Darkthrone - Circle the Wagons (2010)

Of all the many metal bands in the universe, there are an immense number that I enjoy, but far fewer that I consider myself such a fanboy as to 'line up' for. Or to eagerly anticipate the dropping of each album. Darkthrone is one of those bands. I'll watch or read the band's interviews in advance of the next album. I'll download the cover art and set it as wallpaper. I'll download the samples. I'll order the CD. I'll order the vinyl. And it all stems from how reliable the band has been in their delivery over the past 20 years. No rock star pedestal. No trends. No nonsense. Just two guys recording metal albums that are important to them, and typically also important to me. They've made slight developments in their formula through the years, and I've hung along for each and every transition, because I trust the band completely and they rarely fail to impress me.

2008's Dark Thrones and Black Flags was my favorite metal album that year, and it's one I still have playing in a fairly frequent rotation today. From the self-referential lyrics to the amazing fabric of the vocals and riffs (the first few ringing guitar lines of "The Winds They Called the Dungeon Shaker" are all you need to sample to hear just how fantastic that album was), I was hooked, and I really consider it one of their very best efforts alongside the classics like Transilvanian Hunger and A Blaze in the Northern Sky (with many others close behind). For their 15th album, Circle the Wagons, they have come up with both an intriguing and original title and cover concept, with a Native American theme that seems somewhat unusual. This aesthetic is primarily reflected in the title track and cover art, however, as the lyrics cover a variety of topics and more of the band's poorly veiled references to metal music at large.

The biggest distinction to this new album is that the band have slightly shifted away from the more punk-dominated songwriting of F.O.A.D. and Dark Thrones and Black Flags towards an infusion of classic metal riffing and primordial thrash. But if you enjoyed those albums, fear not, because the sound here is much the same, there's still a touch of the punk energy, and the band continues to share the vocal duties. What's more, the band have taken their occasional use of clean vocals to a new height here, as in the title track, which serves as another metaphor for the band's path, with some extremely entertaining dual clean vocals that make for one of the most memorable bits on the album. The guitars, too, are notably derived more from a wider host of muddy, primal 80s heavy and thrash metal influences than the usual Celtic Frost/Bathory blood that has steadily beaten through Darkthrone's heart for decades.

Unlike Dark Thrones and Black Flags, I didn't quite take to every single song on this album. It's a little disappointing, and it doesn't really belong in the top tier of the band's discography. But it's still a lot of fun to listen through, and several of the tracks are exceptional. "Stylized Corpse", one of the darker songs on the album, and perhaps the closest to some of the band's older, 90s material, was one of my early favorites, with its slow escalation of the grooving Hellhammer inspired verse rhythm and the dense jangling of the bridge riff. There are also some killer breakdowns waiting within, one leading to a majestic and minimal melodic tension. "Black Mountain Totem" is also huge for its unforgettable plucky thrashing and the disturbing, decaying vocals of Nocturno Culto, spackled in speed metal fervor. "Eyes Burst at Dawn" is another rager, with some amazing, manly clean vocals ala "Dungeon Shaker" from the previous album, and some of the best melodic riffing on the album (that bridge kills). And it would be foolish to not mention "Bränn Inte Slottet", a very different instrumental track which begins with ritual drumming over a looped chanting sample, then picking up into simple but effective old school metal riffs akin to the rest of the album, and a little taste of doom.

A few of the other tracks also satisfy, though not as strongly. "Running for Borders" has a cruel twist to the guitar rhythms that builds a strong momentum under the vocals, and "I Am the Working Class" shakes out just enough punky perspiration to inspire. As for the opener "Those Treasures Will Never Befall You", I enjoyed it enough as a light appetizer, but aside from the great bridge section with the somber guitar melody and the raging bass pomp, it didn't sink in as deeply into my skin. The same goes for "I am the Graves of the 80s", which seems like a fun enough tribute with some soaring, clean vocals, but failed to blast me out of my seat. "Circle of the Wagons" itself did little for me with its punk momentum, but the clean vocals are at least entertaining, especially hearing just how far these guys wanted to take it this time.

Yet, I still find myself singing along, even to these. And despite my failed connection with a few of the tunes, it's still a Darkthrone album. As many of us are aware, even on its worst day this band is more impressive than nearly anyone else releasing records in the 21st century. That they've so successfully let the trends of the past 15-20 years slide off their armor and kept their career afloat is a testament to both their devotion to sounds that never quite should have died, and to the fans who still celebrate them above all the awful, modern setbacks that metal has suffered (nu metal, soulless tech death wankery, commercial metalcore, bad thrash throwbacks, hipster coffee shop metal, and so on). Circle the Wagons is immensely enjoyable, provided you are open to the band's adventures and don't care that it's not a direct re-write of Under a Funeral Moon. There's no "Hiking Metal Punks", "The Winds They Called the Dungeon Shaker" or even a "Witch Ghetto" here. But some of the songs are mighty close. It's like a 'bases loaded' situation, with a few single hitters driving up the score, rather than the outright home run with everyone screaming from the rafters that I felt of the last album.

