Live 4 Metal - Reviews

Madder Mortem - Eight Ways (Peaceville) review by Sam Thomas
	I remember one time, pushing a screaming baby around Wolverhampton town (as it was then) centre, an old boy coming up to me and passing the comment “that babby’s got a fine pair of lungs”. Now I can’t possibly comment on what may or may not have happened in Hedmark, Norway when Agnete was a child, but if there’s any justice in this world, somebody must have surely said something similar to her parents. I don’t normally go much for female vocals (understatement of the year – but we do have other talents), but Agnete’s voice cannot be classed as “just another female vocal”. I remember seeing Madder Mortem live in 2003, when they supported Opeth on the “Deliverance” tour. I
wasn’t too impressed at the line-up, Madder Mortem (unknown, female vocalist), Arch Enemy (known in previous line-up, now with a female vocalist) and Opeth. Then Agnete began to sing. As an exercise in control, it was superb. As a demonstration of power, it was awe-inspiring. And that feeling is captured precisely by “Eight Ways”. Throughout the album, I get the feeling that she can achieve a huge range of sound, and that there is plenty more power available. I can also hear every word clearly, which is another bone of contention with vocalists – what’s the point of writing lyrics, and then rendering them incomprehensible by their delivery? (Unless of course you’re a death or grind band, in which case it’s fine). Eight Ways is the fifth album from Madder Mortem, and is very much of a style with their more recent works – progressive atmospheric metal, as the press release would have it. Can’t really argue with that, but I think I’d add the word “quirky” somewhere. As with everything, there are some tracks that really stand out - I liked “Armour” for its plaintive lyrics, “A Different Kind of Hell” because it could refer to so many situations, and “Get That Monster Out Of Here” just for the sheer novelty value of hearing Agnete yelling at (possibly as much as) three-quarters power. And also, you just have to love a band who have a guitarist called Odd. As in, he really is called Odd. I loved the album from beginning to end, describe it how you will. It’s not your traditional metal release, but that doesn’t need to be a criticism, and in this case it certainly isn’t. Maybe I’ll even get around to liking female vocals one day. (About the time hell freezes over probably). Quirky, anguished, powerful, well-produced, innovative. It doesn’t get much better than this. www.maddermortem.com \| www.peaceville.com

Maim - From The Womb To The Tomb… (Soulseller Records) Review by James Young
	Sweden’s Maim have been touted as a young death metal band, ‘but a killer one’. Ever the cynic, I would love to disagree with this statement, but it’s very hard to with such a disgustingly brilliant sound on offer here. Old-school death metal like Autopsy and Repulsion comes head to head with more modern sensibilities and musicianship. This is clearly a group who have mastered their Death and Dismember albums and know what works and what doesn’t. The benefit of hindsight means that production values can be made to sound lower quite intentionally, and it seems like this has been done with great success. A sickeningly sludgy sound captures all the instruments, but revels in their hideous
rawness, and it sounds splatterific. Take the double kick drumming in ‘Dawn of Blood’, which is just about evident in the lower end of the sound, retaining its underlying heaviness. Rikard’s vocals are nothing more than a hollow grunt, which works almost passively in bringing a tortured sound to the record, something so essential in the older-school death metal sound. The primitive sound of US death metal is played through a Swedish spectrum on this album, adding a nice groovy touch at times, such as in the dazzling riffs of ‘Ascending From The Grave’ and ‘Smoldering Ashes’, which are textbook examples of how the brutal and the catchy should mingle. As is the ilk of this genre of extreme metal, the guitars are an essential facet, and the sound is spot on here, with that chainsaw like abrasiveness which sounds razor sharp. The title track, ‘From The Womb To The Tomb’, is a wonderful example of how the guitar tone cuts through the music, in the same way the poor cartoon lady on the artwork has suffered a more literal fate. The solos are also standout slabs of high-fret squeals of pain and pleasure, such as in the explosive ‘Drop Dead’, which add another dimension to an otherwise claustrophobic barrage. Using the guitar tone in a slightly different way, ‘The Beyond’ closes the album in a doomier fashion, meandering slowly like a zombie in the film of the same name, using samples from the movie in a slow-paced fright-fest. It’s albums like this which make you remember why the old-school death metal sound is so revered, but it is also bands like this which keep the spirit alive. Well done to Maim for showing us all how it’s done properly. www.myspace.com/maimdeathmetal \| www.soulsellerrecords.com

