All customer reviews by Joel B.
Posted on: April 25, 2017
Six Feet Under - Torment
Torment is the first Six Feet Under album with some of Barnes’ touring musicians laying down the riffs and beats. Jeff Hughell (guitars) and Marco Pitruzzella (drums) have been in Six Feet Under for quite a bit (both of which used to both be in Brain Drill together by the way). They did not however record with Barnes’ on Crypt of the Devil, with Barnes instead collaborating with Cannabis Corpse members. But I want to make something very clear. If you take nothing else from this article, take this: Hughell and Pitruzzella do an absolute killer job on Torment.
Posted on: April 21, 2017
God Dethroned - Passiondale
In Passiondale there are also various add-ons of melodies and emotional solos that balances the story from being too brutal. The album has more moments that are brutal because war is brutal so the music accordingly flows. But the band’s usage of instruments to enforce this sort of drama, like in the track “Poison Cloud† - where you can actually feel and hear a small story of an Entente soldier about the gas wars, his suffocation and even his own death, is absolutely remarkable and is not common in this sub-genre.
Passiondale has more than a handful of great moments and story. What unrolls before you is fierce and violent, yet serving as an eye opener for past events that maybe some of you didn’t know actually occurred. So you don’t have to look through your history books to listen to highlights like: “Under A Darkening Sky† which is the beginning of the massacre fest with massive artillery bursts and machine guns by the angry and charging music of total hell – “Now It’s Time To Settle The Score†. “Poison Cloud† is a well written story that deals with the influences of Mustard. “Passiondale† , the destruction of this small town after a great battle – and excellent and even catchy track, “No Escape From Passiondale†. “No Survivors†, feels like a Bolt Thrower song , like some of the others, like in many bloody battles , there isn’t too much left to salvage – this track is an awesome mayhemic track with catchiness.
Posted on: April 13, 2017
Hate - Solarflesh
The album is comprised of 12 tracks including 3 bonus ones which amounts to a decent length of material just over an hour. After a very mystical and arcane intro of female chanting, we get a less idiosyncratic cannonade of extreme metal with both high-tempo blast beats and a whirlwind of riffs that are caustic and spiteful enough to prepare the listener for even more vitriol that is about to unfold, but not before a nice intro in "Alchemy of Blood" with its tribal drum-fills and a panache for solos, thus making the sound more diverse and less reliant on a single modus operandi. And while the instrumentals and vocals are both extremely well-handled and executed with passion and zest, they are only original to the point of being unafraid to embrace several existing and dominating approaches to extreme metal.
Posted on: April 2, 2017
Bolt Thrower - Those Once Loyal
"Those Once Loyal" is the defining moment in Bolt Thrower's career, the ultimate maturity of one of death metals most enduring acts. "Those Once Loyal" isn't just any old record, it eclipses anything released in the 2000s by a long shot and stands tall with the genre defining records of yesteryear. The album oozes class from start to finish, backing up this is the incredible song writing. No filler here only quality from the start. Lets talk about the start for a moment. "At First Light" the opening track sets the tone for what is to come, the first 50 odd seconds are taken up by a slow melancholic atmospheric section before kicking straight into what is one of metals great intros, slow in comparison of what is to come but it is without a doubt a Bolt Thrower riff and features a ridiculously cool lead guitar lick. The riff is used appropriately throughout the song without being abused. Yes this is an excellent Bolt Thrower song starting off an excellent Bolt Thrower album.
Posted on: March 25, 2017
Chevelle - La Gargola
With their seventh studio album now under their belt, Chevelle find themselves at an odd crossroad in their career. La Gargola is the last album under their contract with label Epic. What they decide to do after this is critical. Is Chevelle a band that can make music on their own, or might they call it a day? Whatever the plan, La Gargola is the type of album that a band can look back upon and smile knowing that if something were to happen and the decision was made to stop making music, there would be very little regret. “Twinge† is a perfectly acceptable final song that fans can be happy with, a soothing yet unsettling masterpiece. There are so many other moments on here that exceed expectations, like the ferocious finishes to both the first two tracks, the opening explosion on “Jawbreaker† and the wild riff at the end of “Choking Game†. Chevelle has shown uncharacteristically strong consistency throughout their career, unheard of among most of their hard rock peers. By now, there should be little surprise that an album like La Gargola is as strong as it is; they have rarely ever let fans down, if at all. Chevelle are truly in the top-tier of hard rock bands and continue to run the show even after over 15 years.
