Panikk - Discarded Existence (2017)

It doesn't take a lot of imagination to come up with the sound that Slovenia's Panikk are going for on their sophomore outing Discarded Existence. Those familiar with the second tier of Bay Area thrash from the 80s will remember a certain, violent debut album which also featured an individual being sucked into a swirling vortex, only this time it seems more like a tornado than a series of toothy maws. Sure enough, once you've actually given this a spin, you'll encounter a lot of the frenetic, high strung thrash metal which dominated that unsung masterwork of the genre, and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that's a bad thing, because there while it might take a few pointers from their predecessors, this is solid improvement over their 2013 debut Unbearable Conditions, and proof that putting a little effort and a fraction of complexity to the songwriting can vault you well over the shoulders of much of the useless and redundant pizza re-thrash of the last decade.

To be clear, while the primary propulsion here is a style akin to records like Eternal Nightmare or Oppressing the Masses, I'd actually draw a closer comparison to Japan thrashers Ritual Carnage who have a storied history of translated those same 80s influence into a more modern context. The vocals in particular have that higher pitch in which a lot of the lines spit out the same notes over and over to create a disaffected style first pioneered by Joey Belladonna of Anthrax. In this case, though, while the vocals are certainly well suited to this jerking, thrashing mix, it's really the riffs that take center stage and manifest the rich intensity of the experience, each track being loaded with a good share of variations and occasional subtleties which range from the viciousness of a Destruction or Vio-Lence to even the turbo fueled power/thrash of Artillery that I so admired coming up. It's not insanely technical or unique, but cuts a nice line between clinical neck-straining and familiar but not wholly bitten off riff progressions that you'll recount from both the German and US scenes, from primal S.O.D. mosh to the scalpel-thrash of the aforementioned Schmier and company.

Discarded Existence is carefully calculated to give you both that richer impression of thrash and its musicianship, with soaring, sailing and wailing leads as well as a whole slew of mid-paced pure head banging riffs that keep the experience a lot more grounded than the victim on its cover. Drums and bass provide an accurate level of support, but are never able to take the reins away from the axes for any length of time, which has never really been the point of this genre. Thankfully, that rhythm tone is just excellent, precise and full-bodied enough to satisfy the production gluttons who want a record which sounds 21st century. While I can't say it produces endless replay value or tunes that are likely to become classics, the whole thing is consistent and entertaining to listen through, with lyrics that stick to the social and political topics thrash has long touted, and a level of energy that never lets up, but leaves plenty of room for variation in tempo and lead-work. If you fondly recount the vitriol and testosterone of records like Signs of Life, Eternal Nightmare, Product of Society, Release from Agony and others of that critical 1986-1990 period, Panikk does a swell job of refreshing the formula.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/panikkofficial

Veldes - Skyward EP (2014)

One thing I kept thinking back to as I was exploring this new Veldes EP was how Tilen Šimon (aka Isvaroth) has such a flair for cautious material held at a steady pace to provide patient emotional impact, only rarely fielding the explosions of frost tinted, blinding speed we associate with a lot of traditional black metal. Whether or not that makes Skyward partially folk metal, or black/doom I really don't need to delve into, but the result is that the music takes on this almost cinematic, sentimental form that I often equate with veteran composers like Hans Zimmer on some of his more recent material (Inception, etc) where the slow pianos hit those exact right notes, only here they are complementary to the powerful, catchy and simplistic chord patterns and driving double-kick drums...it's quite overwhelming when coupled with the hideous black metal snarls that Tilen will often sustain over entire note phrases.

Two of the four tracks here, the first ("Skyward" itself) and last ("Gone") are purely instrumental pieces using the keys which most closely manifest the principle I mentioned earlier, and both are gorgeous of their own accord, but the 9 minute "Woe Eater" also holds consistently to this theme with the pianos lightly caressing the burgeoning, melodic chords. This is also the song where he lets us know that we're not entirely in the safe zone by battering the life out of us with this concrete black metal blast sequence. "Of Rain and Moss", the other metallic track remains the slower, grandiose tempo and ties the harsher elements in with the instrumentals, though I found this was actually the most repetitive feeling tune among the four, though not at all bad if you like slower, sure footed melodies embroiled with angst and suffering. Bass lines are simple and generally tend towards the root notes of the rhythm guitar, but I can't imagine that by being busier or complex they would add much to the songs' unerring sense of sadness, like the fog slowly dissipating from the woodland scene in the cover picture.

