Avulsed - Ritual Zombi (2013)

Avulsed is about as synonymous to Spanish death metal at this point as my Keurig coffee maker is to breakfast, but when you break down the band's trajectory they've been all over the place. Taking a 'tour' of the death metal genre, from the humble 90s brutality of their first proper 90s full length Eminence in Putrescence, which was itself rather old school in nature with a clear lineage to the first few Death records...to outings like Stabwound Orgasm and Yearning for the Grotesque which took on slightly more 'gore drenched' characteristics that one might relate to US acts Cannibal Corpse, Exhumed or Impaled. They even failed at a techno-death metal remix thing in Cybervoid. But thankfully, through most of their career, they've focused on baser songwriting aesthetics like simplified riffs and grooves, sparse but well-formed melodies, and I've always had the impression that they've just never properly shaken off their roots to surrender to the ranks of brutechnicality that became ever more prominent upon the turn of the century. At its core, Avulsed has always characterized the 'retro' death metal theme, before it WAS retro, even when it seemed, from their often explicit cover images, that they were escaping that. And speaking of cover art, Ritual Zombi, their 6th full-length, absolutely slays...

By and large, so does the music, to the extent that I might safely cite this as one of their strongest efforts to date. I'm a little biased, being a sucker for veteran Dave Rotten's vocal performance on the two Putrevore records he released with Rogga Johansson, and his decrepit, rumbling, nihilistic growls remain an immense feature here, but in the riffing department this is a balanced and entertaining affair which runs the gamut from late 80s death/thrash picking progressions redolent of Scream Bloody Gore (ignoring even the cover of "Zombie Ritual" itself), to Carcass's Heartwork, to traces of melodic Swedish influences like a few nods to Slaughter of the Soul-era At the Gates, and ending off with some sheer blasting brickwork brutality like the intro to "Zompiro", one of my favorites here. Pacing and riff construction is well enough varied among the 10 originals, and the guitar-driven intro and outro pieces that envelope the album work well to give it that 'overall package' feel that reminds you that you're listening to an album and not a bunch of .mp3 files. I'd also mention the songwriting exhibits an astute lack of overkill, with zero overt technicality or showing off, just a throwback sense of extremity which, had it arrived in that precious 1991-95 period, would have probably proven an undisputed classic...today, not so much, it's just a fun excursion through the annals of undead flesh and quite apparently doesn't take itself so seriously. An homage to the saturated zombie culture.

I've already mentioned Rotten, who gurgles like a human sewer spewing forth flesh-eating plasma, but other highlights are the guitar tone and drumming. They've got this cloying, filthy, ripping presence to the rhythm guitars which seems somewhat Sunlight in origin, but also resembles the classic grind grime found on an effort like Repulsion's Horrified. When they brush out some leads or melodies, with a cleaner tone and some mild effects, there is a great contrast which really transports the listener back to the classics. Oskar Bravo is a positive find for the band, the sole new member here, having played on a bunch of underground stuff I've never heard, and he delivers a lot of organic fills standing out in the mix. The kick drums seem slightly more mechanical but the toms and snare are nearly as prominent as Dave's guttural and the rhythm crunch. I did not pick up a lot of bass guitar, apart from where it's alone (the opening of "...Was Not My Blood"); whether because its being performed with a timbre that is simply absorbed the rhythm guitar or its just not loud enough, but the punch of the guitar riffing is enough to establish a proper low end on my speakers and it's not entirely absent. The distortion is actually a little less buzzing than on the previous record Nullo (The Pleasure of Self-Mutilation), and in fact Ritual Zombi seems not so much brash or in your face as several of their prior offerings, but the songwriting more than compensates.

Ultimately, if you're not entirely jaded on the shambling corpses, which many justifiable are by this point, this is a great lead-in for your Walking Dead viewing parties, and just a pretty fun death metal record to boot. Not the best I've heard this year by a longshot, but the attractive artwork is certainly not sold down the river of viscera by its musical component, and with this and Putrevore it seems like Dave is undergoing some Rotten Renaissance, releasing some of the strongest work since he started this all in 1991. Riff patterns and ideas aren't exactly unique to Avulsed, and they were never a band that was able to make much of a name for itself with so much else making waves internationally, but to be honest I can't think of a single release (out of their full-length albums) which wouldn't be worth spinning this Halloween season, and there's a profound 'music first' mentality here that eschews goresoaked, unending intensity for balance; otherwise they might not have included the classical guitar interlude "Elegy of the Rotting". The cover of "Zombie Ritual" seems a bit too safe a choice, and it's not likely I'll be listening to this with any frequency in six months, yet it's surely feast-worthy for all brain-flesh connoisseurs, and a raunchy, Romero-esque stimulant for the dead nerve endings.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

http://www.avulsed.com/

Atrocity's Blut (1994)

Atrocity could be described as a band who started off quite strong as a part of the 'first wave' of German death metal, producing two well-liked and solid records before seemingly falling off the deep end into one of the most overt 90s identity crises I've encountered. Specifically their 1994-1996 period it seemed like the band had absolutely no fucking idea what direction they would stick with. Blut is an amalgamation of miserable groove/death metal and Goth metal bits, Calling the Rain dabbles in folk/doom metal with ethereal female vocals, Willenskraft shows an unwillingness to step entirely away from their death metal roots, and Die Liebe (possibly the best of the lot) has them teaming up with the legendary industrial duo Das Ich to create something with both the industrial and Goth components. All of this was of course the setup for their Werk 80 album of popular cover tunes, which was one of their more successful discs, and then they'd actually go on to become a rather coherent Gothic/symphonic metal act with pretty high production standards, but the mid 90s was mired in utter turmoil by their two worst effort. Blut is, unfortunately, one of them...

It's rather a pity, too. My first exposure to the group was a mint cassette copy of Hallucinations I picked up in 1990, the days when I would literally purchase every recording I found with a death metal logo, in any store. It was solid stuff, nothing exceptional like what the Florida/Sweden scenes had produced, but another of those formative harbingers of the notion that the genre had gone viral worldwide, and that it wouldn't be long afore that world caught up. As such, Todessehnsucht did not disappoint: mildly less brutal and vital, but compensating with catchier songwriting. Naturally, I held some excitement out for the follow-up, Blut, since Atrocity really hadn't had their breakthrough yet and from external appearances it looked as if it might be some theatrical concept record about vampires. The logo superimposed over the curtain on the cover even appears to be the same one used on the movie posters for the '92 Dracula film adaptation starring Keanu Reeves, Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins. Turns out, that same movie did in fact inspire the theme here. Seemed like a good fit to me, even if it was still a pretty fresh flick...a European death metal band cutting its teeth on Bram Stoker's horror...that works, right? Oh no, my friends. Oh...no. Very, very wrong, for Blut is a prime example of poor decision making in the decade that threatened to destroy it all: the 90s.