Highlights: Stylized Corpse, Black Mountain Totem, Eyes Burst at Dawn, Bränn Inte Slottet, Running for Borders

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (don't fucking care, move on)

http://www.peaceville.com/darkthrone/circlethewagons/

Nasty Savage - Penetration Point (1989)

Nasty Savage's third full-length effort Penetration Point poses somewhat of a quandary in the band's catalog. Musically, it's the natural evolution of the previous releases Indulgence and Abstract Reality, a slab of semi-tech thrash metal which, while not ahead of many of the band's European or US peers, was still quite fairly standout for 1989 among a sea of weaker US thrash acts that sounded like bad Anthrax or S.O.D. clones. However, some of the lyrics and song titles seemed like the band had brought back a little of the humor of their waking years, albeit cast in a more urban, late 80s schtick rather than a reversion back to the metal knights and pleasure dungeons of the debut. But don't be fooled, because there's generally a method to the madness.

The album opener is a good example of what I mean. "Welcome Wagon" opens and closes in a very brief vocal sample which seems like a bad joke, but the riffs are purely wild thrash metal in the spirit of the band's previous album Indulgence. The lyrics, while presenting a pastiche of strange pop references and cliches, and delivered in a number of schizophrenic vocal passages which seem like Nasty Ronnie is rekindling the joker inside him, are actually pretty serious. "Irrational" commences with a pretty yet clinical sequence of clean guitars, with new bassist Richard Bateman (the 4th in four releases) making his presence felt, before the bouncing thrash rhythms that feel like a tour through the local asylum. "Ritual Submission" becomes even more clinical, with a nice tech rhythm somewhere between the first Pestilence album and Deathrow's later 80s transition, flowing into some solid speed/thrash with a tight solo segment. It is "Powerslam", however, which serves as one of the album's more memorable tracks, with its sense for mid-paced momentum that should have seen it up among the 'Toxic Waltzes' that were all the rage among the average thrash fan. And what's more, the song is actually a tribute to professional wrestling...

Clothesline, forearm smash
Squared circle, deathmatch
A piledriver on the floor
Non-stop action
No holds barred

I don't know whether to run screaming or admire the band for this, but hell, if Mickey Rourke can validate the entire profession with a killer film in 2008, why not Nasty Savage with a great tech thrash tune almost 20 years before? Structurally, it's one of my favorites of their career. And at this point, the album really picks up steam which will last it until the very end, beginning with the frenzied "Sin Eater", with its lunacy inducing verse smothered in almost free-form, barking poetry that disperses for the excursions into the underside of sanity that are the raging, busy guitars. "Penetration Point" spirals us directly back into the madhouse with a slew of psychopath riffing, and this is another of the album's highlights (and the band's career highlights), as it shows the advanced level this band were at compared to numerous American acts lagging far behind.

"Puzzled" rambles forth at a similar pace to "Powerslam", but injects a wonderful, smarmy groove in around :20 that precedes Ronnie's suburban splatter. This is followed by "Horizertical", a rather excessive instrumental track clocking around 5:30 minutes of the band's more adventurous rhythmic whims. It's certainly not bad, but for the most part the riffs are of the variety that might have been served with some of Ronnie's vocals, though they do flare up into a more anthemic sequence reminiscent of some instrumental guitar rock & metal of this time. "Family Circus" ends the album on a high note, with pumping thrash and scurrilous speed metal infusions, and lyrics that parallel both the long-term popular comic strip and a more sinister, suburban implication of disenchantment.

As silly as some of the vocals may seem in their delivery, or in the lyrical component, they're fairly meaningful, some even relevant today. Combined with the best riffing of the band's more inspired thrash phase, Penetration Point remains my favorite Nasty Savage album, edging out Indulgence and the s/t, and honestly the last one worth hearing. The band's later reunion album Psycho Psycho isn't bad, and in fact the darker production gives it a more brutal edge than any of the band's 80s work, but there is simply some magic missing there that can likely be attributed to the passage of time, and the riffs don't really compare in my opinion. It's the 1985-89 period of this band that best represents their contribution to the US power/thrash dynasty, and Penetration Point is the jewel which sparkles brightest atop their crown.

Highlights: Ritual Submission, Powerslam, Puzzled, Family Circus

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (it's where the fun begins)

http://www.nastysavage.com/

Acrostichon - Lost Remembrance EP (1991)

Pestilence. Creepmine. Sinister. Phlebotomized. The list of class act Dutch death metal bands to materialize in the 80s and 90s is a solid one, producing some of the more intriguing modifications to the genre while remaining largely unsung outside of the spheres of the mentally obsessed and dispossessed. Consuming Impulse is probably my favorite death metal album of all time, whether the revisionist world of the future regards it as pure death or thrash/death or fucking ice cream metal makes no difference to me. But beyond the ceaseless fellation I offer that masterpiece, I would be remiss to forget that there were just so many damn cool bands coming up around that scene, and one of them was a group of 'men' known as Acrostichon.

