To put it simply, Pennsylvania’s Aletheian impress with their own blend of Atheist caliber compositions/technical playing style, meets melodic death metal. Minor synth textures fill in the background while choppy note fills become main rhythmic riff ideas in much the same way bands like Cynic and the aforementioned Atheist stunned guitar players everywhere with bizarre time signatures and equally awe inspiring fret board antics. Aletheian don’t constantly rely on this technique, for the do step out of the perplexing attack to embrace more normal sounding musical phrases that are very in key and center on ultra melodic harmonies and equally memorable chord progressions where layering of other guitar lines is most welcomed. Acoustic guitar bits come out of nowhere to accent certain guitar lines, and other such interesting twists in the songwriting act as distracters to keep the listeners attention locked in and on point. Vocally, Aletheian is just as interesting and open minded as their music. Everything from pitch singing, guttural death moans, and even a harsh black metal mid-range are on display to keep the compositions off centered and infinitely interesting. Virtuoso drum work. Avery full production. On this, Aletheian’s 3rd release, they have raised the bar for other American death metal bands to strive for this elevated level of quality. “Dying Vine” was a nice surprise indeed. – Marty
HOPE PREVAILS PRODUCTIONS
Alchemist – Austral Alien
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
This bands bold combination of expansive world music and organic metal really stands alone in the fray of faceless bands, and with “Austral Alien”, Alchemist have once again created a very inspired and cosmically charged album. The synth work and other sequenced elements work really well for this band as they keep the sounds lurking just below the surface for ambiance and color. The varied vocal style ranges from passionate pitch singing to a more fiery scream to intensify the aggression of this largely mid-paced music. My only complaint with “Austral Alien”, is that it becomes too long winded and loses some of its potency as the album drags on. The same formula begins to haunt the later tracks, and even though this is a band with very few peers (the only close comparison I can draw from their music is Neurosis), my ears kept yearning to hear more tempo variation to break up the ensuing monotony. In light of the strength of Alchemist’s unique sound, this is a minor point stacked up against a full album worth of strong ideas and emotion, which is often overlooked in the realm of modern metal music. Good stuff. -Marty
RELAPSE RECORDS
Aina – Days of Rising Doom – The Metal Opera
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
I have honestly been avoiding this CD. Metal Opera? These are 2 adjectives that often produce a feeble atmosphere and trendy results that can only be found in the bulging at the seams power metal genre. So what? A metal band wanting to be Tommy, The Wall and Queen all wrapped up into one big, pink spandex covered present? Such an endeavor is hardly a unique proposal. This project is indeed power metal, but the tasteful music and lack of effeminate vocals instantly put my awaiting chuckles at ease and grabbed my attention with some interesting musical dynamics that range from classically inspired, to Helloween-esque, pure metal thrashing. Such a big surprise! Aina is a gathering of over 25 metal musicians. Michael Kiske (Helloween/SupaRed), Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple/Black Sabbath), Cinza Rizzo (Kamelot/Rhapsody), Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater/Alice Cooper/Yngwie Malmsteen) are all on hand as well as many other talented guest stars that will gain interest from the people that call power metal their main musical appreciation and home. From sweeping lows where strings and other classical elements strengthen the content of this songwriting, to more bombastic moments where the speed is a fist thrusting push of edginess, Aina is a well rounded trip into the GOOD elements that can be exercised by this style of music. I like power metal a lot if it’s done well and being halfway through this disc, there are no sign of “Days of Rising Doom” faltering. One of the main turnoffs when it comes to this music is of course the vocals. If they sound thin or overblown in their sirenesque whine, then you can guarantee that I won’t be able to get past them to even give the music a chance. The main vocalist on this album is thankfully a very tasteful crooner who sticks with a mid ranged pitch sung style that is full of passion and a rich vibrato which really draws a soulful spirit out of the varying textures of this ever flowing masterpiece. Empowered by a deep production and a full arsenal of