Paying Attention to Metal

King Diamond "The Puppet Master" (2003)

2011-11-11T14:11:00.001-08:00

The Puppet Master, the eleventh album by Danish metallers King Diamond, labors under several disadvantages. First, the title is almost identical to the most famous metal album of the 1980s, Metallica's Master of Puppets. Second, it is a concept album whose concept can best be described as "Pinocchio in reverse." Third, how many groups still have any fuel in the tank after ten albums?

For the uninitiated, King Diamond is the solo project of Mercyful Fate's lead singer, the corpse-painted rapscallion who introduced himself to the world by releasing--a Christmas single. The (now) dozen King Diamond albums are permanently locked in 1980s Euro-metal, a kind of aural Hot Tub Time Machine. It's this strange world where Pantera never existed.

So, on one hand, the technology here is not exactly state of the art. If you've heard Abigail or Don't Break the Oath, the eerie banshee wail and predilection for baroque touches are the same. No, King Diamond still doesn't understand "narrative" in music. Someone get this man a copy of Springsteen's "Atlantic City"! And it's so bafflingly uncool as metal that the ridiculous puppet love story will have most listeners recalling this:

For all that, this is one of my favorite metal albums. For one thing, King Diamond never blinks. There's no ironic chink in the entire presentation. For another, the guitar solos are stunning. Given that there isn't much room for "texture" in what is essentially musical theater, the bursts of lead guitar are never filler. For contrast, see Kirk Hammett's tragic addiction to the wah-pedal, or any recent Slayer album. Andy LaRoque never phones it in.

I suspect this is a hard sell, and to fans of extreme death metal and normal people alike, this will appear like "Toy Story 3: In a Metal Mood." Maybe so. It's certainly not what I would play if I was meeting my girlfriend's parents for the first time. But it is also so eccentric, so catchy, so self-convinced, that it is not something you will want to keep to yourself. Listening party?

Megadeth- Killing is My Business ... and Business is Good! (1985)

2011-05-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

Was there ever a cooler band than the early Megadeth? Featuring the ultimate regressive-personality alcoholic as mumbly lead singer, plus artwork transparently ripped off from Iron Maiden, these disorientingly and over-abundantly talented musicians never seemed remotely comfortable making this blazingly fast, coke-fueled thrash metal. The whole project is itchy and nervous, motivated by a thwarted megalomania (and coke).

If Metallica is a studied synthesis of NWOBHM and hardcore punk, Megadeth is the absurdly technical and paranoid rejoinder, drawing on jazz fusion while paradoxically playing much faster and more aggressively for all that. It is the quintessential music by and for assholes.

Let's not forget that only one band can ever be called "MEGADETH." How cool is that?

Anyways, this is the first album from these maniacs. It isn't at all "stadium-friendly" or anthemic. It is literally just a series of shredding guitar solos and churning riffs, played as fast as possible. The vocals are a disaster, the Nancy Sinatra cover is almost the longest song (not a good sign!), and the sound is kind of bad... but the riffs never stop coming, and the rhythm section is startlingly fluid and prominent.

At times the music can be quite opaque, especially as Mustaine's vocals show little interest in melody... and then within the same song (as on "Killing is My Business" and "Looking Down the Cross") they will burst into catchy daylight before disappearing again.

Most of all, this record feels rushed in every way. Not only played fast, but composed hurriedly, recorded virtually live, and with album artwork improvised by the record label. In the end, that is both its defining character and charm, and a liability. (It's obviously not a classic on par with the Metallica masterworks, which are much more deliberate and self-conscious.) I don't normally curse on this blog, but the main effect of Megadeth's debut is that it is a "nasty little fucker."

Rating: 4/5 (****)

Best songs: "Rattlehead," "Chosen Ones," "Mechanix"

Burzum- Fallen (2011)

2011-04-15T17:59:00.000-07:00

The other day, my friend was describing a James Baldwin novel to me. I had asked whether it was great or not, but instead he decided to present the book to me as a Frankenstein's monster of dismembered parts. He told me exuberantly how this novel incorporated the subject matter from one of Baldwin's other books, the style from another, the politics from another. To me, of course, this paint-by-numbers critical approach to an artist's oeuvre leaves completely unanswered the question of whether a work is worthwhile. Instead we find ourselves in an infinite regress: as though what made Go Tell It On The Mountain a great work was its "sharing elements with Go Tell It On the Mountain" (!)

Varg Vikernes describes Burzum's new album as: "…a cross between Belus and something new, inspired more by the debut album and Det Som Engang Var than by Hvis Lyset Tar Oss or Filosofem."

We have all seen parodies of this artistic logic in any satire of how Hollywood works. A producer is pitching his new sitcom/movie to an executive: "It's a cross between Barbarella and Laverne & Shirley! It's a cross between Spiderman and Meet The Parents!"

The idea in black metal, evidently, is that there is a niche audience who, if they can describe an album in certain adjectives (or, *sigh*... regrettable angsty prose-poems) will be happy... regardless of whether an album's riffs are catchy, or whether the songs are boring. It is another version of the sex-starved teenager who will swear that ANY nude photo of a blonde with fake boobs is "so fucking hot" so as to demonstrate just how straight and virile he is. So, a black metal song can be as bad as you please, but as long as it "sounds like an outtake from Filosofem..." the woeful spirit signs off on it for being "gloriously mournful." This is just to sign away one's critical faculties over to the authority of the sticker on the cover of the CD.

All we learn from any of these examples is that it will always be possible to cynically peddle one's wares to an audience that demands only that something fit a certain Venn diagram of already-known styles and sounds. 1000 monkeys typing at a 1000 typewriters for 1000 years may not be able to produce the works of Shakespeare... but they definitely COULD write "a cross between Othello and Macbeth"--provided this pollination were all that was wanted. To certain metal fans, undoubtedly no more is expected.

As with the teenager described above, it is stupid to argue about the merits of this album. If anyone tells you that it is anything BUT corny, repetitive, pretentious, unmemorable, lightweight, and sort-of irritating, that person is just playing dress-up with their listening experience. This album is garbage.

If said moron insists, "No, it sounds like Filosofem... but with fast parts!" Well... I don't disagree. The only difference is that it sucks. That's a difference that matters to me...

At the Gates- The Red in the Sky is Ours (1992)

2011-03-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

I know this post is about 10 years late--i.e. 10 years after "sounds like At the Gates" was a ubiquitous descriptor for every American emo and hardcore and metal act, when every bearded, drug-dealing bike-messaging cruster was raising their fists in the metal sky to the Slaughter of the Soul album... even a few years after their cash-in reunion in 2007. (At which time knuckle-dragging "metal fans" among my acquaintance were shocked at my lack of enthusiasm: "Y-y-you don't... g-g-uh.. like Slaughter of the Soul? But it fucking slaaaays, man!")

I confess, though, that Slaughter of the Soul made a huge impression on me when I first heard it in 2001: they made it sound so easy! And the narrative going around at that time was that, yes, At the Gates had other albums, but they were basically a prelude to this, their masterpiece. One listen to their earlier music confirmed this: uncatchy, full of diverging parts, badly-recorded, and lacking everything that made Slaughter of the Soul such a landmark: twin-guitar hooks, compelling choruses and audible lyrics, a style combining basically Iron Maiden and Slayer... Of course, you could squint and imagine that the earlier riffs were somehow aiming at the same thing, picking out a few seconds in a 6 minute song that "foreshadowed their later genius."

How wrong-headed this all seems now! Nothing has been more driven into the ground than the Slaughter of the Soul sound--its worst incarnation being in Victory Records screamo and metalcore appropriations--so that perhaps even someday we shall want to revisit *this* album as deserving and merely overshadowed by its influence. Still, it is a ludicrously front-loaded and monotonous record, far too easy to overplay.

On the other hand, At the Gates' debut, under consideration here, is positively fecund with inspiration, overflowing with cool parts, labyrinthine structures, and a precocious grasp of "technicality" in death metal (this was 1992!), while managing to avoid almost every trap of "sweetness" and pandering to be found in, say, Swedish compatriots Dark Tranquility.

Still, this record's reputation is in need of some burnishing! Here is the allmusic.com review:

Here's what Sweden's At the Gates told us with their first album, The Red in the Sky is Ours: they were from, er, Sweden; they were very upset about something -- probably their parents; they played extremely fast and furious; and they pretty much sounded like a "baby" Entombed, offering little in the way of innovation to the booming Gothenburg death metal scene. And that's pretty much it. Later on, their contributions would rank among the best death metal around, but, for now, only the title track and latter-day concert favorite "Kingdom Gone" show any inspiration. Everything else will barely interest even hardcore fans.

My response:

Doesn't sound like Entombed (except maybe the one song cited).
Erroneously perceived as a "entry" in "the booming Gothenburg scene," where in fact the album precedes the debuts of Dark Tranquility and In Flames.
Even assuming by "Gothenburg scene," the reviewer means unrelated bands such as Dismember, Entombed, Carnage, Grave, etc., At the Gates here are light years beyond those bands (still largely tied to a Discharge/crust influence); the ideas here still sound inventive and eccentric, not tied to an early 90s "scene."
If anything, one can read here a hidden influence on Norsecore, especially on Dark Funeral.
In any case, this is the worst kind of historical interpretation, deeming the album irrelevant only because it does not fall in with the development of the reviewer's favorite style.

The Red in the Sky is Ours, far from being "melodic" in the sense of ring-tone melodies and warmed-over Iron Maiden influence, is melodic in the true sense: the songs unfold according to a melodic understanding or logic. Instead of being a simple phrase or hook, melody here is the entire song's working-through. Add to this a bubbling technicality, a permeating but eccentric emotionality (so far from U.S. death metal's tone!), the occasional crazy use of a violin, and you have the exact opposite of Slaughter of the Soul: a record almost so overcharged with ideas as to pay off almost unlimited relistening.

My only criticism of this record, which is the flipside to its virtues: it is incredibly dense, and almost lacking dynamics. Many of the songs have the same feel.

Here is an album you can really get lost in; on the other hand, one almost has to do so, to get the most out of its depths. The surface is not pretty or easily approached.

The Crown- Deathrace King (2000)

2011-03-08T16:39:00.001-08:00

Here is a problem with my aesthetic: I am consistently criticizing music that is just monotone grinding away at a style, or the lifeless technical reproduction of some cultural flavor or historical "sound,"-- and valorizing music that "jumps out of the speakers" at you, that is immediately catchy and memorable. In extreme metal, this is a convenient way to edit out and expel 90% of grinding, monotonous, merely extreme albums: death or black metal that never rises above the teenage thrill of grossing out parents and grunting. It is also a good way to approach power pop or hardcore punk: the tendency of this music to merely go through the motions without even crossing into consciousness always = total failure.

What then to do with a band like The Crown? Because the Crown are catchy, memorable, replete with moments that jump out at you, etc. So, why aren't they my favorite band? (The short answer is that I don't love Faith Hill or Sting, either, who are obviously more poppy and catchy by any standard than, say, Cryptopsy. But people sometimes forget that I'm not an idiot and that this ("poppiness") might not be what I mean.)

This can only be done by contrasts. Let's take a song I love: "Deicide" by Deicide.

A lot of this "technology" seems clunky in 2011; the different voices, the over-the-top intro, the rapped breakdown, the "I am evil" lyrics, the utterly predictable set-up for the guitar solo, the divebombs in the solo itself, the somewhat ponderous tempo...

But to say all of these things about how dated "Deicide" sounds, if we agree that it's a great song, is the same as to say, "Today, we could never get away with being so obvious." I get the same feeling when I think of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and its famous opening. But this assumes--what is obviously false--that everyone today is on the verge of writing the 5th Symphony...and is only being stopped by their tastefulness! The same thing can be said about Deicide: these dated techniques can be rephrased as Deicide's "drama," their embrace of the absurd, pompous, and theatrical. Because, damn it! the band is named Deicide! If ever there was an aesthetic motivation for this kind of flare, does one not find it in Milton's Satan? Is "tasteful restraint" the name of the game here? Deicide know that it is not. It is not that this acknowledged super-classic is (for some technical reason) sonically inimitable; it is rather that death metal has become scared of its own shadow. A failing of spirit!

