| Autumnia - O'Funeralia
(Solitude) Review by Steve Green |
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As Autumn is quickly disappearing into Winter, it's definitely the
season of Doom, and here we have a surprisingly melodic Doom band from
the Ukraine. I say surprisingly as this is equally as serene as it is
downbeat. Beautifully textured, this album is pretty much impossible not
to enjoy.
I'll let you make your own mind up who over who I think Autumnia remind
me of, but there's some very beautiful piano parts, wonderfully
melancholic violins, deep gutteral vocals, mixed nicely with some superb
clean singing and a plethora of sweeping riffs, all put together over 5
long songs, with a running time of just under 50 minutes. You'd be right
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saying that Autumnia aren't offering up anything here that you haven't
heard before, but the album is so good, it doesn't really matter.
www.myspace.com/autumniaband |
http://solitude-prod.com/
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Cryptic Tales -
Anathema (Red Rum Records) Review by Steve
Earles |
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Clocking in at just under 40 minutes this is the ideal length
for a death metal album. This is a reissue of Polish band
Crytpic Tales’ 1993 debut, happy days before the invention
of ‘Deathcore’. The opening title track owes much to
Autopsy. While Steeple of the Nightmare has an eerie
atmosphere. Live In Vineless has an early Bolt Thrower vibe
about it. In Grave Rotting Is Slowly has that Stockholm
sound about it, reminiscent of Entombed circa Left Hand
Path, Voices Inside The Beast just pounds, while the closing
track, the fantastically titled Putrid Mutants shows where
Cryptic Tales began to forge their own identity.
www.cryptictales.pl |
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Crysknife - Mythos
(Self release) Review By Steve Earles |
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Now this is something different, a self-produced album by two
brothers, who handle all instruments save drums. Both are
talented musicians and follow somewhat in the path of Kings
Z or the Awful Truth and will appeal to fans of those bands.
They have an undeniable groove going on, and some nice Jon
Lord style Hammond organ. They have a nice line in
story-telling lyrics and I can’t fault their sincerity. A
constructive criticism I’d make is that the boys are trying
too hard to include too many influences. Less is more, the
songs here have great lyrics, groove and melodies and I
believe that stripped down, they’d work even better. Well
done though, good grit and determination shown in getting
their |
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dreams on disc. Worth checking out!
www.crysknife.com |
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Dark Forest - Defender
EP (Iron Kodex)
Review By Steve Earles |
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Formed way back in 2002, Dark Forest predate the current crop
of trad-metal bands by some years. One side effect of the
recession is a return to old school metal and it constantly
throws up new and exciting acts. Opening with Defender, a
furious statement of intent, it brings to mind classic
Priest. Singer Will-Lowry Scott has a powerful set of pipes,
and comes across as the offspring of Halford and Bruce
Dickinson, while Paul Thmpson and Adam Sidaway provide a
powerful rhythm section. I Vow to Thee, My Country is an
inventive take on Gustav Holst's works. Dark Forest are in
good company here, Diamond Head’s take on Mars The Bringer
of War from Holst’s Planets suite on Am I Evil didn’t |
do them (or Metallica) any harm. The EP closes in fine style
with The Wizard of Alderly Edge, showcasing the excellent
twin-guitar attack of Christian Horton and Jim Lees. A band
we’ll be hearing more from I'm sure.
www.ironkodex.de |
www.myspace.com/darkforestrealm |
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| Ea - II
(Solitude) Review by Steve Green |
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US funeral Doom merchants Ea don't exactly make reviewing their
material an easy task. I've no background information on them (still). I
can tell you I really liked their debut album, 2006's Ea Taesse, which
consisted of 1 track, broken down into 3 parts, with a running time of
55 minutes. We're spoilt this time around though as the album consists
of 2 untitled tracks, with a running time of 47 minutes.
In a nutshell, this is atmospheric Funeral Doom. The riffs are so far
apart that you could fall asleep in the time it takes each successive
riff to appear... this is slooooow. But it is beautiful, which is all
that matters to me. I find Doom makes me happy and the sexier it |
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sounds, the happier I am. And while the misery factor is
practically non-existent because of the ambient keyboards
which keep this feeling light, (despite the funereal pace),
this one will still appeal to the miserablists amongst you.
http://solitude-prod.com/
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Future Is Tomorrow - Fit To Die (Part 1)
(Self Release)
Review by Steve Green |
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When it comes to Italian Metal, there seems to be no middle ground. Either
you're going to hate an album or you're going to love it. So I came to
this album with no preconceptions at all and hit play.