The shock I felt at this is comparable to that towards another German death metal band, Morgoth, on their later offering Feel Sorry for the Fanatic, where they mutated into a more melodic industrial rock band. I mean, apart from a few of Alexander ('How did he get this awesome name?') Krull's barks and grunts, and a few of the death metal breaks littered through the 15 songs and 64 minutes, this bears almost no resemblance towards the group's earlier albums. Instead, it's a scatterbrained transformation into a mixture of 'woe is me' Gothic metal tropes and bouncy, annoying groove metal riffing which lost its way from aping Prong into a catacomb of tremendously dumb, uninspired riffs and vocals that stand out far too far and sound immensely goofy over the tinge of the rhythm guitar tone. What's more, Blut is front-loaded with some of its shittiest tunes...if you dig deeply enough, you'll find there is actually some passable material in the track list, which foreshadows their direction at the turn of the century and beyond, but in getter there it stumbles over some truly terrible songwriting which remains the nadir of their career (alongside Calling the Rain...let me not forget my venom for that one). And while lyrically this album seems well attuned to its subject matter, of eternal life, horrible appetites, insatiable lusts and being forsaken by the divine, left to walk to the earth as a beast, the musical riffs and structures are generally too obtrusive to allow for full immersion.

Imagine you and I are sitting at our local theater, soles stuck in last week's derelict popcorn butter, hearts full of anticipation for this new blockbuster starring one of our favorite actors (an actor's actor!) as the big heel, and the opening act is this shitty, bouncing chug rhythm that sounds like a castaway from Prong's Cleansing. That describes "Trial", a crappy groove/thrash dud that has no fucking business here or anywhere. While I might forgive just the one, then the record lurches into "Miss Direct", a strange BDSM number driven by farting, dorky bass lines and clinical nu-thrash rhythms drowned in some of Krull's worst vocals ever. What the fuck is this? It's hard to hone in on any potential fetish-erection when your song sounds like a bunch of clowns visiting the Red Light district and honking hooker-boobs like they were toy horns. To top that off, they transition back into ANOTHER pseudo-Prong/Pantera groove metal tune ("In My Veins"), and like the opener, pretty much the only saving grace are the methodical lead sequences which hearken back to their older style. We're now about 12 minutes into Blut and there's no relief in sight from the horrors; Atrocity finally living up to their name, but not in the manner they likely intended. It's honestly one of the most pathetic 1-2-3 combos I've heard on a neo-death metal record outside of Massacre's abysmal Promise.

But then, like a breeze of air freshener greeting you in amidst the stench of a nightclub restroom, "B.L.U.T" itself arrives, a mesh of glittery progressive metal melodies and synthesized Gothic choirs, quality arch-like bass lines and Krull's clean baritone vocals interspersed with the angrier grunts that resemble Christofer Johnsson on Therion's superb Lepaca Kliffoth. It's not exactly magic, and I still the tinny crunch of the rhythm guitar here as much as the prior tracks, but such a dramatic improvement in terms of interest-level. It gets stranger, as Blut seems to wobble back and forth between a myriad of ideas, several traipsing back into Todessehnsucht territory and failing, others like the folk/ballad "Calling the Rain" (oh yes, it appeared first) implementing clean guitars with tinny effects, and Krull's sister Yasmin making her appearance with some pretty standard Euro-ethereal vox not unlike a less jubilant Liv Kristine (of Norway's Theater of Tragedy), who ironically would end up marrying Alexander. There's a song in German ("Leichenfeier") centered around some plodding riffs that sounds like a doom metal Lacrimosa variant. The strange Prong-ish tunes continue ("Moon-Struck", "Goddess in Black"), there are several instrumental interludes like the acoustics of "Soul Embrace", but there never seems to be any real sense of coherence to the material, except that so much of it is weak. Blut is not a confusing album, but a 'confused' one, and it speaks volumes that the best song on it is a 90 second bass and guitar instrumental which captures the atmosphere of a moonlit light better than anything else here.

At best, the Goth elements here served as precursors to records where they delved far more consistently into that style, like Gemini and Atlantis or the more recent symphonic/Gothic/death metal hybrid Okkult which is actually one of their best. Stylistic disparity isn't Blut's only crippler, because I found the production of the guitars here to be just too clean, tinny and robbed of any real meat or power. Again, I draw a comparison to Prong, particularly Cleansing, though that album had richer rhythm guitar riffs, superior songwriting over all, and of course was handled by Terry Date who has a decent track record. The drum mix here is also pretty bland, the bass lines rarely interesting, and while I do enjoy Krull's more melodic rantings thanks to the edge and gravitas his death metal origins give them, he's simply too loud on a good portion of the album. The lyrics, while not perfect, seem to do a decent job of getting into the mindsets of vampires or other characters with a lot of Anne Rice's eloquence. The reader can feel these are Romantic, tragic tellings, now if only the music could have more successfully met that benchmark, then Blut could have been well ahead of its time, at least in the Gothic metal field. But the ball was dropped, no, shattered on the cracked, ivy-wrung pavement, and nothing here holds up to any scrutiny. Weak guitar tone, uninspired riffs (even the few delves back into death metal feel pitifully non-evil), and at times sheepishly silly vocals that were unlikely to get Krull laid at the same clubs Peter Steele was attending.

I don't fault Blut because it was an experiment. It's not that Atrocity was 'ashamed' of its death metal roots, and decided not to pursue that genre directly through the remainder of the 90s (listen to Willenskraft or some of the tunes off later albums), but they obviously felt a cloying impetus to branch out into new territory, and not to restrict themselves. It worked out for them eventually, because they dove straight into that emergent European goth metal scene to some accolades...who exploring that stuff at the time didn't stumble across one of the Germans' covers of obvious, dramatic 80s pop songs? Inevitably, I feel like Atrocity did turn themselves into a respectable band once more, and even in these fragile times, they had some success (Die Liebe and Willenskraft are both worth hearing, if not exceptional). That said, Blut remains as a giant warning sign: covered pits ahead, do not tread these paths, do not travel these roads, and if you ignore this advice, bring a grappling hook. I've never lied about my feelings on albums before, and I'm not about to start: this is pretty god-damned bad. Listen to them! The children of the night. What sweet music they don't make.

Verdict: Epic Fail [2/10] (damned and addicted to survive)

http://www.atrocity.de/

The Grotesquery - Tales of the Coffin Born (2010)

The Grotesquery, along with the more primitive Bloodgut, is one of the more conceptual projects assembled with the prolific Swedish death metal personality Rogga Johansson, who handles the guitars here. He is joined by a number of longtime collaborators (bassist Johan Bergland and drummer Brynjar Helgetun), but the real draw to this is probably the involvement of death metal 'royalty' in vocalist Kam Lee, who most will recognize from Massacre, but has himself featured in a number of other projects since that time. In fact, this isn't even his first dance with Rogga, the two having put out the Bone Gnawer debut Feast of Flesh the year prior to this, which featured a more brutal and churning style of death metal. Not that Tales of the Coffin Born lacks some punches of its own, being pure throwback death metal, but the inclusion of the atmospheres and story elements curb it from being a total zombie-mosh slug-fest. Actually, outside of some of the Putrevore, Revolting, Ribspreader and Paganizer material, which I'm quite partial to, The Grotesquery is one of Johansson's strongest acts.

Now, I'm on record as never having been the biggest Massacre advocate, finding them average at best even when their style was a novelty. Far less interesting songwriters than Death, Pestilence or Obituary of the time, with an air of 'me too' written about them in the miasma of early Earache, Metal Blade and Nuclear Blast signings. They were also later responsible for Promise, one of the worst fucking records ever recorded by a death metal band in history, or ANY metal band, for that matter (I've certainly scored that abomination lower than every studio record other than the Hellyeah debut). Yeah, I know it's an anomaly and half the band either denies taking part in it or wants very badly for us all to forget it out of existence, but you can imagine I just don't approach a Kam project with a lot of high expectations. To be fair, it's not because of 'Master' K. Lee's vocal prowess (with that one exception). He was fine on the first Massacre disc as well as his stint in Denial Fiend, and in truth his personality is a large part of what makes Tales of the Coffin Born an enjoyable experience. Ghastly guttural growls with a lot of gut-saturated sustain, balanced off against a higher pitched snarling voice that very often felt like Deicide if not so closely conjoined. He's also got a gruffness that resembles Rogga himself in some of the bands he has growled for.