Anyways! "Deicide" is not, for all that, a 3-chord, verse-chorus-verse pop song. Rather than being repetitive, it has a narrative unity ("what happens next?"); there are no hints of the "melodic death metal"--it is resolutely ugly music. The immediacy, the catchiness, and the richness of the song are in fact particular to metal: it gets you headbanging. I can't say it any other way. But then the structure is nimble, instead of "ritualistic" or whatever people use to describe boring metal nowadays. Deicide doesn't stick around to milk the hooks, or drill them into your head: every bit of the song is incorporated into its "push." This won't be everyone's idea of "catchy," since it isn't tuneful, but on the other hand, this headbanging catchiness is what death metal does best, what other music only stumbles upon by accident and can't hold onto.

So, The Crown. Like Witchery, or Nifelheim, (and, to be fair, all-time genius Bathory), this is verse-chorus-verse-chorus extreme metal. There are plenty of rockin', consonant guitar solos and trills, big emotional moments (like I enjoy so much in Metallica), single-note melodies that are easy to follow, etc.

But the bottom of this bag of tricks is reached quite quickly. The guitar solos are ONLY "rockin'"--they aren't interesting or beautiful, or relevant to the song. The catchy choruses, when all is said and done, are not as catchy as Venom or Kreator or even Morbid Angel. The supposed death-metal underpinning of everything, in the end, is warmed-over thrash metal riffs.

How to tell THIS kind of unsatisfying obviousness from genuine catchiness? I want to say something like, "Try to have your first listen through the (imagined) ears of a twentieth listen." For example, a lot of times, I have put on an album and someone in the room has exclaimed, "WAAAH this music is insane!!" But, honestly, what serious person pulls out a beloved record from their collection and throws it on the turntable simply to be baffled by it? And yet this is always a risk when a death metal fan approaches an album.

Not, however, a risk that The Crown run. The name of their game is not technical brutality but big choruses and rock flair. The idea, I think, is that they are going to be a "guilty pleasure" for serious metallers, pure ear candy... But while I may feel guilty (about not writing my dissertation instead of this review), I am not melting in pleasure.

There's nothing to say to someone who WANTS to like something, who has a Crown-shaped hole in their musical desires (and will soon have a Crown-shaped hole in their wallet!!). But all of our record collections are littered with these records. The record that was "exactly what I'm looking for" that day. Now, on any given occasion, my skepticism could be wrong: what sounds to me like "obviousness" could be a rich and rewarding, catchy album with little parts that will be enjoyed for a lifetime. But the evidence is all on the side of resisting a band's presentation of itself, of resisting hype, of waiting out the internet chat, of doubting the validity of comparisons (I like Deicide, but I do not like bands that tell me they "sound like Deicide").

I can easily imagine the listener who indignantly responds, "The Crown ARE catchy. They DO rock. Who are you to speak with the Voice of Eternity?" And these things aren't subject to some quantitative proof. My only response can be: my life is littered with these albums. I try to pick up on what lasts in music, what holds my interest for years of listening. The world exists to tell us that The Crown rock, and that Deicide are cheesy. But this doxa is worth precisely nothing.

Conclusion: what "jumps out at me" here is the feeling of "jumping out at me." I'm not a phenomenologist, but this seems to me a conceptual analogue (no pun intended) to the loudness war in CD-mastering.

Iron Maiden- The Final Frontier

2010-08-27T07:09:00.001-07:00

If only there were truth in advertising, and the new Iron Maiden album were as fun and ludicrous as the silly sci-fi album art! Alas.

What we get instead is their longest album ever, with most songs over 7 minutes. That wouldn't be a good or bad thing, but every Maiden fan knows that the longer the song=the more pretentious and "literary" and repetitive. Well, I'm not sure that *every* Maiden fan knows this. In fact, the more die-hard of a Maiden fan one is, probably the more that person is likely to find "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" or "To Tame a Land" to be works of art on par with Wagner's Ring Cycle-- but better! because it's metal, maaan!

I digress. Well, not really. Because this gets to the heart of the matter: Iron Maiden's track record with "epic" songs is terrible. On their first album, the longest song ("Phantom of the Opera") may also be the best, but it's also the only one. Killers isn't burdened by any such tracks. But at some point, the band decided that songs like "Alexander the Great" were the way to go, and doubtless many of you have agreed.

That is not entirely true, though, because the band also panders like no other--and toss off some disingenuous "singles" that are patronizingly straight-forward. You can just see them, having composed their arduous masterpieces, reflecting that "Now we need a single. Something really anthemic!" Some bands can do this very cannily--Nirvana comes to mind, or 80s Ozzy--but I've always found it embarrassing when Maiden act like "The Wicker Man" (for example) is "Jumping Jack Flash" or what have you. It ain't.

So, you get more of this here. "The Final Frontier" is just such a song. I suppose I'm meant to find it a number-one hit from an alternate universe where the mainstream (boo! hiss!) has been set to rout and metal rules, but it's kind of bland.

When it comes to the very long songs here, the listener runs headfirst into a problem with Iron Maiden's creativity and limitations: the pleasures of listening to Iron Maiden, even at their best, are not very profound. It's not Beethoven. Occasionally they "rock," and their discography is littered with strong hooks, but their idea of "big" is usually ponderous instead of fleet-footed and truly epic (in the Homeric sense, as interpreted by Matthew Arnold in his classic essay on translation).

On the other hand, unlike Metallica's St. Anger, this is not an album made by the band for themselves; Iron Maiden make every attempt to please, and the record is dominated by Dickinson's would-be tuneful performance, which comes across as quite same-y and also pretentious. It's "catchy," if you like, in every sense except that it doesn't "catch."

I can't resist another comparison. Take Black Sabbath's Sabotage, which is no stranger to long songs and some pretention. But one is immediately struck by the movement, the dynamism, of Iommi's riffs, and even the very-long "Megalomania" is rushed along by a cycle of memorable parts. Compared to this, Iron Maiden's long songs come across as improvisations--not in the jazz sense, but in the somewhat flabby dialogue of Curb Your Enthusiasm compared to the tightly-written pacing of Seinfeld. There is a certain spacing in which everything is clearly intended to happen, but this is a matter of schematics rather than real creativity.

In a way, I feel bad for Iron Maiden. They are doomed to keep creating Iron Maiden Albums until the end of time.

score: 2.5 (** 1/2) stars

best songs: "Where the Wild Wind Blows," because it sounds like Oasis

Inquisition- Invoking the Majestic Throne of Satan

2010-06-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

It is probably ironic that my favorite black metal album, Transilvanian Hunger, which utterly captivated me on first listen, is responsible for all that is terrible in black metal for the past 15 years. Darkthrone themselves understood this, that nothing "more" could be done in that direction, which they promptly turned their backs upon (with what results, one has seen).

Transilvanian Hunger, because it is so "minimalist," *appears* to have thrown out the metal tradition and to be in-itself an entire style. The result of its influence has been a disastrous paint-by-numbers of 4,000 bands that "sound like Transilvanian Hunger." Inquisition is NOT one of those bands, for the precise reason that they are thoroughly a metal band. Let's see what that means.

Inquisition basically operates in two modes--ugly, ugly, and simple grinding/blasting, with basic riffs and vocals in the barked/croaked Von style; and on the other hand, slow and meditative passages with long and "pretty" riffs, but which remain absolutely integrated into the rhythm of the song and are a kind of commentary on the condensed blasting parts.

What's interesting about this band is that they began as an extremely riffy, complicated death-thrash band in the style of early Sepultura. The first demos are absolutely bursting with semi-technical and furious stringwork. Now Inquisition make two-piece (guitar and drums) black metal cut from the simplest material, but every second of the song is still supposed to "count." That is, while other bands will bore me with long ambient or noise pieces in the illusion that I will find this to be "evil," Inquisition give even their most boneheaded and primitive riffs an intensity of performance and conviction, so that one is not waiting around for the "pretty" riffs exclusively. In fact, one of the best moments on the album is the switch from an unaccompanied, swirling guitar part into a blunt and idiotic mosh part ("Rituals of Human Sacrifice for Lord Baal"). I believe it is their emergence from an extremely riff-oriented style which makes this simpler music so entertaining, and belies its "ritualistic" pretensions.

In songs like the title track, one can hear (in contrast) what went wrong with newer Graveland. Mid-tempo, croaked vocals, cycling short riffs... on the surface, the sound is the same, but the whole *point* is different here. In Graveland, I'm not sure why all this is being thrown at me, but in Inquisition, the beat and alternating of melody with micro-riffs are not just layers of digitalia; the point is to get the listener headbanging!

This music shouldn't work at all, and the way it is put together is an acquired taste for sure, but the best Inquisition songs really put to shame all recent black metal that is too little creative to forge its own style. Inquisition's "style" is so offputting that it is only here at all because it *does* work phenomenally well.

Score: 4 stars (****)/5

Best songs: "Rituals of Human Sacrifice for Lord Baal," "Hail the King of All Heathens"

Immolation- Here in After

2010-05-20T13:26:00.000-07:00

Part 2 of 6 on Immolation

Immolation were in no hurry to release their second album, which came five years after their first, and is a suitably worked-over, defining statement by the group. Although a number of the more brisk songs () recall the debut, the newer elements are: an unconscionable heaviness, more dissonance and guitar squealing, the word "Christ" prominently in almost every song, and longer guitar solos.

What this all adds up to is a belated response to Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick. No longer is the band content to pummel away, as though "brutality" were enough to win over the listener--rather, the composition is varied, and almost pretentiously intellectualized ("time signatures" and whatnot). On the other hand, as with the Morbid Angel album, the songs are catchier than before, and completely "legible," not to mention spacious. Where most other death metal is a cluttered horror vacui, Immolation here almost approach--gasp!--dynamics.

While many bands have "technical" components more remarkable and overstated than this album, they are rarely as integrated: for instance, Necrophagist could be accused of mere window-dressing with technical frills, while obviously a number of other bands are just metalcore bands who throw in some shop-worn cliches to pass themselves off as "brutal technical death metal." Immolation, like Darkthrone on Soulside Journey, are not aiming for mere effect, but subordinate everything to the song.

That all being said, this is not my favorite Immolation record-- it is completely immersive and listenable, but the best songs (see below) tower above the rest of the record (the middle), much like Slayer's Reign in Blood. The result is that the disparity between existing songs becomes the disparity between the middling songs and their unrealized potential: "Why didn't they just write a record full of hits?" Unlike Reign in Blood, the middle of the album does not consist in short songs that just race by.

Great album to put on and sit through, although not every song is a hit. Still, staggeringly more thoughtful than most other death metal.

score: 4 stars (****)/5

Immolation- Dawn of Possession

2010-05-13T22:51:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of 6 on Immolation

After years of being into death metal, I finally heard Immolation for the first time last year. This itself requires some explaining (not of a biographical nature). While other premiere bands--Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Deicide--are among the very first bands that a would-be fan will come across, Immolation, however highly esteemed, will always be underrated.

Totally disregarding quality, and speaking strictly anecdotally, the ORDER in which a fan will get into death metal is something like this:

1) hearing Cannibal Corpse when one is a 14-year-old metalhead, and moving into "the harder stuff" from whatever Ozzfest bands.

2) the punk route: getting into death metal through grindcore and a craving for extremity beyond Assuck (nowadays: Insect Warfare)

3) the hipster: death metal seen as an outgrowth of technically-minded indie rock; totally dehistoricized fandom where Death are appreciated ironically, but Gorguts are seen as the pinnacle of death metal.

None of these scenarios could ever lead directly to Immolation--they are not cartoonish enough for children (like Deicide), not poppy enough for punk fans (like At the Gates), not technical enough for "math metal" hipsters (like Behold... the Arctopus). I'll add, Immolation must also be bypassed by hicks (for whom Entombed are the logical entry point), legions of Latino metal fans (Sepultura), and black metallers (black metal). This is what makes a cult band: you only arrive at Immolation by seeking them out, and not for any aura that has attached to them. The one thing you keep hearing about Immolation is... they're really good. And this, curiously enough, is not a big draw.