It's an interesting band name to be sure, meaning a 'word square' or a 'composition in which the initial or ending letters form a word/phrase'. Yes I did look that up. In contrast, Acrostichon may not have been quite so interesting as far as their style on this early release, Lost Remembrance, which came amidst a series of demo tapes and a few years before their oft lauded full-length debut Engraved in Black. One of the tracks here was remade from the band's 1990 Prologue demo, while the other pair are new to this release. Acrostichon could be viewed as a sort of midpoint between the Swedish and Florida scenes, which today might be a given for any death metal band, but in those days was a little less common. They've got a dense, ripping guitar tone and brutal vocals like some of the earlier Swede bands (Nihilist, God Macabre, etc) but a more morbid sense of aesthetics that recount Death, Obituary, and Autopsy.

All of these bands were relatively new themselves at this time, so the second wave was already taking their various pieces and reconstructing them into somewhat unique sounds of their own, and I think this is where a band like Acrostichon fit in rather snugly. These are brutal and simple compositions, the sort that have strangely come back into style (for the better) in recent years, and one shouldn't expect any of the climactic riffing of Pestilence or the more subtle intrigues of Creepmime. "Lost Remembrance" and "Mental Deficiency" are both midpaced sluggers that wrench and twist the guts out below Corinne's disgusting vocals. Oh, by the way, yes, they've got one of the original death metal frontwomen (vocals and bass), and she kicks fucking ass, with some of the swampiest, most mangled grunts of her day! "Dehumanized" has a little more thrust to it, a burst of grinding death after a brooding, brief clean guitar intro.

None of these songs excel in the riff department, but what they provide is a very staunch, morbid atmosphere which so many bands have returned to in the 21st century that you wonder why and how the magic was ever lost. The one huge downside to this particular release is that all three of the tracks appear on Engraved in Black, and the production on that album is monstrous compared to this rougher takes, so the actual value of Lost Remembrance is lost outside of the vinyl collectors and purists. But the material here is convincing enough to note that Acrostichon were onto something years before they made a wider splash, so if you're a younger fan of the genre just getting into the primal, old school fundamentals of death metal, give the band a listen!

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (dressed in human skin)

http://www.myspace.com/acrostichon

Nasty Savage - Abstract Reality EP (1988)

With Nasty Savage's sophomore album Indulgence, the band had made a positive shift in direction towards the technical, schizophrenic thrash metal that was dominating both sides of the Atlantic by the late 80s. And if anything, the followup EP Abstract Reality was ample proof that the band had no intentions of turning back to their corny, showy metal roots any time soon. With four of the most proficient and no nonsense tracks of the band's career, and a new bassist in step (this is the only recording Chris Moorhouse would appear on with the band) they asserted themselves firmly into the tight wedge that comprised the more sophisticated end of the metal spectrum, without losing the sporadic insanity of Nasty Ronnie's Jr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde/steamroller meets siren vocal presence.

As far as the shortplay release goes, Abstract Reality isn't all that cheap with your purse. You get four new tracks that last almost 20 minutes, an interesting continuity through the use of the same abstract cover artist as Indulgence. But chances are if you own either that CD or the original CD release of the debut, you've got this tacked on there, and you'll notice the obvious 'drift' between the bands roots and their late 80s direction. It works best as a bridge between Indulgence and Penetration Point, of course, since that's the geography of its origin, and the very tight performances are like a sharpening of the proverbial vorpal sword, to prepare the fan for the steadily hacking force of the 3rd album. Savage continue their predisposition towards pseudo-intellectual themes with song titles like "Abstract Reality" and "Eromantic Vertigo", but they've got the musical complexity to back it up.

First is the title track, which barrels along like a meatier, but less bloodied chunk of Rigor Mortis type murder-thrash. The riffs are solid though average, and the prize here goes to Nasty Ronnie, who is giving one of his most controlled, but powerful performances. The bridge and solo are likewise quite good, with a structured schizoid thrash rhythm that dares to peer into the padded cell of the band's psychotic imagery. "Unchained Angel" is a slightly dirtier groove that heralds a female apocalypse, with strangely seductive lyrics considering their cataclysmic ramifications. Once again, it's the vocals and solo break that carry the song. The riffing provides enough thrust to get the pit swirling and heads banging, but they're not highly memorable. "Eromantic Vertigo" has some of the better guitars here, with circular, madness-inducing patterns that flow in a rather clinical response to the vocals that rush right down the middle like a crafty receiver being flanked by walls of epileptic linemen. "You Snooze, You Lose" seems like a rather tired cliche for a song title here, but the music itself is monstrous, and I'd have to say it is the most impressive due to the violent orgasmic riffing. The chorus is obvious, and ignorable as the music moves with such barbaric certainty.