I did find the vocal mix irksome, not because I don't enjoy Tilen's soul-baring rasps, which go sailing over the forested hillsides like blackbirds slowly plummeting from the heavens, but because there seemed to be a little too much of a buzz or distortion on the vocal track. Also I found myself wondering just how much more elegant these tunes might feel with soaring clean vocals, or a mixture of the two styles, but at least he's got one of those down pretty tight. Otherwise, I think this is slightly stronger material than last year's full-length To Drown in Bleeding Hope. The two instrumentals are beautiful, the way he weaves that style into the heavier material is also quite memorable. Riff progressions are mildly predictable, and he could probably construct melodies that come at you more from left field, but all in all, if you experience this EP in the proper climate, it conveys the sense of beautiful, maudlin desperation that Veldes no doubt set out to achieve, and those fond of slower, atmospheric black metal which doesn't shy away from piano sounds should find it appealing.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/VeldesBand

Provocator - Antikristus (2014)

Slovenia's resident cult black metal act Bleeding Fist has almost constantly reveled in the old 90s template of the medium, producing raw and simplistic aggression the likes of which pays homage to the 1st and 2nd waves with little consideration for the very existence of much beyond them. So it's no great revelation that their vocalist Hellscream's solo project Provocator remains within the same wheelhouse. He gets a chance here to perform all instruments, and has written what equates to stock bedroom black metal, saved from (or committed to) the fire solely by his distinct, charismastic vocal presence, since there are sadly not a lot of musical ideas or individual tunes here that really stand out...

Antikristus is more or less a collision between faster, blast-based raw black metal circa Mayhem, Marduk or certain Bathory records with an overt Hellhammer influence in the slower sequences, to the point where the chord choices are basically just paraphrased from Warrior's early 80s backlog. If this were merely the inspiration, and Hellscream created some more interesting riffs from the same building materials, then it could have been a lot more compelling. That's not to say he doesn't try once in a while here, like the doomy, disjointedly melodic front half of "7 Storms of Damnation", but even those potentially memorable moments cede to a rather generic mid-speed blast beat which a chord series that is all too predictable, so much that it in of itself is barely modified from other tracks on this very album! The rhythm guitar also doesn't do much to assist the situation, sort of just roiling along the crashier tones of the drum machine while another track seems to hover at the edge of the mix like hearing mosquitoes occasionally buzz into the ear. What leads exist are messy and don't really hit for maximum dissonance or impact.

Really thought it was silly to blatantly resurrect the 'let Jesus fuck you' intro scheme, seeing that Marduk had already done it some 23 years ago and to much greater effect; perhaps Hellscream was just being referential?! There is little or no bass presence to speak of throughout the album, and also I felt like individual tracks had inconsistent mixes, giving this a sort of 'demo collection' feel about it like Bleeding Fist's last compilation Death's Old Stench (which was good stuff, don't get me wrong). But what saves Antikristus from dropping below the level of passable to outright bad is that this guy just has so much fucking fun with his vocals...growling and snarling and groveling and sometimes (if not always) completely over the top. He's like a pack of wild dogs fighting for meat-scraps, a poor man's Attila Csihar who uses his natural accent to his advantage and never settles for just boring lyrical lines...not 'technically' excellent by any stretch of the imagination, but that is exactly what makes the disc so raw and sporadic and, once in a while, genuinely cruel, even if the music itself lacks the quality that could distinguish it against the many thousands of middling demos and albums created in this very style.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Provocator.Cult

Bleeding Fist - Death's Old Stench (2014)

Earlier run-ins with Bleeding Fist's 2010-2011 EP material did not prove illuminating, but this Death's Old Stench compilation, which collects a bunch of raw, unreleased content written over the past few years, has a stronger allure which can not only be attributed to some superior riff choices, but the very production 'flaws' which contribute to its overall atmosphere. The Slovenians have long championed the bestial aspects of black metal, channeling them into something unwashed, ugly and abusive, but that's just not a winning formula when the songwriting is the sort you've heard a thousand times before. While a comp and not a standard studio record, and likely to have some inconsistency in the mix of individual tracks, Death's Old Stench is one of those offerings upon which a perceived 'weakness' to some actually transcended into a strength of my own experience.

