All customer reviews by Joel B.
Posted on: July 22, 2017
Hypocrisy - End Of Disclosure
The production quality was in the superior category as usual and everything seemed to fit together nicely. Horgh from Immortal is behind the set on this one. An excellent effort by all musicians. I'd say the high points of the album was definitely the music in general, nothing too innovative here though, however, nothing that was overtly striking. Some good tracks to check out are the title-track and "United We Fall", but I'd say pick any track off here and it's good melodic death. The riffs didn't stick with me that well, but on repeat I seem to hear everything little thing that's different that I didn't hear before.
End of Disclosure is a laid back melodic death/doom release with excellent atmospheric work (as previously discussed) and it deserves to be looked into. For me, the highlights are the guitars. They're so epic and lucid, with a conglomerate of melodic guitar to the core. This one though is like a transformation for the band. They've really mellowed out as age does, but still the music is quality. There are tremolo picked licks (which encompass a lot of the release), bar chord heavily muted chunky sounds and an immense doom with those keys in the background.
Posted on: July 17, 2017
Anathema - The Optimist
The Optimist maintains the atmosphere of A Fine Day to Exit without retreading musically, mainly continuing that album’s concept and taking it in a new direction. The lyrics are open to interpretation, but the intense inner struggles that plagued the story’s protagonist in A Fine Day to Exit are continued here, with a darker musical vision to suit the lyrics. The opening intro track titled "32.63N 117.14W" are the coordinates of Silver Strand beach, where the end of A Fine Day to Exit saw the protagonist escaping to after being haunted by various trials and struggles in his life. Following it and “Leaving it Behind† is the hugely rewarding and diverse run of songs beginning with album highlight “Endless Ways† and ending with “Ghosts,† seeing Lee Douglas on lead vocals in many instances. The presence of three different singers throughout the album makes for an effective method of portraying the various inner voices in the protagonist’s head. In typical Anathema fashion, songs like “San Francisco,† “Can’t Let Go,† and “Wildfires† begin softly and gradually build to a loud, wall-of-sound crescendo to illustrate the din of emotions and thoughts swirling through the protagonist’s head. Most of The Optimist is a dark journey, with some tracks only having one or two lines of lyrics or spoken monologue. Many of them are short phrases repeating and clashing with one another, owing to the intense inner feelings of the optimist that are translated into the music. The final track, "Back to the Start," and its ending sample imply that the optimist overcame his trials and was able to take his life full circle, giving his story a peaceful resolution.
Posted on: June 25, 2017
Aaphyx - The Last One On Earth
‘The Last One On Earth’ saw the band introducing vocalist/bassist Ron van Pol but Van Drunen’s vocals were kept. Van Drunen however sounds rather different than earlier Asphyx and Pestilence releases. His vocals have a higher pitch than normal yet I find these vocals rather suiting, giving contrast to the ultra heavy guitars. Van Drunen actually sounded more ‘in touch’ with the band and especially the atmosphere of the music instead of just grunting some lyrics over an already recorded album. The weird thing being that the band had already decided to fire him when he was recording. But he does a more than adequate job here, simply shattering what he had done on The Rack.
Posted on: June 15, 2017
Slayer - Diabolus In Mudica
‘Diabolus in Musica’ has been singled out as a Slayer release that departs entirely from the band’s style, which is not entirely true. However, it does represent a dip in consistency that began after the end of the 80s, and some of the songs have boring moments and recycled ideas. I find something to like in most of the material on offer here, and the musical style has more of a general appeal outside thrash metal, but many will be disappointed by this album.
Posted on: June 7, 2017
Soulburn - Earthless Pagan Spirit
Soulbun’s Earthless Pagan Spirit (Century Media) is a solid mix of different kinds of darkness. The doom/black metal outfit blends the elements of both sub-genres throughout the record, making for terrific moments of depth and whiplashing speed. Certain songs stick to more of a mentality than playing around with sounds, but at times there is a balance between the two styles. Typically, the structure is the same where the beginning will start out one way, play its way to another, just to end where it began. The structure never becomes too much however, and up until the very end, Earthless Pagan Spirit never loses momentum.