impressive solo work, “Days of Rising Doom” has indeed been a standout release in a stack of dull, rehashed material that has been littering this office the past 4 months. Add to the equation that this is a full blown power metal album, I am very impressed and once again reminded that there are still some signs of life seeping up from this often dead and buried genre of music. My copy is a promo sleeve, but to those of you going out to get a copy of your own, this release is a 3 disc set. Disc 1 is the actual album. Disc 2 is “The Story of Aina” featuring instrumentals, single and demo versions of some of this material. Disc 3 is a DVD featuring a video, 3D animation (oh brother), the making of, a slide show, art work, and audio settings. Definitely a lot of material for your buck. For fans of power metal only. – Marty
TRANSMISSION/THE END
Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Altered States of America
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
“Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope” was a creative slab of mechanized grind for sure, but the dominant dry shout of the vocals seemed out of place to me in the equation, detracting from my overall enjoyment of the album. Thankfully on “Altered States of America”, the screaming is far more acidic and mixed in with the maniacal yelling style, suiting the massive Entombed guitar tone meets uninhibited blip core perfectly. 99 tracks inhabit this petite 3″ CD as Agoraphobic assault the senses with atypical structures and insane tempo shifts, all accentuated with a collage of movie samples to further dement a sound that acts like random threats erupting from a malfunctioning robot who’s mission is to kill. “Altered States…” certainly isn’t something you’d want to sit down with and tap a toe along to, but strikes me as an abstract piece of extreme art that inspires tormented visions, set to a volatile musical backdrop. It can only get crazier from here and I’m sure it will. – Marty
RELAPSE RECORDS
Agent Steel – Order of the Illuminati
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
John Cyriis who? Yes, this longstanding US power thrash metal force cut their teeth on the shrill and soaring brilliance of John’s pristine pipes, but with “Omega Conspiracy” and now “Order of the Illuminati”, they prove those days are long gone and that Bruce Hall can match his predecessors style in a live situation, while bringing more bottom end power and a character all his own to the front man position. The Versailles/Garcia twin guitar attack is still among the tightest and most impressive within this genre as these 2 fretboard acrobats produce song after song of otherworldly hooks, injected with a mighty thrash delivery. Take a masterful mix of tempo and emotion and you are held in the compelling grip created by the songwriting force behind Agent Steel. “Order of the Illuminati” is modern power metal excellence, upholding the belief that life really does exist beyond this world and that they are studying us and biding their time before making official contact. 4 albums strong and gaining momentum, Agent Steel once again proves that traditional US metal doesn’t have to sound neutered or frail. -Marty
AOS/ARTILLERY MUSIC
Aeternus – A Darker Monument
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
“A Darker Monument” is a transition, for it starts off in the more brutal death vein found on “Shadows of Old” and “Burning the Shroud”, but once it reaches the halfway point, Ares digs back in to the melody that piled on the feeling and made their music the perfect death/black metal hybrid on the first few albums. I really miss that style, for their music actually painted a dense atmosphere and was infinitely memorable. Once the brutality emerged to stifle the emotion, Aeternus, though still a powerful and worthy entity, became a lot more typical as they seemed to pander to the Euro death movement. This album is a step up and finds Aeternus rediscovering their roots and reveling in their own sound by creating mighty death metal that doesn’t skimp on the meaningful and moving resonance. – Marty
NOCTURNAL ART PRODUCTIONS
Admortem – Living Through Blood
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Subdued rhythmically, but having an interesting chaos in the guitar work, Admortem is a crusty cadaver dismembered by well-produced death grind. Out of the tuneless transitions, a melody will rip through the skin long enough to grab your attention before sucking back into the body of this music to feast on the filth. Dueling vocal styles (brrrrgrrrl, AAAAAAck). Decent production. Guest screams by Barney Greenway and Mitch Harris from Napalm. A decent, though non-essential release that could be a lot more gripping if there were an explosive drummer at the helm. – Marty
ADIPOCERE RECORDS