Posted on: March 23, 2017
Obscura - Cosmogenesis
Obscura's 'Cosmogenesis' is the first album in a tentative four album concept piece, and seeing as this Obscura is an almost completely different lineup than the one heard on 'Retribution', this is the band's defacto debut. As good as 'Cosmogenesis' is however, the music still feels somewhat conventional for technical death metal. Particularly in regards to the cold, mechanical production, Obscura are not yet a full head above their competition at this point. Regardless, Obscura obviously have technical chops beyond most in metal, but what makes them stand out is their intelligence and complex composition. It's easy to play fast, but Obscura steps up to the plate and delivers a calibre of songwriting that justifies their technical abilities.
Posted on: March 21, 2017
Six Feet Under - Commandment
Commandment, 8th studio album of ex Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes, as part of Six Feet Under. Part of the reason this album is better than any other “SFU† album is, because it was written and produced by Chris Barnes. Back in his time with Cannibal Corpse, Chris pretty much did everything and let the band do fuck all but play instruments and the stuff that came out of it was insanely brutal. Now that Chris has done most of the work himself i.e. written and produced the album, Six Feet Under have pulled off a better effort that most people thought possible.
Barnes’s vocals have always been pretty damn good as and here he proves it, while not as inhumanly guttural as his “CC† days he is still got a very brutal growl. Also his tendency to try and extend his growls for to long and have his voice turn into a pathetic attempt at black metal vocals has been toned down massively. The only exception is in “Bled to Death† where it unfortunately happens several times but apart form that no ultra shittness in the vocals department.
Posted on: March 11, 2017
Tiamat - Wildhoney
Tiamat's "Wildhoney" is one of those albums that deserves a spin every once in a while, never getting truly dull in any way. Sweden has never really been a spawning pool for many great doom metal bands, but Tiamat makes every metal fan's time worthwhile, (mostly) irrelevant of taste. While the previous Tiamat material is less than mediocre, it seems that with their 94' release they really managed to create an immortal album. By forging elements of great dismal with powerful guitar riffing, a great array of woe and eagerness emerge from the scaffolding.
Posted on: March 8, 2017
Sinister - Dark Memorials
Dark Memorials is the 12th full-length studio album by Dutch death metal legends Sinister and released in the summer of 2015. The album is a bit different than their usual studio output though, as it’s a cover album, featuring covers of various death- and thrash metal artists. And that’s what got my attention, because I like covers. The second reason this album got my attention is the celebration of 25 years Sinister.
There aren’t many surprises on the album though, which features covers of artists like Sepultura, Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Death and Autopsy. The only real surprise to me is ‘Master Killer’ by Merauder, as it’s the only non death/thrash song. For me this is one of the few tracks that really stands out. All tracks are pretty faithful to the original material, although Sinister adds their own death metal sauce. Production wise there is nothing wrong with ‘Dark Memorials’. Nice little fun fact: the re-recordings of the songs ‘Spiritual Immolation’ and ‘Compulsory Resignation’ are done with the original guitarist Ron van der Polder.
So, all in all ‘Dark Memorials’ is quite enjoyable and a must-have for die hard Sinister fans.
Posted on: February 28, 2017
Obscura - Omnivium
Obscura's 2011 release "Omnivium" is without a doubt one of the best releases from the band and truly showcases why this band, its members, and releases have become staples of the technical death metal world.
Obscura is no stranger to technicality as they've showed with their past releases (especially on their 2009 release Cosmogenesis) but they really went for more than sheer technicality with Omnivium. Omnivium contains just as many beautiful acoustic sections as well as clean vocal sections as it does sweeps and blast beats. The clean vocals done by Steffen ran through a vocoder on such tracks as Prismal Dawn and Celestial Spheres give the listener a sense of euphoria and beauty while tracks such as Ocean Gateways and Vortex Omnivium still broadcast that sheer death metal brutality that brings in many listeners in the first place.