On the strength of Indulgence and Abstract Reality, it is rather perplexing how Nasty Savage would not rise to the ranks of the better known thrash alumni. But to be honest, the more technical, progressive leanings of the genre went widely ignored by all but the closest of listeners, thus you had brilliant, first rate albums like Coroner's No More Color, Artillery's By Inheritance and Deathrow's Deception Ignored, each with stronger, more complex and interesting riffing than a dozen of today's stacked hyper tech death metal bands, known to but a few. And those were European bands, hailing from countries of arguably far better taste than our own. Snug in their Florida dwellings, where death metal was swiftly becoming the next big thing, Nasty Ronnie and company must have seemed sadly doomed, though they were one of the few interesting thrash bands ever to hail from the South.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (and she chose the fire)

http://www.nastysavage.com

Whispering Tears - Carmina Lacrimosa (2001)

France has put out a slew of very good black metal bands, but they aren't terribly well known for their death metal aside from a few groups like Yyrkoon, Arkhon Infaustus and Gojira. Whispering Tears' debut caught me by surprise, incorporating a lot of that patented French experimentation, so beloved by their black metal countrymates. The album is incredibly varied, working in strings, synth, whispered vocals, spoken word, and a touch or two of female clean singing, just to name a few. It's definitely not your usual grinding, punishing death metal.

Musically, there's a lot to like. Often on the album I found myself thinking of Nachthymnen-era Abigor, with more death metal grunts and generally a heavier tone. "Carmen Lacrimae" opens with a cello and some kind of woodwind laying down a lonesome melody, along with some strange French spoken vocals, male and female - this intro could easily be something off a Sleepytime Gorilla Museum album. "Whispering Tears" takes hold with a furious death assault, death metal grunts and blackened vocals sharing the stage. I quite enjoy the guitar work, especially the creepy lead around 1:20. Some girly vocals rear their head again, but they aren't too intrusive, as they are pretty buried in the mix.

"E(vil)charistia" continues the album's sinister tone, a somewhat gothic, operatic feel. This song goes all over the map, and despite shifting from slow, to fast, from whispered vocals to clean to very potent death metal vocals, it remains very cohesive somehow. The band possesses oodles of musical talent, that much is obvious. "Complainte Des Ames Écorchées" begins with some Castlevania type organ, proceeding to something complex and beautiful, yet dark. A section toward the middle of the song is simply stunning, unlike anything I've heard (that I can remember, anyway). The band's drummer shows some real talent on this song as well.

A myriad of instruments are featured on Carmina Lacrimosa, forming a complex fabric of lush, spooky soundscapes. "Until Death Do Us Unite" has a major King Diamond feel, although it's still its own nightmarish beast. The final track is some kind of Mozart tribute, apparently, and I could've done without it. Unfortunately, there are no lyrics available on the internet that I've seen, so it's hard to judge the album as a whole - but what I can pick up on is good, if not perhaps a bit cliche. Musically, though, the album is definitely worth a listen if you're into atmospheric/symphonic metal. Chalk up another strange/awesome band to France.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.myspace.com/wtears

Sadist - Season in Silence (2010)

My opinions on Italy's Sadist have waxed and waned throughout the years. From the beginning (their debut Above the Light) it was clear that this was a band whose goal was to incorporate an unusual mood into their music through uncanny riffing structures and the use of the keyboard as one of the central components, which was rare in death metal outside of a few acts (Nocturnus, etc.) Before breaking up in 2001 for a few years, the band had recorded a few decent albums in Tribe and Crust, but also the ruefully trendy Lego in 2000, which saw the band strip themselves of any dignity remaining and attempt a shift into the generic nu-metal that even then was already on the lamb.

The band regrouped in 2005 and a few years later we had simply Sadist, which was by all accounts a fairy successful return to form. I thought the album was good, and on par with a few of the earlier works, but hardly an explosion of distinction. No, Sadist have saved that for this year's Season in Silence, their 6th album, which not only abolishes nearly all the band's back log, but also holds up as one of the most interesting metal efforts I've heard this year, if not one of the most interesting progressive death metal albums I've had the privilege of ever hearing. If the cover didn't immediately tip you off that something was different about this, it's also a conceptual album about innocence, childhood nightmares and a dire examination of nature and how it queues up alongside the span of human civilization.

Musically the album is a pinpoint balance of arching, almost mathematical death and thrash riffing with lighter keyboard textures that provide an almost wintry pop/jazz nature that firmly characterize the sadness and beauty of the environments summoned through the lyrics. It's a little hard to describe, because I simply have not heard much else like it. The guitars range from Candiria to Meshuggah to Cynic, all broiling under Trevor's harsh vocal, which is primarily a death bark straight from the gut, loaded with enough desperation and torment that you can feel each phrase resonate down your spine. The album is a very fascinating blend of temperatures: the lyrical setting and artwork conjures up the sensation of cold isolation, but this is contrasted by the very warm fabric of the jazzy synthesizer and solos. The fusion of such disparate elements is both welcome and rare, and if given a chance to work its way inside your thoughts, you'll be the richer for heeding its lessons.

