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%

BH Awards Best of 2011 and Other Such Nonsense

As the year draws to a close, many of my contemporaries already have already had their top and bottom lists set since the beginning of December.  But I, in an unprecedented display of class and punctuality, have waited until the year was actually over, and given the albums in question time to sink in for the most part.  There are some great things I've heard about certain albums I have yet to hear (Sonne Adam, Mitochondrion, Esoteric, et cetera) so bear with me if I exclude something you loved.  Anywho, I know I'm in love with myself, but I'll cut this introductory nonsense short and cut right to the chase, 2011 was such a good year that I could not for the life of me narrow this list down to ten, so I made a new rule for myself and present to you:

THE TOP 15 METAL ALBUMS OF 2011

15: Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction
I worship at the altar of Devin Townsend, and Deconstruction is another example of why.  There is nothing this man does that he doesn't pour his entire heart and soul into.  He makes the most genuine metal/industrial/ambient/whatever he feels like out there today.  This here is his return to heavier stuff, and while it doesn't touch the sheer frustrated passion of City or even the beauty of Terria, I'd rank this as the best album he's given us in years. Heavy, quirky, passionate, impressive.

14: Degradation - Juggernaut
Chicago thrashers, just how I like them.  This is one of the more intense forms of thrash I've heard that doesn't go the full out Kreator/Sodom route. The vocals remind me of Matt Drake, which makes this sound like a non-shitty Evile.  My other thought initially was that this musically reminded me of Deathrace King, and wouldn't you know it, they cover "Executioner... Slayer of Light".  Any band that covers The Crown is worthy of listening.

13: Sectu - Inundate
I'm gonna be 100% honest and say this one was a completely blind bluebeard, but it wound up being an excellent one.  This is dirty, dank death metal that reminds me of a more technical Immolation, plus touches of Dismember.  Completely worth anybody's time.  It lives up to the title of the album and just completely overwhelms and drowns you in filth and insanity.

12: Demonical - Death Infernal
Spoiler alert: Out of everything on my mid-year report, this is the only recurring band here today.  I still can't describe what makes this so awesome, it's just the most beastly Swedeath I've heard in ages, and nobody else in the genre can touch them this year.  Essence and Beyond Creation and other bands I rated highly six months ago faded, Demonical isn't going anywhere.

11: Neuraxis - Asylon
I'm not only putting them on here because I have a mancrush on Alex LeBlanc, but also because Neuraxis excels in one area where most tech death bands fail nowadays, they can write some absolutely ass kicking riffs.  Seriously, tone down the blasts a bit and make the solos more chaotic and this could be just a really, really fast straight up death metal album.  This is how tech death should sound, either like amped up late era Death, or like Neuraxis.

10: Symphony X - Iconoclast
Cracking into the top ten, we meet an old face from years past.  At the time, Paradise Lost ranked as my number one album of 2007, and if it's been dethroned since then, it hasn't been by much.  Not much has changed here, so the four year wait was pretty frustrating since this is a logical continuation of the more aggressive style they've been leaning towards over the last few years, but it's every bit as good as what came before it.  It's a marathon listen, but it never drags.  Make sure you get the legit 2 disc version for maximum enjoyment.

9: Satan's Host - By the Hands of the Devil
Now this here is a very interesting mixture.  Satan's Host play black/death metal, but the vocalist is Harry Conklin.  Yeah, Jag fucking Panzer Harry Conklin. "License to Kill" from Ample Destruction Harry Conklin.  I would have never guessed his voice would work in an extreme metal setting, but it meshes seamlessly here.  The songwriting is top notch, his vocals are as good as they were in the 80's, the riffs rule, the drumming is intense,  just everything works here.

8: Hibria - Blind Ride
After disappointing the living hell out of me with The Skull Collectors, Hibria roared back in 2011 and redeemed themselves with Blind Ride.  This is everything the previous album wasn't.  This is fun, high energy, memorable, catchy, lasting, intense, well written, technical, it just throws the kitchen sink at you and lands right on the money.