I'm of course talking about the distant, uneven mix of instruments here which often favors the volume of the drums over the vocals and guitars ("Holy Saint of Death"), or the very opposite ("Blackened Illumination") where they can only be heard tinnily rifling away under the ominous atmosphere of vocals and tremolo picked guitars. There is material here which seems infinitely more dramatic and creepy than what I've encountered before on Devil's Ferox or Macabrum Bestia ex Abyssus, and much can be credited to the vocals of Hellscream which shift between the nihilistic predatory rasps so typical to the genre and some yawning, clean chanted passages which often arrive unexpected in the midst of what is otherwise a traditional black metal 101 tune. Rhythm guitars are extremely raw, and often just cut off at the end of a song rather than using a studio fade-out; the riffs are hardly unusual, but provide the necessary balance of melody and malevolence which sculpted the black metal field of the early to mid 90s into such a huge thing. I don't really hear a lot of bass here, which was probably a conscious choice, but might have otherwise added a lot more depth and atmosphere, however that's my only hangup with the production aesthetics (or lack thereof).

From a pacing standpoint, the album might have just been a full-fledged release, since the alternations between incendiary blasphemy and more moderately paced, melancholic tempos really feel 'rounded' and complete, and there are a number of evil sounding intro/interlude pieces which are basically spoken word with the chanted vocal tone and then a lot of reverb. Only the mix of various pieces lacks cohesion, but the songs all flow with the consistency of liquid hellfire, or rather the heat vapors coming off some molten river in the Underworld and then wafting about its vaulted subterranean ceilings. Raucous enough to appeal to those genre addicts who favor demo level recordings, but definitely tighter and more fulfilling than just any random rehearsal-sounding record where you can barely make out anything but hissing noises and screams. I won't go as far as to say I was impressed, but as someone who certainly has an audio fetish for the primitive roots of the medium, which carried into some of my favorite albums (old Bathory, Darkthrone, etc), this was a fairly immersive 48 minutes of material which will hopefully translate into any future studio efforts.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.bleeding-fist.com/

Veldes - To Drown in Bleeding Hope (2013)

Veldes is the solo work of Slovenian guitarist Tilen Šimon, otherwise known as Isvaroth from Nephrolith, whose debut I reviewed a couple years ago. Unlike that act, which was a more decidedly face-scathing brand of Scandinavian-styled black metal, here the focus is largely upon swaths of involved, atmospheric sound reliant on more minimalistic chord patterns and melodies, secondary drum beats and even some samples. I suppose it sounds like it belongs in the Summoning camp, though this is directly centered around the guitar itself, and not the synths and masterful use of electronic percussion that those Austrians are known for. While To Drown in Bleeding Hope is not a long album by any means (36 minutes), it's certainly one that demands some patience on the listener's part.

These aren't dense compositions loaded down with riffs, and really only the first track "Through the Bitter Flames" casts the hue of a more traditional black metal blaze, with warm and mildly dissonant chord patterns that are refreshingly not all that predictable; though some of the tremolo guitar fills are bland, and even if this has the most intense beats throughout the album, they're still incredibly passive beneath those shimmering, bright guitars and Tilen's desperate, immense rasping vocal inflection. The other four tracks are more the norm, spacious and gracious and often involving catchy clean guitars accompanied by slightly swelling synth synth lines that give you the impression your watching birds take off over a lake. For instance, the openings to "Featherless Across the Burnt Skies" or "Beneath the Grieving Waters" are quite stunning, and when the metal element arrives it all feels like this vast, rustic space opening above you, as profound as the onrush of dawn, and I think that was the point here. Emotional, outdoorsy black metal as opposed to some sinister Satanic ritual being performed in a cave, with image-heavy lyrics of renewal and decay that do well to spark the listener's imagination.

