For Today - Breaker

Holy water swirlies, ahoy!

In my latest review for everybody's favorite lost symphonic brocore goons, Winds of Plague, I mentioned that I'm a pretty decent sized fan of Sioux City, Iowa's For Today.  Now, for some, this probably came as somewhat of a shock considering I'm such a refined beacon of extreme metal supremacy, one wouldn't necessarily assume by my chiseled good looks and flowing, Ross Dolan-esque locks that I have a taste for Christian tardcore.  Yet here I stand behind a band of extended earlobes clutching tightly to their rosaries while scolding me for getting boners.

Before I get to Breaker, allow me to address that the band is flawed on a conceptual level.  What I mean is that they aren't a band for the right reasons.  I realize the notion of correctness is a subjective concept, but when a band just up and admits in interviews that "we don't do this because we love music, we do this because we love God and we want to bring Him to everybody, to let everybody become one with Him" or something to that effect, I get a bad taste in my mouth.  By basically admitting that their music is nothing but a vehicle for their religious propaganda, they've rightly earned a fair bit of criticism by actual music fans from all sects of belief, because who the fuck does that?  Mercyful Fate had a grand ol' time singing about Satan and had a huge interest in the theological beliefs of satanism, but at the end of the day they were still there to make some great, ass kicking heavy metal and holy shit did they ever deliver.  Where For Today fails is that their music takes a back seat to their message, which admittedly earns them guaranteed fans (Christian metalcore runs rampant with the same circle-jerk back-patting that NSBM does, giving unearned praise to mediocre bands purely for having the "right" message) but harms the music at its core.

With all that said, Breaker is the album where it is harmed the least.  This IS just a vehicle, don't get me wrong, and while it isn't the '67 Corvette Stingray of Mercyful Fate, it's still akin to an '81 Pontiac Grand Prix with a ceiling that's falling off, bald tires, and a bum carburetor that's prone to stalling at odd times.  Yeah it's not the greatest thing out there but it's personal, it has character.  For Today writes functional music for the style, and it generally works well (there are some things about Ekklesia and Immortal that fail too hard for me though), and the whole package comes together the strongest on their 2010 effort, Breaker.  It's produced in a very typical, dry, metalcore way, but there isn't anything particularly wrong with it.  And if you really pick apart the songs, there's nothing entirely special about the way they're written.  They follow tried and true formulas, busting out the clean vocals and the breakdowns exactly when you expect them to, but there's an undefinable quality about the album itself that makes the unadventurousness seem bearable, even enjoyable at several moments.

For example, the first proper track, "Devastator", is probably my favorite metalcore song written in the last several years.  The buildup works magnificently, with the vocalist's strong declaration to Hell and how many wedgies he's going to give it, really feeling like a man possessed, pounding toms and a dissonant buzz perfectly complementing his anger and conviction, letting you know that some serious shit is about to go down.  And when it finally releases, it lives up to its own hype and just rips the place apart.  The middle section with the gang shouts of "TEAR IT TO THE GROUND!", culminating in a crushing breakdown pretty much sums up the entire album in a nutshell.  What this album undeniably does not lack, in any measure, no matter how prejudiced you are against the style or the ideology, is aggression.  For Today is fucking pissed about how many people have turned their backs on God, and how strong of an influence the Devil has in today's world, and on this album they just fucking explode.  Despite my earlier claims of the band clinging too tightly to their faith in order to write anything particularly creative, their passion seeps through in more than abundant enough quantities.  I feel the anger and frustration of the band, I feel how much they care for the greater good in the clean vocal passages, I feel how furious they are with the current state of affairs in the fast and technical sections, I feel how badly they want to punish who they perceive as wrongdoers in their... well, punishing breakdowns.  Tracks like "Seraphim" and "White Flag"  pull all of the qualities together in a frankly masterful fashion that I wish other non-musically motivated bands would take note of.  The extramusical qualities of the songs shine in a fashion nearly as strong as Strapping Young Lad's City, and that is one hell of a bold claim to make.