7: Absu - Abzu
So Proscriptor marks my third mancrush to appear on this list, behind Devin Townsend and Alex LeBlanc, and he has earned his spot just like the others.  There is some mystical quality about Absu that I can never quantify, but I love it more than basically anybody playing their style.  And maybe that's part of it, because there aren't many Absu imitators out there.  I suppose you could call them black/thrash, but it sounds nothing like Bestial Mockery or Sabbat or any other bands I usually think of with that title.  Excellent Lovecraftian mystique betwixt furious blasting riffydoodle nonsense.

6: Battle Beast - Steel
This album is fucking silly.  It's so over the top and ridiculous that I can't help but love it, just like Dragonforce.  Unlike the multicultural noodlers, Battle Beast keeps the creature reined in to just one niche subgenre of classic, straight up heavy metal, but it's done with so much conviction and flair that it's hard not to get completely lost in it.  "Justice and Metal" could possibly be song of the year, if I ever made a corny JRPG, that would be the battle theme.

5: Skeletonwitch - Forever Abomination
Top five, the creme de la creme for the year. Skeletonwitch continues their trend of never releasing the same album twice, with this one having more black metal touches than any of its predecessors, but everything that makes Skeletonwitch who they are is here in spades as well.  The swagger, attitude, absurdly catchy and fast thrash riffing, short and memorable songs.  They keep the punch, the brevity, and the quality while still changing up their formula.  Not many bands can successfully pull that off three or four times in a row.

4: Vader - Welcome to the Morbid Reich
FUCK I LOVE VADER.  This is the closest a band has ever come to doing no wrong, as even my least favorite album of theirs (Necropolis) was a cut above its contemporaries.  This here is their thundering return to the forefront of death metal.  Nobody can do it like these Poles, Piotr is a legend in the genre and this is proof as to why.  Vader will not ever die, this is the corpse that keeps on rolling, and Vader know when to experiment and spice it up a bit to keep it fresh, and when to keep chugging along with what works.  Most bands could learn a thing or two from them.  Death metal album of the year.

3: Powerwolf - Blood of the Saints
I only discovered this band this year via this album, and through listening to their previous efforts, I can see they haven't changed a whole lot, but goddamn they rule at what they do.  Incredibly infectious German heavy/speed metal.  They borrow a lot from my favorite band of all time, Running Wild, and unlike Lonewolf (what's up with Germans aping RW and loving wolves?) it stays interesting and is mixed in with enough moments to keep it away from pure worship.  There are only a few tracks that really delve into the RW territory, those sections just accentuate the greatness for me.  It's silly and over the top, but I love it.

2: Gargoyle - Kisho
 I had a review for this mostly written a few months ago, but never published it because I spent a ton of time rambling about cultural preconceptions and other nonsense I don't really know about, but I can't stress enough how awesome this is.  Gargoyle play an atypical thrash/heavy metal blend and carry a really bizarre crooner behind the mic because in-tune vocals are frowned upon in Japan apparently.  Kiba is just part of the charm though, as there are no other bands like Gargoyle and that is one of the reasons they stand out so much.  The songs are all well written and memorable, and apart from one weird J-rock moment, it's almost flawless.  Varied, catchy, memorable, all the best stuff.

And the winner is...

1: Vektor - Outer Isolation
This is probably topping a lot of lists, and it truly, truly deserves the honors and accolades it is getting.  I wanted to hate this, I really did, the contrarian in me wanted to hate the hell out of this simply because the hype leading up to it was so absurd.  But after I finally got around to hearing it, I have to begrudgingly admit that this is better than Black Future in every way.  The riffs are just as well written and memorable, the different twist on thrash is just as interesting, the vocals are just as hellish and twisted, the atmosphere is just as whacked out and spacey, but the things that make it better than the previous album is that the percussion is now just as interesting as the guitars, and the songwriting is more succinct.  Outer Isolation is about 15 minutes or so shorter than Black Future. With less meandering noodle parts and a much more palatable runtime, it has surpassed its predecessor and also claimed the BH Award for Album of the Year.  Congrats Vektor, keep growing that fur.