Musically, this is a total old school hybrid of American thrash-influenced songwriting aesthetics reminiscent of bands like Massacre, Malevolent Creation and Deicide with the meatier Swedish tone inspired by the usual suspects who influenced many of Johansson's other projects. Brynjar's bullet train double bass builds an undertow beneath the largely mid-paced material comprised of a lot of primitive tremolo picked riffs, palm muted chuggery and few craftily carved open chord sequences. A few of the grooves felt like faster Bolt Thrower, but the major difference is all the sampling and 'narrative' stuff used in the songs, from faint industrial clanking to cheesy intro monologs that set up the tunes proper. Although I mostly enjoy this, there are absolutely a number of pretty generic rhythm guitar progressions like the lazy groove in "This Morbid Child" that simply feel too familiar to stand behind. The Lovecraftian horror which spurs on the lyrics isn't exactly represented with a lot of interesting musical ideas, though I'd say Rogga gets into it in a more complex, varied manner than many of his bands, with a goodly number of riff shifts, and a badly needed bit of lead and melody work.

The bass lines sound tight with a plodding tone, some squirmy fills, and as mentioned, the drums are executed with robotic accuracy, but not in a bad way... they simply sound flawless and voluminous in both the kick and snare-work. Like the recent outings of Paganizer or Ribspreader, The Grotesquery really goes for a deeper end effect that stirs your entrails as if by a spoon in a cauldron, but there's also a lot of studio clarity here that won't turn off fans of more contemporary, technical death metal who don't require it to sound as if it was recorded in a cave in 1993. Tales of the Coffin Born isn't terribly eerie or compulsory like its lyrical subject matter, so don't expect the slowly building terror of a Lovecraft tale to translate itself meaningfully into the song structures. It's more of a brutal and clinical sort of old school modernization that just happens to target a more eloquent brand of horror than the usual misogynistic gut-spilling. Aesthetically there have been dozens of other records on which the music and lyrics fit better together, but just on its riffing, vocals, and production alone, Tales of the Coffin Born is a really solid effort that holds up across a number of listens. You might not remember the album long after spinning it, but when engaged in the neck straining experience itself it won't let you down, especially if you're a sucker for old Massacre, Cancer, Bolt Thrower, Jungle Rot, and the like.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/THEGROTESQUERY?ref=ts&sk=wall

Diabolical Masquerade - The Phantom Lodge (1997)

The Phantom Lodge is another of those 90s curiosities which begs of the listener: just how serious do you need to take your black metal? For at least the first three records, Anders 'Blakkheim' Nyström was clearly taking the piss with Diabolical Masquerade... first with the personal and ludicrous Ravendusk in My Heart, an introspective journey of this silly alter ego he created, which straddled the dangerous line between symphonic, Gothic bombast and genre parody. Next, he puts out The Phantom Lodge, which seems like some fairly adept caricature haunted house black metal with a few strange choices, namely various examples of overt idol worship and then a few more bare-bones riffing tracks that lack the cheesy eloquence of others. Don't get me wrong, I have a very soft spot for this band and others like it (Gloomy Grim, Cradle of Filth, Hecate Enthroned, etc), and once enjoyed this even more than the debut, but I've shifted opinions in recent years since The Phantom Lodge just seems to suffer ever so slightly from an identity crisis, a lack of consistent direction...so now I think they're equivalent quality.

Had it all been in the vein of the first track, "Astray Within the Coffinwood Mill", bearing one of my favorite song titles in history, I'd praise this one to the rafters, but in reality there are only 3-4 tunes showcasing the symphonic, cheesy and superficially spooky synthesizers. Anders actually takes the subtle approach with his key pads, honing in on just one sound of electrified strings of choirs rather than crafting entire orchestras that offset the guitars and vocals. This is primarily a guitar album, just an atmospheric one. Riff-wise, there's a tremendous influence from the classics here: Darkthrone, Bathory, Celtic Frost all form the foundation from which Blakkheim has built this experience, and he utilizes a lot of slow, grooving chord progressions as opposed to endless tirades of blasting and tremolo picking. I actually really dug the drums at points on this, especially the warlike fills that transform into double bass thunder on the first cut, where you even gets some To Mega Therion-like timpani thumping along in the background to the evil ass grooves. That said, I did get the impression that a lot of transitions were just pulled out of nowhere. They're generally interesting and even catchy, sometimes an excuse for Anders to throw on some narration in a manly, deep voice, but they can feel a little patchwork in structure and that persists throughout most of the tunes.

I'm also not so sure how I feel about the 'hero worship' segments of the album. For instance, for "Upon the Salty Wall of the Broody Gargoyle" (told you it was ridiculous), he spends most of the song vocalizing his Tom G. Warrior impression, and a pretty decent one at that...to the extent that I actually thought it was the genuine article on a guest spot. But then the goofy chorus riff where he starts rasping the song title in a malicious black metal imp voice totally takes you back out of it. It's...unusual. In the latter half of the tune "Ravenclaw", he uses this grating inflection reminiscent of Quorthon on the 90s Bathory material, though a bit nastier. Another quirky decision, not only for the change in vocals but also because the pagan/Viking theme of this song doesn't seem to fit the campy horror implied by the titles of "Astray Within the Coffinwood Mill", "Cloaked by the Moonshine Mist" or "The Walk of the Hunchbacked". That's not to say these stranger tracks lack some decent riffs and compelling atmospheres, but they create an unevenness that makes The Phantom Lodge feel more like an EP with some experiments thrown on, despite its 43 minute duration. "Hater" is arguably another oddball, since it seems like a more straightforward black/thrash tune with some screaming...

Anyway, the other 5-6 tracks are all pretty damn solid, often excellent, and themselves contain a lot of variation, like the woozy dissonant chord patterns woven like twisted thread through "The Blazing Demondome of Murmurs and Secrecy" or the glimmering, warmer melodies used in the chorus and bridge for "Hunchbacked". The drumming is generally great, with a few exceptions like "Hater" where it feels too thin in the chorus. Vocals are also a highlight, Blakkheim attempting to sound as delightfully wretched as possible, and as I said, even pulling off some excellent productions. The bass is audible but doesn't add a lot as far as interesting note selections, and the guitar chords (picked fast or slow) have a thin but effective tone to them which permits the kick drum and vocal barking to steer the experience along. Lyrically it doesn't seem to center so much around the assumed persona of the 'Blakkheim' character, though I still got the impression that a number of them were from that character's point of view (certainly in "Demondome"). A lot of the tunes have a fixation on occult horror, though they don't always match up very well with what you think the song will be about from its title. Considering that most people probably think of Diabolical Masquerade as a joke, though, they're well enough scripted, but I definitely wanted "...Hunchbacked" to be more about Quasimodo, or "...Coffinwood Mill" about some creepy undead, and the lyrics are not really that...