Production is quite impressive here for just one guy, and though the drums feel too artificial in spots, they're not exactly the strong point, usually just keeping the pace cleanly, or informing the tempo changes. The bass lines are all rather simple and gentle, but they do their job in adding a deeper dimension to the generally high pitched rhythm guitars. I was scratching my head at the spoken word sequence in "Earth As a Nest of Bones and Debris", finding it eerily familiar, and then realized it was Viggo Mortensen's character from the film version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road! Aesthetically, it fits in rather well with the pianos and walls of distortion Šimon evokes here, and inevitable eruptions of resonant snarls. In general, the whole album possesses a consistency to it which flooded my thoughts with imagery of mists, hazy golden mornings, wildlife and an absence of mankind and civilization, so those seeking out a more majestic, rural black metal sensibility will likely get something out of Veldes. It's not exactly intricate or complex, and I think the rhythm section could be a little more ambitious to produce stronger results, but if you're looking for breathing, captivating black metal with a folk tint ala Summoning, Mirkwood, Elffor, Kroda, Falkenbach, or Drudkh it's worth hearing.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (fed with tribulation)

https://www.facebook.com/VeldesBand

Hellcrawler - Wastelands (2011)

Slovenians Hellcrawler perform a brand of hi octane death 'n' roll that I don't experience all that often anymore, which they interestingly balance with a lot of purer death aggression, tapered off with sequences of almost pure punk/hardcore revulsion. Though they'll draw obvious comparisons to groups like Entombed and Disfear that pioneered the possibilities of such a match made in hell, I wouldn't say that they follow those footsteps too closely. There's something duly primitive, dirty and even understated about Wastelands which I found rather enjoyable. It's as if the music itself were dowsed in the same gloom and obscurity of the debut's cover image, and they manage to go really raw in the production without ever sacrificing the listener's ability to comprehend the simplistic, battering riffs.

The D-beat is of course employed pretty often through the album, as in tunes like "The Molten Faces Tribe", but thankfully it's not used to the exclusion of anything else. They'll burst into some double bass driven brick wall breakdowns, swarthy black rock & roll grooves, even riffs that border more along the thrash genre due to their choppy, muted picking; but I actually found it best when they were just barraging along through the minimalistic but effective hooks in pieces like "Firefly Powerplant". The guitars have a very downtrodden feel to them which evokes images of damaged automotive equipment strewn about an apocalyptic landscape, and I love the little hints of feedback and noise that creep through everywhere (like the intro to "Yet Again the Greed of Man"). The Slovenians aren't afraid to use atmosphere amidst the rocking sections, and this is most evident in shorter pieces like "Demons Within" or "Wastelands" itself. Bass is repulsive, loud as the intake valve at a sewage treatment plant, and the drums keep a good balance of manic fills and steady hammering beats. Vocals are a hoarse, broad growl not entirely unlike the Swedish forefathers of an Entombed or Disfear, though they're not penned out in the most interesting of patterns.

Certainly this style is popular in particular circles, with bands like Tragedy and Trap Them seeing success worldwide through a combination of metal, hardcore, crust, punk and grind fans. Hellcrawler doesn't have as much of a dissonant hardcore spin on what they perform, nor vocals that seem quite so crazy, but they still sound like a pent up, blunt bulldozer rolling over your kneecaps at a moderate speed, and the varied flavors that comprise their foundation are handled well enough. It's a dark, almost opaque record even despite the veritable accessibility of its riffs, which are honestly about 50% great and 50% too familiar, but in the end it wraps things up tightly in about 30 minutes of solid pacing and filthy atmosphere that makes you wanna crash your truck into something living. Decent for a debut, even if the songwriting isn't entirely memorable, and the lyrics help enforce its consistent apocalyptic themes.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hellcrawler/231480043534821

Nephrolith - Xullux (2011)

Nephrolith is a relatively new black metal outfit out of Slovenia, forming a few years back and producing a demo (Vinsketh) in 2009 that led to this full-length recording. I haven't been exposed to a large number of other bands in this scene and style, but Xullux reveals a rather mature, melodic aesthetic rooted in both the dark spirituality of the band members and the more somber sounds of Swedish or Finnish black and death influence from the late 90s. I hear a little bit of Dissection in the sound, as I might for anything so inherently focused on its blissful, glorious guitar work, but the compositions are dissimilar enough that the album breathes some distinction. This places them in a rather different light than some of their local peers like Bleeding Fist or Torka who pursue a more raw, diabolic edge to their material.