I can't ramble on forever since this, while being exceptionally passionate, is still metalcore.  Musically it's something you've heard a million times before and probably hated a million times harder than that.  But out of all those millions of things, nobody has really actually managed to make me buy in to what they were selling with quite as much conviction as For Today has.  The impressively technical percussion, the occasional melodic overtones, the skull stomping breakdowns, the emotional purity of the vocals, just everything comes together in a very well done whole.  The album suffers a bit from the running theme of whoever The Breaker is, as his poems serve as decent interludes and help split up the album into distinguishable acts, but the pieces themselves are kind of lame and passive.  Plus the album kind of peters out at the end, with the last set of proper songs being pretty inconsequential.  With all that said, and my admittedly bipolar praise/criticism of the album aside, if you ever find yourself with an itch for big, stupid brocore on a moral high horse, look no further than Breaker.


RATING - 77%

Winds of Plague - Against the World

Goddammit WoP I will fucking stab you

I'm reviewing this one pretty much out of a sense of obligation at this point, since Decimate the Weak was an easy target that I reviewed mainly to make jokes and point out that the band really did have potential underneath the horrendous earlobecore elements.  Fate then conspired to bestow a physical copy of The Great Stone War upon me, which blew my mind by actually turning out to be a pretty decent album.  So a year or so later I hear they've released yet another album, this one with almost no hype behind it (there was a ton of hooplah behind DtW (which sucked) and almost none behind TGSW (which was okay)), so I figured maybe they had continued to improve upon their symphonic melodeath style they were playing around with on the previous album. 

You don't have to pick up your socks this time, this is just as atrocious as you thought it'd be.

I hate to harp on aesthetics, but one look at this album really should have given me a hint to drop my expectations back down to where they were after reviewing the first album.  The samurai that adorned the first two shitty albums (but not the good one) is back on the cover, front and center like he's always been.  The title alone could have told me that this was going to be an almost comical trainwreck.  Against the World.  Man if that doesn't sound like the creed of a wannabe hardcore kid who got yelled at for not taking out the trash, then I don't know what is.  The title, the blue tint, the actual artwork, just everything is a throwback to where they were before, and to the surprise of nobody except me apparently, that's exactly what happened.

I'll be the first to admit that I can get behind some retarded, chest beating brocore of the worst variety.  I love For Today, and they're a bunch of really pushy Christians who pretty much just break down and yell about how you're a shitty person for being human.  What Winds of Plague offers is a bunch of pushy douchebags who just break down and yell about how they DON'T RESPECT YOU 'CAUSE YOU GOT NO RESPECT AND WE DON'T RESPECT PEOPLE WHO DON'T RESPECT, RESPECT?!  People like to tear into Pantera for this goofy kind of primitive tree trunk pissing, but Pantera has got absolutely nothing on Winds of Plague.  The lyrical content of almost every song here consists of how awesome the vocalist and his crew are and how everybody else is a bunch of wannabe pussies who should stay out of their way.  I can handle stupid lyrics and attitudes I don't agree with, but my Christ WoP has got to be the worst at this.  Cook's yelling has actually gotten worse, shedding any tinge of metalness he may have previously carried, now being even more into the hardcore camp than he was before, yelling like Jasta and just as unintimidatingly.

Musically, basically all of the metal elements have been stripped away completely, and even the keys (their sole defining feature, mind you) take so much of a back seat that Rosa Parks would have to squint to see them.  There are a few strong metallic parts in a couple spots (most notably the first minute or so of "Strength to Dominate"), but otherwise this is brocore to the bone.  "One for the Buther", "Drop the Match", "Refined in the Fire", and most hilariously "California" showcase this expertly.  Gang shouts, rapping, one note slamdowns, it's all here in abundance, almost entirely devoid of the occasional blast beat or light key section the band used to chuck at the listener occasionally.  They've basically stopped playing the flip flop game and finally settled on one style to focus on.  Before, the songs would be irritating due to the nonsensical hopping between hardcore, melodeath, symphonic metal, and deathcore, but now they've decided to eliminate that problem by focusing solely on hardcore, which is a shame because they really suck at hardcore.  I mean really, one listen to "Drop the Match" or "California" should give so many kids flashbacks to their nu metal days, and this is supposed to be their tough, kick ass statement to the world. 