And now for the other, slightly less important stuff, though I'm sure you guys like seeing me rage more than praise things.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Warbringer - Worlds Torn Asunder:  This album ranks as "pretty good" in the grand scheme of things, but it earns an honorable mention for two reasons.  One, Warbringer has continued the tradition of getting a little bit better with each album, and two, "Living Weapon" is a fucking beast of a track.  If the whole album was on part with that ripper of an opener, this could have been top five.

Riot - Immortal Soul:  This one probably ranks at 16, it amazes me how little Riot has managed to slow down over the years.  About on par with Thundersteel.

Exhumed - All Guts, No Glory:  FUCK it amazes me I haven't heard of this band before this album came out.  Death/grind insanity at its finest.  These veterans have a poise almost unseen, and I'm a little mad at myself for not putting it on the 15, just the higher vocals don't sit well with me, otherwise it would probably be a few spots higher on my hypothetical list.

Uncreation - Burning Blood: This deserves a nod purely because it's the only melodeath album I've liked in years.

There are plenty of other albums I liked, but this is an honor/awards list, not a Wiki entry, so no more.

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Macabre - Grim Scary Tales: How disappointing was this?  Everything that made Macabre great is absent.  The ridiculous squealy vocals, the intensity, it's all gone.  Instead we get weird bard voices and only two or three songs worth a damn.  "Locusta" is a great opener but the album really falls short after it.  And Macabre release an album like once a generation so the heartbreak is only muliplied.
 

Hell - Human Remains: This was THE Cinderella story of the year, but it's plagued by one of my biggest pet peeves, the Nightfall in Middle-Earth Syndrome.  Every song has an unnecessary intro or outro, and unlike the album that gives the problem its namesake, the intros aren't all different tracks.  You can't just skip them or not add them to your iPod or something, you have to fast forward every single track to get to the real song.  That's unnecessary and stupid and only serves to bloat an otherwise great album.

Krisiun - The Great Execution: This album would be great if it were about 20 minutes shorter.  Trim the fucking fat, there was no need for this album to be 70 minutes long.

Fleshgod Apocalypse - Agony: I like that the band embraced what made them different and continued in a new direction, but it just didn't work as well as it should have here.  If they keep working at it, they can take this symphonic death metal genre away from everybody else and completely rule it, there's just some songwriting work that needs to be done.

Diamond Plate - Generation Why?: Ugh, I've already written a novel about this, so I won't recap it all.  Read my review, I love the band but this album is a huge disappointment.

Exmortus - Beyond the Fall of Time: The new vocalist REALLY sucks and the music is nowhere near as intense or interesting as it used to be, the production is weak and the drumming is inappropriately sloppy.  If it weren't for Macabre, this would be my biggest disappointment on the year, easily.

NON-METAL PICKS

Because yeah, I listen to other music too

The Decline - Are You Gonna Eat That?: My favorite punk album of the year.  Fast, catchy, hooky, melodic skatepunk with very recognizable vocalists.

Atlas Losing Grip - State of Unrest: My number 2 album for punk/melodic hardcore.  The vocalist from Satanic Surfers is at the helm here, and I can't really describe why I like this so much since I'm not as ensconced in the style as I am with metal, but trust me it's great.

Apathy - Honkey Kong: Not only did I not listen to much rap this year, so this was kind of the only contender, it deserves a place anyway not for Ap's flow, lyricism, beats or production, but because Honkey Kong is the greatest album title ever.

The Browning - Burn This World: I don't know how many bands are really attempting this electronic + breakdowns only style, but I haven't heard any better than The Browning.  I think I might prefer their independent self titled from last year, but this is still killer and definitely worth a look.  They're getting rather popular now, and they've earned it.

Protest the Hero - Scurrilous: Not as good as Fortress, so the long wait was kind of disappointing, but otherwise Protest is still great at whatever the hell it is they do.