As it turns out, Immolation ARE really good, but also hard to describe, since what is interesting is NOT their sound but their songwriting. Three aspects of their sound stand out: 1) the incredibly deep vocals, which however are not "gurgled" but are actually somewhat tuneful, with audible lyrics; 2) the lurching, martial rhythms, really atypical of the jazzy fluidity OR grinding rigidity into which most death metal falls; 3) Immolation really *do* have a signature style and sound, but to cognize this requires taking in about five of their albums.

The album before us is their first, Dawn of Possession, from 1991. The closest comparison for me is Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness, but marked by a totally different drumming style. Certainly elements of thrash remain, because this is not at all at the level of abstraction of say, Incantation, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, etc. Nor is this really "technical" at all, although it becomes more interesting and complicated with every listen.

Here's a listenable live version of the first song, from 1991--when the lead guitarist still had hair!

On subsequent records, Immolation would become terrifyingly heavy (but not "extreme"), so it is interesting to hear this straight-ahead riff fest (more or less). "Those Left Behind" is noticeably more complicated and discordant than the all-out songs surrounding it, and points the way towards subsequent releases.

Dawn of Possession, released the same year as Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick, and obviously outclassed by that release, nonetheless does not sound dated (in a negative sense). Although straight-forward and obviously not high art, Immolation do not at all sound *dumb* here, which cannot be said for Massacre or the first Deicide. Like other second-tier classics---not quite Morbid Angel, Death, Carcass, Sepultura, or Suffocation---Dawn of Possession is strictly for metalheads and for fans of history, but not to be overlooked on any account.

More on Immolation in the coming days/weeks.

score: 4.5 stars (**** 1/2)/5

best songs: "Dawn of Possession," "Fall in Disease," "Into Everlasting Fire"

Necrophagist- Epitaph

2010-05-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

Necrophagist seem to violate rule #1 of my aesthetic: they substitute for sheer pleasure (in metal, "headbanging") something not in-itself particularly enjoyable ("technicality"), and then dare the listener to discover the difference. We have just seen that in Cannibal Corpse, extreme gore lyrics, outlandish heaviness, and repetitive breakdowns all stand in (for the teenage listener) for the elements that in fact make quality death metal.

Is something being brought in, criteria-wise, through the back door, which in fact has nothing to do with catchiness, interest, and the joys of paying attention to metal?

Ultimately, I don't think so. Necrophagist, for all their noodling, have a primarily melodic intelligence. This is, in the last analysis, limited (they aren't the greatest band of all time). Until Necrophagist produces a song that is not bathed in the Necrophagist "glow," which is curiously inhuman, they will be only a minor band. But it is possible and enjoyable to follow these songs; they distinguish themselves (unlike Cannibal Corpse); the bag of tricks is ultimately also limited, but is already much greater than on the first album; and the melodic content of the best songs is rare in metal these days (since "melody" now only means At the Gates/Iron Maiden lead-riffage).

Irritating is that every song has to come to a dead stop and let some emotive chords substantially ring out, before the identical, overplayed guitar solo---as at :25 and 1:18 in "Stabwound." Best would be if the band could aim at some variety of effects; the classical music obviously beloved by the band surely could show the way here.

I'm basically ambivalent about this album. It's a fun listen, but for all the flare and obvious construction in these songs, they never approach the heights of similarly-"progressive" later Death, which is really the model for this stuff. Or should be. The whole aura, as intricate as it may be, is not really as "operatic" as Metallica's Ride the Lightning, and not really sweeping at all (no matter how much sweep-picking there may be). It is actually a very "micro" record, and this is of less interest.

score: 3 (***)/ 5 stars
Best songs: "Epitaph," "Only Ash Remains," "Symbiotic in Theory"

Cannibal Corpse- Tomb of the Mutilated

2010-05-12T17:51:00.000-07:00

Death metal, at its best, is not what it seems.

This music whose main characteristics are its heaviness, the ghastly lyrics, the relentless speed, and the growled vocals--is really a very subtle art, to which all of the above is strictly peripheral. No death metal record is interesting BECAUSE it is heavy, fast, or brutal.

The most interesting death metal (Cryptopsy, Morbid Angel, Immolation) never relies on cheap effects. The compositions, rhythms, and melodic understanding of these bands would certainly not cross over into "rock" music. The same is true for Joy Division or My Bloody Valentine or Discharge--none of the pleasures of listening to these bands can be translated into rock/pop karaoke versions.

I can't, in this review of a non-masterpiece, go into quite what that "something" may be. Cannibal Corpse have a reputation among connoisseurs for being mindless, sheer aggression, shock value--for being death metal at its most dumbed down.

A few facts: 1) to anyone acquainted with modern death metal, Cannibal Corpse are somewhat dated and quite quaint; if their entire appeal lay in shocking 14-year-olds who have never heard anything like it before, this shock cannot extend to *us*. 2) the vocals are entirely thrown away. They are so monotonous that you tune them out before the first song is over. 3) the lyrics, while indeed disgusting, are also so monotonous that they are unreadable.

The songs here all have a couple interesting parts, taken in isolation--it is only at the level of the whole song that everything becomes indistinguishable. Their "bag of tricks" exhausts itself *very* quickly. Anyone looking to have a grand old time taking this band as camp (a kind of death metal the Misfits) will be sorely disappointed, though. This all gets old fast.

At the beginning of this review, I wrote that death metal is hard to review because it is hard to get a hold of what it is supposed to do well. For any 15-second interval, Cannibal Corpse are indeed indistinguishable from the greats, and from the dregs for that matter. But earlier I was in the kitchen listening to Celtic Frost's Morbid Tales, having the time of my life. I am not having the time of my life listening to Tomb of the Mutilated. If the explanation for why this album is less immediately entertaining is BECAUSE "it's death metal" (i.e. it is trying for something different than Celtic Frost), then this is no explanation at all. Why play death metal at all if to do so is an admission that it will be less interesting than Celtic Frost? (The same thing can be said for free jazz or any experimental music that foregoes the "immediate" pleasures of, say, rock/pop).

It is my position that this is NOT the case--that experimental film CAN be as engaging as narrative film, that free jazz can be wildly entertaining, and that death metal can really rock... But this requires an understanding of the particular criteria in each case, rather than an abandonment of criteria altogether, or a construction of quality that is merely tautological or coextensive with the genre itself (e.g. how "crazy" free jazz is can't itself be used to evaluate it).

Tomb of the Mutilated is unorganized and uninteresting. If you can tune out and tune back in, you won't notice. But I would HATE to have to endure the whole thing on a long road trip.

score: 2 stars (**)/ 5
best songs: Hammer Smashed Face, Split Wide Open

High on Fire- Snakes for the Divine

2010-05-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

This is a terrible record, sure--but it's an interesting case, because unlike other famous terrible metal albums by great bands (Metallica's Black Album, Celtic Frost's Cold Lake), there is no obviou$ rea$on why High on Fire should make this particular album in any bid for popularity. It basically sounds the same as their earlier records (although more on that later)--they have not made any concessions to pop hooks, or even trends in the underground (thuggish metalcore, grungey post-emo, technicality).

The main observable difference is that the songs are more streamlined, and generally faster. Neither of these are good or bad in themselves. The incredible guitar tone achieved on their second album, Surrounded by Thieves, is not to be found here, and neither is the particular clarity that Steve Albini brought to Blessed Black Wings.

No, the problem seems to lie in the band's misconception of themselves as muscular, overpowering thrashers with long guitar solos and huge "epic" songs. But this was never the case. High on Fire were about one thing: constructing tension. Because Matt Pike came out of the most tedious of genres, doom metal, he knew a thing or two about how to maintain a listener's interest when nothing much was going on.

None of the songs here, though, build to anything. This might be too damning, but a lot of this is just vaguely thrashy and super-generic. It is certainly *someone's* idea of Metal. They are built out of disposable parts, much like newer Immortal albums. A six-minute long song is largely repetitive, has no big payoff, and the Worst Metal Sin of all: really bad guitar solos. When I put on some fantasy metal record, take me on a journey, dude...

In one sense, saying why this record is as tedious as the record itself. My job as a reviewer of metal is basically to evaluate RIFFS. To sum up everything real quick: the riffs here are not great.

But apart from all this, I feel there is a bigger problem: we are supposed to be enjoying how HUGE and AWESOME and METAAAAL this record is. But none of that can express itself or stand in for itself. All these signposts of awesomeness are not the thing itself.

A youtube comment for their new video: "I feel like a viking standing atop a mountain of fucking skulls whilst crushing faces and hurling boulders at my enemies below."

I guess that is what I am supposed to feel. But previously High On Fire accomplished this, not by substituting hugeness and repetitiveness, but by actually being awesome. By creating tension, by making every part of the song count, by writing vocal hooks--well, the same vocal hook for every song, etc.

One-word review: boring. Energy better spent discovering what made previous High on Fire albums true journeys into a dream world.

score: 2 stars (**)/ 5

best songs: weirdly, the CD bonus track "Mystery of Helm."

Reviewing Metal on myspace

2010-04-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

First off, all these metal bands have such ludicrous myspace pages. You have to scroll down past these huge, hideous, full-page logos in order to see or do anything. Inevitably you can buy about 400 different t-shirt designs for this bands no one has ever heard of, plus the band's name is indecipherable anyways. Why not just buy one t-shirt and tell people it is a different band every day?

First up is PSYCROPTIC, from Australia. The song I'm reviewing is "Ob(servant)"

http://www.myspace.com/psycroptic

Why is "servant" in parentheses? Is this like saying the real song's name is "Ob" and the rest is just extra information. Shouldn't "Ob" be in parentheses, as some kind of commentary on the word "servant"?

This song is so intent on being crazy and having a million parts that it ends up sounding like a much simpler genre, bad 1990s powerviolence. Especially in the randomly-assorted vocal stylings, which range from Pantera-esque shouts to goofy, almost interrogative hardcore burly yelling (the "silly" Infest style), to irritating screams. If I didn't know better, I would say that Psycroptic didn't even want to be a death metal band!

If you want some pointless noodling that goes straight into tough-guy breakdowns, has no melodic content, and doesn't even sound like death metal, this is the death metal band for you. In short, this is a bunch of crap thrown together.

Malignancy; song: "Xenotransplantation"

http://www.myspace.com/malignancy

Obviously, I'm listening to this stuff on my computer speakers, in order to replicate the "real life experience" of browsing myspace in 2010. But it's a level playing field. I know what computer speakers do to Deicide and The Supremes, so I can make that mental adjustment. Anyways, this SOUNDS terrible. The guitar tone would be really interesting, as it is very dry and rough for this style of music, but every 3/8ths of a second, there is a squealing pinch-harmonic that ruins everything. I guess the band is being "technical," but it just has the effect of making me think my phone is ringing. It doesn't even exist *within* the song, for my listening experience.

It's too bad, really, that this is completely unlistenable, because the vocalist is fascinatingly abstract, and the song (on a few listens) is coherent and almost memorable through the retarded permutations of the random rhythms inflicted on it. If they toned down the (maddening) squealing, this could be in the vein of Demilich meets Cryptopsy. But, instead it is like a bad joke!

Baroness; song "The Sweetest Curse"

http://www.myspace.com/yourbaroness

Another terrible song title. Oooh, a curse--that's bad! but sweet--that's good! Now I don't know what to think! I guess I'm supposed to hate this band because they are indie rockers and therefore "false," but I don't roll that way. Is it good? That's all I care about.

But, no, no it isn't good. The ludicrous indecision about how they should sing--you could script the band-practice decision on how "melodic" or "clean" they *should* be yourself--belies what a failure this music is at BEING the indie rock it so obviously wants to be. These vocal parts=not catchy; dress them up how you might. I mean, will anyone want to do karaoke to this? Compare, on the other hand, the final Carcass album, where the death-metal vocal stylings were barely holding-in-check a masterful and catchy hard-rock record.

In short, this is a tuneless, caterwauling emo band's idea of Iron Maiden. If you can inhabit the sonic space implied by the first part of that sentence, then perhaps this is "the year's best album." But then you have already given up the game.