The Phantom Lodge is not without its flaws, and it remains a little puzzling even 16 years later, but there's a good chunk of this disc which has become a bit of a staple for me around Halloween. I'll marathon it with the first Gloomy Grim, Cradle's Midian, Dusk and Her Embrace and a ton of King Diamond, Mercyful Fate and 80s Ozzy solo records, and people seem to enjoy the mix. Nothing here is super-serious sounding and it's not likely to please anyone whose universe begins and ends with De Mysteriis dom Sathanas and Det Som Engang Var, but if you're not opposed to a 'lighter' approach to black metal as conceived by someone of the Count's mentality (from Sesame Street), I can't recommend this enough. Atmospheric and dreamy, or downright carnal at other times, it's just another one of those divisive reminders that at one point, a lot of people explored black metal because it was 'fun', instead of using it as a precursor to suicide or shooting someone. Not welcomed by the People Living Under their Parents' Stairs, but, hey, it's all good, folks. If nothing else, we can take away from this that Blakkheim could have done a straight 80s Celtic Frost copycat band and I would have paid to hear it.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (nightshade serenade, diabolical masquerade)

http://www.diabolicalmasquerade.com/

Iced Earth - Horror Show (2001)

Iced Earth. Damn. Probably one of the bands I've received the most requests to review through the years I've been doing this, and ironically, now that I've stopped taking requests, I finally get around to. In reality, every October I get into the spirit for just about anything Halloween or horror related, cheesy or serious, metal or otherwise, and so in tracking down records to cover for the site I figured it was about time to not pass over one of the most obvious choices. Iced Earth's Horror Show, a huge thematic tribute to both Hollywood and history's most infamous monsters, a few of which you won't be surprised to discover are indeed human beings. A concept album, which aesthetically, I feel must be one of the most abject failures of its kind, even if the effort and budget that were lovingly placed into its conception are a little difficult to shun.

For years now, Iced Earth has been on my backburner as a band to revisit, because to be frank, I'm not into most of their music. The first three discs were solid examples of power/thrash crossover with some creative riffing and a lot of interesting lyrical subjects. I'd even argue that The Dark Saga, the Floridians 'first' horror concept record, was interesting, if flawed, because it chose a theme that was then-current and probed pretty deeply into it. That's not easy to do, especially when the theme was Spawn, the Todd McFarlane 90s antihero vehicle whose appeal was confined 99% to the colorful, muscle-rippling artwork, its characters and plot tossed in as an uninspired afterthought. The fact that Jon Schaffer and crew pulled off a respectable, appropriately angry tribute to that series is not lost on me. In fact, when it comes to the sheer magnitude of the band's production values, consistently impressive logo/artwork, and giving the fan something for his or her money, Iced Earth is among the most steadfast franchises in all metal music. I might not be a fan, and in fact few people I know seem to enjoy them beyond a handful of tunes/records (some outright despising their entire catalog), but there's a reason these guys are so immense in certain regions of the world. They didn't arrive at that success level running on fumes. They busted ass, and it paid off.

But, yeah, taste. No accounting for it, and Horror Show is a prime example of why I'm so rarely able to make that necessary connection with the band's songwriting. Half of that is because there are only a handful of tunes even remotely compelling, and the other that, for a concept centered on some of the greatest horror icons in history, the album is particularly bland, never once mirroring the creepiness I felt towards most of the subjects' individual films and stories as a child. In fact, Horror Show really sounds like it could just be about anything else, with monster movie lyrics thrown on top of it. Oh sure, "Im-Ho-Tep (Pharaoh's Curse)" does sound Egyptian thanks to the opening melody, and "Frankenstein" implements slow, meaty chords and a pace that resembles, to some extent, a shambling golem; but what is missing here is any real sense of depth, atmosphere or genuine tension and horror. Power metal isn't known for its highly kinetic use of dissonance or frightening note progressions, perhaps, but so much of the rhythm guitar playing here consists of bland chug patterns, or Iron Maiden riffage clad in Master of Puppets production but lacking the unforgettable chops that thrust either of those bands into the domination of the 80s.

Iced Earth confuses me, because here is a group with a great drummer (Richard Christy), one of the most well rounded rhythm guitarists and multi-instrumentalists in the genre (Schaffer), and clearly a guy who is among the more distinct power front men from the States (Matt Barlow). Rendered to its components, Horror Show is a beast. When the riffs hit hard, you feel a punch. The production is so blissfully pristine (surpassing The Dark Saga and Something Wicked This Way Comes) that every lead shines, every kick thumps, and Steve DiGiorgio's guest-spot bass lines have the aptitude to stand out. Vocal arrangements here are staggering in detail, with Barlow's air raid siren escalations complemented by whispers, deeper narrative cleans, female guest spots (as in "The Phantom Opera Ghost") and some truly corny narratives that have a hard time sounding convincing. Hell, it's not even that I can accuse Horror Show of lacking variation. They really roll the dice all over this thing, and it's certainly more diversified and orchestrated than the prior album. Ambition and musicianship really aren't the issues, but the execution just leaves so much more to be desired.

A few tunes are alright, like "Wolf" or "Jekyll & Hyde", mainly due to the neck-jerking riffs, madman Matt Barlow interchanges, and brooding acoustics of the latter (one of the few moments on this record I would argue are even marginally spooky). But then you've got a piece like "Ghost of Freedom" which is absolute garbage. A boring, dime-a-dozen 'power ballad' with generic acoustic guitar verses and touching, 'emotional' vocals that I can't make it through without exploding. Weak. Granted, Barlow is trying to sound more like "Cemetery Gates"-Anselmo than Brett Michaels, Jon Bon Jovi or Jani Lane, but it's still goofy and does not belong here. Hell, that particular song doesn't even have to do with a classic movie monster, it's an 'original' story about some fallen soldier which is completely unnecessary, patriotic self-service which would have been better placed on The Glorious Burden. Seriously, once they hit the climactic cliches of "Don't tread or me...live free or die!" I almost died laughing. I know it's supposed to be a tragic character which might work alongside Frankenstein's monster or the Creature from the Black Lagoon ("Dragon's Child"), but this is supposed to be a fucking HORROR SHOW.

Leave the sappy lamentations by the roadside. 'One for the ladies?' Don't patronize them. Why on Earth do you think we all listen to heavy fucking metal? It's to avoid shit like this...but worse, it's not even catchy, so cram those lighters up your sphincters. Another tune that pissed me off: "Damien". I'm sure many of you recall the original film The Omen, which was scored by Jerry Goldsmith, who did a tremendous job of creating an infernal tension with his strings, choirs, and Latin lyrics ("Ave Satani"). Iced Earth goes as far as to do a great job penning some lyrics from Damien the devil-spawn's perspective, but then there is nothing remotely frightening at all about the boring rhythm guitars or vocal arrangement. The moral of the story is: I would not want to meet Jerry Goldsmith in a dark alley on All Hallow's Eve, but if this is an example of the threat Iced Earth can generate, I'd have no hesitation to just them up and steal their candy bags. A sadly common thread coursing through this entire record. "Im-Ho-Tep" is at best a third rate "Powerslave". "Jack" isn't nearly as evil as it should sound, consider it covers arguably the greatest 'monster' of the album (the one that actually existed). "Dracula" is a good use of Steve's jazzier bass tones, a moodier sounding acoustic intro than "Ghost of Freedom", and some nice melodic power/speed licks with Barlow's screaming, but I did not think for a second that it effectively conveyed the atmospheric either Stoker's novel or any subsequent vampire telling to me (luckily Helstar had our backs 12 years prior to this).

