Wastelander - Wardrive (2008)

It would be almost impossible for someone of my tastes to not appreciate what this band is bringing to the table on their debut. This is a three piece featuring Xaphan (perhaps best known from Summon and Wind of the Black Mountains) on guitars, and Ian Pit Viper from Superchrist on the drums. The vocals and bass are provided by Matt War. What manifests here is a great play on traditional filthy punk and crust, all wrapped up in a blackened, thrash metal shell, and it's hella fun throughout the duration of its entire track list.

You could compare this to the classic three piece bands like Venom or even Motorhead, but what might be the closest would be a more punked out Celtic Frost. Does that sound sexy? Because it is on this album. A brief intro leads you the title track of the album, with some very simple, infectious riffing and a good plodding bass, moving at about D-Beat pace. The lyrics are very 'metal', and I dare say retro in the sense they would remind you of bands like Razor and Wehrmacht. But while this might turn me off from other modern bands, they are executed so lovingly and well that it's hard not to get caught up in them. The rest of the record is equally bad ass, I truly enjoyed "Days of Hell", "Mindsweeper", "Baptized in Ashes", and "Final Combat", but there is nothing really weak here, it all follows suit.

This is an exciting release for fans of old school thrash, heavier punk, and crust metal, and the proto-black metal icing on the cake makes it that much more delicious. Don't let the deceptively simplicity of this turn you off, it's very enjoyable to blast in your car or when you want to shove your nuclear boot up someone's ass. I personally can't wait for more! Kudos to you dos. Proof that Michigan can rock. Actually this album almost makes up for Kid Rock and Eminem.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/thewastelander

Provocation - Towards Total Annihilation (2008)

It's not often you get a death metal band focused on social and political subject matter, aside from Napalm Death and a few others that took their queue. Provocation does exactly this, instead of laying on the gory smackdown so many other bands settle for, or the occult/Satanic path.

How well they accomplish this is up in the air, for the majority of the album is quite boring chug/blast alternation with a decent production. A few songs like "Poor in Resources, High in Conflict" stand out from the rest with slightly better riffing, and they do have some cool bits like the trippy sampling of "Do We Learn to Perceive the Unity", but much of the rest I could completely pass on.

Alright, there is ONE bit of gore here, but it's a cover of Pyaemia's "Gorging on Mucus and Bile", and musically it fits right in with the rest of the album. While I'm excited there are bands out there who want to play death metal and convey it through lyrics that may bear some social relevance, the album doesn't quite succeed as a musical statement. However, they are young, this is only their debut, and the potential certainly exists here for better.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/provocationbrutaldeath

Behemoth - Ezkaton EP (2008)

The latest EP offering from Poland's corpse-painted death metal superstars is an interesting mix of material. You've got a few live tracks spanning their career. "From the Pagan Vastlands", "Decade Ov Therion" and "Chant for Ezkaton 2000 e.v.".

There is the studio version of "Chant for Ezkaton 2000 e.v." which is rather dull, and the far superior "Qadosh".

But most important here is the excellent choice of covers. They do a pretty hardcore cover of "I'm Not Jesus" by the Ramones! This is a classy cover here, from one of the punk gods' best and most underrated albums. And Behemoth make it their own with aplomb. Brutal! The other cover is "Jama Pekel" from the great Czech black Master's Hammer, one of my favorite bands from that country... and it sounds quite awesome in the hands of the Polish pretty boy brutes Nergal and company.

The covers alone make this EP worthwhile, and if you're a diehard for the past few albums you are also really going to enjoy "Qadosh". I could do without the live tracks and the "Chant for Ezkaton" wasn't so interesting, so in all I'm going to grade this in the middle.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (but a great choice of cover songs)

http://www.behemoth.pl/

Gorevent - Abnormal Exaggeration (2008)

The debut full-length from this Japanese band is the very definition of the guttural stomp death that has clogged the arteries of the USDM scene for the past decade.