Spawn of Possession; song: "Lash by Lash"

http://www.myspace.com/spawnofpossession

If I were a band, and I had a myspace... man, I would only put up my best songs! Perhaps I couldn't release a stop-to-finish great album, but my myspace page collecting the best songs from my several albums: it would be a greatest hits collection.

Spawn of Possession, however, have opted to post, for the entire world to hear for free, this kind of mediocre song. The riff is outrageously long, and a million things happen/(nothing happens) before the song gets going. But it never really gets going. Again, I suppose I am in metal bliss because some labyrinthine noodling is happening... but this is to confuse "pleasure" with "recognition." Yes, Spawn of Possession, I hear that you are playing "technical death metal"--but that information could have been emailed to me. On the other hand, if you had emailed me "we rock!"--then I would have had to go see for myself.

Do you rock? Well, by combining the most straightforward elements of heavy metal with the most unpleasant and meaningless random jig-jaggery, Spawn of Possession occasionally gets a (mental) head-bang going. But then I don't see the point of all the OTHER stuff?

Suffocation, for instance, who are heavily alluded to (ripped off) here, never throw out all their bag of tricks and just cave in to making basic thrash--Suffocation stick to their guns, and they are "fun" because they do the Suffocation thing so well. But Spawn of Possession, rightly understanding that they are boring, set aside their baffling and intricate style whenever they want to "rock." This is tedious: music should produce its interest *from* its concept/style, not on top of it, as a kind of dessert after a bland main course.

Darkthrone- Circle the Wagons

2010-03-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Even though this album continues the path Darkthrone have been taking for some time now, actually listening to it is shockingly weird. Bizarre lyrics, off-key warbling, passages of stunning brilliance, a pretty crap recording, impossible-to-read irony (?), etc.

Some day we will have to go back and hear Under a Funeral Moon and ask what was really going on there, too...

Once again, Fenriz sings the songs that he wrote, which is probably something I will never get used to. Because the Fenriz songs are always the best, you can look at this in two ways: 1) the best songs on this record are marred by his terrible, high-concept vocals; 2) because they are in a different style than the Nocturno Culto songs, you can regard the album as a "split" or a collaboration instead of a full-band work. Something like John and Yoko.

The Fenriz songs are as much punk as metal, but not really (as metallers will think) a combination of *hardcore* and metal--much less of crust and metal! Rather, just as a punk sound can be heard on the first Iron Maiden albums or in early Motorhead--thus predating hardcore--these Darkthrone songs are more Vibrators than Discharge. More Sex Pistols than World Burns to Death. They are light-hearted and tossed-off, but their goal is catchiness and they don't fail there. Even on "I am the Working Class," which does everything possible to be unlistenable...

The Nocturno Culto songs are dirge-like affairs that seem "stuck" in the Darkthrone records of the early 2000s, and they are less hilarious and less fun than Fenriz's contributions. This means: worse. But as the Engels to Fenriz's Marx, Nocturno Culto still is extremely talented and "Black Mountain Totem" is another dramatically tense composition in the vein of "Oath Minus" from the previous album. "Stylized Corpse," however, *drags.*

Even though I like this album, it is kind of a train wreck: which at least means that it really grabs your attention. What were they thinking? How can they top this? What breach of taste is about to befall me? Obviously this record was not recorded to be Dark Side of the Moon, and it is neither polished nor pruned nor self-serious.

Still, it is an "event" and the artists succeed in bending me to their will and seeing the world their way for 40 minutes. Success. I have been on a journey, if not a soulside journey.

Score: 3.5/5 (*** 1/2)

Best songs: "These Treasures Will Never Befall You," "Circle the Wagons," "Black Mountain Totem"

Burzum- Belus

2010-03-02T18:17:00.000-08:00

Burzum was never my favorite of the Norwegian black metal bands--that would be Darkthrone--but like every other fan, gossip, or rubber-necker on the internet, I was curious to hear this album. I even listened to the 30-second previews on Amazon... which in recollection was rather desperate. But now it has arrived in my iTunes, the vinyl is in the mail, etc., and it's time to say what's what.

The first song makes it seem like the last 15 years of black metal never happened (if only!)--could be an outtake from his last pre-incarceration album, Filosofem. And that's... ok. But I think we all really don't JUST want Burzum to be a Burzum clone. And the album really does open out to be much more than that. But what does it add up to? We want something game-changing. We waited long enough.

As the album unfolds, it is apparent that it is NOT game-changing... but then you realize, if we "really knew" what it took to be game-changing, then that would just be an exercise of will. To set out to reinvent everything about music--lots of artists try this, and the history of metal especially is strewn with the failures (Into the Pandemonium) that result. There are very few successes: Bathory's Hammerheart comes to mind as the great mid-career paradigm shift.

Belus is not so drastically different from earlier Burzum... but it is RADICALLY, shockingly different from the black metal of the last 15 years. The album screams, "You guys got it all wrong!"--and I am completely persuaded. Xasthur, Leviathan, Krieg, Velvet Cocoon, Nachtmystium, Wolves in the Throne Room, and legions of more obscure one-man "Burzum-influenced" bands--- all of this seems completely beside the point now.

However, this would not be the case if Belus JUST sounded like Filosofem. It is better than that album, which was limited by its high concept. Belus is, in a way, the definitive Burzum album---but to understand that statement is not to limit Burzum to a mere style. What makes this record is what makes any record: a great number of "neat parts" and compelling riffs. But what makes this album "journalistically" interesting is that it has *zero* attachment to black metal's trappings... and yet... sounds completely like Burzum. Seemingly we missed the point the first go-round.

Black metal since Burzum's last album has consistently tried to "cheat" and produce the style and dubious "kvlt" attitude of a perceived original scene. The most successful bands were the most eccentric--Vlad Tepes, Sacramentary Abolishment, later Graveland, Bone Awl--and eventually not a single person living will care about most of the last decade's basement black metal. But what we learn here is that Burzum maybe ought never to have had ANYTHING to do with all that in the first place.

There is a lot of beautiful music here to lose yourself in.

Best songs: "Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning," "Sverddans," "Keliohesten," "Morgenroede." (tracks #4-7)

Score: 4.5/5 stars (**** 1/2)

Best of the Decade in Metal

2009-12-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

The list over at Dark Legions inspired me to do my own list.

Darkthrone- F.O.A.D.

King Diamond- The Puppet Master
Satanic Warmaster- Strength and Honor
Antaeus- Cut Your Flesh and Worship Satan
Ildjarn- Nocturnal Visions & Son of the Northstar
High on Fire- Blessed Black Wings
Immortal- Sons of Northern Darkness
Axis of Advance- Strike
Emperor- Prometheus
Arsis- A Celebration of Guilt
Nifelheim- Envoy of Lucifer

Summoning- Oath Bound
Graveland- Memory and Destiny
Inquisition- Invoking the Majestic Throne of Satan
Necrophagist- Onset of Putrefaction
Nasum- Human 2.0

Nifelheim- Nifelheim

2009-12-11T07:39:00.000-08:00

Nifelheim's first album is a tribute to the 80s black metal of Bathory, Celtic Frost, Venom, Sodom, etc. In 1994, when death metal was on its last legs, and Norwegian-style black metal was still confined to Norway, this was an interesting and daring aesthetic choice. But, in 2009, does it hold any interest for us, as music? What can't be of *any* interest is how close they really get to their influences. Nonetheless, it is worth repeating here one of my maxims of criticism: it is completely insufficient to copy a band's sound from its salient elements on record; the only way to really understand a band is to listen to *their* influences. The exception to this would be the brilliance of Disclose, whose approach to Discharge was through a careful study of the Discharge influence in Sweden (Shitlickers, etc.) and subsequently, through Discharge spinoff Broken Bones. In any case, Nifelheim, like the other bands who have attempted this sound (Abigail, Countess, Megiddo), basically level the early Bathory sound into one-dimensional blasting. (Compare, on the other hand, the brilliance of Burzum's incorporation of the same sound, on the first Burzum album). It must be said that Nifelheim bring a good dose of "rock" spirit to this essentially humorless and bleak music, but the production (horrible) is working against them here, and they are sorely missing the slow bangers that Bathory wisely used to pace albums. Neither are the several guitar solos here of any interest, which is a real liability in metal. Of course, later Nifelheim would go on to great things indeed, but here they are limited to an influence which is neither developed nor properly grasped.

Score: 2.5/5 (** 1/2)

Best songs: "Sodomizer," "Possessed by Evil"

Agalloch- Ashes Against the Grain

2009-11-18T14:20:00.000-08:00

I only ever heard a couple songs off Agalloch's second album, The Mantle, so when I bought their newest CD (this) for an unbelievably cheap price from their label, I didn't "get" their new direction right away. Or, where they *were* along the line of their old direction. The band is clearly still working with their original elements, but as with any career, these have now been subjected to a more individuated creativity: most obviously, the "black metal" stylings have completely disappeared from the first album. On the other hand, the band has become MORE diffuse--instead of a concentrated blast of this "individuated creativity," what one gets is a sprawling, hour-long, meditative, slightly indulgent expression of whatever place this band is now at.

In other words, the more Agalloch become themselves, the slower and more expansive they become. Is this a good thing? It is hard to call this "metal" anymore, really--and so our criteria need to be dynamic. Stylistically, this *could* be dismissed as "metal for bro-crusters," and it IS that... but as music it is too purposive to be dismissed that way. It can be very plodding and boring--just the Agalloch "sound" stretched out, as it were--but also insanely catchy, as on "Falling Snow," which will remind careful listeners of Fripp's leads on the David Bowie song "Heroes." The lead melody just unfolds and get stuck in your head in all its different versions. Success in music is extremely hard to gauge when the piece in front of you is just ten minutes of slow chords--but when Agalloch are actively, engagingly catchy, it is easy to say, "This is working."

Not all of the album DOES work. The band is too interested in their moodiness. All the songs are 10 minutes long, which seems arbitrary and not a natural result of their creativity. They end up playing the same riff a LOT. On "Falling Snow," you are waiting around for a new musical idea for a bit too long, and when it arrives, it is only serviceable.

Note to artists: I don't need "ambient" tracks to break up the excitement. Pull a Darkthrone and put in 15 second silences in between songs, I don't care. But I can handle your profundity perfectly fine without these thought-pieces... The same thing goes for the 9 minutes of the last song, which is just intermittent guitar noise. It doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't take me anywhere. I'm not a teenager and I don't have time for this.

"Note Unlike the Winds" is very reminiscent of Bathory on the Hammerheart album, especially the clean vocals--which absolutely are effective here (not so much on "Fire Above, So Below"). A stunner.

The last 20 minutes of the album is a 3 part suite called "Our Fortress is Burning I-III" and it is unbearably pretentious. As mentioned, part III is just 7 minutes of guitar noise... part I is very quiet and mostly uneventful (no vocals)... so there is 20 minutes of music of which only about 6 is a "song."

So, there is 60 minutes of music here, of which only 45 are songs. Those are mostly successful... if a bit same-y. You get worn down a bit by the "epic" and pensive vibe crashing over you with predictable grandiose crescendos. I was disappointed by this album--the band has retreated into itself too far, and though this may appeal to "shoegaze" fans of metal, it is really just navel-gazing. A few cool parts.

Score: 2.5/5 (** 1/2) stars
Best songs: "Note unlike the Wind," "Falling Snow"

Immortal- Blizzard Beasts

2009-11-18T07:28:00.000-08:00

This is the last Immortal album with Demonaz on guitar, and their most underrated album. In some ways obviously a continuation of Battles in the North, in other ways a stylistic dead-end which they would not continue on At the Heart of Winter, Blizzard Beasts is deeply influenced by Morbid Angel; in the words of Dark Legions, "a death metal work ethic in black metal servitude to melodic conceptual songwriting." What this means is that it is much choppier; shorter phrases, much less "melodic blasting" than on Pure Holocaust. This, however, is a good solution to the band not repeating itself: thus producing what may be black metal's most intelligent album. (Compare, for example, with Darkthrone's recent (brilliant) atavism...)

Every second of this work is interesting, even if Immortal no longer offer the bracing speed and majestic fuzziness of their best albums. They keep it short (under 30 minutes), and aside from the obligatory "howling winds" intro track (1:00), it is all riffs.