What makes this album extra irritating in comparison to it's predecessors is that their trademark "boring middle of the album" is even more boring and nondescript than previous albums.  I can basically tell you nothing about any songs between "Refined in the Fire" and "California".  They all just kinda happen, there's almost no creativity or standout songwriting (good or bad) on any of the five or so tracks in the middle.  The only reason the album picks up at all near the end is because "California" is such a hilariously poor attempt at a tough brocore anthem.  Seriously, I hate to quote a section of lyrics again, but:

Put yo' haaaands up!
Reach fo' the sky!
Do what I say or let the bullets fly!

That's just... so fucking stupid.  I can barely wrap my brain around that, it's just so unabashedly dumb.  I don't even want to comment on it further.  Just... LOOK AT IT.  Look at that lunacy, that dipshittery, that fudscullery.  I have to make up words to describe how stupid that is.  That stanza needs a helmet, seriously.

Now, despite being uninspired and stupid tardcore that I've spent the last several paragraphs raging against, observant readers and adoring fans of mine have probably realized by now that I actually awarded Against the World a higher score than Decimate the Weak, which I've implied isn't as terrible.  The thing is that while the quality here is consistently low, it's actually a better effort in my eyes because Winds of Plague actually know what they want to do this time.  Flopping around like a fish out of water between three or four styles that just do not mesh makes for a very irritating listen.  This, on the other hand, is consistently bad nu metal/hardcore crap but at least it doesn't keep changing it's mind every three seconds like a fussy child.  Winds of Plague are a bunch of dickbag fucknards for getting my hopes up with a decent album facing the right direction before unleasing this tattooed bumcore monstrosity upon my naive, sensitive, and non-stretched earlobes.  Stop toying with me you monsters.


RATING - 22%

Dying Fetus - Reign Supreme

DYING FETUS

This will be yet another short one, but the reason behind that is just DYING FETUS.  My brain has pretty much been pummeled to a pulp here, Reign Supreme ranks as the band's best offering since Stop at Nothing nearly a decade ago.  DYING FETUS.  Just FUCKING.  DYING FETUS.

Years ago, my buddy went to a show Dying Fetus was playing, I don't even think they were the headliner, but when he came back, for about two weeks the only words out of his mouth were DYING FETUS.  He'd try to explain how crushing they were, but he'd get like three words into a sentence before just yelling FUCKING DYING FETUS.  He was a fan before, but after witnessing them live he just broke, and that's currently what's happening to me right here.  Just, everything is right with this album.  Despite having a few tracks being obviously stronger than others, ("From Womb to Waste", "Second Skin", "In the Trenches", and "Revisionist Past" are my favorites), there are no dull spots.  Old school fans of the band should love this, as the aggression has been kicked up to a notch not seen in nine years, and while they aren't as prominent as they used to be, there is no shortage of the signature chugging sections and hardcore influences.  There's more blasting and traditional death metal riffing this time around as opposed to just flip flopping between sweepydoodling and neanderthal stomps, though both of those traits are here in force.  Reign Supreme basically took me by complete surprise and grabbed me by the balls in a way I had not found sexual since... well since Cannibal Corpse released Torture a few months ago, but still.... FUCKING DYING FETUS.


RATING - 94%

Miasmal - Miasmal

THE BLAHGO

On one hand, I really shouldn't complain about a cool, by-the-numbers Swedeath worship band doing exactly what you expect them to do, but on the other hand there's just so little here to comment on that this will probably end up being one of my shorter reviews.  You can basically hear the album just by looking at it, cool OSDM worship band with a cool cover and on a reputable label for the niche, but really that speaks volumes for the creativity in play here.  That fabled Sunlight Studios buzzsaw tone and loads of d-beats plus loads of low growls, that's what you're getting, but you already knew that, so I suppose you're satisfied.