But they have no problem with this, as they churn out tune after tune of simplistic, slow chug often accented by tinny blast beats. To be fair, I like the production on the record, it's got a nice crunch to the guitars, the drums are very organic sounding and clear, and the vocals of Takashi just smother the entire affair in a brutal ooze.

It's difficult to analyze separate tracks on this entity since they all sound so much alike, but a few such as "Gallows" did make me want to jump up and do the ROFLSTOMP all over my room. None of these riffs are original, or even close. If you've ever chugged on the bottom four chords of your down-tuned guitar, you know exactly what this sounds like. The bass is present and distorted but never stands out in the songwriting.

I dunno, the album is pretty concise and tightly executed, it's just so simple and dull that there isn't much to get from it when there are so many better death metal bands out there writing more distinct songs. But if you have a fix for very simple, slam pit death metal and you have low standards, you may actually want to give this a shot.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

http://ip.tosp.co.jp/i.asp?i=gorevent

Infected Flesh - The Ascension of the Abysmal Aberration (2008)

I'll admit I was a sucker for the cover art and the album title, but after a creepy intro, I was sad to discover that the sophomore album from this Spanish gore cult is just as dull as the majority of the brutal, post-Devourment sect of guttural stomp metal.

It would appear this is just a one man band as of this time, so you've got one guy programming all the drums, and performing the instruments and vocals. And while he is able to project a real brutality into the style here, the riffs are just boring chug chug chug hyper chug blast blast chug blast chug. Did you get all that? That's pretty much the pattern here. Unfortunately he forgot to intersperse anything resembling a memorable riff into this pattern.

Thus, tracks with weighty titles like "Catastrophical Synergical Insanity", "The Secrete Nostalgia of Collected Relics" and "A Superior Level of Impious Sadistic Butchery" carry no weight at all, unless you count the weight of people instantly dismissing this to the used bin.

While I've often had issues with drum machines, I really didn't mind it here since everything else is so mediocre it was probably the most exciting part. The vocals are a trade off between a wilder kind of hardcore grind vocal and a super guttural which is really only ever as good as the music it is barfing over.

Verdict: Fail [4/10]

http://www.myspace.com/fleshinfected

Old Wainds - Death Nord Kult (2008)

Having been a fan of their previous albums Scalding Coldness and Where the Snows Are Never Gone, I was highly anticipating the new album from this grim Russian band. While not a bitter disappointment, I can't say I'm highly impressed with the new material.

After a few seconds of a cool glaring synth intro, "Storm-Whip" erupts into a pretty boring, predictable riff with a thrash element to it. You'll notice a more thrashing element to several songs on the record, in fact, and while I always welcome some good thrash, this doesn't necessarily amount to much.

Some of the other tracks fare a little better, and remind me more of their previous albums, songs like "Bloodstained" and "Born Into the Freezing Dark". The title track is also an interesting one with its ambient/prog breaks in the middle. And the album ends with the pretty raging "Cold Northern Order". But the the first tracks just didn't warm me up (or freeze me dry in the case of this band) to fully appreciate the album.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

http://www.myspace.com/oldwainds

Wedard - Wo die Ewigkeit die Zeit berührt [2008]

Wedard's Eiskrieg ep from last year made him one of the more promising new dsbm acts in my eyes. Very pleasant material with interesting, somewhat atypical vocals to go with it.

And now, we have a new full-length album. Ok, positive aspects first. Hmm...well, the guitars still have a really nice sound to them from a mixture of soft distortion and spacious reverb. At times they slip close to post-black metal territory with an underlying current of post-rock lending some emotional weight. They're still pretty simple and unimpressive, but they're nice to listen to.

So the guitar sound has improved. Aaand, that's about it. Drums still sound fake, and they're still really boring. The big problem I see here, though, is that the vocals more or less slop all over everything. No longer relegated to the back of the mix, they've been shoved way to the front and given extra heapings of echo. Whereas they used to be distant and pleasant, now they're just a discordant mess disrupting the music. It almost seems like he's going for a Lifelover feel with them, but misses the mark horribly. Combined with the fact that his riffs have never been strong at all, this just isn't all that stimulating.