Horror Show is essentially an endless tirade of grandiose arrangements that aesthetically fall short of their potential in dealing with the subject matter. I wanted classic horror. I got vapid Iced Earth. I wanted blood and innards. I got dullards. The lyrics are very often better than the music, and while they sound deceptively powerful via studio production, the majority of the riff patterns seem to tediously lack the debatable creativity found on the earlier records like the s/t or Night of the Stormrider. Barlow shines where he can, though a number of the layered vocal sequences seem tacky and needlessly dramatic. Like what Christina Aguilera might pull if she was fronting a metal record. Even if I were to compress this record down to an EP, the highlights still aren't as memorable as a random assortment of tunes off the first three records. And none of those were exactly masterpieces themselves. Horror Show is superior to its own successor, The Glorious Burden, that lackluster collaboration between Schaffer and Tim 'Try Hard' Owens, but that's not really saying much. At the end of the day, this is just a big, glossy package with good intentions, but without the fangs, claws, gills, wrappings, knives or zombie flesh to do them justice. These characters don't deserve such earnest, 'epically' average, charisma-free compositions. You'd be better off dusting your back issues of Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, because even at their hokiest they've got the atmosphere and charm this so sorely lacks.

Verdict: Fail [4/10] (oh no, this can't be)

http://www.icedearth.com/

Fondlecorpse - Set the Drill to Kill (2013)

Unsung paragons of sleaze and gore, Dutch Fondlecorpse is amongst the most kitschy, campy horror metal acts you're like to encounter on the European side of the Atlantic. Known just as much for their ridiculous collage artwork as their music, albums like Blood and Popcorn and Creaturegore go so far as to feature the goddamn Critters from the Critters film (1986) in amongst the garbage, gore and tits! Try and strike that from your mind...a little harder to do than the songs, which up to this point haven't exactly left me with much of an impression, other than their jubilant use of movie samples. But let's be real: Silvester Koorevaar and the musicians he surrounds himself with are hardly out to rewrite the script on extremity. They're not meticulously penning the spiritual successor to Individual Thought Patterns or Unquestionable Presence, or trying to blast past Origin at some chainsaw murder-derby. Fondlecorpse writes fun, goofy, semi-sloppy death metal meant to help you relive those memories of cracking a beer open in the 80s, kicking back with some of the worst VHS tapes in your collection and just reveling in the triviality side of extreme entertainment.

This Set the Drill to Kill CD single is actually half of a limited vinyl split the band released with the prolific Swiss goregrinders Embalming Theatre, but this particular version includes the sample attachments that were omitted from the 7". Just two songs, but the reason I chose to dive into this rather than one of their older efforts is because Silvester has acquired more or less an entirely new lineup here, including none other than the Swedish underground death metal guru Roger Johansson on the guitar. As a result, I found the riffs here to be a lot tighter and more explosive than, say, Creaturegore, and that's partly a reflection of Rogga's vast experience releasing dozens of records in nearly as many bands over the last decade. If I didn't know better, I'd say Fondlecorpse was making a legitimate run here on becoming a tight and reliable throwback death metal band with a mash-up of Scandinavian and American influences, sort of a middle ground between Death and Dismember helmed by Silvester's gruff gutturals and off-snarls. The guitars here are a grab bag of driving D-beat punk-based rhythms and more intricate tremolo patterns, occasionally conjoined with a simple backing melody, or interspersed with some peppier thrash licks. Admittedly, though, I actually preferred "Rampaging Malformed Monstrosity", which I found the more brutal of the pair.

A great, athletic bass tone and loudly impacting drums help to round out the riffage, to the point where the group can run head to head with the tireless crusade of Swedish death metal impersonators, even though this has the lighter camp appeal that's going to find favor with Razorback Records fans (a brand Fondlecorpse has released material through and Silvester often does the artwork for) or Spanish goregrind heavies like Machetazo, Gruesome Stuff Relish and Haemorrhage. There's certainly also a little of that trickle-down influence from Carcass, Repulsion and Napalm Death, but it's distilled here into something a bit more recognizably 21st century. The samples are pretty sweet, I recognized the first from Driller Killer (1979) which should be obvious, but not the second. I also really dug the artwork on this thing, a nice tribute to the film. As for the songs? Well, even with the band firing on their best production cylinders, these are the sort of tunes you might listen to once or twice, maybe include on some schlock horror/gore metal compilation, but they're not exactly composed of memorable riffing sequences that stand out among so many peers. Not really on the level of, say, some of Rogga's more prolific bands like Revolting and Paganizer, but really there's nothing 'bad' about this release, it just doesn't stand out much. It's got an attitude, just not a very distinct or unique one. If you're really into this cult horror/exploitation stuff, especially the Razorback roster, it might be worth it to kick a few bucks for something that could prove a collectible later on (though the vinyl split might seem a more substantial choice for purists).

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Fondlecorpse

Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh (2004)

Had you asked me a half decade ago, Resurrection Through Carnage would have been the Bloodbath record I championed as my favorite; but in the ensuing years I've found myself listening more and more to its predecessors, both of which exhibit stronger songwriting chops and a fraction more technicality that help to maintain interest. What's more, with Nightmares Made Flesh the Swedes seemed to transform from a 'supergroup homage' to an example of consummate professionalism in the field of death metal nostalgia. As overt as the influences are, many hailing from their very own country, with this album and its successor, I never really had the feeling that Bloodbath were perpetually 'living in the moment'. Unlike a lot of other throwback stylists, Nightmares Made Flesh doesn't feel like they're writing a record for 1993. It feels like they're writing one for the 21st century, which just happens to follow an 'ain't broke, don't fix it' mentality. Hell, by 1993, most of these guys were already putting out music...

This is better refined musically than its predecessor, which was far more of a chunky tribute to Swedish death luminaries like Entombed, Unleashed and Dismember. There were a lineup difference in that the band hired on Hypocrisy main man Peter Tägtgren to temporarily fill the shoes of Mikael Åkerfeldt, who was intensely busy with Opeth at the time; and Martin Axenrot (Witchery, Satanic Slaughter, etc) came on board so that they could have a full-time drummer, Dan Swanö focusing more on the guitar. These changes don't exactly factor into why I enjoy this record more, but certainly I felt that Peter had a better flexibility in his delivery than Mikael, even if his deep growl isn't quite so opaque and caustic. The riffs here are in general a little more frenetic and occasionally higher pitched in nature, and with Hypocrisy's diverse catalog and Peter's experience also in Pain, The Abyss and other projects, I can't think of anyone else more qualified to incorporate into ANY extreme musical project, even on the fly. Ultimately, I enjoyed his presence here more than Åkerfeldt on Breeding Death and Resurrection Through Carnage, but when Mike returned for The Fathomless Mastery, I wasn't exactly disappointed. Really, this shit isn't rocket science, either of the men could handle it, and Bloodbath is more about the riffs anyway.