See, here's where I'm struggling.  It's incredibly difficult to write about a mediocre release, and that's why this is just a short blurb on LotB as opposed to a fuller, more fleshed out review that I'd also cross-post at MA.  If something is great, I can find tons of ways to express how hard I ejaculate rainbows when listening to it, and if it's really terrible I can pull endless silly analogies out of my ass comparing them to cuttlefish or something ridiculous.  Here it's just... blah.  It's typical and not very well executed or memorable.  It just... happens, I still can't name any standout parts and I've spun this several, several times.  The only thing that stands out at all are the leads and solos, which, to be fair, are all really, really goddamn good.  But that's the unfortunate part, that's really all there is to drool over.  The sound is good I guess, the riffs aren't really bad, nor are the rest of the musical aspects, but nothing sticks out as really good or bad.  And really and truly, that might actually be worst than sucking.


RATING - 44%

Splatter Control - Deleted

YOU ALL HAVE ZOIDBERG!

I will continue to ram my local scene down everybody's goddamn throats because I'm a prideful prick like that.  Today I present to you another product of Big Dick Records (the guys responsible for Smash Potater and Clocktower), Lombard, Illinois's death/grind outfit, Splatter Control.  As seems to be par for the course with the people around Big Dick, there's a lot of silly humor abound with this recording.  While I haven't really taken the time to sit down and decipher the low roars and figure out what the lyrics entail, I can tell by song titles like "Maxwell House of the Dead" and "Hardcore Dancing is Bad and You Should Feel Bad" coupled with samples from Billy Mays infomercials, Tommy Boy, and Futurama, that levity is probably the order of the day.  These guys write and perform music because it's fun, and unless you're composing symphonies that's something that I think everybody should keep in mind. 

But anyway, musically this is some great stuff.  There's nothing here you haven't heard before but it's played with such fervor that it doesn't matter at all.  Splatter Control is a trio made up of bassist Dan Ozcanli (who some may remember as the bassist of Clocktower), drummer Neil Schmidt, and guitarist/vocalist Brian Koz (who Facebook friends of mine will recognize as the PORQUEEEE guy from the Diamond Plate music video).  It's death/grind with a heavy lean on the death metal side.  The short songs and general intensity of grindcore is there, but the riffing, percussion, and vocals all tend to gravitate towards the death metal end of the spectrum.  As previously mentioned, the vocals are a low, hellish roar as opposed to a more guttural growl that one would expect from the style, but it adds a great boost to the low end and frankly meshes with the blasting intensity very well.  The tempo is always high, but never into the insane hyperblasting territory, and the riffing tends to wander around with chugging death metal and the occasional fast tremolo parts (like the title track, for instance).  I dunno, I'll just keep blabbering in kind of not-helpful terms if I keep going, so I'll cut myself off.

Definitely give this a listen if you can, and hey, that's super easy to do because you can get it for totally free at the band's Bandcamp profile here.  So yeah DO THAT.  I DON'T GIVE YOU SLOTHS FREE DOWNLOADS OFTEN SO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS TO SPREAD THE MUSIC.


RATING - 85%

The Black Dahlia Murder - Nocturnal

Butt Muncher's Singalong Songs

Now, I'm well aware that it seems to be the unspoken law when talking about The Black Dahlia Murder to use the word "metalcore" at some point.  Whether you're accusing them of scene kid faggotry (as it is so often referred to) or striking down the closed minded elitists (as the other side so often likes to retort), that dirty word always seems to bring itself up.  And ever since hearing the band, I thought the metalcore connection was a myth.  I used to refer to the band as such when I was a 15/16 year old Borisite thrash kid who was drawing conclusions based off the logo and artwork that adorned band shirts and the fact that I could feasibly have sex with most fans' earlobes.  Upon actually giving them a listen, I realized this is straight up melodic death metal, At the Gates worship.  I asserted for years afterwards that nobody actually called them metalcore or deathcore, because that's tantamount to calling Metallica a country group or Gargoyle a theatre company.  Yet in my research before writing this review, I found those dirty, dirty -core words being thrown around like confetti at a damn parade.  So let me shake off my utter confusion and just get it out of the way before carrying on with the review, ignoring it forever.  There is absolutely nothing resembling hardcore or metalcore or deathcore or lobstercore or whatever within the music of Nocturnal, nor any other Black Dahlia release.