Listen to "Battlefields."

At :52, there is a beautiful riff that comments and elaborates on the much starker palm-muted verse riffs just before... and THEN we are in the midst of an incredible thrashy breakdown at 1:03. It sounds easy, but unfortunately Immortal have not been able to effortlessly reproduce such moments on later works-- Damned in Black being notably deficient here.

Of course the best song here is the much-ballyhooed "Mountains of Might," which is a monument of the genre and a true journey of the soul through song. It is hard to imagine that much thought was given to the sequencing of this album other than "the goofy intro has to go first, and Mountains of Might is the... how do you say?... centerpiece." The song feels like a preview of their later epic rock/metal, what with the flange-y interludes, the pretentious ambient opening, the foreboding mid-tempo... and it is true. THIS is probably the song that Immortal have been rewriting ever since.

The next song, however, is one of their most chaotic creations, clocking in at an outrageous 2:23, in a genre where riffs are lazily cycled out for six minutes or more on average. I think I even spot a Suffocation influence in the ending, which imaginatively continues into the next song's persistent "thud."

In short, this album is full of surprises, if you pay attention, and reveals the utmost perfectionism on the band's part, and although it will never be their most acclaimed or obvious work, it is the kind of album that takes a hold in your permanent rotation and always elicits a delighted conversation when another it is discovered that another fan "knows" Blizzard Beasts.

Score: 4.5/5 (**** 1/2)

Best songs: Mountains of Might, Battlefields, Blizzard Beasts, Frostdemostorm

Amorphis- The Karelian Isthmus

2009-11-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

Amorphis were originally a Finnish death metal band, whose career progression is best summed up by this Metal Archives description of their genre: Progressive/Death/Doom Metal (early), Modern Rock/Melodic Metal (later).

The Karelian Isthmus is their first full-length, and it is in no way a "modern rock" album. And yet... Knowing what we know today, that Amorphis are wussy at heart, that they took the shortest distance between artistic integrity and the almighty dollar (or whatever the Finnish currency is), should we listen to this album differently?

The 1990s must have been a strange time for metal. In an earlier era, "selling-out" meant Celtic Frost releasing the quasi-hair metal album Cold Lake.. but at a later period bands like Opeth and Dimmu Borgir obviously felt they could "make it" while remaining within the metal underground, producing flagrantly gimmicky music. And then there are a number of bands who sit in the middle ground of this distinction. The Karelian Isthmus belongs with the first Katatonia album, Dark Funeral, At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul, and Edge of Sanity--respectable, but hopelessly cheesy and pretentious.

The problem with any excessively "melodic" metal is that, because these people aren't Mozart, everything tends to blur together after a while. This is true with all Candlemass-influenced doom metal, with all In Flames/Dark Tranquility Swedish death metal, with Iron Maiden, with Viking Metal, with the dreaded Norsecore in Black Metal, etc. etc. It becomes impossible to place any melody within a given song. Everything just becomes one stream of vaguely hummable mid-tempo. One wager of this blog is that the best metal music is that which succeeds in being endlessly "melodic" without falling into this trap. To that end, I nominate Metallica, King Diamond, Carcass, and Emperor. Obviously a number of different things are meant by "melody" in that list. I don't have time to go into it now.

Amorphis in this respect are like a shitty Bolt Thrower. Every song works, and they are easy to follow, but why it wasn't all just one big song... or why they didn't take any lessons in narrative songwriting that would modulate the mood and take us away from the endless ambience here... who knows. One of my favorite descriptors for good metal music is "endlessly inventive." Let's just say that Amorphis are NOT.

So. This is a same-y record, but it's the best one they made, and you can listen to it all the way through.

Rating: 2.5/5 (** 1/2) stars
Best songs: All the same

Pestilence- Consuming Impulse

2009-11-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

I've always wanted to like this album. The cover is cool, the title is smarter than a lot of death metal album titles, and it is precisely the thrashy, riffy Euro-metal that I love. It's not too far off from early Death, Possessed, Slayer, the first Morbid Angel, Massacra, etc. On the other hand, no one would confuse this with Sepultura, Deicide, Obituary, Incantation, Entombed, Gorguts...

So, this is fairly early (1989) death metal that has a lot of thrash elements, but also a lot of the progressive and technical aspects of thrash, such that even in its origin in an earlier style it is already moving beyond itself. This would be borne out on the next album, Testimony of the Ancients, which has keyboards and other such trappings of sophistication.

I say, "I've always wanted to like this album," because I hate the way it is recorded, and it has been in my collection for years collecting dust. The vocals cut across the guitar sound too much. It is hard to get used to. Contrast with the Cancer album Death Shall Rise, and you'll hear what--without too great a difference--is lost in the murkiness and flatness here.

Even after numerous listens, though, and with the songs all being familiar to me, it is hard to enter into the record, to give oneself over to it. Unlike many metal records which are intentionally odd or technical, and can feel like "exercises," Consuming Impulse is obviously attempting to popularize itself. I have a similar feeling about Incantation. Except with Incantation, I feel that there is something obvious that I am missing: either something dumb or high-concept. In the case of Pestilence, I see exactly what they are doing, but as though it is an action in which I cannot interfere or even sympathize. Perhaps you will know what I mean if you think of watching TV, and sitting through 20 or so minutes of a suspense film. You are not confused... you just don't care, since you will never know what happened in the first part of the film. No matter how good it is, you cannot enter into it.

Pestilence have an advantage over most death metal bands, and over most death metal listeners, in being obviously intelligent--something like the opposite of Obituary. Their riffs are uniquely arty without being jazzy or weak, and constitute their own trademark (along the lines of Slayer's famous riff style). This album is still growing on me, because I keep coming back to it, but I can't say yet that I understand how to enjoy it.

Score: 3.5/5 stars (*** 1/2)

Best songs: "Suspended Animation," "Out of the Body," "Reduced to Ashes"

Behemoth- Satanica

2009-08-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

One strange assumption made by underground bands (in all genres) is that there is a continuum of "catchiness" or "accessibility" along which they have intentionally situated themselves. A band imagines that, because they are playing Brutal Death Metal, they are closing off the "obvious" and friendly melodies that they (naturally) would be writing, if they were, say, a pop-punk band.

Nothing could be further from the truth. You see this by the boring and pedestrian albums that a band makes whenever they try to "sell out"-- surprise, surprise, they aren't as good as The Beatles, and they can write riffs which are only *so* good.

Behemoth play a very commercial, unintimidating, well-produced, image-conscious style of death metal. But despite the "obvious" pandering nature and (relative!) accessibility of this style... despite what should make this music user-friendly and "arena-sized"... despite all this, I find Behemoth to be quite forgettable and not big enough. I suspect that the calculation which led them to play in *this* style at the same time hinders the song-writing from the natural ebullience of creativity which produced, say, Metallica's Ride the Lightning, Judas Priest's Sad Wings of Destiny, or Graveland's Thousand Swords.

It may seem that I am saying the boring thing, "This lacks soul because it is so calculating." But it is rather that the calculation undoes itself... What is supposed to be huge is rather never as absurdly catchy and over-the-top as a less self-conscious band (say, Sacramentum). If this were completely "manufactured" and was still outsized and cartoonish, like the Ulver album Nattens Madrigal, I would be happier. Instead, Behemoth stop short--they make tepid, pleasant music that is neither goofy enough to be fun, nor uncompromising enough to be creative/interesting.

All that being said, there are some good riffs on this album, which is an astonishingly short 35 minutes. But because it is neither challenging nor a rockin' good time, you do not find yourself necessarily wanting more.

Score: 3.5/5 (*** 1/2)

Best songs: "Ceremony of Shiva," "Lam"

Carnage- Dark Recollections

2009-07-24T22:44:00.000-07:00

This album came out when I was 7 years old, so when I came to it much later, it had to compete with every subsequent development in music. The "importance" of a record can of course never be a substitute for a boring listening experience, and while Carnage would be important in terms of many bands that I love (Carcass, Darkthrone, Entombed), their sole album has never caught on with me.

The whole Swedish Death Metal sound has always struck me as monotonous and formulaic. While I appreciate the blending of Discharge-style hardcore with death metal, the bands in this style forego the sense of dynamics and narrative which the American death metal bands (Death and Morbid Angel especially) took over from thrash metal--in comparison with which, Entombed are a bit "same-y."

The slow pace (for death metal), the consistent and boring atmosphere, the ridiculous chainsaw guitar tone, the guitar solos that are all the same... the entire genre is distilled into this one album, but instead of (as might be the case with another record) being able to forgive the faults of an entire genre in their first instantiation, this record does not *benefit* from its unifying tendencies. Instead, I put it on and think, after a few seconds: "Oh... THIS."

One thing that might mislead listeners is that the band never slips up: every song is consistent in quality; the genre conventions are completely adhered to; as an album it might even be "well-paced"... but like a fractal in mathematics, it looks the same no matter how "close" or "far" one's attention is set. As background music, it is background music---a heavy, thundering roar. But when one really puts one's ear up to it and pays attention.... it is still a heavy, thundering, consistent roar. You can wait the entire album's length waiting for "neat parts" or for any of the record to differentiate itself.

Now, that could be a general (naive) criticism of death metal, but what I mean here is that the TEXTURE is not different from the "big picture"... unlike, say, Suffocation, where repeated listens bring out nuances *from* a general chaos, with Carnage the surface close-up is not any more rewarding than the general impression. In fact they are the same.

As a review of this CD, I should add that (like the Nihilist demos) the demo tracks appended here have a certain raw charm that has been leveled-down for the "Sunlight Studios Sound."

Score: 3/5 stars (***)

Best songs: any will do equally well

originally written for http://payingattentiontometal.blogspot.com

Suffocation- Blood Oath

2009-07-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

I sold my copy of the last Suffocation album (s/t), not because it was horrible, but because the "vibe" was really awful. I'll cite some lyrics:

Stop talking to me...
My father once told me to shut up, shut up

Do I know you?...
Where do I belong?
Shut up, shut up you...

Whereas the better style of death metal lyrics is represented by these *other* Suffocation lyrics:

The structure collapses, spewing forth mutation.
Plague bathes the earth from infected skies.
Chaotic saturation into the pores of existence.
Breeding the spawn.
Effigy awake in its mummified region.

If I can be clever about this: what makes death metal lyrics tolerable is their abstractness, lacking the I & You of rock music--because all of this is being shouted at full volume. When someone is yelling "Shut up!" or "I want to kill you!", the effect is lost, and I am snapped back into the reality that "these are sounds I would avoid having shouted at me in real life."

Since Suffocation's singer has begun to enunciate better, the decline of their lyrics into unpleasant personal rage has become distracting to the listener (i.e. one does not have to consult the lyrics sheet); I also feel that this decline is typical of the not-being-with-it that afflicts older bands.

One assertion of this blog as a whole is that one can tell whether music is good or bad--there isn't some special degree required. You put on old Suffocation--it's amazing. You put on the new Suffocation--but instead of trying to hold it up to their old sound, to look for errors, to make sure that it is "consistent,"--ask, "Is it amazing?"

And the answer is obviously that it's not. Enjoying music shouldn't have to be work.

Given the template established by previous albums, and one's "training" in the art of listening to Suffocation, one obviously will have the appearance of satisfaction... and perhaps for those experiencing the band/style for the first time, this will be a revelation. But the first few times I put this on, I was staring my eyes out of my head asking whether it was good or not. And that just shouldn't be a question; it never was a question with their devastating earlier work.

On this album, Suffocation have bounced back from the woeful uncoolness of their last record, but at best they have achieved a confusion between what *appears* to be a proficient and rewarding album, and the actual *rewards* (neat parts!) of such a record. Only for those with no need of paying attention to metal, who will be satisfied with the trappings. Paradoxically here, paying attention means: knowing what pleasure (hardly the most "attentive" state) is, apart from the "up-close" of the coherent and professional texture one is presented with.

Score: 3 stars/5 (***)

Best songs: "Images of Purgatory," "Dismal Dream"

Graveland- Following the Voice of Blood

2009-06-13T00:17:00.000-07:00

In a career of strong albums (Celtic Winter, Thousand Swords, Memory and Destiny), this is Graveland's strongest; it also has the dubious distinction of being their worst-recorded. As each subsequent album has been less adventurous than the last, Following the Voice of Blood stands as a peak in weirdness and is distinctive within their catalog.

