Cirith Ungol - Live at the Roxy (2025)

What if I told you Cirith Ungol didn't have but one awesome live record, but they actually have two? Live at the Roxy does feature a lot of crossover with I'm Alive, with regards to the second half of the set presented, but what makes this one stand out is that it kicks off with an astonishingly good performance of their ENTIRE excellent Dark Parade album from 2023. In fact, while I might be caught blaring the studio version more often from my motor vehicle at unhealthy volumes, I can honestly not tell you which version is better, because they perform the record with such clarity and conviction and prove beyond the shadow of any doubt that they are one of the most legit epic/fantasy heavy metal bands in the history of mankind.

That they get through all of that material and then announce 'they'll be back for some classics in five minutes', you have to wonder how these legends have anything left within them. How does the crowd, after being steamrolled by that flawless album performance? And yet, here they go with some recent renditions of "Frost and Fire", "Chaos Descends", "Master of the Pit", "Join the Legion", and the very track that got me into the band to begin with, "Blood and Iron". I'd also mark that I prefer these to the recordings on I'm Alive, for while that was a damn good live offering, the band sounds much more road worn and sinister here, there are just that many more cracks beneath the surface that make the clobber you all the harder. Tim's voice does sound slightly less studio perfect, but it's got a vicious wisdom and age to it that makes it all the more impressive, while the rhythm guitars and rhythm section perform everything a little harder, making it sound more natural than its live predecessor.

I do wish a little more love had been given to Half Past Human and Forever Black material, but at least we've got "The Frost Monstreme" to represent the latter, and it sounds awesome. For some of the earliest tunes, I think the versions here are so good that they supercede the original studio recordings as the place I'd most like to listen to them. Just an amazing release, and considering the band are on the verge of stopping live performances, they've really saved the best for last. As of my writing this, Live at the Roxy is only a couple weeks old, and it's well worth your time picking up, whether you're familiar with the band or just crave some badass traditional metal, it's one of the best live albums I've heard in recent years.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

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Cirith Ungol - I'm Alive (2019)

I'm Alive had the distinction of being our first proper Cirith Ungol recording after their 2015 reunion, but the catch was that it was a live recording from Greece's Up the Hammers Festival, featuring the modern lineup and 90 minutes of material from the first four albums, the last of which had been put out close to three decades before this. It's also spectacular, with almost studio quality sound that perfectly captures the band's doomed, epic metal vibes and even helps bulk up some of the earlier tunes with some well-needed muscle so they can tango at the gym with One Foot in Hell or Paradise Lost. There's probably a tiny fraction of sloppiness that one could attribute to any live performance, but it only adds to the personality and the glorious triumph of having this long underrated band deliver a solid beating to the audience.

The guitars are nice and chunky to carry the classics like "Blood and Iron" or "Atom the Smasher", and maybe if there were any complaint they almost sound a little too cleanly performed. However, once the leads erupt you get a great balance of atmosphere against the rhythm player and in this I think it does sound superior to even the studio takes. The bass sounds good and the drums have a simple shuffle to them but hit hard enough to support the straightforward riffing. Most importantly, Tim Baker sounds like an absolute menace, like there isn't even an iota of grime or age beyond which he already had on his delivery back on those 80s performances. I can only imagine if you were a longtime Greek fan just how ecstatic you would have been with this live set, the band playing almost all your favorites and sounding pretty much how you would have dreamed when you purchased your ticket. 

No, they don't play ALL the material from the earlier albums, some fun ones like "The Troll" are mysteriously absent, but all the surefire hits are played back to back for a very long set and, without knowing that the reunion would also be producing some great NEW records later on, this would have been a one and done experience, since it would be unlikely to get any better. They do a great job capturing the audio here with excellent quality, just a little hint of crow noise that's never intrusive, and it's so clean that you might even think part of it was overdubbed in the studio like some famous classic 'live albums'. Or Cirith Ungol were just damn serious about getting back and giving back to their fans, and even did so here with another Michael Wheln cover art featuring the legendary Elric. A benchmark live recording for epic heavy/doom metal fans or for anyone wanting to hear some veterans return from the dust, stand and deliver.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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Cirith Ungol - Servants of Chaos (2001)