There, now that I'm sure that opening paragraph scared away most casual readers, allow me to asses the merits of said album.  To date, this is the third full length release out of five, and the band has so far stuck to their pattern of "good album - meh album" flip flopping.  As such, Nocturnal being an odd numbered release, this is one of their good ones.  One thing I've noticed about this in relation to their other works is that this is by far the catchiest album they've done.  The choruses of "Everything Went Black", "What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse", and "Climactic Degradation" rank among some of the easiest to sing along with within the realm of modern melodeath.  The only problem with this, and the main flaw with the album, is that Trevor Strnad's vocals are goddamn terrible, so singing along can be grating.  His lows are good, they're fairly generic but they carry a beastly quality.  His highs on the other hand just sound like a cat.  It's a cliche way to describe poor high screeches, but fuck I seriously can't think of a better descriptor.  It's a nasty, grating, nasally rasp that sounds like a parody, and it's so far removed from his deep roars that it baffles me to think that one man not only does both of these, but consciously decided to make the terrible sounding style the predominant one.  I get that one vocalist doing two drastically different styles isn't anything new, Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth and Christian Alvestam (formerly) of Scar Symmetry are two well known examples, but the difference is that those two can do both styles well.  It's for this reason that "I Worship Only What You Bleed" and "Of Darkness Spawned" are two of the best songs, as he sticks with the lower register for most of those songs. 

Musically there is one aspect of this album that really stands out to me, and I'm still not sure if it's for a good reason, and that is the soloing and leadwork.  On one hand, well... it does stand out.  It's highly melodic, with every note carefully chosen and executed flawlessly, each a part of some complex scale mode nonsense that I know absolutely nothing about.  Kerry King had zero influence on the lead guitars, for sure.  On the other hand, it really only fits about half the time (the solo in "Climactic Degradation" sounds like it was copy and pasted in from a different song), and all I can think about is fucking Necrophagist and Arsis while the shredding is going on.  Maybe I'm a dunce, but this style of completely over the top and in your face neoclassical shredwankery over death metal was practically exclusive to Necrophagist up until about 2005, so hearing this in a Black Dahlia album is really goddamn distracting.  TBDM has always had very good leadwork, but this is just a bit much.  Soloing aside, the rest of the guitarwork is solid and varied melodeath riffing.  There are a few good tremolo picking sections in the title track and "Warborn" and such, and that very overused style that I suck at describing used during the verses of "I Worship Only What You Bleed".  The best way to describe it is "good but unoriginal".  There's nothing groundbreaking here, you've heard all of this before, but it just sounds damn awesome here within the context of everything you're given.

And that's really the best way to sum up the entire album, it's a bunch of stuff you've already heard several dozens of times throughout your metal listening career, but it's played well and with enough energy that it remains fun while it's on.  It helps that the album is relatively short, clocking in at under 35 minutes, and keeps a surprisingly healthy variety on hand.  There are straight rippers like "Climactic Degradation" and "I Worship Only What You Bleed", more melodic tracks like "Nocturnal" and "To a Breathless Oblivion", and of course the obligatory slower, more grandiose closing track in "Warborn".  This band has a habit of attracting a lot of vocal detractors, but really there's nothing here worth getting offended over barring maybe Strnad's offensively bad high screams.


RATING - 81%

Beneath the Massacre - Incongruous

Hey look, I'm being relevant!