To begin with, the guitar tone is an unprecedented (in metal!) combination of an over-the-top flange effect with jangly light distortion. There is no "crunch" to the sound, and (I can't speak very technically about this) the strings can all be heard individually during the fast strumming. Suffice to say, this produces a weird "underwater" sound which does not at all cohere during the fast parts, and is off-putting to most metal ears. Combined with drummer Capricornus' unique sense of timing, the execution of these songs is a real disaster: they won't be winning over casual listeners with this one.

As a student of Graveland, I can say that their albums are always sequenced impeccably. This is true here. The album opens with the obligatory synth intro, and "White Hand's Power" is the shortest full song on the album, at 8:33. It holds your attention, but things really get going with the incoherent blasting of "Thurisaz," which is the next logical step in minimalism from Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger release: the only thing similar that comes to mind is Veles' Black Hateful Metal, which takes this minimalism to its high concept extreme (with similarly flanged-out weird production).

Now, normally, the fast parts are not a Graveland strength--and after this album, they basically give up on blast-beats in drumming, to concentrate on a more "epic" Bathory style; which is why you *cannot* miss out on this album: the fast riffs played here match anything on Pure Holocaust or Transilvanian Hunger. I'm thinking especially of "Thurisaz," "And the Horn was Sounding Far Away," and "Fed by Beasts." Of course, all the other trappings of a Graveland album are here, too, but what makes Following the Voice of Blood the best Graveland album is the slurred, clumsy melodies cited above.

It's easy to see why this bizarre, horrible-sounding, folky, inept, jangly, non-Satanic-themed release did not become the future of metal. Not that it is so brainy or avant-garde, but the extremely enjoyable melodies and songs here are buried underneath every contingent "turn-off," and is completely lacking in those qualities which make extreme metal appealing to teenage boys.

Score: 5/5 stars (*****)
Best songs: "Thurisaz," "And the Horn was Sounding Far Away," "Fed by Beasts"

the DVD that comes with Incantation- Onward to Golgotha

2009-05-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

"Why didn't they release this DVD separately? Why does it come free with the CD?"

Because it sucks.

This DVD is interesting mainly as an FAQ: Did anyone attend Incantation shows? No. How did they dress? Always the same. Did they move around a lot while playing? No. Do the band members ever even look at each other? No.

Incantation's first two studio albums both suffer from cavernous, obscure recordings, so in theory a live performance would cut through any questions of sound quality, and capture the songs in their intensity and as-executed: there is always something artificial about death metal albums. And these 3 performances do all that, to some degree--but with the qualification that the videos here are essentially unwatchable and also unlistenable. They are all single-source VHS recordings, so the sound is very scrunched together, blown-out, and far from the impact any death metal band aims for in a performance. The best is the "Flashes" show, which is shot from a higher vantage point, and the guitar and drums can be discerned reasonably well (vocals muffled).

But, complain about this as I may, it really isn't about the sound quality or the performance style. At heart, I don't think I like or understand Incantation. I don't "get" it. Are they too cerebral? I hate to admit it, but this might be the case. They don't make it easy for me: lots of changes, atonal solos, few choruses, more "doomy" parts than breakdowns, completely unpleasant but generic vocals. Like Obituary, Incantation seem to have missed out on the original intensity of metal: the quality of up-tempo rock that Metallica have in common with the MC5. Incantation never "rock," no matter how fast they play.

If you want to see a few really ugly guys standing on a stage making barely audible, complicated, uncatchy music that makes Deicide seem extremely charming-- this is for you.

Darkthrone- Dark Thrones and Black Flags

2009-05-18T22:33:00.001-07:00

Here's a band that GETS IT. Killer riffs, memorable and distinct songs, nothing superfluous or "experimental," totally unique, full of personality and humor, steeped in metal history, and just a kick ass rock record. Darkthrone has made a career of making things look easy, even to the point of pretending to be far less talented musicians than they really are. That continues here, as this record is to all appearances a throwaway.

The days of Blaze in the Northern Sky, Under a Funeral Moon, and Transilvanian Hunger are long over-- this was signaled by the deeply retro stylings of Panzerfaust, and its incredible theatrical irony. One may read this back into the more "serious" albums as one likes. Panzerfaust is a triumph, but it is only with Hate Them that Darkthrone got back on its feet (after three decent but irrelevant albums)--and each subsequent record has been more of a murky, ramshackle, half-serious punk album.

The deadly boring "cult" current black metal fans-- and by the way guys, give it up, it's SO over-- having given way to shitty indie rock fans-- and by the way guys, give it up, you are unquestionably late for anything interesting in black metal-- these demographics will never understand the new direction of Darkthrone, because this album has zero in common with "black metal" and only strives to entertain and throw a bunch of neat parts at you. None of the depressive bedroom emo (Xasthur) which passes for black metal these days.

What I love most about this record is... the great riffs. But what I love second most is the feeling of "fun" that they must have had, and succeed in communicating through music--the last thing one expects from this genre in 2009. And so it easily ranks with the great albums by Venom or Bathory: thus miraculously reinventing and reinvigorating black metal by avoiding all the calcified trappings of its current sorry state.

Score: 4.5/5 stars (**** 1/2)

Best songs: "The Winds they call the Dungeon Shaker," "Oath Minus," "Hanging out in Haiger"

Origin- Antithesis

2009-05-05T17:29:00.001-07:00

Origin's third album of "brutal technical death metal" is a completely repellant, back-to-the-audience version of death metal. This record makes Deicide seem warm and cuddly. Everything from the sci-fi aesthetics, to the pretentious album title + song titles + lyrics, can be seen as a subtraction from death metal of its most "human" elements: juvenile, offensive Satanism (a "humanistic" philosophy) and/or gore (humanity reduced to gooey anatomy).

Origin seem like they've never heard of PEOPLE. This extends to you, the record-purchaser. The only conception of a listener to be found here is a weak human set of ears to be demolished by the brutal technical etc. of these musicians.

On the other hand, destroy, pummel, annihilate, barrage, level, obliterate--they do this quite well. I don't know if this is the heaviest, most brutal music I've ever heard, but it certainly is an unrelenting and shockingly aggressive siege on sensitive ears. It is also worth praising the band for their robot-like aesthetic: this certainly spares us many of the aesthetic trends which pervade modern death metal, and is at the same time a "serious" take on the genre which I can get behind.

There is one surprising/weird thing about this album: as "technical" and riff-salad as it can be, a lot of times you find yourself thinking, "Gosh, they've been playing this riff for a *while* now..." Which should not happen in any music, but it shouldn't even be possible in this genre. I mean, do Cryptopsy ever even play the same riff twice?

In summary, this band has a couple other albums. Normally, if I'm crazy about something new, I go out and buy everything else a band has released. But this is still the only Origin album I have. It's gotten a lot of plays chez moi, but music this brain-meltingly aggressive should "add up" to something else. Origin is just good enough to avoid becoming background noise, which puts them ahead of the rest of the pack, but still behind more interesting bands. Worth checking out.

Score: 3 stars/5 (***)

Best songs: "Antithesis," "Aftermath," "The Beyond Within"

Worst "Deathcore" Band Names

2009-03-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

If you aren't familiar with the term "deathcore," you haven't been reading metal-archives.com. This is the catch-all phrase for every post-emo "haircut" band who have graduated from "melodic" At the Gates- cloning to a "brutal" combination of the most boring qualities of death metal (cannibal corpse) with the breakdowns and attitude of metalcore (itself a nauseating byproduct of hardcore). Anyways, it is 99% likely that anyone who has recommended "this really great new band... i've been into death metal a lot lately" has been recommending some variation on either emo-grind (Daughters) or hipster tech-metal (Orthrelm) OR finally, deathcore (The Red Chord, reviewed on pitchfork, but obviously see below this entire post for more names).

Anyways, to me this music is obviously "music to annoy your parents" and to get shitty tattoos to, but I am thankful for this genre for its wonderful band names. Only the best selection below

A King's Worthy Mustache
All the Heathers Are Dying
And Their Eyes Were Bloodshot
Annotations of an Autopsy
As This Body, I Exist
Burying Ann Hewitt
Giddy Up Gangsta
Hang the Wench
Her Demise, My Rise
I Don't Want to Die in Texas
I Wrestled a Bear Once
Job for a Cowboy
Kids Will Be Skeletons
My Virgin Eyes
No Penguins in Alaska (logo has to be seen to be believed!)
School Girl Knife Fight
Sever the Head of Potemkin
She is a Liar
Surcease Angels
The Boy Will Drown
The Hacksaw Circumcision (Well done, guys)
The New Tony Bennett
The Texas Chainsaw Mascara
They Found Her in Pieces
To Envy the Horrid

Let me just say, NONE of this attitude existed when I was 18. There was "ironic metal," to be sure, but there was no "ironic death metal," and while I'm glad to see that metal is no longer just the domain of longhairs, I can't say that I understand kids today.

Favorite Death Metal song of the moment

2009-03-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

Immolation "Nailed to Gold" off their second album

Especially the chorus riff, but especially the guitar solo.

Upcoming Posts

2009-03-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

Gorguts- Considered Dead

Pestilence- Testimony of the Ancients

Incantation- Onward to Golgotha

Necrophagist- Epitaph

Origin- Antithesis

stay tuned in!

Suffocation- Despise the Sun

2009-03-12T18:57:00.001-07:00

As good as Suffocation is, their entire sound is so close to being just a trick of production, that it's hard to think of their discography as other than a string of predictably great, monolithic works, with every deviation an "unwise" one. Unpredictable on the micro level, Suffocation is highly predictable on the macro level. Stick to what you know!

Even today Suffocation, playing basically in the same style as when they first started, seem impossibly futuristic and brutal--almost "high-tech" or bionic in their approach to blasting super-heavy death metal. Despise the Sun is their 1998 CD EP, after which the band went on hiatus until 2004's Souls To Deny, which picked up in exactly the same place.

Ok, so the entire point of this blog is to distinguish between similar-sounding releases, and to find what is essential about Suffocation *aside from* their distinctive sound. Meaning, anyone can tell you what this band is all about after 45 seconds... and so that reaction is hardly worth writing.

The great virtue of this band is the organicity of their countless part-changes. Whereas many bands pride themselves on the dizzying start-stop technicality of their riff salad songwriting, Suffocation go one better: they make the complicated arrangements seem natural rather than affected.

Despise the Sun presents a very stripped-down version of Suffocation: two songs under three minutes, no song longer than four minutes (whereas many of the songs on Pierced From Within are over five minutes, and *none* shorter than four). The songs are therefore easier to follow, and they have cut down on guitar solos. What a lot of people probably don't know about death metal is how boring and part-filled it can be. By "part" I mean "one part after another"--the feeling of, "when will this end?" Despise the Sun has absolutely zero of this--it's completely engaging for the whole 16 minutes. The band never tries to bring any "attitude" or "concept" to the proceedings, which is a great relief in 2009, when every band has to be into Egyptian or Babylonian or Gaelic mythologies... yawn. Suffocation just want to rock here, and by keeping it lean and unpretentious, they produce what in sports broadcasting is called 'a clinic'--they make it look easy, and everyone else looks like chumps.

What makes death metal shitty is inevitably the following things:

ambient tracks
emo lyrics
imagery moved to the forefront
mixing of sub-genres ("blackened death," "deathrash," "deathcore," "deathgrind")
Cannibal Corpse syndrome: lyrical shock value a crutch
using the same musical devices too often
slow

Suffocation avoid every trap here, and it's a brief and enjoyable triumph. Start elsewhere with this band, but...y'know... cherish this one.

Score: 4/5 stars (****)

Best songs: Bloodchurn, Catatonia

Necrophagist- Onset of Putrefaction

2009-03-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

I'm glad that I am first hearing this album when I am 25 years old. This is the most outrageously "technical" death metal I've heard, and of course it is almost laughable in the number of changes, squeals, odd rhythms, and sheer quantity of PARTS in a given song--it is quite a stretch to include this in the same genre as Scream Bloody Gore, Horrified, Reek of Putrefaction, etc. Almost all of the early death metal classics are very simple, whereas this *very* late iteration is a one-person blender, with no possibility for toe-tapping, and likely to be derided as "masturbatory" by everyone who is not an aspiring youtube guitar hero himself.