Servants of Chaos makes for an interesting fan package in that it offers an extensive exposure to what the band was up to in that entire decade before they dropped their debut record. Largely comprised of their 1978 and 79 demos, each album-length in of itself, with some live tunes tacked on, it's about as comprehensive a backlog as one might ask for and really rounds out the collection of any completist. Naturally the presumption is that this material is going to embrace the 70s hard rock aesthetics even more than their first few official studio efforts, and I think that holds true, but even then I wasn't prepared for just how wild and adventurous the band was going to be. This shit is raw, it's often all over the place, but you can generally hear how they formulated the heavier hitting sound they would progress with.

"Hype Performance", the opener slaps you with some very Hawkwind-sounding spacey hard prog rock, with weird sounds and keys glitching through the guitars, where some of the other tunes like "Last Laugh" have more of the vibe you'd expect from their era, bluesy hard rock with some talky vocals that almost remind me of punk and garage, or even later grunge stuff like Mudhoney. There are a number of the recognizable tracks like "Frost and Fire", but they sound even quirkier with the acid synthesizers, or "Better Off Dead" which sounds like you're jamming it through even more of a marijuana haze coming from the back of some airbrushed van. Even "1000 M.P.H." makes an appearance, sounding a little more suited to this mesh of material than on One Foot in Hell where it ended up. Tim's voice is already in that grating, warlike mode on many of these earlier tunes, and to be fair, the demo-level production has a good raw charm to it that makes the band sound absolutely savage, despite the nerdy prog cheese that they are often escaping towards.

Some highlights for me were the instrumental duo of "Ill Met in Lankhmar" and "Return to Lankhmar", based on the Fritz Leiber classic fantasy stories, they really manage to capture the vibe of those old anthologies with the prog rhythms, synthesizers and blazing leads, making me which they'd have these all re-recorded on some possible concept album in the Lankhmar setting. In fact a lot of the stuff from that '79 demo is instrumental, and while it does feel weird not to have Baker's voice present, they experiment with some weird sounds in "Witchdance" and "Feeding the Ants" too. To that extent, much of the material does feel unfinished or not properly organized, it's clearly not the full band spread we'd expect since there are also a lot of drums missing, but it's definitely imaginative. 

The live recordings are from the 80s and kick some ass, raw and ripping and Baker himself sounds phenomenal, potentially even more menacing than he does in-studio. The cover of "Secret Agent Man" was unexpected and doesn't feel as if it belongs, but they definitely create a dirtier and amusing version of that song which feels like it's filtered through acid trips in some abandoned garage. There are also some rehearsal recordings which sound alright, again the rawness seems to work with the vocal style and certainly makes the rhythm guitar sound more crushing. All told, there's a lot going on with this compilation, they include some extensive notes on their earlier years, and while I can't say I'd make a recommendation for new fans, or that it's got a high ratio of quality to the quantity, old heads who already love Cirith Ungol band might find it an entertaining, flawed retrospective.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

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Cirith Ungol - Paradise Lost (1991)

Paradise Lost came out a little too late to capitalize on the three albums before it, or at least that's how I felt back at the time, but it was also the first 'new' Cirith Ungol record for me, so I was elated to see the beautiful cover art and logo at the CD shop and made the purchase instantly. For 1991, it felt truly out of place against all the waning thrash metal, emergent death and black scenes, grunge and groove and The Black Album and all that jazz. It's also proven to be one of their more divisive offerings (even the drummer has spoken at length about the various issues with its production and release), but I have to say that Paradise Lost was pretty catchy out of the starting gates, for the most part it's another damn solid example of their style, and I kind of admire how defiantly traditional it felt in its day.