Which is, of course, where this particular album excels. And there was no excuse for it not to, with two of the best songwriters in the country, Blakkheim and Dan Swanö laying into some corpulent grooves redolent of their peers in the 90s. Heartwork-era Carcass is a solid comparison, laced with the driving overtures of Entombed or Soulless-period Grave, and even culminating in a few individual riffs which feel like they could have been lifted off these bands' cult classic offerings. You can also here some slower Entombed or Bolt Thrower during the few sequences that reference death/doom on the latter half of the album, or even traces of latter-day Death in a few of the more clinical, busy note progressions in pieces like the opener "Cancer of the Soul". But Bloodbath is not beneath grafting a little creative editing of their own onto the style's blueprint, and so you end up with absolute fucking killer guitars like the tremolo picking sequence initiating "Outnumbering the Day" or that incredible, to-die-for d-beat beatdown groove in "Year of the Cadaver Race", which rivals almost anything on Clandestine or Wolverine Blues. I can't say that all of the guitars here are equally as ass-throttling and inspired, but you won't encounter a long, dry period without something entertaining...and across 12 tracks, that means quite a lot of fun.

FUN. Like, invigorating in that way you might have felt when first hearing the supergroup's ghoulish forebears during the actual 90s (if you were alive or of age to do so). But Bloodbath aren't just old hats and writing good songs, they've created an album here with timeless production values, clean enough to sate the fan of more modern/brutal death metal but still packing plenty of punch for the old timer. There's a reason why a lot of younger death metal fans I've come across, who seem to have little tolerance for the decades-old classics seem to be quite fond of this group even despite the lack of brain-spinning technicality they're accustomed to, and that once again points to the Swedes' decision to smooth out some of the grime and not shoot for the 1991 tape-reel production. Loud, pumping rhythm guitars warm and polished enough to wallop you with the deep end, but still very clear when they're racing off into some more intricate, melodic picking. The leads are also very well-defined, ripping and evil, the sort that fire up the excitement level well beyond what is already being played. That's another thing...most of the tunes here sound positively diabolic, due to the craftiness of the riff construction!

Fuck, these are all pretty mainstream dudes in Swedish metal who have broken big with softer acts like Katatonia, Pain and Nightingale, safe to play in front of your grandparents; so the fact that they can churn out wicked and imposing riffs better than the lion's share of 3rd generation Swedophiliacs the world over speaks volumes about how in tune they are with their backgrounds that inspired the project. For a project that's not even meant to be serious, the music here is molded with more passion and effort than you'd expect, and apart from a few lyrics (arguably), there's nothing so explicitly silly about this band. They don't saturate the songs' varied, visceral themes in the most disgustingly descriptive lyrics you get out of the competitive gore bands, but a tune like "Eaten" still makes me squirm a little in how it depicts cannibalistic desires from a perspective you normally don't experience. Or how about "Year of the Cadaver Race" in which undead livestock exterminate humanity. Eww! Truth be told, Nightmares Made Flesh is the total package, the sort of album you'd be proud to own had it come out 10 or 20 years prior, and proud to own now. I realize there's a small minority that will balk at the band because of its members or because retro death metal is utterly uncool, but if Bloodbath had arrived in 1992-4, the poster would very likely be on those same folks' walls, the tees proudly outgrown but displayed in their closets or carved into back patches for that inevitable midlife crisis when the khakis come off and the HORNS ARE THROWN.

So yeah, I have a great time with this record, but it'd be unfair to not point out the few deficiencies. For one, these riffs don't hit with a 100% success ratio, even though there's not really a noticeably 'weak' track over the dozen. A lot are just paraphrased from a few dozen of the obvious influences, from Morbid Angel to Entombed, so when you hear the truly amazing progressions (including those I mentioned earlier), they tend to really stand out and make you wish the rest were quite as great. Also, Jonas Renkse's bass playing, while loud enough, is dubiously dull and noncommittal. I know he's also involved with some of the guitars, backing vocals and overall songwriting...and that a lot of old death metal records don't themselves involve compelling or noteworthy bass playing; but a band like this which isn't thinking entirely in reverse could take an extra few days to pull up some half-decent lines and fills, which are treacherously few here. Otherwise, this is an album I can crank nearly a decade after its release date, inspired by material a decade older still, and it just feels timeless and engaging, despite its lack of novelty. A slab of semi-sickening, confident concussion for those who approach it from either the horror or headbanging angles.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (the pleasure of the torment)

http://bloodbath.biz/

Rigor Mortis - Freaks EP (1989)

The 'deformed' and the 'defective' have always had a safe harbor in the horror genre, playing to the superficiality and commonality of the viewer. So, naturally, this was fertile terrain for Rigor Mortis to continue their tour of transforming classic/cult horror concepts into intense onslaughts of hyper thrashing proto-death metal. I admit to having some trepidation that the band might abandon Mike Scaccia's noteworthy tremolo picking style and prowess for a chunker, more accessible brand of mosh-thrash of the Anthrax variety, but thankfully this was a pretty direct descendant of the eponymous 1988 effort in terms of style and songwriting. I felt next to no disappointment at this fact, but I have to say I'm not of the general consensus on the Freaks EP: its loyalty to the patented Rigor Mortis sound is noted, but for whatever reason the songs here simply do not phase me like most of their predecessors.

Hell, Rigor Mortis was arguably one of the better 'second tier' US thrash records to hail from anywhere other than the East and West coasts, due largely to the guitars and vocals, and I'd even go so far as to say it had a profound if subtle influence on future decades of extreme metal. Many death and black metallers I've encountered have never even heard the thing, but there were not a lot of speed or thrash acts at the time playing with the acrobatic picking technique quite like Scaccia. In fact, I'd say he was so far ahead of his time that most extreme metal groups today don't even compose their tremolo lines with such fervor...he can twist them into a groove, bolster them into a lead sequence and could truly explore the concept of 'speed' itself. I guess without the blasting and constant double bass patterns so critical in the evolution of death and black mediums, Rigor Mortis might be taken slightly for granted while Gene Hoglan and Dave Lombardo are forever lauded, but surely Harden Harrison is a wild bastard playing on the more aggressive end of the thrash spectrum with loads of near-blast beats, constant fills and even having some fun with a cowbell, appropriate to the track "Cattle Mutilation".

The vocal position here had shifted from Bruce Corbitt to a guy named Doyle Bright, and while he doesn't have that same darkness to his bark, he does a pretty vicious impressive mix of Corbitt and other thrash frenzies like Ron Rinehart of Dark Angel. Casey Orr's bass lines here are perhaps the only department in which I actually consider Freaks a step-up from the debut. Sure, the guy's not going to receive the same level of attention as Scaccia, but he is literally fucking flying along those notes, and the relative thinness of the rhythm guitar in the mix ensures his constant presence and mildly muddled tone. Rigor Mortis is at its core about velocity; endless momentum, and this EP is no exception. It's produced cleanly and efficiently, with the vocals barking the loudest, and leads also blaring, but the rhythm instruments each playing off one another seamlessly. This is drag-strip horror metal, with exponentially more tremolo patterns than chords, and even at its slower points like "The Haunted" its still bustling along with great confidence and exploding squeals of guitar notes that dazzled just about every guitarist in the 80s that heard them, yours truly included.

Unfortunately, at least for me, the songs here simply do not have the resonance that gems like "Wizard of Gore", "Bodily Dismemberment" and "Condemned to Hell" from the debut had. I bought this when it was released and quickly forgot about it, perhaps because there was just so much better coming out at the time. In the intervening years I've gone back to it several times, but to the same underwhelming reaction. I find it nearly impossible to remember any of the riffs and notes, because honestly they're a little dull by comparison to their forebears. It's 'high speed boredom', to be sure, but pretty much victim to the same reasons a lot of death and black metal records won't gel with me decades later: lack of inspired, original, and evil patterns of notation that glue themselves to the memory and never un-stick. Tunes like "Freaks" and "Cattle Mutilation" might be perfect for fans of premature ejaculation, who just want something fast and mean and to get the whole experience over with, but there are never any interesting twists or licks waiting in the depths, apart from surface recognition of the members' dexterity. I never feel like the 'knife is in my hand' as I did with "Bodily Dismemberment". I don't feel like a psycho anymore when I hear this. It all comes down to that.