I say 'given a chance' because though catchy, the overall album does require a certain amount of patience, not to mention the ability to dismiss certain predilections you might have towards its components. For one, while the keyboards are haunting and gorgeous, they are quite frontal...if you don't think they've got any place in death metal music, you'll absolutely hate them here. But if you enjoy synthesizers in other progressive metal, 80s horror scores or even moody image music from video games, you could feel right at home. The other thing to note is that, despite the level of talent possessed by the musicians, they are rarely indulgent. Each discordant, grooving or thrashing rhythm is restrained to suit the mood expressed in the lyrics, to complement rather than obscure the synthesizer. Each solo is carefully plotted to send a shiver of warmth through your soul, the bliss of a hearth in mid winter. The album is NEVER, in any way, a brutal death metal record. It's harrowing, in its own way, but not even remotely catered towards the mindless shoggoths that populate the BREWUTAL MAANG!!! end of the genre's fandom.

But see beyond such mandates and into the spectrum of illusion possible with well written conceptual music, and you could be highly rewarded as I have been here. The album is like a road-side curiosity...say a fixture in the ice, or a pattern of snow and tree limbs so striking that you've got to stop in the middle of your commute, turn off the engine and ponder it for awhile. And the more you stare, the more the anomaly begins to take on a life of its own. For Sadist and Season in Silence, this manifests in a progression of 12 tracks in 3/4 of an hour that will slowly and orderly peel back each layer of skin as it finds a murky, hidden rapture within the very landscapes and temporal portraits we so often take for granted.

There are a few instrumental pieces on the album which assist in this heightening of purpose and mood. "Aput" is like the opening credits piece for some cult 80s slasher flick about a deranged ski lodge stalker, while "Ogron" is a full blown progressive metal voyage with some superb, circular synthesizer lines woven through its laid back but sky darkening riffs. If Dream Theater were composing a background piece for another remake of The Shining, it might sound like this. The closing piece "Hiberna" is tranquil bliss carried by its light mesh of acoustic guitars, pianos and bass effects. As you can see, just these three pieces alone cover a broad spectrum and emotions, and they're not even a verbal part of the narrative!

The remainder of the album consists of a dazzling exhibit of inner torments as Sadist freeze the very spirit from your being, through a graceful aggression of chugged guitars, popping bass and smooth, corporeal solo work. As Trevor grunts and snarls through "Broken and Reborn", you feel right beside him, scratching at your scalp and tearing out your hair with every venomous line. "Season in Silence" ranges from dense, intelligent thrash to a piano/bass segue that radiates the warmth of the last rays of the afternoon sun. "Evil Birds" destroyed me with the atmosphere of its chorus and the carnal attitude of its riffing exercises. "Night Owl" flows like a stream of cold melancholy through a room full of low-key 80s progressive rock dreamers, their music store branded t-shirts tucked deep into their clean blue jeans, their mullets and thin 'staches flexing against the inevitable breakout of monstrous thrashing that Sadist will often explode into out of almost nowhere. "Snowman" is TERRIFYING, the perfect death-prog tribute to a not-so-inanimate figment of our shared youth. And while every song on this album is close to perfect, you may also wish to pay specific attention to the charging of "The Abyss" or the mystique and abandon of "Frozen Hands".

The album is quite brilliant all around, with only a very tiny percentage of riffs that don't take me as far as I need. It's highly likely that this is the single best album I've heard from Italy that has anything to do, even peripherally with the phrase 'death metal'. Beyond those borders, it's better than anything I've heard from Cynic. It's better than anything I've heard from Atheist. It's better than Testimony of the Ancients or Spheres from Pestilence. It's a marvel, as if the band knew it was time to put up or shut up. Well, they've put up more than their share, like that freak in your neighborhood that always puts out a hundred thousand Christmas lights to outshine the rest of you spiritless wrecks. And they deserve some bloody recognition for it this time. It comes down to a simple query: do you like good music or don't you?

If you answered yes, Season in Silence will freeze you in your tracks.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.75/10] (dry lips and frozen hands)

http://www.sadistribe.com/

Nasty Savage - Indulgence (1986)

1986 was a year in which thrash metal finally made its presence known: loudly. Bands like Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica were churning out some of their best work (as it would turn out, some of the best work in the genre to date), and a wealth of newer bands were unleashing previously unheard, violent and energetic sounds. Seeing that Florida's Nasty Savage were already half arrived at this style on the s/t debut in 1985, it wasn't a huge leap for the band to shift their focus towards an overall harsher follow-up. This transition occurred through three notable alterations.