Cirith Ungol had the tendency to include a sillier sounding track or two on numerous of their efforts, the then-most recent example being "100 M.P.H." from the awesome One Foot in Hell. I would say that Paradise Lost has a few examples of this, one being the cover of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's "Fire", which they've heavied up and assimilated to their own style quite well. That said, while the lyrics seem somewhat relevant to their own dark fantasy themes, it does stand out a little, whereas Prophecy's "Go It Alone" is just absolutely cheesy here, not a deal-breaker so much, since the musicians and Baker make it sound slick and atmospheric, but unnecessary for sure. "The Troll", an original which features one of the catchiest verse riff patterns in all of metal history, also comes across a little goofier than probably intended. I love that song, so it doesn't bother me, but pair this up with other tunes that feel a little flightier and more melodic than their prior fare, such as "Heaven Help Us", and you've got a disc that doesn't quite match its kick-ass, crushing predecessor.

Beyond those exceptions, though, this is great stuff, with cuts like "Join the Legion", "Before the Lash" and "Fallen Idols" cut from the same cloth as all their epic heavy/doom greats, and could have been outtakes from One Foot in Hell. The band mixes up the vocals a little more here, with searing clean passages on "Chaos Rising" that work pretty well, and the album overall does feel like an evolution upon the ideas of its predecessors. They blend in some new tempos, some good atmospheric lead guitars (as in the title track finale), and a palette of riffs that ironically make it feel fresh and forward-thinking, despite how dated the band's appeal might have felt next to the more trendy and budding styles of the time. I personally enjoy "The Troll", I know others who don't, but I definitely think the covers could have been scrapped for one more serious original and the album might have gotten a warmer reception. But even then, I still break this one out at least as much as I do Frost and Fire, there are a number of essential tunes and it fits the legacy quite well.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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Cirith Ungol - One Foot in Hell (1986)

One Foot in Hell was the first Cirith Ungol record I picked up on cassette, smitten after repeated exposures to the opening track "Blood and Iron" on Best of Metal Blade Volume 2, which I played so much that I infuriated all my family and another family that were camping together in New Hampshire over the summers. While that might be my go-to anthem among the band's catalogue, I was satisfied to find that the rest of the album is nearly on par, and for me the most evocative in terms of the dark fantasy/sword & sorcery that influenced the Californians both lyrically and sonically. They basically took everything great from the earlier album and covered it with a suit of iron, occasionally flecked with some rusty spikes to poison the blood of the impaled.

While other bands were ratcheting up the technically and extremity, Cirith Ungol were sticking to their formula and just making it more consistent and engaging. I mean, this album dropped in a year that also produced Master of Puppets and Reign in Blood, two discs that have done lengthy (and often competing) rotations as my metal GOATS, which make for quite a contrast against this simpler sound. This band was already becoming an anachronism by the mid 80s, but that's exactly what makes One Foot in Hell so damn cool, the stark and straightforward blend of riffs and atmosphere. I do actually think this one is less varied than its two predecessors, but the production feels a little more '80s' in line with a lot of the band's Metal Blade peers, there's more of a reverb and resonance coming out of the speakers that it exchanges for the jam room feels of its older siblings, and this works in tandem for the soaring, brooding chorus parts as in "Nadsokor". The whole album here feels like it was written and performed by orcs as they beat their siege machines together and prepare to roll across the realms, stamping out the civilizations of man, elf and dwarf...

...and for a 12 year old, that was MIGHTY FUCKING AWESOME. And still is! Whether because such an idea is timeless, or because I never stopped being 12, that's a conversation we can have another time, but judging by the band's continued popularity and the fact that the following three records they would produce over the 30+ years after this one, seem more like attempts to revisit this magic than that of the first two records. So I am not alone. Now, having heaped such praise upon this one, I can't quite say it's perfect, there's a little bit of goofiness here with the obvious party track "100 M.P.H.", which is fun in its outright, but sounds like they're trying to create their own "Ballroom Blitz", still keeping it well within the realm of the heavy metal lyrics, but had this one been replaced by another more serious piece like all its neighbors, the album would be even better than it is. Just saying. At least the lead at the end is really slick.