Adamanter – The Shadow Mirror
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Hands down, this is one of the worst power metal albums I’ve ever heard. First off, the recording is muddy and sounds like a demo. This sucks the “power” and clarity out of Adamanter’s sails, 2 elements that NEED to be in the mix for a band in this genre to make any waves. This coupled with the glaring fact that their singer shouldn’t be singing out of a mid-ranged register and you have an album full of wince-tastic crap sure to sour ones taste for this genre. Mario Mosca pushes his pitch singing to the limits and beyond as he struggles to hit the high notes… a problem that happens all the time since this is the laughably soaring level he tries to sing in all the time. He’s out of key and warbling as he detracts even more attention away from the synth dominant metal (in the Lost Horizon mindset) Adamanter strives to emulate. It’s there in theory, but execution and musicianship is seriously lacking. If this were a bands demo, then one could appreciate some of “The Shadow Mirror’s” shortcomings, but it’s not. The paper thin production is a reflection of the sloppy and uninteresting power metal Italy’s Adamanter is struggling to produce. Man, those vocals have got to go if this band wants to reach out of the pit to catch their idols coattails. Trust me on this one… “The Shadow Mirror” is really miserable. – Marty
BLACK LOTUS RECORDS
Abysmal Gates – Divine Deception
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Anti-christian blackened death metal, pure and simple arises from the destruction left behind by Abysmal Gates. A deep and down tuned guitar tone gives AG a thick persona and mighty crunch when they need to pile on the ugliness, but they offset this undeniably death metal characteristic with piercing synth lines which honestly sound a bit fruity in the mix since they basically mirror the main riff lines. The vocals try to maintain a harsh mid-ranged snarl to capitalize on the blackened side of their personality, but the screamer often loses the abrasion in his voice (or it has been washed out by too much reverb) as the power in the guitars often steps all over his performance. Deeper death moans do enter the equation along with some nicely added pitch choral singing for effect, but the vocals in general are just too low in the mix. The strength of Abysmal Gates is indeed the well-written guitar lines that effectively walk the line between a slight Swedish melody and full on euro styled death brutality. And I’d like to add, you can actually hear a clean bass tone poking through the mix to add even more of a unique sound to accompany the tight arrangements and shredding solo/riff work that permeates this 5 song album. Overall, my only complaint that sticks with “Divine Deception” is the keyboards. They just strike me as completely unnecessary. A better production and some minor refinements will indeed hurl this band into a new realm of intensity. – Marty
BLACK FLAME RECORDS
Absu – Mythological Occult Metal 1991-2001
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
An incredible band with such a vibrant and essential catalog of music, how can you go wrong with a career retrospect, 2 CD set? You can’t. Every song on here is golden. 21 tracks total, including rarities, alternate version, unreleased and live tracks, covers, along with “The Temples of the Offal” 7″, “And Shineth Unto the Cold Cometh” 7″ and the “Hallstattian Swords” 7″. Quite a body of rarities indeed, from long out of print compilation tracks, to the song off the Gummo soundtrack, all the hard to locate items in Absu’s catalog have been conveniently gathered within this nicely done digipak. The booklet features pictures from every era and detailed info on each track, which I’m told is quite different from the lesser packaging of the 2 LP set that came out at the same time as this. With so much material pulled from so many sources and different time frames, the mastering job on this set is impressive, giving all the tracks a unified sonic spectrum to fill us all with the mystical enchantment of this bands spiritual and thrashing black metal desire. I don’t know what the exact status is of one of the US’s most lethal and creative black metal entities, but the world metal market seems a lot less vital due to the absence of the mighty Absu. -Marty
OSMOSE PRODUCTIONS
Absonus Noctis – Penumbral Inorgantia