Obituary - Darkest Day (Candlelight) Review by Chris Davison
	Death metal was once almost dead. One of the bands who seemed to embody this almost-catastrophe was the once-mighty Obituary. I can remember their 1997 album “Back From The Dead” being such a mighty disappointment that I almost wrote them off. The last few albums have fared much better, mind you. Like a particularly persistent zombie, Obituary just can’t seem to die, and like the shambling undead, the longer they shuffle about, the more brains they eat, the stronger they become. Put simply, “”Darkest Day” is the album that Obituary have threatened to write since “Frozen in Time” – the true successor to “The End Complete” and a huge wake up call to
all those death metallers who, as I so very nearly did, wrote them off. The key to their success? Slowing everything down again. Man, they haven’t sounded so vital and so thoroughly Floridian since their early days. Their creative juices have produced so many of those Celtic-Frosted riffs on this album that you’d have to work round the clock cloning old Tom G. Warrior (complete with small wood hatchet) to produce half as many of them. Once the unstoppable swing of “Outside my Head” occurs, if you’re not banging your head, the Tardy brothers themselves may have to come and pay you a visit. Everything here is just perfect Obituary – from the aforementioned riffing, THE voice of true, idiosyncratic death metal vocals in the unearthly howl of John Tardy, the unrelenting rhythm section and, of course, the neo-classical soloing skills of Ralph Santolla. He may have an added a new direction to a floundering Deicide, but in Obituary, his tasteful guitar skills provide the perfect counterpoint to the brutal simplicity of the main riffing. Of course, in the old days, the production was nowhere near as good as this; thick, punchy and violent beyond belief, the marriage of new technology and recording techniques with good old fashioned heavy metal violence. Darkest Days then? For the opposition and the much vaunted “new breed” of death metal, maybe, but for the triumphant Obituary, the only dark days I can see ahead of them are when they come to try and write an album that’s anywhere near as flawless as this. Face-gurning, shit-eating-grin-inducing, fist-banging death metal, the way that granny used to make it. Take a big slice, kids, and eat it while it’s still hot. www.candlelightrecords.co.uk

Stream of Passion - The Flame Within (Napalm) Review by Steve Green
	With Arjen Lucassen, plus guitarist Lori Linstruth and pianist Alejandro Millán, having left the band since their fantastic Embrace The Storm debut, which I can't believe is 4 years old already, Marcela Bovio and her Dutch cohorts have a lot to live up to... and unfortunately the results are a bit mixed. I think the biggest problem is the songwriting. Arjen Lucassen has very big boots to fill and whoever has taken control of the songwriting for this album simply doesn't possess the same skill level. The majority of the choruses are ok, but you have to wade through a lot of average material for the quick burst of light each song possesses. And in terms of solid,
memorable tunes, such as Out In The Real World or Wherever You Are, from Embrace The Storm, nothing comes even remotely close, with only Games We Play and Now Or Never truly winning me over. And on the flipside, I actually hit the skip button 4 times on my first play of the album, which obviously isn't a good sign. But in saying that, I cannot knock any of the performances. Marcela sounds her normal, wonderful, self and the new band, including the "old" rhythm section of Johan van Stratum and Davy Mickers, sound fantastic, but there's not enough on offer here to get me excited about this album. It's not very often I write a negative review of a band I really like, but I'm afraid I cannot recommend this album as it's not a patch on their debut. www.streamofpassion.com

Swashbuckle - Back To The Noose (Nuclear Blast) reviewed By Steve Earles
	Alestorm seem to have opened the floodgates to yet another metal-subgenre, that of pirate metal (Alestorm didn’t invent it however, that accolade goes to German metallers, Running Wild, way back in the glory days of Noise Records, at a time when Noise was releasing killer albums from Hellhammer, Sabbat, Celtic Frost, Voivod and Kreator. Just looking at the previous line, that much quality music in one line, they truly were glory days). I have to say I rate Alestorm highly, they are a very true metal band, and have a good sense of humour something sadly lacking during the foul days of nu-metal), and while Alestorm are more of a classic metal band, Swashbuckle are very thrashy, bordering on hardcore in
places. We go from catchy almost DRI influenced thrash like Back To The Noose, to gentle Caribbean guitar interludes, make no mistake, this is a funny album (the trio even credit their parrot Shithead as being a member of the band), titles like Peg-Leg Stomp, Cloudy With A Chance of Piracy, The Grog Box (possible a tribute to the gorgeous latex-clad singer of Die So Fluid?), and Rime Of The Haggard Mariner leave you in little doubt! Top notch production, and seriously heavy, maybe on the next album, a little less of the funny interludes, at times I thought I was going from Monty Python Sings to Slayer’s Reign In Blood. But these are small quibbles, Swahbuckle’s hearts are in the right place, the music is fine, and in these dark times, we need some fun! Those who love the might Municipal Waste will find much to enjoy here, me hearties! Arrr!! www.nuclearblast.de