Otherwise, this is everything you want. Tim Baker's harrowing vocals launch over the mix like a stone heaved over some poor castle's wall by a trebuchet, especially in the doomiest tunes like "Chaos Descends" or "Doomed Planet", where the voice is such a weapon against the slower churn of the guitars. The rhythm guitar tone has a lot more 80s steel to it than the 70s-cloaked earlier albums, and I also think the lead guitar blends in better where it often seemed to bleed a little on the debut. There is a bit of passivity to the drums, if only because they are just crushed by the awesome weight of the riffs and vocals, but in a way that works in its favor, and I'd say the same for the bass...it doesn't have that pop to it like it did on the first two, but it definitely bulks up enough to enforce the rhythms, and I think that approach just worked better for this material.

One Foot in Hell is a bonafide American metal classic that deserves to be placed on the same pedestal as classics from Manowar or Twisted Sister, and to this day remains my favorite of the whole Cirith Ungol canon. It has one track that doesn't live up to the rest for me, sure, and it got absolutely buried the year it came out by so many other amazing releases, but it's totally timeless, sounding just as potent now as it did when I was hitting puberty. I think the band really hit the level they wanted musically, and where they would remain barring slight tweaks to production and aggression. A nice "Waaagh!" we could stick in the faces of our poseur friends and siblings who listened to Poison and Bon Jovi.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

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Cirith Ungol - King of the Dead (1984)

King of the Dead might not have hit peak Cirith Ungol for me, but this record was certainly meaner and more substantial than its predecessor, and even the younger Me appreciated it a little more right out of the box than the debut. Stylistically, it's not a lot different, there's still a lot of bluesy hard rock coursing through its 60s-70s fantasy veins, but Tim Baker's vocal performance here is a lot more evil and over the top and that alone gives the tunes a darker atmosphere. They still maintain that pop to the bass guitars which made them stand out against a lot of other heavy metal bands of the day, and the focus on memorable, simple rhythm guitars with plenty of groove to them, and melodic leads definitely stood alongside bands like Trouble and Pentagram to help the doom metal style evolve from Sabbath into a genre.

For many fans, this is the de facto Cirith Ungol experience, and while I'm an outlier to that idea, I can certainly understand why. It kicks your teeth in with steady blazers "Atom Smasher" and "Black Machine", but then after dispatching the minion hordes on the surface, creeps through the caverns in "Master of the Pit" with its bass line and leads, or the lumbering title track, which is both understated and epic in equal measures, Baker spitting out some of his most dangerous elongated screams to the slightly choppy, proggy grooves in the bridge. This also has a much mightier second half than the debut, with awesome pieces like "Death of the Sun", or the doomy power 'ballad' "Finger of Scorn" which once again features some of Baker's more eerie wailing dowsing it with atmosphere. The instrumental "Toccata in Dm" was something slightly different, a classical adaptation spun into a nice contrast of effected leads and spooky bass lines. They also pace this whole 46 minute journey quite well, and end on a strong note with their namesake track that exemplifies all their patient, pounding dynamics.

King of the Dead is more or less a template for One Foot in Hell, and that I appreciate, but it's also the perfect accompaniment for a night paging through your old epic fantasy paperbacks by Moorcock, Tolkien, Howard or Cook, or perhaps your Warlord comics. It's sword & sorcery writ into musical form, something not a lot of bands were doing at the time as the hair metal was starting to rage, thrash was in its infancy and a lot of Cirith Ungol's own Metal Blade peers were starting to eke out their own strains of what we'd now dub USPM. An umbrella they themselves might belong to, but has a pretty diverse palette...Omen and Manowar, Lizzy Borden and this band all sound quite different, with just enough overlap to interest a mutual audience. In the end, though, this sophomore just feels more committed to the sound established on the debut, slightly more consistent in production and songwriting and there's a pretty understandable reason why fans might hand you this first if you express interest in the band.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10]

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Cirith Ungol - Frost and Fire (1981)

Though I was introduced to metal music at a very early age, it wasn't until The Best of Metal Blade Volume 2 cassette that I really ran across Cirith Ungol's music. I was obsessed with that entire compilation during Middle School and especially at summer camp where their Orcish anthem "Blood and Iron" really sparked off a lot of fiery inspiration in me for various D&D games. As I backtracked to the Californians' first two records, I was obviously hooked by the unforgettable Michael Whelan artwork, but truth be told I wasn't as immediately taken by the music of the debut, which existed (understandably) on a more 70s hard rock threshold and lacked a little of the ironclad threat that a record like One Foot in Hell would later muster.