So there, I believe that's all.  I'm a week late on the new year and all, but at least I didn't get this all written up in early/mid December like so many other people.  2011 was a fantastic year for metal and personally, 2012 looks to be a drop off for me, a guy who prefers traditional/thrash/death/power metal over black/doom/sludge, but I'm sure we'll see a few great gems nonetheless.  Happy New Year folks.

Powerwolf - Blood of the Saints

I hear their periods can attract bears...

Aesthetics can be a powerful thing.  For example, you know what you're getting yourself into when you come across an album adorned with a silly doodling of a virgin sacrifice entitled Goat Fucking Moonpocalypse, but every once in a while (if you're a clueless dork like me) you'll catch a curveball.  Apparently Powerwolf had quite a bit of buzz surrounding them thanks to their two previous efforts, Lupus Dei and Bible of the Beast, and despite my enjoyment of the over the top style of heavy metal they play, they managed to completely slip me by.  The aesthetics point comes in here because after seeing a promo photo of the band all in corpse paint and hearing their 2011 release was titled Blood of the Saints, Running Wild-esque German speed metal was about the furthest thing from my mind.  And maybe my initial surprise is one of the reasons I'm so nice to this album, but I'd like to think its merits speak for themselves.

First off, Attila Dorn is a beast of a vocalist.  In all honesty, the sheer depth and power of his voice is the main draw of the band to me, not the silly image or huge riffs.  Most of the tracks feature a choir effect of his voice, which works fantastically well with the big latin choruses and orchestration.  Even when his voice is going it solo, it commands a fierce presence around it and really takes center stage.  Unfortunately the lyrics are pretty silly for the most part.  This gothic horror image they shoot for gets props from me for at least being different in terms of heavy/power metal bands, but the lyrics themselves are usually incredibly blunt and ridiculous sounding.  The dearth of complexity on that front really gets hammered into your head when the voice shouting these things is so powerful.  It also doesn't help that he, like so many other German bands, I've noticed, can't seem to pronounce many simple English words properly.  Therefore his thick accent just makes the already silly lyrics even more amusing.

After falling in love with this album, I went and gave their back catalogue a look-see, and I can see that this band doesn't do a whole lot in the way of evolution.  This is essentially a bizarro Bible of the Beast, as both albums are arranged in the same way, with similar songs placed in similar spots of the album.  Opening with the booming latin chorus, ending with the slower hymn, it's just all there two years prior, thus making Blood of the Saints kind of a redundant release.  That said, it's still damn awesome.  There are a few double bass filled speed metal numbers like "All We Need is Blood" and "Dead Boys Don't Cry", heavy hitting heavy metal anthems like "We Drink Your Blood" and "Son of a Wolf", some downtempo numbers like "Die, Die, Crucified" and "Ira Sancti (When the Saints are Going Wild)", and even a few that really channel the best metal band to walk the earth, Running Wild, with "Phantom of the Funeral" and "Sanctified with Dynamite", the latter song trailing only "St. Satan's Day" from the previous album for the title of Powerwolf's best song.  Each song has a huge, fist pumping, singalong chorus and it's hard not to get swept up into the grandeur that the band commands.  Yes, it's hard to deny the goofiness, but it's taken so seriously that I just can't help but buy in to it.  The theatrics take center stage and the music provides a fine conductor for the spectacle.

Have you ever seen Rocky IV?  It's the most ridiculous, overblown, corny, goofy movie I've seen in pretty much all of my years of existence, but goddamn isn't it awesome?!  This is exactly how I feel about Powerwolf, they play a pompous and over the top style of heavy metal that's really more about flair than substance, but it's just plain awesome.  This is fun, and sometimes that's really all I need to be satisfied.  Yeah, Ulcerate is pretty great and Immolation rocks my socks and all, but neither of those bands are particularly fun to listen to.  I can pop this album in at any moment barring a funeral, and it will surely be a hit with me.  It's good, mindless, fist pumping fun and I can't think of any other way I'd rather have it.  Sure the album is flawed in the sense that long term fans won't find much new and it really loses steam at the end barring the middle section of "Ira Sancti", but everything is really well written and does its job perfectly.  The best tracks are probably "Sanctified with Dynamite", "We Drink Your Blood", and "Phantom of the Funeral", but I don't say you could really go wrong with anything other than maybe "Die, Die, Crucifed".