The strengths of Xullux come through its natural, sincere tones and the interspersion of lighter, medieval acoustic segues through the more weighted metal tracks. "Intermezzo" and "Omega" are quite nice on their own, but it's occasionally used within one of the longer passes, like the intro to "Abandoned Essence Part I". The electric guitar sound is bold and rich throughout the album, yet the thick bass lines and driving drums are never smothered. Vocalist Nerthag hovers just above the mourning miasma with a pitch not nearly so raspy as many in the genre, fuller bodied but still pronounced and tormented, sparsely reinforced with a deeper growling. The tracks feel well enough written, not averse to some degree of intricacy, and in general woven from some fairly memorable riffs ("Spiritual Departure", "The Tale of the Conquering Dusk"). Drummer Natvyr has a clear capacity to blast and thunder his double-bass pedal where needed, yet he shows and admirable restraint better suited to this music.

This is, in general, a pleasant listening experience. If Nephrolith falter anywhere, it's that they lack the raw intensity of many other acts in the field. Tempo-wise, Xullux is comparable to the lion's share of classic black metal (or melodic death) recordings of the mid to late 90s, subsisting on competent rhythmic variation, but even when they're striking their hardest (as in the bowels of "Spiritual Departure" or "Abandoned Essence Part I") they do come off somewhat more subdued than many might desire out of their black metal. That said, I admit that I never found myself disengaged or disinterested with this debut. The quality is pretty consistent throughout, and even though I might not have unearthed some dark revelation through the material as I often do within this genre, the guitars and rhythmic skeleton of the album do keep the ears at a steady attention. If you can appreciate overt melody and sullen majesty above (or in place of) caustic, scathing grimness, then Nephrolith should not be ignored.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.myspace.com/nephrolithband

Bleeding Fist - Devil's Ferox EP (2011)

It might just be that I've been spoiled through the years, but I must admit I've grown tired of hearing the same thing over and over, to the point that it becomes a predictable washout. Such is the case for Slovenians Bleeding Fist, who have shown in the past a capability to create some raw, punishing black metal with dire atmosphere and cryptic if cliche Satanic occult lyrics. They continue to do so with their latest EP, Devil's Ferox, yet another in a ceaseless tirade of releases that draws upon but does not significantly alter or elaborate upon the formula manifest through Venom, Bathory, Mayhem, and other primal, old school thrash, death and black metal that countless acts have channeled into the present.

Now, from this opening paragraph, you might assume that I hated this disc, but that's not the case. Bleeding Fist are not bad. The band is clearly competent at conjuring their wall of vapid force, straight laced storms of sin ala "Monuments of Desecration" or the 7-minute title track, which breaks into some half-cooked rocking thrust. Hellscream's rasping has a way of echoing out across the din of the black metal clamor with appropriate agony, but the riffs below are in general little more than uninteresting noise played at high speeds without memorable patterns of notes. Glistening, 'evil' extractions of chords and shadowy atmosphere pervade the 26 minutes, but despite its authenticity, there is no glaring malevolence or subtlety within. The band's "Black and Violent" tribute to legendary Italians Death SS is perhaps the most distinctly morbid piece on the album, but even this is unable to hang on to its qualities for very long.

If you're a stickler for the traditional, raw black metal appeal then I can't see any reason to tout Bleeding Fist as anything more than another random draw from the Satanic sweepstakes. I don't hear a ton of this style coming out of Slovenia, so there's a hellish scrap of novelty, but I had hoped this EP might be an improvement over last year's Macabrum Bestia Ex Abyssus, which I also didn't take to. Not the case, and I fear Devil's Ferox will be yet another of the blasphemous and faceless objects among the heaping hordes of doomed obscurity. Never actively offensive, never bad at what they do, just not that compelling in the end.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www.bleeding-fist.com/

Morbid Angel - Laibach Remixes EP (1994)

Within their 30+ years of existence, Slovenian industrial/electro act Laibach has covered, remixed and deconstructed a wealth of material from acts the world wide; from classics acts like the Beatles to more extreme and obscure fare. Considering Morbid Angel's leaning towards experimentation throughout the mid 90s and beyond, and the transition of industrial and electronica from the club and cult scenes to the mainstream, it makes a lot of sense for the two to collaborate, even if that union was limited to a pair of remixes. The Laibach Remixes EP provides a simple equation: lift two tracks from a band's most recent studio album (Covenant), then sample and mutate them to evoke a decidedly dissimilar atmosphere.