Gradually, I grew to appreciate these formative albums, and looking back now it seems silly to have spent years undervaluing Frost and Fire, because the DNA is much the same, and for the time it dropped it probably delivered the same punch as I associated with the later 80s stuff. I don't think this is their most consistent offering, and it probably remains the least visited in their catalogue for me personally, but it was quite a novel epic heavy metal piece, a sound felt like a midway between AC/DC, Judas Priest and early Manowar, rooted in blues and groove and injected with a bit of prog rock adventurism through the use of the crispy acid organ synthesizers on "What Does It Take". There are a few party tracks like "Edge of a Knife" which seem like they dip a little into a Rolling Stones or Stooges vibe, but even there you get some more epic guitars in the bridge, and clearly if they hadn't already arrived at their stylistic destination, they were well underrway in most of the instrumental categories.

The most important two are how the stark, blue collar weight of the guitar riffs collides with the more adventurous phrasing and plotting, almost like a West Coast counterpart to the Budgie stuff which was so great throughout the 70s; and the grating intonations of the legendary Tim Baker, who seems like an Udo, Bon Scott or Brian Johnson if they were forged thousands of years ago in Middle Earth along with a particular set of rings. The guy just sounds downright and nasty as early as this debut, whether it's the full on metal charge of the titular opener or the dirty hard rock bar blues in "Better Off Death". There's an acid to this higher pitch which seems to drip directly into your brain and there forever remain, as melodic as it is vicious, and when you think about it in retrospect, it brought something different to what would later be known as 'doom metal' from an Ozzy or Bobby Liebling.

Elsewhere, the drums are crisp and clean, and another big feature is the bass which has a nice pop to it where it pokes out from the other instruments. The whole band is fairly clear, and though the album might lack the 'heaviness' of later outings, I think the production here is quite perfect for the time, and has an organic, boxy nature to it which sounds like you'd experience in the jam room, though they can get a lot of resonance and atmosphere where needed like the intro to the closing instrumental "Maybe That's Why" with its acoustic guitars and droning electric harmonies. Some of the mixes aren't as balanced as others, and the leads can sound a little noisy or crude. Also, it's hard not to feel that the record is front-loaded with its catchiest tunes in "Frost and Fire", "I'm Alive" and "A Little Fire", but with age I definitely find myself exploring its nether regions rather than just skipping past them. A worthwhile introduction to a formidable band, and despite how 'dated' I might have initially found this one when rubbed against the band's first 'Reckless' records offering, it ironically ages well, and deserves new life amidst all the recent exploration of proto-metal and retro-doom styles which have spawned so many tasty throwback acts.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

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Spring Breakdown 2025

 

Off for the month of April. I will return for new discography reviews in May, June and July! Thanks as always for checking the place out. - autothrall

Versatile - Les litanies du vide (2025)

With a moniker like Versatile, I think you're setting yourself up for certain expectations. Possibly disappointment, if you wind up with a rather typical, commodified sound, or perhaps victory if you're using that branding as an inspiration to head out as far as possible into broad and wild musical amalgamations. I won't say that this debut Les litanies du vide quite achieves the latter, but they definitely mix it up enough to the point where you're never going to get bored headbanging along to their industrialized black metal mash-up. I would compare them to their countrymen Borgne, whose new album I recently covered, but whereas that group simply filters its more conventional black metal sound through some mechanical beats and atmospheric keys, this one does embrace the 'industrial' element a little more boldly.