Posted on: May 25, 2017
Deicide - In The Minds Of Evil
Musically speaking, there are also some important changes to note. The riffs are catchier and groovier than seen in a long time, giving the music more of an old school Deicide vibe that hasn't really been seen seen since "Serpents of The Light", as evidenced by the main riffs of songs like "Godkill", "Thou Begone", "Beyond Salvation", and the title track. The leads have also improved. "Between the Flesh and the Void" is another highlight with the main riff bringing a Morbid Angel type of vibe. Production wise, it brings more of a "Stench of Redemption" vibe, also a solid album in it's own right. The main thing making this release different from that album or any of the other newer releases though, is more emphasis is put on the vocals and the album contains more groovy riffs like in the early days of the band.
Posted on: May 16, 2017
Death - Human
Death’s fourth album, Human, is considered a masterpiece of technical death metal by many. Up until this moment in time, most bands within the death metal genre focused on being as fast and brutal as possible. As soon as the first song begins on Human, you know you are going to be in for a ride. The song begins with a drum solo that leads into the opening guitar riff, setting the tone for the album. The main factor that makes this album so great is that even though the song structures are extremely complex, the songs never seem to get boring.
Posted on: May 12, 2017
Obituary - Inked In blood
“Inked in Blood† is one of the better offerings in the Obituary catalog. It mostly excels by capturing the comprehensive idea of Obituary while not feeling restrained by the band’s lack of creative elements (they aren’t adventurous songwriters, you know). The lack of diversity among these tunes is rendered null by the constant barrage of solid death metal riffs and grooves constantly being hammered out over John Tardy’s shouts, which are excellent as always. I find it hard not to enjoy ultra-heavy groove numbers like “Visions in my Head† that bring out the basic joys of death metal; simple, bruising riffs and stomping rhythms, not much else.
Posted on: April 27, 2017
Amorphis - Am universum
Am Universum, the 5th full-length album of Amorphis, does not fall far from the tree that was 1999's Tuonela. You could think of it as Tuonela II: The Meatening, because about the only comprehensible difference I notice is a beefier use of the guitars and even more radio friendly polish to the standard rock songwriting being employed. Am Universum, like its predecessor, is not a bad album, but in the past 8-9 years it has not entirely held up for me. A few of the songs still rock, quite hard, though the growls (which appeared only briefly on Tuonela) are now lost. This may also be the first time the band kept a dedicated keyboard player for two consecutive records (Santeri Kallio), but Niclas Etelävuori replaces Olli-Pekka Laine on the bass.
The production is excellent and only enhances the sultry vibe the music evokes. The guitars are full of expression and effects, sounding as if they were created by an unholy union of 70's Prog and 90's Goth. They are melodic about 98% of the time with the other 2% (being used towards the end of the album) used for the heavy parts. There is almost no palm muting in this album what so ever. The guitars are a mixture of open chorded and individually played notes, floating seamlessly around the more traditional rolls of lead and rhythm interplay. As per usual there are no solos but loads of leads. It sounds as if the guitars were tuned to standard as well.
Posted on: April 25, 2017
Asphyx - Incoming Death
Musically, Incoming Death is a lot like any other Asphyx album, that is, no-frills old-school death metal with some doom influence, a couple of similarly primitive death/doom metal songs and van Drunen's trademark disgusting vocals that sound like he's being asphyxiated (pun definitely intended). However, this album doesn't sound like a carbon copy of any of the band's past efforts. It's got more doomy songs and has a lot of influence from Swedish death metal (not only in the guitar tone) and Bolt Thrower. Especially the two first songs remind me of Bolt Thrower, and the title track brings to mind Dismember and Unleashed's fast and punkish songs. The doomy songs have quite a lot of melody, especially "The Grand Denial", and "Wardroid" is basically a catchy doom metal track with a buzzy guitar tone and van Drunen's vocals. "Subterra Incognita" is the only slow song on Incoming Death that isn't very melodic, but then it's this kind of death/doom metal which is basically slow death metal with little doom influence, and I can't stand that sort of thing. There's also quite a lot of thrash influence in the faster songs, especially on "Wildland Fire", which is obviously heavily influenced by classic Slayer.