The first is through the increased thrashing of the guitars, which brought them in line with the standards of Anthrax, Exodus and Nuclear Assault while abandoning most of the classic/power metal overtones of the debut. The second transition is the vocals of Nasty Ronnie, which seem far more reigned in. He still visits the shrill heights from time to time, but most often works in his 'nasty', aggressive middle rage. And he's not often fucking around here (except near the 'climax' of "XXX"). Which leads us to the third mutation of Nasty Savage: the lyrics. The band have gone from tales of "Metal Knights" and the "Dungeon of Pleasure" to more serious fare here (song titles "Incursion Dementia" and "Distorted Fanatic"), and topics that deal in the day's big ticket thrash lyrics issues, rather than sex slave fantasies or the walking dead. Add to this the very bizarre choice of an abstract landscape for cover art, and you've got a more mature band. Like many metal bands of this period, Nasty Savage had grown up, which is most often (but not always) a positive thing.

At times, it can become difficult to determine which of the first two 'incarnations' of Nasty Savage that I liked more. The innocent, well measured fuckery of the debut, or this more emotionally tense and scarring thrash band that approached their art with a renewed affection, the determination of a ballistic missile as it sights its one target? In the long term I've grown fonder of this album and Penetration Point than the debut...the tunes are simply that much more crushing and resonant. And there is no buildup to this. No warning. The band break into "Stabbed in the Back" almost immediately and you can hear the transformation and sense of purpose here, a swift kick in the pants for the band's Bay Area or New York peers to signify that the rest of the country was not far behind when it came down to the thrashing. The song maintains the good, clear production of the last album; the flurries of guitar melody and loud and present bass tone. But the writing shows an advanced complexity, and the riffs have a cruel spike to them which I'm guessing kept every local gator well clear of this band's practice space.

If I'm painting too grim a portrait of Indulgence, let me assure you that the band is still fun through the sheer pomp and violence of their ministrations. "Divination" is a peppy, mid paced rager with more bounce than a pair of unstrapped breasts on a roller coaster, Ronnie taking the opportunity to create a ghostly shriek before the bridge similar to King Diamond (or Realm, who would come later). "XXX" is even more raunchy, a lament, or rather, a celebration for all the innocent lost to smut through their adolescence. Yeah, Nasty Savage still commit their dirty thoughts to the music, but here there is a purpose. A 'cautionary' tale. Title track "Indulgence" is vibrant and acrobatic thrash/speed metal with Ronnie's vocals exploring both their lesser and upper ranges, and some of the band's best lyrics yet:

There's a cyclone in your mind, it's throbbing at the end of a lie
But here and now, life is a great indulgence
Hell is paved with good intentions, but this is our time of joy
Play with fire, love the flame, this is our time of joy

"Inferno" is a WWII thrash piece with some sick, serpentine twists to the leads and melodies that seethe over the blitzkrieg of the hammering riffs (some of which would later be dubbed 'death metal'). "Hypnotic Trance" is another of these power thrash hymns, with some excellent drumming and leads, while "Incursion Dementia" throws a little nod back to the roots power metal of the band's waking years, one of the best and most bad-ass tracks on this album. "Distorted Fanatic" is also quite good, thanks to its evil Slayer-like opening melodies and the tightly spun, engaging thrash dynamics of the verse guitars. The album ends with an untitled 9th instrumental track in which the musicians take a few more liberties, but it's hardly the escapist shredder; the band could very well have included vocals here.

While I'm completely on board with the progressions the band has made from the debut to Indulgence, I'd have to say the album remains level to that in terms of its overall, lasting quality. Like Nasty Savage, it still sounds quite fresh today, though many other thrash and death metal bands have released superior product since. This was by no means a first class thrash metal album for 1986. The architecture is not as brilliantly structured as a Master of Puppets, and it's not nearly as wild or aggressive as a Reign in Blood or Darkness Descends. But once you get past that refreshing foam on top of the glass, to the bulk of the beer within, Indulgence would represent one of those first, fulfilling gulps you take on your plummet towards vomiting and unconsciousness.

Highlights: Divination, Inferno, Incursion Dementia, Distorted Fanatic

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (beyond the threshold of pain)

http://www.nastysavage.com/

Nasty Savage - Nasty Savage (1985)

Although they've not produced anything worthwhile in over 20 years now, Florida's Nasty Savage were once an anomaly in the American metal landscape: a highly polished hybrid of thrash and classic heavy metal aesthetics with one of the more charismatic vocalists on the job at the time. Yes, the band is largely known for the wild vocals of 'Nasty Ronnie', who would spiral from primal power/thrash shrieking to an edged middle range, and then become even stranger as he'd insert some deeper testosterone. It was a little off-putting when I was younger, as I half felt he was making fun of the very music he was fronting. But over the years, I've come to appreciate the guy's charisma, and for the most part it's not too distracting here.

Nasty Savage was released through Metal Blade in 1985, a year after the band produced a pair of demos in Raw Mayhem and Wage of Mayhem, and it was quite a striking album due to its high level of production quality, which was rare outside of the bigger names of the period. The tones are clean and powerful, the leads burning, the vocals (despite their insanity) never leeching out the life of the songs, and overall it was one of the better sounding albums on the earlier Metal Blade roster. The band's mix of emergent styles was also harder to define than many of their peers, so they were almost instantly recognizable for embracing the current of thrashing aggression without abandoning many of the metal cliches in their lyrics and vocal delivery. I'm not going to lie, tracks like "Metal Knights" and "Gladiator" are hilarious, but considering how many bands make careers out of this crap today (the awful 3 Inches of Blood, for example), shouldn't we just break out our Nasty Savage debut instead? To paraphrase a famous film super villain, they're not monsters...they were just ahead of the curve.