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Perhaps a bit of a mid 1990’s Norwegian influenced can be found in the cacophonous swirl of reverb, but the US based Absonus Noctis is quite a unique 1 man black metal band that has debuted with a very trance inducing CD. “Penumbral Ingorgantia” offers a dreamlike, even down right depressive listening experience that is built upon simplistic, though harmonically powerful guitar lines that are enveloped with the aforementioned reverb to resemble the dank closeness of being sealed in a crypt, very much alive. The drum machine is thankfully a bit lost in the layers, but is produced in such a way that it sounds like a real kit… the booming bass EQ on the floor tom and double bass samples is a nice touch, giving the machine an often uncharacteristically cavernous, even organic feel which gives this album a uniquely nightmarish quality. Add despondent black metal screaming to the equation and all the elements fit perfectly together to create an otherworldly listening experience that possesses the misanthropic spirit of older Xasthur and the like, just produced 100 times better. I like the hypnotic repetition found on the agonizing “The Black Fields of Desolation” as well as the variety in songwriting dynamics found on the instrumental, “Sinking into and Abysmal Pool of Weeping Souls” where clean guitar lines interact with tasteful synth textures to invoke a suffocating feeling of dread. Such creative experimentation within a very traditional genre can be found throughout this albums entirety. Sole member Mortifer may not be blazing any new territory with his black craft, but his songs all possess a very meaningful direction and flow as his songwriting abilities encompass many of the key traits vital to writing poignant black metal within an underground full of bands that probably put half the time, thought and effort into their music. “Penumbral Ingorgantia” has been a very entertaining experience and I look forward to falling deeper into these compositions the more time I spend with this haunting album. – Marty
WRAITH PRODUCTION
Aborted – Gormageddon (The Saw and the Damage Done)
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
With minor Carcass influences dragging behind them like a heaping mess of cow guts, Aborted take the down tuned sickness purveyed by the forefathers of grind to new heights of debauchery and death metal brutality. Deep vocals mix with razor sharp screams and equally deadly buzz-sawing guitars that swarm in and out of maniacal blasts for that on the edge of your seat listening experience. Who would have thought that a straight up gore grind album would actually be this memorable and catchy, but Aborted have spent time crafting the riffs/hooks in these songs and surprisingly added some very melodic and meaningful solo work to accentuate the more in-key elements of their music. Think Exhumed and Impaled as far as musical development/flair and you have yet another excellent band in Aborted that’s not afraid to mix traditional heavy metal influences in with the bloody mash that is the ravenous gore grind movement. – Marty
OLYMPIC RECORDINGS/CENTURY MEDIA
Zenopede – Architect of Ruin
•January 2, 2009 • Leave a Comment
Zenopede operate in a sphere similar to Scorn or other Dark Dub projects, it’s not a genre I am a huge fan of, but have started to appreciate some of it when it’s done with a real sense of darkness, and Zenopede has nailed that element on this release. There are only five tracks here, but the meld heavy dub and hip hop style beats with a bit of distortion and a lot of dark cinematic atmosphere. A nice sense of layering, accent and careful melody give the cuts a lot of body and movement even though the beats remain relatively unchanging. From a more abrupt active track like “Lo Tech Brood” to the much subtler, less beat driven “Worst Case Dementia” they have mixed up the feel a lot, and hog-tied my biggest problem with this type of music which is the inane redundancy so much of it has. Their beats are processed and effected more often than not, so you are not just getting straight beats, and that’s another thing I really appreciate about what Zenopede is doing. It has as much dark ambient and subtle noise to it as it does beats, if not more. Rather than the textures simply providing background texture to fill the holes in the beats they are a major part of the tracks. The disc ends with probably my favorite of the lot, “Bitter Hope.” along with “Scare Tactic.” There is a snarled, boiling creepiness at the foundation, with simple synth tones providing melody atop that… strings are plucked deep in the mix and there is only a slight percussive presence, but the track is full of atmosphere. I really like this one, certainly more than I would have thought, and while I haven’t heard a lot in this field, this is easily among my favorites because of it’s willingness to do different things and not rely on the beat to be enough, they build a complete atmosphere around it. “Architect of Ruin” is a CDR, and comes with some pretty sharp packaging to boot. – Scott
ZENOPEDE
4 Brynmill Terrace
Brynmill, Swansea SA2 0BA
UK
http://www.zenopede.demon.co.uk/
Worm Gear 