Bonus trivia: The way Attila pronounces "Kyrie eleison" sounds like "Period song", therefore making "We Drink Your Blood" way funnier.

RATING - 89%

Executioner - Fear the Blade

Kentucky Fried Killin'

As a short, three track, 15 minute demo, there's only so much I can say about Fear the Blade before I begin repeating myself endlessly, so this'll be a short one.  Basically what this boils down to is "ultra green thrash".  The two original tracks here are full of energy and the band clearly has boundless enthusiasm for the style of music they play, but the issue here is that is just sounds really amateurish.  I'm not going to knock this for the lo-fi production or weak guitar tone, because I understand that this is the best the band could do on their presumed budget, but the songs themselves just reek of a bunch of new metalheads with only a year or so of experience on their instruments.  The first band I ever formed never even had a name, it was just me and two buddies, I was thirteen and they were both fifteen.  We wrote one song front to back and apart from one train wreck of a cover gig at a Halloween party, never played any gigs.  The songs we were writing at that time sounded a lot like what Executioner here has given us with this demo.  We weren't very good songwriters at all, but we really wanted to be a part of the metal scene, we wanted to make a name for ourselves while paying tribute to our heroes.  As such, many of the riffs I wrote were highly reminiscent of Kill 'em All or Seasons in the Abyss.  I couldn't write a bass line more interesting than just following the guitar, the guitarist didn't understand key signatures and thus couldn't write a good melody if he tried, the drummer couldn't play double bass cleanly for very long so he stuck with simple back beats like Lars Ulrich would.  We were kids, amateurs, young fans of metal who wanted to make our own despite lacking the skills to make anything with lasting impact.

Executioner here aren't quite kids, but their songwriting skills definitely need to take one hell of a spike before they contribute anything with lasting appeal.  One thing I must compliment right off the bat are the vocals, as Nathaniel Vowell sports a manic, crazed voice that just fits the style of thrash metal perfectly.  He's a manic frontman, with a crazed, harsh rasp that gives one the image of him on stage, purple faced, shouting his lungs out while blood squirts out of his eyes.  It's just unfortunate that such an unrestrained vocal performance is backed by relatively tame instrumentals.  I do like the songs presented here, as there's an inimitable charm in their simplicity, but with both of them boasting above average lengths (both are six minutes or above) they do tend to get a bit dull.  "Tomb of the Pharaoh" is the better of the two, riding off a cool middle-eastern motif with an interesting extended solo section, but for the most part it's pretty sloppy in the chorus and repeats itself a bit too much.  "Last Stand" is decent as well, but the riffs lack the aggression necessary for this style.  Both tracks predominately feature the really early style of thrash riffing ala Kill 'em All or Show No Mercy when they were still a blend of NWOBHM and punk, before the thrash riff was it's own defined thing, and that's something I actually appreciate.  I find it more interesting to try and go back to the roots of what made the genre a thing in the first place as opposed to taking influence solely from established acts from the mid 80s.  That said, the third track featured here is a cover from one of the albums I just mentioned, the early Slayer classic, "Black Magic".  The cover is honestly probably the best part of the album, as Nathaniel does a pretty killer Tom Araya voice and apart from what sound like a couple missed cues from the drummer, it's certainly a double whammy of both the most well written song plus the best performance.  The old film adage of "Never reference a better movie in the middle of your movie" doesn't quite apply here, as while it does highlight the songwriting shortcomings of the two original tracks, it also shows what the band is capable of when their writing matures a bit.  When the riffs get more interesting in the future, this band will do some great things.

RATING - 54%