Verdict: Fail [2/5]

Famous Monsters - Around the World in 80 Bikinis! (1999)

Little bit of trivia: this is Sean Yseult's project after White Zombie disbanded. These three girls play a simple flavour of surf rock based around camp horror topics. Eschewing complexity or virtuosity, Famous Monsters focus on catchy, fun songs by using common and effective surf riffs alongside spunky chick vocals, and it works...to a point. As a collection of spare songs and live numbers, you can imagine that interest varies. Not due to sound - the recording here is great, with more heft and presence than most studio surf productions. No, the problem lies in the fact that each song is generally a one-trick pony, and some of these ponies were ready for pasture. Songs like "The Werewolf Wiggle" and "Bloody Mary" are irritating and repetitive, relying more on kitschy humour to carry them through.

But really, I can't stay unhappy with this album. While most surf rock that I find is a boring exercise in Dick Dale worship, Famous Monsters actually throw a bit of spirit into it. This album is by no means perfect and you've heard these songs before, but it definitely has its charm. If you're looking to flesh out your surf rock playlist and rock out, I'm sure this will have something for you.

Verdict: Win [4/5] (take with a grain of brains)

Pimentola - Misantropolis (2007)

This album showed up in our last.fm group when it came out last year, but I think it bears repeating, especially for creepy week. Hailing from Finland (so you know they're good), these newly Cold Meat'd darlings are here to disturb. Although somewhat rooted in a pompous martial and quasi-orchestral form that may at some point have crawled out of dark ambient's womb, Misantropolis so much more of a trip than you could expect. Neoclassical strings vie with howling rants. Operatic ululations lead up to industrial hip-hop grooving. Whispers work their way through the laberynthine spaces of massive factories.

Although it belongs in the dark ambient category, picture Misantropolis as theatrical industrial folk. Maybe it's because parts remind me of newer Dornenreich, but I can't help imagining this being performed by an avant-garde stage group as a part of a circus freak show. It's demented and schitzo, but nonetheless fun. Pimentola did a great job of making it all blend together smoothly, as most artists who might try such a mishmash would end with something far clunkier and more abrasive. There's a natural flow to every song that shows a lot of genius on the creator's end.

Verdict: Epic Win [5/5] (we hide the bones in your hair)

http://www.myspace.com/pimentola

King Diamond - The Dark Sides (1989)

At the risk of losing all my hipster pull in society, I've recently been going through my vinyl to either sell off, give away or dispose of. I know, I know, I have been fully inundated into the digital era. It's a sad day in the life of autothrall.

Not really.

Well, one of the gems I dug out of the bin was this 1989 EP by your favorite Dane, a six track collection of mostly 'rarities' and B-sides which the cool kids here in the States never had on our cassette copies of his earlier albums. And it's a smoking selection, even if most of these are now available on CD versions of the albums, rendering the EP itself worthless.

"Halloween" is a King Diamond classic, though it's the exception here since it was already released on Fatal Portrait and its own single a few years before this. "Them" is a creepy little narrative from the album of the same name. "No Presents for Christmas" is another staple song, it originally had its own single. I think he's performed this one every time I've seen him live. But the true gem on this EP is "The Shrine", one of my personal favorite KD tracks, which wasn't on any of my cassettes! An excellent track with a total LaRocque rock out riff, amazing vocal lines, and a desolate, moody bridge riff with Diamond's mid-range horror chokes. "The Lake" is another decent tune, not as good as the others here though. "Phone Call" closes off the EP, basically the final bit from Them. In fact you could think of this EP as a nice little promotional tool for Them and Conspiracy.

It's difficult to rate something like this, I'm giving it a Win based on its merits at the time of release, but these days you could easily skip it since you can get the tracks on CD re-issues of the albums. So, no need for it, but it was great at the time even if just to have "The Shrine".

Verdict: Win [7/10] (There're quite a few people there who'd love to see you)

http://www.covenworldwide.org/