Future Is Tomorrow are an Italian Prog-Power Metal band, but one that
bring a lot of fresh energy to the genre. The choruses don't follow the
normal high pitched route, but rather bizarrely, they remind me of 80s
Pop music, without being overly catchy, and I cannot really explain my
thought process, that's just what my brain is telling me. Elsewhere the
band blend Gregorian Chants to good effect and they effortlessly flit
between Hard
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Rock, Power Metal and a more Progressive style and I'm a real sucker for frontman Max's impassioned vocals, which really tops off
the bands sound quite superbly.
There are no complaints to made at all and this album comes thoroughly
recommended to all traditionalists and Power Metal fans.
www.futureistomorrow.it
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Grimlord - Dolce Vita
Sath-anas (Self
Release)
Review by Steve Green |
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And this years award for the most pointless album goes to...
wait for it... Grimlord from Poland. I have no idea what the
band were thinking of when they decided to release this as
an album, so read on to why I'm left scratching my head with
bewilderment.
Ok, let's deal with the 1st 3 songs on the album to start
with. I guess the best way to describe them are as
traditional Metal, but with Thrash and Black/Death
tendencies, not forgetting the keyboards that pop up from
nowhere and a vocalist who comes from the Klaus Meine school
of foreign accents. Did I mention that the tempo constantly
changes throughout or that acoustic passages keep appearing
without warning? Yet despite this |
absolutely fucked up smorgasbord of Metal craziness, it all
kind of works. At times I have no idea what the hell is
going on and at other times, I think this is the work of
pure genius. Quite simply, the more I play it, the more I
like it.
We then move on to the remaining 6 tracks. I'm guessing
these were recorded at a different time and at a different
location because the production levels drop to a standard
that isn't even demo standard. It really is piss weak. But
to make matters worse, the remaining 6 tracks are all
instrumental!!! Admittedly the time changes are a lot better
than on the 1st 3 numbers, but come on, these songs aren't
fit for release. Releasing something of this poor quality
can only tarnish your name, so I simply do not see the point
of including them on this "album", as in reality, this is a
reasonably good 3 track EP with a load of sub-standard,
"work it progress" material stuck on the end.
www.myspace.com/grimlordband |
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Horns Of Anguish - Barriers
(Kampas) Review by Steve Green |
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Before this album was recorded, Horns of Anguish's early days was very
Spinal Tap in nature, including going under the name of Grandma's Vomit
on their 1st couple of demo's. Now the band have settled down as a 2
piece, Filip Robertsson on vocals, bass and guitar, while Morgan
Andersson bashes way on the drums, and this is their debut album. Oh,
and their music of choice, is (sort of) Stoner.
The sort of, above, comes from the fact that although HoA ply a cool,
laidback Stoner kinda vibe, they occasionally stray from that path with
a few screams, which are almost Black Metal at times and at other times
are a Pantera meets Hardcore sort of affair and |
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they also reverse that completely by hitting the shoegaze effects pedal on a few occasions. So
there are a few good things going on to mix it up and keep the listener
guessing as to the next direction. But for the most part though, this
album is nicely blissed out and is a mighty fine listen.
www.myspace.com/hornsofanguish |
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I Sell The Dead
(Film) Review by Steve Earles |
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It’s difficult to believe that I Sell The Dead is only the
debut feature film of Irish director Glenn Mc Quaid, such is
it’s combination of charm chills, chuckles, and competence.
This is a 21st century take on the classic Hammer and Amicus
films.
Set in the Victorian era (a welcome respite from vapid
spoilt teen-orientated horror films), condemned prisoner
Arthur Blake (Dominic Monaghan) confesses all to the prison
chaplain Father Duffy (a nice comic turn from Ron Perlman)
(known as the Ordinary, the chaplain would then sell
sensationalised copies of these confessions to great
profit). Blake and his aptly named partner, Willie Grimes
(Larry Fessenden) had been blackmailed into stealing corpses
for a wicked anatomist Dr. Quint (a nice turn from Phantasm
legend Angus Scrimm, a man surely born to play this role).