Hell, there's actually nothing 'freaky' about any of this if you've already heard the debut album. The songs here just seem like outtakes that weren't catchy enough to include among their betters. Rhythmically there aren't many interesting progressions, and hell even the "Six Feet Under" instrumental seems like a warm up exercise for the musicians with a little too much repetition. The lyrics are alright, and Bright's presence can hardly be held responsible for the lack of compelling songs (at least on this release), but I felt like Mike's note choices here felt a little dry; and thus I didn't hold out much hope for the inevitable sophomore Rigor Mortis vs. The Earth, which in addition to the lamentable songwriting, likely suffered from the 'thrash fatigue' of the early 90s and the fact that the band had been kicked to their third label home in three releases. Freaks is certainly superior to that, but it's just not that exciting beyond its visceral construction. Yeah, it's faster and arguably 'sicker' than Haunting the Chapel or The Eyes of Horror short-players, but there are single songs on those ("Chemical Warfare", "Confessions", etc) that stand out more than all 5.5 of these cuts combine. So, back on the shelf it goes, not nearly the curiosity that Mark Ryden's cover image suggests.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (hide your disgust as they greet you)

https://www.facebook.com/rigormortis25

Darkwoods My Betrothed - Witch-Hunts (1998)

I first encountered Darkwoods My Betrothed when browsing a specialty record store in New Hampshire, where they had imported a copy of their 1996 sophomore Autumn Roars Thunder. This was in my early 20s, and I was immediately drawn to the artwork, the band's interesting handle and the pagan themes in the song titles & lyrics. I was also interested in a lot of European labels like Solistitium, and more superficially, Fall had long been (and remains) my favorite season of the year. So I'm just a sucker for anything related to it, enough to pop $20 on a CD from overseas even though I'd have probably been smarter to save the cash for my university textbooks the following semester. Wait...nonsense! :slaps self: At any rate, I was not heavily invested into the Finnish black metal scene at the time. I knew and had collected a few of the more obvious groups (Beherit, Impaled Nazarene, Barathrum) but hadn't invested much further into their underground, beyond Thy Serpent's Forests of Witchery, which I probably picked up the same day I nabbed this. Still wrapped up in the other Scandinavian nations.

Autumn... was a curious record, with a lot of atmospheric clean singing comparable to Yearning (another Finnish export I later acquired), so I was eager to order their followup when it was available through Spinefarm a few years later. Surprisingly, Witch-Hunts took a few aesthetic turns from the first two discs, and relied more heavily on synthesizers to provide orchestration for the Bathory-styled riffing. In fact, it would not be out of the question to describe this as a hybrid of Blood Fire Death beats and rhythms guitars with the eloquent, sweeping grandeur of Dimmu Borgir's Enthrone Darkness Triumphant. A comparison that might immediately turn off a few curious parties who loathe the 'demon burgerz', but an honest one, because Witch-Hunts in some ways bears more semblance to the later 90s/early 00s wave of cheesy but enjoyable haunted house black metal attributed to groups like Gloomy Grim, Soulgrind and early Alghazanth. This stuff was clearly traceable to the symphonic Norse and Swedish sources as opposed to the foundation of Beherit, Darkthrone, and other raw and raucous entities that inspired the popular groups like Horna and their kin that we associate so strongly with the Finnish black metal scene of today. That's not to say we've got an In the Nightside Eclipse contender on our hands here, but Witch-Hunts definitely gnaws at the familiar roots which sprouted such a masterpiece.

This was easily the best produced of the three Darkwoods full-lengths, with a dense and broiling mix which for the most part manages to balance off all the important instruments. Though generally audible, the rhythm guitars do have a tendency to lose some luster when the keyboards are pounding away, but there are other points at which they take the center stage and the orchestration 'backs off'. The dirty grit of the guitar tone is one of the aspects that remind me of late 80s Bathory, but more particular it's the swaggering mead hall feel to a lot of the note progressions, especially where they are affixed to the constant double bass mugging. The leads, to their credit, really do stand out where they appear. This album, like most of the delightfully cheesy sympho-black of the 90s, gives me the impression that I'm riding some demonic merry-go-round on a fire-breathing nightmare steed. Corny but convincing. The keys are actually well arranged between pipe organ tones and lighter, sparkling pads which occasionally feel like you're listening to the incidental music for an X-Files episode. Accessible, safe choices are made that fall within a consonant classical camp rather than some dissonant, jarring, alien tones; the only real aggression is when they're sweeping along above a blast beat and incendiary tremolo pattern, together forming a mighty cavalry charge. Cranked at louder volumes, Witch-Hunts is definitely engrossing and clamorous.

There were synths on the second album, sure, but they were applied with a more back seat mentality, where here they've at least moved up into the front passenger position. Though many probably found the clean vocals from Autumn Roars Thunder goofy at best, I actually missed them here. You get some whispered, evil incantations, and the same salacious snarl you'd recognize from the older works, but there was just less variation over the album. Emperor Natteset is particularly impressive when he unleashes a sustained, gnarled rasp, but in retrospect I don't feel he was one of the more distinctive black metal front men of this period. Enough to do the job, and then some, but difficult to separate from many of his peers. The Hellraiser III sample in "Without Ceremony and Bell Toll" sounds pretty cool, plus it's just cool wanted to quote anything beyond the original film. Interestingly, the keyboardist here (and on Autumn) was Tuomas Holopainen who went on to become famous in Nightwish, so you can experience his bombastic classical roots developing here, and where the metal cedes and you're just hearing the keys or glimmering acoustics, it offers a well placed relief from the hostility. Tero Leinonen really kills his kit here! Unlike his other band Nattvindens Gråt (which also featured Holopainen) he can really open up with the blasting and thundering bass and I felt like he was engaging throughout. You can make out most of the bass lines, and somethings they start hammering themselves into the listener's perception, but normally they were strictly a support unit.

If I have one major complaint with this disc, it's that thematically the music felt more like a raging, glorious battlefield than an actual witch-hunt. It's creepy only in its superficial details...organs, pianos and synthesized choirs all fit the bill, but the level of ballistic punishment in the seething guitars just gives off the impression of murderous midnight black metal circa Emperor or Limbonic Art. Like a war between vampire lords being launched from the battlements of their grim, obsidian castles. Granted, this is an original story here and does indeed involve some warlike behavior by the witch hunters, so your mileage may vary. The latter half of the album is devoted to the actual "Witch-Hunts" trilogy, the strongest songwriting, and the lyrics throughout are quite good, but even here a lot of the content is blasting Scandinavian stuff which I just couldn't associate with the subject matter. However, that's just me...I'm sure most will not have a problem connecting the two, and of course we've had no shortage of intense black metal homages to witchcraft. The music on its surface didn't really leave me with the impression of some innocent (or guilty) village woman being stalked for her believes (real or false), and then there was no climactic, horrifying 'payoff' at the proverbial stake. I guess I never 'felt' the story, it never titillated my fetish for black cats, warts and flying brooms. Kidding.
 