Thorium - Mushroom Clouds And Dusk (Soulseller Records) Review by Crin
	Swedish Black Metal that will surprise many. Formed 1994, and this, the bands second album is certainly unoriginal, most definitely Black Metal and without doubt born from the altar of Mayhems ‘De Mysteriss Dom Sathanas. Opus par excellence. When I first played this new Thorium album I was blown off my chair as if the window had flown open and a belligerent gust of hell fire had blustered into the room. The whole blisteringly hurtful guitar arrangements just ooze that Mayhem albums very essence. Its quite eerie at times but no less potent. The razor riffs cut into your ears like a smouldering iron pierced into a still beating heart. The power they push out sits alongside some frantic precision born from a
Black metal holocaust. Fuck me!! This is one fast, seething release, so precise, it defies gravity itself. If shit tasted like honey then this would be its musical equivalent. The velocity of the tracks here are equal to fellow Swedes Marduk and Dark Funeral, but the depth of melody is far greater. The music just oozes from its extreme axis to flow into the senses like warm blood running down the fuller of a bayonet. Some albums are like a nuclear fall out where there is no respite to the pain and jackhammer aural insurgency. Slayer have a knack of producing albums with that sort of intensity. Listing to this album is like being tied to a conveyor belt and taken into a storm of spitting glass and nails, with each gap between the tracks the only respite to the hail of Black Metal ferocity. Some bands can take this general concept and turn music into a blur or a complete mess. Here, the songs are held together by the skin of their teeth, like a car teetering in its high speed momentum knowing that if it exceeds its limits it will disintegrate. At times one can only gawp at this stunning album, at others marvel at its intricate construction. So, if you want to be pummelled into mush and thrown into a grave of still born Siamese twins and piss, get this album. [now it don’t get better than that!!] www.soulsellerrecords.com

Warbringer - Waking Into Nightmares (Century Media) reviewed By Steve Earles
	While the second wave of thrash metal brought far too many bands who were style (usually another bands) without substance, Warbringer are definitely their own beast. What Warbringer take from the first wave of thrash is the cream of the crop: musicality, attitude, and aggression, particularly that of the mighty Exodus. Now, people, usually those who weren’t there, who have no understanding of the music we love, speak of the so-called ‘Big Four’ of Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer, but if there was any justice (for all), they would at least speak of a ‘Big Five’, because make no mistake, if the fates had been kinder, Exodus would have been huge, at least of late Exodus have had a rebirth and
people are realising that when Metallica recruited Kirk Hammett from Exodus, they took the wrong guitarist, because Gary Holt is the real deal, and his production on ‘Waking Into Nightmares’, takes Warbringer the logical step beyond ‘War Without End’. It’s an outstanding production, every instrument given a crystal clear clarity, but never at the expense of Warbringer’s aggression. But in praising Holt’s outstanding contribution, I must draw attention to the leap forward in song-writing made by the band, in no small way due to their laudable work ethic, Warbringer are real road dogs, and it shows. In particular, Scorched Earth, Pray For Death, and Forgotten Dead are massive metal tracks. John Kevill has a brutal but clear voice, and that alone makes a major contribution to the bands identity, while John Laux and Adam Carroll unleash a guitar metalstorm of Slayer-esque ferocity. New bassist Ben Bennett has a classic Jason Newstead precision to his bass, and Nic Ritter’s interesting drum rhythms and time-changes help Warbringer stay contemporary rather than retro. All wrapped up in a Dan Seagrave sleeve. Warbringer have the commitment and chops, and most importantly, the songs to enjoy a life beyond the second wave of thrash. www.myspace.com/warbringer \| www.centurymedia.com