But let me pose the question otherwise: let's not come down on the "technicality" issue just yet; rather, is this record enjoyable to listen to? does it grow on you? It's best not to approach music with genre-blinders on ("Oh, it's too 'technical' for me.")

First off, this is ridiculous fun--if Cannibal Corpse was too repetitive for any but the most attention-starved 14 year old, this is all the enjoyable shock and kitsch of Cannibal Corpse, dressed up as real music--and what music! Every riff is embellished, every stop/start part operates in stereo, nothing is played the same twice. It's impossible to follow, of course, but unlike Cannibal Corpse it is never boring.

Secondly, by taking death metal to this "extreme," somehow the music has lost all the raw aggression, heaviness, intensity, et al, of extreme metal--vocals and tempos aside, this could almost be new age ambient sounds... in a manner of speaking. For die-hard old school fans, this will be a major drawback, but it is what it is. This music's not hard. After a few listens, there is nothing "sick" or "crazy" about it.

Thirdly, it's completely addictive. I've listened to this record 4 times today already--whether one can burn out on it or not, we'll see, but it's full of neat parts and a lot of it is really standout.

Any discourse about "needless wankery," "music for robots," "no soul," "not catchy," "too technical," "actually not that hard to play"--really fall by the wayside when you approach this album the right way. It's fun and quite addictive. Strangely this band has found a kind of popularity by playing this absurd style, and who's to say that I am not missing some authentic core, but if a band is "pandering" by writing three million cool little parts, that is the particular kind of condescension that doesn't bother me.

Score: 4/5 stars (****)

Best songs: "Mutilate the Stillborn," "Fermented Offal Discharge"

5 Star Albums

2009-02-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

Without treading too heavily on the obvious, it's worth remarking on and appreciating the true classics, and reminding ourselves that YES, Ride the Lightning is 10 million times better than some inaudible black metal demo. This list does not pretend to be complete.

Metallica- Kill 'Em All

Metallica- Ride the Lightning

Possessed- Seven Churches

Slayer- Show No Mercy

Slayer- Reign in Blood

Darkthrone- Panzerfaust

Morbid Angel- Altars of Madness

Morbid Angel- Blessed are the Sick

Exodus- Bonded by Blood

Death- Sound of Perseverance

Entombed- Wolverine Blues

Graveland- Following the Voice of Blood

Bathory- Blood Fire Death

Mercyful Fate- Don't Break the Oath

Mercyful Fate- Melissa

Immortal- Pure Holocaust

Beherit- Oath of Black Blood

Carcass- Symphonies of Sickness

Dark Angel- Darkness Descends

Terrorizer- World Downfall

Morbid Angel- Blessed are the Sick

2009-02-24T21:06:00.000-08:00

Morbid Angel's Blessed are the Sick is so far and away my favorite death metal album that it's almost easier to take this as a "given" and start top 10 lists with records that are less "duh." I mean, Blessed are the Sick is to death metal what Moby-Dick is to seafaring tales.

I have sometimes said that what makes Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and GangStarr's Daily Operations such successful records is that they really take down the tempo, so that everything can be taken in and absorbed by the listener. Now, death metal really has this problem: it tends to become a 45-minute blur. Sadly, the subgenre of "doom death" only makes things worse somehow--nothing is LESS memorable than really slow, plodding death metal where chords are left to ring for minutes on end.

Anyways, without slowing down at all, Morbid Angel's Blessed are the Sick achieves all the "legibility" of Kind of Blue or GangStarr. What other extreme metal records achieve this? I can think only of the first Celtic Frost record, and perhaps the Mayhem LP. The music is very immediate, and although heavy/fast, is so gripping that all the parts have a very distinct identity and purpose. A main factor here is the audible lyrics, which are not too embarrassing, and the killer production--certainly the only Morbid Angel record of the first three where the drums have any bite.

Speaking of doom death, Blessed are the Sick not only preempts that concept, but it invents and perfects it almost as a side note here--especially songs like the title track and "Rebel Lands." For me, "Fall from Grace" and "Thy Kingdom Come" sum up everything that was great about the first album, Altars of Madness, so neatly, that the rest of the record has permission from me to be slow or groovy or just be piano or spanish guitar... as much as it likes. Take "Abominations" for instance--basically this is rap metal/mosh metal--but in the sequencing of the album, it is this astonishing riff fest that you can't believe they still have in the bag so late in the album. And the last song, "The Ancient Ones" is even catchier (and bears a certain resemblance to the next album's "Angel of Disease"). Of course, the band makes all this look very easy, even though every single riff is identifiably a Morbid Angel riff: tonally unique and exotically liquid.

In short, Blessed Are the Sick makes all other death metal seem monotonous and self-serious, while itself being simultaneously the heaviest, the most out-there, and the most fun record in the genre. It's not even possible to imagine a better record, because my imagination stops short at very consistent and stellar albums like Legion or Cause of Death--whereas Blessed Are the Sick is a real flight of the imagination. Highest praise. One for the ages.

Score: 5/5 stars (*****)

Best songs: "Fall from Grace," "Ancient Ones," "Brainstorm," "Thy Kingdom Come," "Abominations"

Death- Scream Bloody Gore

2009-02-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

Overrated. While Death were among the greatest metal bands, and while this album is marked everywhere *as* a Death album--even at this early stage--it is unremarkable (at this historical moment) and almost a chore to listen to.

The problem with Death's career is that their early albums don't have a lot of personality: Spiritual Healing versus Leprosy versus Human, etc.--they are all about the same, in sound and production. While these may have been landmark releases when they came out individually ("A new Death album! Sick!"), time has leveled out these differences and what remains to those who do-not-pay-attention-to-metal is the following:

1) Death were the original death metal band. Ergo, there must be something "extreme" (fast, heavy, crazy) about them.

2) Death eventually became a proggy jazz-metal band, embodying all that is "uncool" about metal.

3) Death's career therefore has two poles, an early, juvenile inventing-death-metal pole--best accessed on their first album--and a later, prog pole--best NOT heard on their last album.

This is how fans ruin things. My #1 rule for music: take each album separately. The final Death album, Sound of Perseverence, is actually quite accessible (as indicated by the astonishingly powerful Judas Priest cover, "Painkiller"), while it is their penultimate record, Symbolic, which stretches the pretentious prog elements furthest. On the other end of things, the first few Death records are fairly interchangeable with one another, and there is no reason to value Scream Bloody Gore over its immediate successors, except that the album cover and title are the coolest. People who talk about music, but don't listen to it closely enough, feeling the need to say which *kind* of metal fan they are, are apt to overstate and misrepresent every nuance of the Death catalog. My opinion: their best records skip around, with the 2nd album Leprosy being quite good, and then the 5th, Individual Thought Patterns (featuring King Diamond guitarist Andy LaRoque!), and then the 7th, Sounds of Perseverance.

You would only know this, of course, if you paid attention to the quality of songs, rather than facing an album initially with the idea of what kind of fan YOU are. If one is utterly committed to LOVING bone-dry production, simple "primitive" riffs, and a "straight-forward" post-thrash vibe--then honestly, why even listen to music? Or, why not just pretend to like Possessed's Seven Churches instead? On the other hand, for the discerning listener, there is much to take away here.

This album dates from 1987, but many of the songs evidently go back to numerous demos starting in 1984, so that "Death Metal" in some ways predates the definitive thrash bands like Kreator or Exodus... On the other hand, though, by 1989, Death's early style would be completely superseded by Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness album, itself superseded by the Blessed are the Sick album (1991) and Deicide's Legion (1992). So the "heaviosity" here can only be historically relative, which (I hope) is not a reason anyone listens to music: "Wow, this *must have been* so good, once!"

In my opinion, extreme metal quickly devolves into a race to be the *most* something or other: most technical, most evil, most kvlt, etc. And so, once some record is not "this year's model," it sounds not only simplistic, friendly, and mainstream in comparison, but because the band neglected to write songs in the first place, also boring and tepid. While Death did become immediately outdated, Chuck did write some excellent tunes here, and taken one-by-one the conviction of these songs and the superb guitar-solos are fine indeed. But the album as a whole is a bit dreary and unpleasant--lacking the catchiness of Possessed and also of, say, Spiritual Healing.

In every sense, this record is a must-own for self-respecting metal fans, and despite what I've said it really is a classic of early death metal. However, it is also dated, and not among the band's best works, which is saying more about the excellence of Death than it is pointing to the shortcomings of this work.

Score: 3.5/5 stars (*** 1/2)

Best songs: "Regurgitated Guts," "Evil Dead"

Emperor- Emperial Live Ceremony

2009-02-20T11:40:00.000-08:00

Emperor were not only a great band, but also great self-promoters, and they obviously had a keen eye for trends and for what innovations metal would be receptive to in the 1990s. Initially playing death metal (as Thou Shalt Suffer) and then switching to ultra-primitive black metal, Emperor partook in all the publicity-stunts of early Norwegian black metal: church burnings, corpse paint, murder, "serious" Satanism, etc. Their music's evolution was uncannily prescient, as well: the over-use of keyboards and pretentious "atmosphere," as well as a the "symphonic" death metal they were playing at the end of their career--none of this was accidental.

That sounds very skeptical, but I feel that Emperor were true musical geniuses who would have flourished in any genre. "We" were lucky that they happened to make some black metal records, because their vision in black metal was both unique and deeply, individually expressive. One can ask with all seriousness, where would the genre be without Emperor? Like few other bands, music seems to be the "first language" of its members. On the other hand, Emperor's second language has to be self-presentation.

For a band without any "hits," a set-list is somewhat arbitrary. Some tracks in extreme metal are obvious standouts, but albums tend to be conceived as albums, rather than as having singles mixed in with filler. It is the mark of a better-than-average extreme metal band if they even HAVE recognizable individual songs. "Oh, I love *this* one!" is high praise for black metal or death metal.

Emperor, however, have been suspiciously clever in picking their set-list for this live album. They include songs from all their albums (to date, this being recorded before Prometheus), but I think the selection is itself an *interpretation* of their career, one which I disagree with. For instance, the song from the Enslaved split, "Night of the Graveless Souls," is a great song, but the one in which keyboards feature most prominently. "Inno A Satana" from In the Nightside Eclipse, again a great song, is the song off that album that introduces "clean" singing to Emperor, a feature much taken up later in their career. It might be coincidence that these forward-looking songs were chosen, but only "I am the Black Wizards" seems the truly obvious choice made off those records.

The two later albums represented here, Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk and IX Equilibrium, seem much "moreso" in the context of each other and of *these* particular early songs. That is to say, the whole effect of the album, excepting the primitive "Black Wizards" and "Graveless Souls," is to make one view Emperor from In the Nightside Eclipse to IX Equilibrium as of a piece--consistent in their sound and development. This is an interesting effect, but it is also a fantasy.

However, this record also demonstrates a point I have always argued: that music is itself an interpretation OF music; of a band's influences, or of their own discography. The best/worst example of this is the Ramones Phil Spector album End of the Century: interpreting the Ramones as the Ronettes-meets-punk act that critics (then and now) have always insisted upon. It's a disaster and yet definitely an interpretation of the earlier Ramones records, which it attempts to emphasize in all the wrong ways. Here, the vast creativity of Emperor is re-interpreted on its "progressive" basis, much to its detriment.

What does the album sound like? A bunch of very well-executed songs, excellent sound (much better than the early album), hundreds of "neat parts," and very little in the way of banter. If you are like me, you already own this because it came in the Emperor vinyl box set, and you never listen to it. The main effect is to make Anthems seem like an inferior, noodly "later" work, more akin to IX Equilibrium than to its predecessor. That is not my "standard" position on that album, but this live record is definitely the best evidence for this view.