Now, the inclusion of the originals ("God of Emptiness" and "Sworn to the Black") is rather useless if you've already acquired the full-length and absorbed the material, but here they are not inconvenient as a 'control group' for what Laibach are attempting. Surprisingly, the remixes are not major attempts to re-structure the tracks, only to filter them through clanging dystopian landscapes. Within "Sworn to the Black", this is achieved through the mere incorporation of pipe like percussion and reverb to the original. It's not a huge difference, really, but I do rather enjoy this subtle twist, and in fact I prefer it to the original. What they've done with the other piece, "Gods of Emptiness" is much more substantial and impressive, tweaking not only the drums but also the vocals and adding a choppy, mechanical ambivalence. Vincent is more drawn out and deepened here, and the result is something more creepy than the original, though perhaps not entertaining for very long (I would have liked to hear more variation and alteration).

The biggest issue with the EP is simply that there is not much to it at all. It's a positive that the Slovenians did not make a bad techno mockery out of the material like you'd find on the Fear Factory remix album Remanufacture, but there's not a hell of a lot here to justify the product. Had this been a half decade later, these tracks might have just been released to the internet for the fans of both bands to peruse. I kind of dig the cover and the concept behind this, not to mention both bands involved, but the scarcity of content is crippling unless you're a collector who simply doesn't care about anything more than acquisition of the product itself. Also, perhaps a bit more could have been attempted by Laibach to draw the material more into their own realm of manipulations, rather than playing it so safe. Curious but easily avoidable.

Verdict: Fail [4/10]

http://www.morbidangel.com/

Noctiferia - Death Culture (2010)

Death Culture is the latest incarnation of Slovenia's Noctiferia, a band that have slowly and gradually carved out a niche for themselves in nearly two decades of existence. Earlier efforts were written in a more derivative, melodic black/death metal style, but as of this, their 5th full-length they have arrived at something quite a bit more precise and edgy. This record is an intricate mesh of industrial and metal music which, while incorporating some modern, down-tuned grooves that we might negatively associate with the previous decade's nu and groove metal scenes, is never slack of its musicians' individual merits for a lick or two of further complexity.

It would be easy to write this band off as a European Fear Factory, and in fact the band does share some things in common, with the constant shuffle of chugging guitar rhythms and mechanical beats performed by an actual drummer. Certainly if you enjoyed a Demanufacture or Souls of a New Machine, you could find something comparable within Death Culture. One can also find a streak of Meshuggah here, in the bands bouncing, cold grooves. But there is something more to Noctiferia, a rampant death metal impulse that runs just below the rudder, and an ability to transmit a glorious signal through the writhing, bludgeoning mass comprising a largest fraction of their compositions.

Refer to the track "Deluders & Followers", which showcases the wealth of this band's range. It's ridden with technical chops, double bass rolls and momentum, and yet, at its height, it incorporates sallow synthesizer backdrops which provide for an 'epic' atmosphere that I am not often accustomed to in industrial metal. I don't love all the band's riffs, even in this song. They're busy enough that the guitarists are not about to feel bored, but only as they rush to the climax of the various, accessible keyboard rhythms does it all culminate into something of exotic beauty. Other songs create a more bouncing, constant, emotional duress such as "Non Individuum", in which you feel like Samael, The Kovenant and Fear Factory are in a free throw competition or the relentless grooves of "Demagog". Again, they're decent songs with good atmospheres, but a few of the groove metal-like guitar parts turned me off slightly. The mystical, Middle Eastern choral weavings of "Samsara" make for perhaps the single most interesting track on the album, and hearing Noctiferia branch even further into this ethnic direction might make for a more interesting package. The strange closer "S.M. 02" is also intriguing.