The album burns a hole right into your curiosity from the first, brooding synths that inaugurate "No Sympathy", which make you feel like you've been cast into the middle of some desolate 80s horror flick. Then the guitars rattle out some excellent riffs, which exhibit a slight leaning towards both technicality and mystique, consuming a number of memorable melodies. The band plays it a little straighter in the verse, with a mid-paced chugging quality ala classic power metal. "Gladiator" functions around a lazy but gut busting thrash rhythm as Ronnie delivers some hilarious and awesome lyrics in both a manly hymn and a few off the hook falsetto shrieks. He also deserves some credit for throwing the words 'metal gear' into the first verse. I like the lead break-downs, with a nice thick bass tone and some fine shredding over a decent thrash riff. "Fear Beyond the Vision" is actually one of the more distinct tracks on the debut, with a grisly, ghastly vocal delivery in the verse and a somewhat catchy chorus that has Ronnie wailing away like a Southern King Diamond.

"Metal Knights" is a riot due to its lyrics, but the power of its grooving, molten metal rhythms is impossible to deny, and the way some of the lyrics like 'too many rockers' strike in the verse is the kind of entertainment 1,000 bands full of ironic 18 year olds in 2010 could not combine to muster. "Garden of Temptation" is a gracious interlude with a dueling pair of acoustic guitars, which took me by surprise and shows the depth and sophistication that Nasty Savage were always capable of producing in the 80s when they backed away from their strictly metal persona, while "Asmodeus" is a kickass, viral tribute to one of the greatest fictional lords of Hell, with some great drumming that carries the weight of the bomber bass lines and wicked riffing.

"Dungeon of Pleasure" provides you with the perfect soundtrack for a 'night in' with your sweetie, complete with cock rings, whips and chains to suspend one another from the basement ceiling, in addition to the killer bass and guitars and one of Ronnie's more subdued (but still funny) performances on the record. He then narrates over the eerie, clean guitars that open "The Morgue", which offers an air of doom before rising to a mid-paced melodic thrash. "Instigator" is like a wilder take on a band like Helstar, where the main similarity is the vocals but the riffs actually flow at quite the same consistency of rage and neo-classical riffing structure. Quite a good track, followed by "Psycopath" which also lives up to this album's high standard for hard riffing and melody. "End of Time" opening in a 'one two fuck you' cadence might lead some to believe its some punk douche rocker to close the album, but it quickly transforms into another of the band's burning leather seducer anthems that whispers at you from the shadows where it lurks in a campy mail-order executioner's mask.

Criticism leveled against such a weathered beast as this album becomes rubber in place of glue, because nothing really sticks. The vocals are an acquired taste, and I remember them as an immediate barrier to entry for many of my friends that I tried to persuade onto their sound. But bad? No. Nasty Ronnie had the range, he just liked to 'play around' in it. The album still sounds amazing after 25 years, with production that holds up to or exceeds most of the modern wave of retro heavy metal bands that have begun to spring up. The awful logo-art is a legitimate complaint here, especially when placed alongside the more curious abstraction of the following album (and subsequent EP), but as long as you don't judge this book by its cover, you're in for a welcome surprise. Still one of the band's best recordings.

Highlights: No Sympathy, Fear Beyond the Vision, Metal Knights, Dungeon of Pleasure, Instigator

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (turn up the mayhem)

http://www.nastysavage.com/

Monasterial Crypt - Stárí (1999)

Czech act Monasterial Crypt: throaty death vocals, ho hum female clean singing, and a mixture of folk and melody-laden death/doom. Unfortunately the mix hampers the album somewhat, with the drums very loud to the point of almost drowning out the guitar and vocal work. Worth noting is the band has two guitarists and two separate vocalists, in addition to the bassist and drummer. Well, then.

The high points are when they're weaving the folksy heaviness accompanied by the harsh male vocals, but to my dismay the female seems to be featured quite a bit on most tracks. "Podzim a Stárí" begins with the chick doing some spoken word stuff, followed by lone harsh vocals, then they are briefly combined, then the guy doing clean stuff. The music is good enough in the song, but I kind of wish they'd just remove the female vocals (for most of the songs, not just this one) or perhaps find a female singer that's more capable, i.e. the incredible Masha of Arkona.