Lots of grooves; choppy, churning rhythms that feel machine-like or robotic in nature, but then smothered in the atmosphere of the chants, sirens, and sinister, thick rasped vocals. I'd almost liken this to Fear Factory if they'd had more of a black metal foundation than a death metal one. Perhaps The Kovenant is  a better comparison, but despite having a similar set of crazy costumes, Versatile is a little less quirky, and they're delivery is equivalent to the harshest and most serious material of those Norwegians. This album is also soaked in this menacing, Gothic personality, with lots of organ sounds that make you feel as if you're in some haunted house cosplaying as an assembly line. They would be far on the heavier side of a lineup at some European fetish/Goth/industrial festival. There is a little bit more of a dated techno vibe here, too, which might seem cheesy, but this band never plays it for laughs. They even go straight EBM in places, like "Ieshara", but even that is taken dead serious, and for such reasons the record doesn't devolve into the sort of aural circus that you usually associate with bands using the masks, gas masks, contact lenses, prosthetics and all such dressings.

I give the band points for being quite catchy, and having these loud walls of chugging guitars, drums, deep rasps and synthesizers all crashing into one another with a solid level of coherence. There are moments on this album where the heavier instruments drop away and it feels like a horror soundtrack, and others where they embrace a slightly more dissonant industrial metal sound circa Godflesh, though the vocals and the melodic organs and such offer majorly different vibes. It's definitely a muscular debut, and while its acceptance will (as always) rely heavily on the particular preferences of the metal audience towards the adjacent genres on parade, there was undoubtedly a good deal of effort in its writing and recording. The 'black metal' here is largely through some of the vocals, so I think this one's headed more towards rivet-heads that like the noisier guitars and pounding drums, but if your listening habits are open to something like a more brutal, and yes, rhythmically versatile alternative to Neue Deutsche Härte, without the moody male vocals, then have at it.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

https://versatilemetal.bandcamp.com/

Borgne - Renaître de ses fanges (2025)

Of all the black metal bands out there that go relatively unnoticed, I think that Switzerland's duo Borgne might be one of the most worthy. 27 years of material, much of which is good, and has only gotten better with their infectious recent records like Y and Temps morts. Renaître de ses fanges does seem like a slight step backwards in quality to those, but all of the bands captivating mechanisms are retained for an experience that is overall rewarding. This is 'industrial' black metal, largely delivered through the beats, which are certainly caustic, cold and machine-like, but they're not layering in a lot of the clanking and whirring and techno instrumentation that defines a lot of other acts that hybridize the genres. Really, this is atmospheric and even traditional black metal with the programmed drums and just a few embellishments like spacey, ambient, slightly noisy passages, striking piano sounds, etc. It's not corpse-painted Ministry.

The production is pretty great, just like the last couple efforts, but with an added sheen of rawness, where everything simmers in its glorious, fell majesty. The tracks are almost all on the longer side, from 7-10 minutes, but I rarely felt like any inherent monotony outweighed the immersion. The guitars have a real noxious distortion to them which seems to hover around the chords like an aura of decay, but the melodic tremolo picked lines just blaze straight through, and Lady Kaos' keys settle just below them to create a constant, oppressive level of atmosphere without sapping away from the aggression of the guitars. Bornyhake's vocals are nothing too terribly unique for the genre, but they always sound like they're hovering over the brink. Some of the tunes have a blasted structure, others a more melancholic, mid-ranged flow like the closer "Royaumes de poussière et de cendre". There's still a little bit of a death metal subtext to some of the lower riffing patterns, but not as prominent as on the excellent "Swords of the Headless Angels" from 2021.

And that's pretty much the most negative thing I can say about this, it's just not as packed with hooks as the albums leading up to it. This combines a slightly more primal production with some chord patterns that feel a little rinsed and repeated, not only in the canon of Borgne themselves but black metal as a whole. Renaître de ses fanges is still an effective mood-inducer, you can almost feel like you can close your eyes to this and see the spectral cover figures drifting through an apocalyptic industrial bombed out urban landscape, and there are a few riff patterns in the depths of some of the tunes that are pretty glorious once they're rolled out. The balance of the ambiance to the aggression is also quite nice, I just think the metal progressions don't stand out to me nearly as well as some off Temps morts or Y. Still a pretty dependable effort, from a band I've kept in rotation since at least 2010's Entraves de l'âme, and one that's built itself an enduring legacy nearly as comprehensive as some of their French peers.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://borgne.bandcamp.com/