The effort that went into Death Culture is hard to dispute. It's a brash, loud, modern sounding album which booms at you from your stereo, through each chugging gait. The band can arrange leads and complex rhythms with ease into the more forgettable fare, so it feels like you are being strung along, each second in the dry expanse of ennui splashed upon by the wetness of some previously undiscovered oasis. The lyrics seem like a potpourri of political and individualist concepts as you'd find on a Fear Factory or modern Sepultura record, but Gianni Poposki's vocals are hammering along enough that even when you feel a line is cliche or cheesy, the band's energy wins the day. With this band and Sybreed, it seems Listenable is building quite a roster of electronic fused metal potential, so it will be interesting to see further developments. I was not enthralled by the Slovenians' album here, but if you fancy Fear Factory, Sybreed, harder KMFDM, Meshuggah, Mnemic or Samael (Passage and beyond), you will find they give the style a fairly effective punch in the nose.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/noctiferia

Eruption - Lifeless Paradise (2009)

Eruption is another of those thrash bands who manage to surprise you by sticking to a retro sound yet not falling into the self-effacing blunder of being too 'thrash'. By this of course I mean they write songs about particular subjects, and often interesting lyrics, as opposed to just singing about beer and thrash metal itself, which so many of these shit-eating acts out there seem content to do (in their endless envy of Tankard). No, Eruption is pretty damned talented, and that they hail from Slovenia only compounds my surprise, since it is not a country I normally associate with the genre. The actual riffing component of this band is a toss-up between the thrust and energy of the old school Bay Area sound (Metallica, Exodus, Testament, and so forth) and the harsh edge of the Germans Destruction. Klemen "Buco" Kalin is a wild gunner with a voice that ranges from mid range to screeches that recall very early Araya and Hetfield, if only they were Slovenian...

The actual blistering riffs of Lifeless Paradise, their debut album, are just good enough that the album is worth a few replays, even though I couldn't call the songs instant classics or in any way destined to be remembered among the top of the crop. Musicianship is not the issue, as you can hear from the acrobatic bass lines of "Monumental Mind" or the ever busy guitars and off the hook leads. Some of my favorite tracks on the album include "The Auditors", with a lot of momentum over raging guitars that sound like a mix of Paradox and Artillery. "Democracy" has some thrash hard rhythms, wailing vocals and a pretty cool opening sample from the 1976 film Network. "Twisted Reality" has some cruel, deep diving guitar work beneath some of Buco's crazier, almost silly intonations, and "The Sands of Time" closes the album with arpeggio leads that weave their way into a thundering, melodic charge riff.

We are many, we are one
Like an omni-present mind
We watch the world through selfless eyes
see how flawless it could be

Nothing too shabby here, and even the instrumental "Inner Wastelands" has a few moments of interest. Most importantly, despite the rather hyper flair the vocals can often exhibit, Eruption are a band who take their chosen style seriously and would rather be remembered alongside the forerunners of the genre than the gajillion bands sucking up their fumes. I'm not sure Lifeless Paradise is the album to push them over the top, for it does lack something in the way of memorable, classic riffing, but if all the talent here could be maintained and then steered into the proper direction, we could see a band that explodes alongside the best of Europe's newcomers. As it stands, this is a debut of good thrash metal from a young band that can play their instruments well, and only have to allow their compositions to gestate a little longer in the incubator, that they can rise above the crowd.

Highlights: Monumental Mind, The Auditors, Democracy

Verdict: Win [7/10] (funny thing your son has brought you Hell)

http://www.myspace.com/eruptionband

Vinternatt - ...Echoes EP (2008)

Depressing and primal black metal from a Slovenian three-piece, this EP also comes as part of a split with fellow Slovenians Bleeding Fist. The style should come as no surprise here, when I say the words 'suicidal' black metal you have an instant sonic imprint. Very simplistic guitars over a somber bass undercurrent, with tin sounded percussion that alternates between slower double bass work and mid-paced blasting.

The first track "Echoes" carries with it a sad sound, but the drumming feels a little sloppy near the beginning and end of the various sections. The vocals have the typical harsh sneer of the black metal genre, but they don't go over the top like many of the more depressive bands in the Weakling vein. "Winternight" is a slightly more evil song with a driving Mayhem/Bathory battery. "Desecrated Silence" closes the EP with a sound much like the title track, there isn't a lot more to say. It achieves a simple and almost hypnotic melody and then shifts into a more glorious riff.

The production is demo or even rehearsal level here, and the songs are somewhat less than inspiring, but really isn't that the point? Vinternatt does not stand out for me in a huge field of similar bands, but what they offer is solid enough that some of you fans of the deep black metal underground might appreciate it.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

http://www.myspace.com/vinternatt1