"Hloubka Skrytých Smyslù" is another example of the vocals just not working. At around two minutes they blend the two styles, and it just does not sound good. At all. Shame, really, because there's some enjoyable tunes. Nothing spectacularly memorable, but I could see myself spinning this once in awhile if not for obvious flaw. "Holotropie" is a highlight of the album, for once Veronika has a bit of conviction in her voice instead her normal boring tone. The melody sounds almost piratical, and if not for the Czech singing and the absence of a mind-bogglingly good hook riff and solo, I could buy it as a Running Wild song if I didn't know any better.

The band formed in '89 supposedly, and put out this (their only full length after a handful of demos) in 1999, and their status on Metal-Archives is currently 'unknown'. I would say this could be a decent starting point for a band, but I'm guessing nothing else will surface. As a side note, in their band photo they're all smiling. You crazy Czechs, everyone knows you have to look like you hate everything and/or you're too cool to be photographed!

Verdict: Indifference [6.0/10]

Highlights: Holotropie, Spálená Já

Wintersun - Snowfairies of the Brightmoon Faire (2010)

It's been sort of an in-joke for years among my esteemed co-bloggers that the follow-up to 2004's Wintersun album was simply not going to happen, so you can imagine how my eyes and heart lit up when this promo arrived in my post box recently. Yes, in the biggest surprise since Summoning announced they were switching lanes from Tolkien to explore C.S. Lewis' world of Narnia on their next album Long Lost to Where No Wardrobe Goes, Jari Mäenpää's Wintersun have finally released their sophomore effort. And there was much rejoicing. But don't get ahead of yourselves, folks, because this is not the frenetic, epic melodic metal that graced the s/t debut all those years ago, but another beast entirely.

Has Wintersun sold out? Not exactly, but in a bold maneuver, they've managed to acquire Tarja Turunen into the ranks, whose career has steadily taken a slide into the shitter after her split with black metal mavens Nightwish. It seems at first like it could be a natural fit, since both bands are regularly featured on Christmas Hits compilations and those exclusive radio playlists used in shopping mall verandas, in Finland and beyond. But this brings an end to the focus on Jari's vocals and synthesizer work, moving the focus of the band into a new, cringe inducing operatic realm which would make Diamanda Galas take her own life with a shotgun if she hadn't already worked out a few dozen other ways to do it.

This new sound manifests itself most clearly in the opening track "Crash of the Sugarplum", in which Tarja tells the tale of a heroin addicted Russian fey who must eke out a new living as a prostitute for the Brownies who use and abuse her worse than her own veins. Gone are the frantic, Dragonforce-meets-Children of Bodom explosions of prowess that dominated the debut album, replaced here with moody 'gothic' four-chord rock reminiscent of Green Day and Lacuna Coil. I'd like to think this was an anomaly, but before I can resolve that, the band surges into their next song, a 12-bar, 12-step interlude called "Winter Gheyness" in which the Joss Stone guest vocals are used more as a narrative to lead into the crushing ballad "I Left My Wallet at Hot Topic", which in an ironic twist, ends with an extended sample of Turunen counting her money aloud...

I swear I won’t tease you
Won’t tell you no lies
I don’t need no bible
Just look in my eyes
I’ve waited so long baby
Now that we’re friends
Every man’s got his patience
And here’s where mine ends

The nerve of this fucking band! And yet, for all my disappointment, I would have forgiven them if they would simply include a few fucking metal songs. "Starchild II: O Cum All Ye Faithful" is yet another droopy gothic ballad built for the airwaves, but with "Harry Potter and the One That Got Away", you can finally here an eruption of half-plagiarized Sonata Arctica riffing. It's not much, but at least you can thrash your girly locks out here. And the rest of the album hesitantly continues this pattern of ballad to rocker ratios, rounded out with such sadly forgettable fare as "Attention Deficit Dreamer", "I'm Too Sexy For My Chain Mail", and what is probably my favorite on the album, and the only GOOD song here, the closing epic "Victory Song from Afar (Since You Been Gone)", which ends with a mug-swilling folk swagger the likes of which Korpiklaani couldn't compose in their wettest dreams.

After six years of hanging by the suicide hotline, I was very relieved to see that the band hadn't given up their dreams of pursuing fame and glory and possibly even the European leg of the next Gigantour, but fans are very likely to be disappointed by the shift from uninspired, insulin starved virtuosity to a more radio friendly fare courtesy of new co-vocalist Tarja. Did Wintersun really need two chick singers? I'm not sure. The album has top of the line production, of course, you can nary hear a single cricket or untoward breath in the microphone, and the ballads here will probably see some rotation, but they've got nothing on "Silent Lucidity". But with Turunen locked into a 5-year contract and the band headed for the next season of American Idol as the backing musicians, it seems that you'll either have to accept this new direction or quit being a poseur already and listen to Darkthrone.

Highlights: If you have light brown hair or even dark blonde hair, blonde highlights can add a ton of depth to your hair. You can weave in up to 3 different types of colors. Ask your stylist about lowlights as well. If you have blonde hair, darker lowlights add more contrast.

Verdict: Epic Tailfeathers [2/10] (Yes, Captain Gray Matter. It was an April Fool's Joke.)

Wintersun Central