While I normally seem to focus on newer music and probably 2/3 of my digital library is post 2000, I never really seem to be one of those first voices out.  When I tackle something newer, it's typically been out for a few months and people who are interested have probably heard it already.  That's why this is kind of new territory for me, as I'm not usually the "buyer's guide" type writer.  But regardless, here I sit with the new Brain Drill album, Incongruous, one of the more anticipated releases of early 2012 within mainstream extreme metal.

Wait, did I say Brain Drill back there?  Silly me, that's an understandable mistake to make, since I put this album and Quantum Catastrophe in a playlist and shuffled the songs and couldn't determine which album was playing without cheating.  Beneath the Massacre seems to have a bit of a history under their belts, but this is my first conscious taste of the band, and all I can fucking think about are other bands this sounds like.  I don't mean to say that these Quebecois tech noodlers are ripping anybody off, not at all.  I mean that Incogruous is a safe and predictable release in a dull niche genre.  Let's get something straight, I like overproduced, salad shooter tech death.  I've given positive reviews to Origin and Decrepit Birth, Neuraxis ranked on my year end "best of" list last year, I jerk off Fleshgod Apocalypse every chance I get, I like Anata and Psycroptic and Deeds of Flesh and Severed Savior and other bands of this ilk.  Where I draw the line and start to say the style itself is flawed is when bands like Brain Drill, Rings of Saturn, and Beneath the Massacre start shitting all over the concept of songwriting and just four finger tap sweep listeners into oblivion.  Some of the aforementioned bands base their songs on meaty hyperspeed riffs, others load all the melody they can imagine into their music, and then there are the bands like this, who just throw everything they can into the music and it just ends up dull across the board.  The only band that does this well enough to get away with is probably Origin.

So basically if you read my reviews for Brain Drill or Rings of Saturn, you know what my problems are with Incongruous here.  The notion of songwriting in the traditional sense has been thrown out the window from the highest suite of the Burj Khalifa, and replaced with hundreds of warm up exercises.  I get it, y'all can play your instruments as well as anybody else, but this shit is just lame.  Show a bit of creativity somewhere, por favor.  The songs all pretty much run together apart from a few exceptions.  One is "Hopes" because it's the first time a traditional deathcore style slamdown shows up (though it could possibly be in earlier tracks, but if it does I've never noticed despite listening to this several times), and the second to last track, "Damages", for actually basing itself on a real riff as opposed to relentless blasting and fretboard wizardry.  The aforementioned riff is actually extraordinarily good too and shows that the band is indeed capable of writing something memorable, but unfortunately the rest of the album is occupied by silly noodling that goes nowhere and doesn't stick with you at all.  The vocals aren't much to sneeze at either, but unlike the other bands I compare them to, the sit in the lower register and never wander outside of their comfort zone, which is certainly a plus.

I wish there was more praise I could give this, but I just can't in good conscience.  It's weak, it's overproduced, it isn't memorable, and it just blends in to the sea of faces.  I can't describe it any better than Animal from the Muppets behind the kit, a bland vocalist, and guitarists/bassists who have spiders for hands.  It's noodly and all over the place and doesn't have any lasting impact.  I'd certainly recommend the track "Damages" because it's a legitimately really awesome track hidden away at the end of this forgettable mush, but if you're like me and can't get behind the likes of Brain Drill and Rings of Saturn, you can safely skip this.  If you love that stuff, then by all means, this is for you.


RATING - 38%

The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Traveller

I get the feeling I'm about to get really pretentious...

About three years ago, back when I had first started doing this whole reviewing thing, I was a certified Lord Weird Slough Feg fanboy, to the point where I refused to refer to them by the shortened version of their name, despite going by simply "Slough Feg" for a few years at that point.  Throughout roughly winter of 2007 and the next several seasons, I listened to their six albums enough times to ingrain them all into my memory for the rest of eternity.  Because of that, I kind of burnt myself out on them.  Ape Uprising was met with lukewarm hype from me and Animal Spirits was released without me even noticing.  But with that said, I'd occasionally go back and listen to a few select tracks from each album, and this here, Traveller, was always my favorite to go back to, despite so many claims of Down Among the Deadmen being the best.