Things start to go from bad to worse when the duo dig up a
staked corpse that had been buried at a crossroads (this
should have been enough to set off the alarm bells). After
taking delivery of the corpse, the foolish |
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Quint (who, like Arthur and Willie suffers from not having
seen any Hammer horrors) removes the stake and the vampire
revives and kills him. Then, Arthur and Willie incur the
wrath of Cornelius Murphy (John Sperdakos), a knife-wielding
corpse-grinder. Arthur incurred his ire by robbing the
frozen carcass of an extraterrestrial (thinking, as you do,
that it was a circus freak). At his local, The Fortunes of
War, Arthur befriends a strumpet aptly called Fanny (a nice
turn from the lovely Brenda Cooney), again as you do. The
innkeepers reveal that a ship containing three zombies was
shipwrecked on the rocks off the Isle of Langol. Fanny
persuades Arthur and a very reluctant Willie (you’d think a
prostitute would be able to rose a reluctant Willie,
though!) to row over there and steal the zombies from
Murphy’s gang. Fanny slays Cornelius’s bodyguard Bulger (Alisdair
Stewart) (who has dog’s teeth!). The zombie escapes from his
crate and bites Willie. I won’t reveal anymore for fear of
spoiling the film for those who haven’t seen it, and see it
you should. It’s fine film, one we need more of in these
miserable times. It manages to get the laughs to scares
ratio exactly right, which is a great achievement,
particularly for a debut, as horror comedy is hard to do.
Anyone who loved Drag Me To Hell will love this. Highly
recommended
www.isellthedead.com |
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Metalium - Grounded
(Massacre) Review by Steve Green |
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The opening statement of "We are Heavy Metal... if you don't like it...
fuck you!!!" is followed by some fine Teutonic riffing and a Rob Halford
style scream had me expecting a full-on Metal assault. And opener Heavy
Metal does deliver on that promise, but the pace, unfortunately, does
drop off rather quickly. 2nd number, Light Of Day is more like a
slightly rockier version of Queensryche, and on further numbers, I'd say
Metalium are a mixture of King Diamond, the aforementioned Queensryche,
a dash of Power Metal and just a small amount of Germanic Metal.
Metalium are obviously Metal, but the opening statement of intent ends
up being a bit of a
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red herring as the band are more of a Progressive-cum-Metal
band, than the traditional tour-de-force I was expecting.
Good, but it could have been so much better if they'd put
the pedal to the Metal...
www.massacre-records.com |
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Storm King - Angels of
Emnity (Innervenus Art & Musek) Review By
Steve Earles |
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Storm King are an excellent diverse metal band that hail
from Pittsburgh, former home of George A. Romero. Opening
with the ferocious Keeper of Shadows, Storm King quickly
reveal themselves to be far more than a one-dimensional one
trick band. The Death Equation brings to mind late period
Floodgate jamming with Mastodon. While A Constant Struggle
Between Everything and Nothingness is very poignant showing
elements of Crowbar and Down in their sound, while Scott
Massie delivers the most heartfelt lyrics. A theme that
continues on Lack Luster, with a very southern edge to its
sound. Wallowing is |
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more technical death metal, but with melody that would
appeal to fans of Carcass and At The Gates. The album
finishes in fine style with the lengthy progressive
masterpiece title track. A brave and sincere album
www.stormkingreigns.com |
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| Wine From Tears - Through The
Eyes Of A Mad (BadMoodMan/Solitude) Review by Steve Green |
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Rounding off my day of Doom are Russian Death/Doom merchants, Wine
From Tears, who don't seem to have moved on much from the mid 90s. Being
perfectly honest, there's not an awful lot to get excited about here,
despite the music being of a very good standard. The problem is, that
Wine From Tears are treading very old ground and they offer nothing new
to a style that's been done to death for about 15 or so years. Yes, the
melodies are good, the songs are of an ok standard, but there are no
peaks and the vocal style is very predictable. As there are no highs to
get to excited over, that leaves the listener in a state of mundane
apathy. Especially when the album is 77 minutes long and I was looking
for the |
| Valium by track 4.
http://solitude-prod.com/ |