But as a firm piece of orchestrated, savage aggression...Witch-Hunts works, certainly with a more broad appeal for the symphonic black metal fan of its day than its predecessors. I think it does lack some of the charm of the older material, and in the end I actually have come to enjoy the debut Heirs of the Northstar the most, because Pasi/Nattesett's performance there consisted of truly formidable, atmospheric screams and howls that really smothered the acidic rhythm guitars like the ravings of a disembodied specter. This one doesn't possess quite so many memorable moments, and where it does they are usually keyboard lines. Not the spookiest record to invest in this October, but then if you're a sucker for cult classics like In the Nightside Eclipse, Enthroned Darkness Triumphant, Moon in the Scorpio or Dusk and Her Embrace then you might find enough inspiration here to light your own pyres.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (a cult curtained in secrecy)

http://www.sacrifire.net/dmb/index.htm

Blood Feast - Kill for Pleasure (1987)

One of the greatest dangers of an underground metal scene driven by nostalgia is its tendency to inflate the value of nearly any recording written and released during a particular period in time. So it goes in recent years for the early death metal stuff, and so before that it went for the Golden Era thrash metal. Second and third tier bands (at best) are showered with credit, failed records misremembered as successful, and buying trends produce loads of reissues, which is honestly the best part of the phenomena, since it puts some real gems back into print. New Jersey's Blood Feast, through no fault of its own, is certainly one of many indistinct thrash bands of the 80s to have garnered some buzz due to their placement in history. I can faintly remember a little discussion of Chopping Block Blues (their superior sophomore effort) in high school, thanks to one other student owning the cassette, but these fellas were hardly front page news...and for a reason.

Now, before the hair gets ruffled and the panties bunched, I'm not advocating that Blood Feast was some horribly incompetent band. As far as the New Renaissance Records roster, Kill for Pleasure was a rather middle of the road release, hardly the nadir of a label which produced only a handful of gems. For me, though, two of those particular gems, Indestroy's self-titled and debut and the North American release of Sepultura's Morbid Visions help exemplify exactly what it is I don't enjoy about the Blood Feast debut. Both had comparable, filthy speed/thrash aesthetics which could easily be filed under the proto-black/death metal category. Both brimmed with fun, unforgettable songs, dirty and distinct vocals and hooks that felt at the minimum threatening and at most downright Goddamned evil. Kill for Pleasure, on the other hand, just sounds like someone closely memorized a bunch of Slayer songs, trimmed out the infernal nuances that made them so revelatory and unique, and applied a vocalist who at best could be said as a more grotesque attempt to one-up Jeff Becerra of Possessed. Sure, everyone was influenced by Slayer, but if I had a dime for all the half assed "Black Magic" riffs here I'd have made back my money for the record. To dub this debut a bargain bin backup for Hell Awaits and Seven Churches might seem a cruelty or disservice to some, but it's nonetheless the honest truth.

But let me step back and talk about what I feel Blood Feast actually had going for them. For one, though horror influences persisted in the hard rock/heavy metal scene as early as the 60s (potentially earlier), the sort of 70s/80s inspired splatter metal was still pretty fresh by the time Kill for Pleasure rolled out. In fact, part of the charm anyone would feel for this or Chopping Block Blues is the nostalgia for the endless slasher sequels and 'forbidden' mock cannibal VHS tapes that started to thrive through this particular decade. The lyrics here largely revolve around films and stories of serial killers, mythical creatures of the night, and occult fueled apocalypses. It's Halloween metal for those individuals who privately venerate the holiday over the course of the entire year. That doesn't make it incredibly unique in the 80s, but bands like Blood Feast were unquestionably blueprints for the throngs of thousands of gore or kitsch-horror obsessed death metal mavens to follow. If Kill for Pleasure wasn't an inspiration for the roster of Razorback records, for example, I would be completely shocked. So that sense of antiquated slasher atmosphere and brutality permeates the experience here, and really makes me wish to like it more than I do...

Unfortunately, the music is just not up to the task. Boilerplate chord progressions paraphrased from a good number of other records leading up to it, thriving only off the inherent visceral intensity spearheaded by Gary Markovitch, the sadistic vocalist who channels the aforementioned Becerra's style into ghastlier heights of morbid grunts and vicious snarls. Oh, he's a lot of fun on a tune like "Cannibal", but the supporting rhythm guitars fail to stand out, and it feels like you're the target of some foot chase perpetuated by a knife wielding psychopath, only to realize in the middle that this is a pretty boring foot chase. 'Just kill me.' As I've persisted through the record every time I've broken it out in the past 25 years, I've kept waiting to hear those surprise hooks flutter in from beyond the verses, or some climactic chorus carnage that made me wanna flip back the needle for a replay, but they just never happen. Like a lot of its contemporaries (Darkness Descends or Reign in Blood), speed is the general rule, with a couple meaty palm muted breakdown grooves for the moshers, and those are across the board uninteresting. Naturally, I don't have a problem with such a driven, breakneck album, but I at least expect some catchy riff patterns strewn in there, and Kill for Pleasure does not deliver.

The production is a bit sloppy, so several of the complaints I've read are warranted in this area, though I have no idea why one would expect a major budget on such a small label. There are plenty of soiled and amateur sounding records I love to death (like the two other New Renaissance releases I mentioned above), but that's because the studio choices (or lack thereof) seem to emphasize the quality of the songwriting, or at least ensure that the listener is paying closer attention. Kill for Pleasure is dense and workmanlike, with Gary's lunatic vocals up front above the considerable drum mix and wet-ass distortion of the rhythm guitars. The leads are also pretty gross sounding, though occasionally they seem better prepared and more melodic than others, at which they seem like afterthoughts that sadly lack the frenetic capacity of what Slayer were weaving into their tunes. Blood Feast is definitely one of the earlier thrash bands to put such a distorted and sleazy tone on the bass...in fact it's so thick and repugnant that it places Kill for Pleasure almost into early grind territory at times (circa Scum or Horrified). A good choice, but the bass lines themselves are hardly interesting enough to provide more than a gut-spilling accompaniment. Drums are fired up and abusive, to say the least, but rarely if ever enter that extreme metal territory that Hoglan and Lombardo were pushing.

Really, Markovitch is the center of attention and the only component of this record that I found marginally entertaining, because he's just not holding back. He's crazy. Matched up with some truly bewitching or evil progressions of chords or melodies, Kill for Pleasure might have been sinister as shit, even turning the lead vocal down a notch, but this is ultimately 42 minutes of average schlock that secedes from the memory almost as soon as its injected. I mean, take Rigor Mortis' eponymous record, an excellent if imperfect example of how to integrate frightening, morbid rhythm guitars with dark vocals and cult horror lyrical themes, or older records like Hell Awaits, Metal Inquisition, hell even Welcome to Hell and Black Metal leave an infinitely more wicked impression upon the psyche than this; not to mention Chopping Block Blues which is more varied, unusual and interesting, even it trades in some of the savagery. Kill for Pleasure is not a compete dud, some acceptable slasher metal to spin in the background while you organize your Friday the 13th DVDs, but its only merits stem from its over the top frontmanship and unflinching rawness. Your heart won't quicken, you won't jump at shadows, and...no goosebumps. A bloody steak, sure, but not a tasty one.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10] (embedding the terror)

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