Those last few sentences probably seemed superfluous and unnecessary, but in reality it helps prove a certain point about this album, it is probably the most perfectly paced and well written concept album in all of heavy metal.  I always pick on Blind Guardian's perplexingly overwhelmingly adored effort, Nightfall in Middle-Earth, as the perfect way to NOT write a concept album.  NIME is horribly paced, with too much pointless filler trying to act as a vessel for the narrative, but instead breaks the flow of the music, which is what a metal album is all about, mind you.  There are a few nut shatteringly great classics there but for the most part it's overblown and horribly paced and a chore to sit through.  That is where Traveller gets it right, and what makes it such a fabulous album.  Yes, it is a concept album, but unlike so many other overblown stories and epic journeys you'll find in metal storytelling, listening to the duration of this record in one hit isn't necessary at all to get full enjoyment from it.  What I mean is, you can reach for a quickie and just blast "Asteroid Belts" or "Vargr Theme" or "Addendum Galactus" and have a grand old time without selling yourself short by not listening to the other nine songs on hand.  But with that in mind, it's still ideal to listen to the entirety of the album in one shot, as the emotion really seeps through and the story's impact hits that much harder when given context.  Everything meshes together for a great tale and still work as standalones.  That is how concept albums should work, they should be versatile, and that's what makes Traveller one of the best out there.

The album tells the story of Baltech, a space mercenary who gets caught up in a scheme to genetically alter the human race by splicing their genes with those of the Vargr, a dog-like race, in an attempt to create a perfect master race under the command of the mad Professor Rickets.  It's a pretty basic story, told in a pretty basic format, but what it lacks in creative structuring, it completely makes up for with how well written and engaging it manages to be.  This is where the pretension I mentioned earlier is really going to rear its head, because this is a story I can feel instead of just understanding.  I feel the helplessness during the final lines of "Baltech's Lament", I feel the conflicting forces of hatred and arrogance during the confrontation in "Vargr Theme/Confrontation", I feel the sense of accomplishment in "Addendum Galactus", I can feel every emotion that Mike Scalzi intended me to feel when penning this album, and that's what makes it such a smashing success.

I could prattle on forever about the superfluous merits of the record without even touching the actual meat, but I'll rein it in a bit here.  Musically, this is Slough Feg at arguably their heaviest.  There's a really poignant atmosphere throughout the album, suffocating us during the times when all hope seems lost and throwing us into a frenzy when the action ramps up.  The riffing at leadwork is probably some of the best Slough Feg have ever put to tape.  "Gene-ocide" contains some of the catchiest bits of metal recorded in the 21st century, the opening of "Addendum Galactus" also ranks up there.  It's kind of difficult for me to describe the influences at work here, as Slough Feg has always had a very unique sound, and here they managed to reinvent themselves for the fourth consecutive album.  The mindset behind this one is a bit more calculated and less organic than the previous three, while the Celtic tinge is entirely absent here, replaced with a spacey vibe to complement the story.  The sound is varied throughout the album, with high octane rockers like "High Passage/Low Passage" and "Asteroid Belts", slower, churning tracks like "Curse of Humaniti", and of course some of the signature Slough Feg bounciness and energy with "Professor's Theme" and "Gene-ocide".  There are even a few that blend two or more of the aforementioned styles to a masterful effect, like "Vargr Moon" and "Vargr Theme/Confrontation".   The use of repeating themes throughout the album really helps add to the cohesiveness and overall feel of the album as well.

If there is any negative thing I could say about Traveller, it's that the drums are produced weird so that each tom sounds like it's stuffed with dead squirrels and are indistinguishable from each other, and "Curse of Humaniti" is kind of a weak link when it comes to the staggeringly high quality of songwriting here, but those are really minor nitpicks in the grand scheme of things.  This is a journey that is completely worth embarking on, it's a fairly basic story that might be a little confusing without the booklet to explain some of the background, but the payoff is absurdly great.  I can't recommend this enough.  It's straight up heavy metal done in the way that only Slough Feg can.  It's almost impossible to describe, you have to hear it for yourself.  So quit reading my rambling bullshit and hop to it, kids.

