre).
If you don’t already own the original, this is a fantastic
release, very much in the style of Opeth at that era (ie
Blackwater Park). If you do already own the original, you have
to decide whether a re-record plus one new bonus track of
adequate but not outstanding quality is worth the price. For
me, it would be, but then Novembre will always occupy a
special place in my heart…
www.novembre.co.uk
| www.peaceville.com
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Sepultura - A- Lex
(SPV)
By: Dave Schalek |
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Alright, I admit it. I haven’t paid any attention to Sepultura
since “Roots”, other than a cursory listen of “Against” when
it was first released. Simply put, I just lost interest
(weirdly enough, though, I do pay some attention to Soulfly
and have liked their last couple of full-lengths). At any
rate, my exposure to the Derrick Green fronted version of
Sepultura is limited, at best, and changes galore have
occurred to Sepultura over the years. I didn’t really pay much
attention to the goings on since I find the various soap
operas surrounding black metal to be vastly more entertaining.
At any rate, I went into this review completely wide eyed and
with an open mind, since I really had no idea what to expect.
Was I going |
to be treated to a more hardcore style of metal? Tribal
thrash? Nu metal/ metalcore dreck? I had no idea.
“A- Lex”, Sepultura’s latest full-length on SPV, is based
around “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess (the novel, not
Kubrick’s film), and consists of 18 songs sprawled out over 60
minutes. Each track is only a couple of minutes long and is a
strange mishmash of thrash metal, hardcore (considering the
vocal style of Derrick Green), the odd tribal rhythm or two,
and some classical compositions based around Beethoven’s 9th
symphony very deep into the album (not surprising, given the
subject matter). I should note that, in the liner notes
provided by SPV, “A-Lex” basically consists of one long jam
session conducted over a three month period in the recording
studio that was then assembled into an album, almost as if the
final result was unplanned. This kind of an approach to an
album’s construction can become haphazard and fall apart
rather quickly, but Sepultura manage to have the project gel
together into a cohesive whole with some excellent, well
thought out short blasts interspersed with some obvious
experimentation that, to these ears at least, comes off as
varied, detailed, and interesting. In short, “A- Lex” is an
album that definitely thinks “outside the box” and is by no
means typical.
In all honesty, though, as enjoyable as “A- Lex” is, it is
probably not enough to encourage me to go back through
Sepultura’s post- Max Cavalera catalogue, but it’s enough to
hold my interest for awhile. Therefore, with that in mind,
those of you with an interest in the modern Sepultura already
will probably eat this up with relish, but this is an atypical
album that may be difficult to digest for the casual listener.
http://sepultura.uol.com.br/v6/ |
www.myspace.com/sepultura |
www.spv.de |
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The Red Shore - Unconsecrated (Siege of Amida) Review by James
Young |
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The first thing that struck me about Australia’s The Red Shore
was how similar the name was to US death /grind act The Red
Chord. Whether or not this was a coincidence I don’t know, but
musically there are more than a few similarities, the main one
being that these guys also play the uber-technical slamming
breed of extreme music. Personally I wouldn’t call this
deathcore due to the lack of those irritatingly slow
breakdowns (although it may be wrongfully labelled as such),
but what we have here instead is a sickening mix of grind,
death metal mixed with some breathtaking melodic leads. And
freaking marvellous it sounds too - assisted by crystal clear
production, this is half an hour of top musicianship at |
breakneck speed. If this wasn’t enough, included in some
versions of the album is a bonus DVD which includes an
extensive hour long documentary about the history of the band,
which sheds some light on the saddening deaths of two of the
members from 2007. Also included on the DVD is a neat little
live performance, which showcases most of the album’s
material, and shows that the technicality is more than just a
product of studio magic but pure talent.
Whilst fast, things never get out of hand, and the tights
riffs of Jason Leombruni and Roman Koester bring the likes of
fellow countrymen Psycroptic to mind, varying between fast
melodic and slamming leads, which are always subject to change
at the drop of a hat. Drummer Jake Green flawlessly manages to
glue all the time changes together with an outstanding
collection of techniques, ranging from the slow to the
lightening-speed blasts and double kick drumming as heard on
‘The Architects of Repulsion’. No doubt he is at his best when
given a stand-alone drum part to show off his speedy playing,
such as in the Origin-like ‘Slain By The Serpent’. Vocalist
Jamie Hope for the most part utilises a throaty grunt, but
sometimes screams, and even demonstrates some piggy squeals in
‘The Garden Of Impurity’ in true brutal slamming style.
Through all the extremities, this album is about as varied as
this kind of music can get, with songs showing distinctive
traits, either through the brilliantly melodic solos or the
devastatingly clean and savage riffs.
This is some great Aussie extreme metal, and anyone into
technical death metal or metalcore would be doing themselves a
favour in buying this. For a debut album, especially for a
band with such unfortunate member problems, they have done
their fallen friends proud with such a stunning opus.
www.myspace.com/theredshore |
www.siegeofamida.net |
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Wino - Punctuated Equilibrium
(Southern Lord)
By: Dave Schalek |
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Scott “Wino” Weinrich needs no introduction to our readership,
and I’m a casual fan of most, but not all, of the projects
that he has been involved with over the years. For example, I
reviewed his last appearance in a recording; the last album
from The Hidden Hand entitled “The Resurrection of Whiskey
Foote” on the always engaging Southern Lord Records. Like most
of the other projects that Wino has been involved with over
the years, The Hidden Hand have apparently called it a day
after a couple of full-lengths.
Not to be worried, however, as Wino surfaces yet again very
quickly, once again as a trio in a very personal project
simply entitled Wino. “Punctuated Equilibrium” (taking a page |
from the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, sorry,
had to throw that in here) is the first album from Wino’s
personal project and is released on Southern Lord, Wino’s
label of choice. An obviously personal release, Wino’s
motivation for this album was to explore his own personal
muse, and the musicians enlisted are there to complement his
vision. The result is a combination of drawn out, stoner doom
metal passages with full riffs, the odd progressive moment or
two, a few bluesy numbers, and some moments of seriously
fuzzed out, early 70s psychedelics, the album’s strongest
point in my opinion. The end result is an album that harkens
back to the days of St. Vitus (along with some definite nods
to Black Sabbath’s first two or three albums, particularly in
the more bluesy aspects of the album), perhaps more so than
any of Wino’s other recent artistic endeavors. As a contrast,
“Punctuated Equilibrium” tends to avoid some of the deeply
heavy crunch of The Obsessed and Place of Skulls.
Overall, “Punctuated Equilibrium” is going to satisfy anyone
with, at least, a casual interest in Wino’s projects and is an
excellent introduction for those of you that have, for some
reason, missed out on a pillar of stoner doom. Incidentally,
the artwork is absolutely killer.
www.myspace.com/winoschopper
| www.southernlord.com |
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