RATING - 96%

Depremacy - Exorcism

Basics are solid, execution needs work

Continuing my slog through local demos I've amassed over time, I present to you all another young thrash outfit, Joliet's own Depremacy.  This one is a bit of an oddity, considering there's apparently a tracklisting snafu.  The intended tracklist is in an entirely different order than my copy (and what is posted on MA), and the album cover is also completely different on my copy (I have the cover shown here).  Nevertheless, it is indeed the same EP.  Musically, this is thrash as we know it at it's most basic form.  The current generation of bands under this black/thrash seem to be purely thrash musically, but sport a really rough, thin production and a raspy vocalist and that seems to be enough to attach the "black" addendum to the genre association despite those same descriptors fitting early Kreator material perfectly well.  Nomenclature disputes aside, the music contained on Exorcism is extremely reminiscent of one of my favorite pet bands, the mighty Witchaven.  So if you're familiar with the Hell's Headbangers brand of bestial thrash, you know what to expect straight out of the gate with Depremacy.

Now I try not to complain about lo-fi production, but goddamn are the issues distracting here.  There are painful spikes in volume whenever the band drops out to let one guitar play a riff solo at the beginning of a section, or pretty much any time a song starts or fades or the dynamics shift in even the subtlest way.  The EQ job here is completely awful and it's incredibly distracting.  The entire mix is oversaturated and clips to high heaven, it's a real challenge on the ears.  The playing is sloppy beyond the point of charismatic as well.  I get that this is a young and energetic band and the whole performance being unhinged and unrestrained is probably intentional, but the drums fall off time far too often and the bass break in "Exorcism" is off by what seems like a whole beat and it's just distracting as opposed to organic.  I see what the band is going for, they're going for the "wild and uncontrollable" thing, but it just doesn't work here very well.  In addition to that, the songwriting is fairly bland with only a few shining spots, so when you put it all together this just isn't much to sneeze at.  I think the band has potential and would be more listenable if they cleaned up the dynamics and channeled a bit more of their aggression into songwriting instead of just purely passion.  These kids are putting their all into their performance, there just isn't a lot to show for it as of yet.


RATING - 48%

Clocktower - Demo

Cockflower

I have a soft spot for anything from my local area, especially considering Chicago never really had a "scene" per se.  Nothing like thrash in the Bay Area or death metal in Florida or the emergence of melodeath in Gothenburg.  Nope, Chicago and the surrounding midwest area seems to have none of that.  But I go on this same tangent whenever I review something from my area so maybe I'm just talking out of my ass (most likely).  Regardless, this here is the three song demo of local thrash outfit, Clocktower. 

Like the last low budget three track demo I reviewed (Executioner), this unnamed demo consists of two originals and closes with a cover.  Of the two originals, "Undeserving of Life" is probably the better one, consisting of really strong thrash riffing with a hint of death metal in some of the percussion and melodies.  The vocals seem to wander between harsh, Mille Petrozza styled snarlings and a rough yell, but they always seem to fit, so there's nothing wrong with them.  "Pseudo-Sapien" is actually probably the better song in a technical sense, with more challenging arrangements for each member, but it's less memorable.  On most listens it just seems to blur into the grand scheme of things and doesn't really stand out unless I make a concerted effort to analyze it.

The demo closes out with a cover of "Nosferatu" by the mighty Coroner, and it's by all means a solid cover, and fortunately it isn't the best track.  This shows that Clocktower's songwriting skills are certainly up to snuff and they'll likely only get better as time goes on.  The cover ends with an extremely stupid sample from an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, but knowing Eddie and Allen's other band, Smash Potater, silly humor just seems to be their thing, so I suppose I won't hold it against them too hard.  So on the whole it's pretty solid, nothing particularly new or ear catching, but it's competent and intense and everything death/thrash should be.  Give it a listen.

RATING - 71%