Score: 3/5 stars (***)

Best songs: (relative to their album version) "Inno a Satana," "With Strength I Burn"

Emperor- IX Equilibrium

2009-02-12T06:50:00.000-08:00

Emperor's career is, like Carcass', a gradual transformation from an extremely raw early sound into a rather polished and different entity, though always maintaining quality. To push the analogy further, though, both bands seemed to hit a glitch on their penultimate albums--as though it were difficult to "push through" to the final stage, and a problematic genre-bridge needed to be thrown up first. So, Heartwork and this album are my least favorite from these bands.

Far more "technical" and "death metal" than the previous Emperor, but still retaining some of the black metal atmosphere which would be gone by Prometheus, IX Equilibrium is (as far as I can tell) no one's favorite Emperor record, even die-hard fans of their "sunglasses era." For music listeners who are incapable of telling whether a record is good or bad, once it falls into their preferred genre, IX Equilibrium is long and boring enough where even the most blockheaded "symphonic metal fan" will find themselves scratching their ponytailed head and wondering what is not right here.

I imagine the conversation going something like this: "I *like* keyboards, and pretentious lyrics, and 'clean' vocals, and noodly guitar lines that go nowhere... and yet... this leaves me cold!" As though what made Beethoven great was his "symphonic" style! Leaving aside the idiocy of metal fans, though, IX Equilibrium's main problem is that it is one of the least aggressive metal albums in existence: neither fast nor furious, the album forces the listener to endure a great number of *parts* without remembering that we are here to rock!! Now, there's no problem with wussy parts and even entirely wussy albums, but in a style ("symphonic" technical death/black metal?!) that is premised on aggression, these weak parts are accustomed to being written and performed as interludes, mood-settings, and are essentially filler. All pretentious black metal (not Darkthrone, though!) has felt the need for boring ambient or orchestral parts--whatever. But to raise this element to the level of one's metal style (as here), is to dilute the music and to bore me.

Later Emperor succeeds when it is most like Morbid Angel's Blessed are the Sick, and is poorest when it is diddling around with keyboards and mid-tempo prog riffs. If the barest inclusion of a mid-tempo prog riff sets your heart a-pattering, then you may overlook the pointlessness of this album as a whole. But from a holistic standpoint, and from the standpoint of repeated listens over the past 7 years, IX Equilibrium is easily Emperor's worst album, and I blame this on "too many parts" and ambitions that fall into mere pretentiousness. This is evident on a first listen and does not improve with further acquaintance.

Score: 2/5 stars (**)

Best songs: "Curse You All Men" is the best song by far

Darkthrone- Soulside Journey

2009-02-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

This is a hard album to review, because while Darkthrone are one of my favorite bands, this is THE album they had to repudiate in order to become great. That doesn't mean that it is flawed on its own terms, but I think it was a stroke of genius for Darkthrone to realize that churning out contemporary Swedish Death Metal was a dead-end, and that the first wave of black metal (Bathory, Celtic Frost) was not yet conceptually exhausted, but needed to be retrieved as a living aesthetic.

Soulside Journey is revelatory for a few reasons: the outstanding production, Fenriz's technical drumming abilities, Nocturno Culto here going by his given name (Ted), and the generally "Swedish" sound of things--all of this would go out the window immediately with their next album, the ugly, ugly A Blaze in the Northern Sky. (Although, weirdly, they kept the same logo.) Overall this album is similar to the early At the Gates sound, but less interesting and a bit "doomier" (I use this term against my will). They try to keep it interesting, but there generally is not much going on, and it is too straight-forward for my tastes. If you are considerably more of an Entombed fan than I (it's possible!), this might be just the thing for you.

It could be less boring, and the first song is by far the best, but there is a place in the world for this album and its handful of cool parts. But what one most misses in this early work is the nihilistic irony that really make Darkthrone the great band we know and love.

Score: 3 stars/5 (***)

Best songs: "Cromlech," "Soulside Journey," "Sempiternal Sepulchrality" (bass solo!)

Countess- Heilig Vuur

2009-01-30T20:49:00.000-08:00

This is a one-man old-school black metal band from Holland. I heard about them ~7 years ago, reading the old LARM metal reviews website, and they (he) have gained a cult following with a self-proclaimed "Orthodox Black Metal" style. In what does this consist? Well, like label-mates Megiddo, the entire (and noble) aim is at the second and third Bathory albums. The production is obviously "cheap" and shitty but not "raw"--which is clever; while this production does not SOUND like the second and third Bathory albums, to fetishistically recreate that sound would be to misinterpret Bathory in a superficial "kult" way. Thankfully, Countess is smarter than that.

Unfortunately, the entire pleasure of Bathory's career arc--"Wow, this guy is surprisingly musical, even within his limitations!"--is negated by Countess's total lack of musicality. Listen closely: it is HORRIBLE. Weirdly, I like this record better than a lot of other stuff, because it is intellectually commendable, and also has a very "punk" quality that I can get behind--but even as tone-deaf and non-knowledgeable about music as I am, something is not quite right here. Like a highly-functional illiterate, Countess is good at hiding this lack of musicality, but it comes out especially in the painfully bad guitar solos.

The best metal bands--Judas Priest, Metallica, Burzum--are shockingly musical: their imaginations paint in melodies and harmonies that are astonishing and illuminating. Countess is just BAD. There's a lot to admire here, in terms of "the problem of nowadays black metal," but once you realize that music is really not a "first language" for Countess, it just sucks. Sorry.

Score: 1 star/ 5 (*)

Best songs: these songs when they were on "The Return..." and "Under the Sign..."

At the Gates- Gardens of Grief

2009-01-15T18:34:00.001-08:00

Obviously At the Gates are most famous (now) for their album Slaughter of the Soul, but in 2009, we can begin to rewrite history, and assign value to what is lasting, rather than ephemeral and commercial/disposable. The point being here, not that Slaughter of the Soul is a "sell-out" album which is "too poppy," but that only a few of the songs are memorable, that the "trick" gets tiresome fairly quickly, and that the style is indeed a trick and not brilliance.

But the band begins here, on the Gardens of Grief EP, which is unrecognizable as the same group, although an initial listen will try to find the later band within the earlier sound, automatically. However that may be, what you get here is more or less a very "artsy" Entombed, very complicated, not at all immediate, and wildly inventive: basically the opposite of Slaughter of the Soul, which is (whatever else it may be) NOT a dumbed-down version of *this*.

The difference between Entombed and this, though, is the real absence of any hardcore (Discharge) influence--ironic because two members of At the Gates would later play in Discharge-worship band Skitsystem. Rather, the music is very start/stop, jazzy, and never propulsive over an unchanging beat like Entombed or Discharge. To say the least, there are a TON of "parts" here, and it is obvious even on this first record that the band would be a leader in the Swedish death metal scene, since they take the Entombed heaviness and take it in three thousand different directions in these four songs. It's almost close to Demilich or Atheist, in some ways.

These songs don't sear themselves into your memory, and the band's full-lengths are the real place to go, but this is a neat little disc that repays all the time put into it.

Score: 3 stars/5 (***)

Best songs: "City of Screaming Statues," "At the Gates"

Veles- Black Hateful Metal

2009-01-14T21:52:00.002-08:00

Was having a conversation with a friend earlier, in which I declared that I was not going to buy records below a certain level in any given genre. For metal, the dividing line is probably Dismember's Like an Ever Flowing Stream. If every metal record I buy is better than Like an Ever Flowing Stream, I'll be happy. If an album is worse than that, it doesn't mean it is "bad," but it will eventually be superfluous.

Demonstration: for hundreds of years, Roman literature was the greatest in the world, and yet only one great Latin epic is still read: Virgil's Aeneid. Hardly anyone reads Lucan's Pharsalia (The Civil War), a verse epic of Caesar's war with Pompey. Posterity has an immense flattening effect. But Lucan, I assure you, is not "overlooked." It's just that, none of us are friends with Lucan, no one is going to get laid by reading Lucan on the subway, etc. It's in the public domain, and not "rare."

This is how all subsequent music that is not, let's say, The Beatles, will look in 500 years. Miles Davis, Black Sabbath, and Philip Glass will all be Lucans to the Beatles' Virgil. Conclusion: there is no need to be sentimental about what is TRULY mediocre, namely the stuff that is far below The Beatles, far below Black Sabbath, far below Morbid Angel, the truly 10th-tier music that we spend most of our time listening to, recommending, and watching live. If you like Morbid Angel, obviously you should check out Deicide, and if you like Deicide, there's an entire rabbit-hole to go down... But there needs to be a line drawn long *ahead* of concepts like "proficiency" or "good for the style"--if we are to have any time or money or headspace for truly worthy art.

Veles' Black Hateful Metal is definitely on the other side of that line. This is a very curious album, but far from essential. At one point in time, I would have praised it for being "raw," "avant-garde," "unique," "truly innovative," "a worthy successor to Graveland's Following the Voice of Blood, a personal favorite of mine," and "a step in the right direction for black metal." It IS all of those things, to be sure, but it is also unlistenable, which trumps all other argument. And, it can't really be considered a metal record, since virtually any electric rock or blues record is "heavier" than Black Hateful Metal.

This is extremely simple black metal, very fuzzed-out, and Graveland-influenced. The melodies are very pretty and there is no attempt at technicality or an "epic" vibe. The drums are almost inaudible, and I don't think they could swing a bass-player for this session. Seemingly no attention has been paid to sequencing, after the first song (an instrumental by Graveland's Darken). Songs stop for no reason to allow pointless instrumental meandering, and then start up again mid-blastbeat. There is a true sub-demo quality, almost like a rehearsal tape, that leaves one thinking, "This would be cool if they entered the studio and put this down properly." Sadly, in the pretentious KVLT delirium of the black metal scene, that did not happen, and so Veles are poorly represented--their own fault.

Everything that a fanboy would say about this record: avant-garde, astonishingly raw, path-breaking, etc., all of that is true, and black metal would have done much better to have pursued this highly-melodic path, with no idea of aggressiveness or spooky satanic sounds... but the same point is made on Graveland's stellar Following the Voice of Blood. This album is a neat artifact, and certainly not generic, but in a genre over-given to excessive and pretentious "raw" recordings, this is an ugly extreme.

On a brighter side, the CD of Black Hateful Metal also contains a superbly-recorded demo, The Triumph of Pagan Beliefs. For sequencing purposes, this has the unfortunate consequence that you have to listen to a superfluous ambient OUTRO to the album, and then a superfluous ambient INTRO to the demo, but... once it starts, it is superb, really great black metal in the style of early Emperor. The difference between these recordings is jarring, because the riffs are not *so very* different, but everything (even a bass!) is audible... the channels are even separated. For fans of early Emperor or Graveland's The Celtic Winter.

In summary, this is an interesting document of a cool Polish metal group going off the deep-end, while somehow never leaving the Graveland playing-grounds. They earn points with me for taking their musical vision to its extremes, but the result is a complete wreck. One would do better to buy this CD than virtually any nowadays kvlt black metal, but that advice will go overlooked by teenagers everywhere out for image & parent-offending noize foremost over the strange pleasures afforded here.

Score: 2 stars/ 5 (**)

Best songs: "The Dawn of New Empire," "The Majesty of War" (Demo)

Behemoth- Demigod

2009-01-13T19:56:00.000-08:00

So, I saw this band live once, opening for Danzig, and they were just horrible... embarrassing makeup and costumes, ludicrous "spooky" music playing before they came onstage, and drums triggered as much as drums can possibly be triggered. If they had been lip-syncing, it really wouldn't have made much of a difference. It sucked. But that is true of most every big death metal band I've seen (especially Morbid Angel).

So, on one hand, Behemoth are about as cool and "real" to me as Cradle of Filth--viz., not at all. On the other hand, their sound is instantly recognizable, which makes no sense, because all death metal bands sound the same. Well, for some reason, Behemoth really have their own thing going, a unique style they keep up even at the fastest speeds, and without wussing-out ever. (Nile might also be said to have a unique death metal style, but... that seems mostly to consist in flutes and gongs. I'll have a Nile review up soon.)

The most instantly-appreciable aspect of any extreme metal album is its production, and Behemoth depart from most death metal in not turning their guitar sound into the sound of a garbage-truck passing by in the night (Entombed), or the logical next step, turning the entire record into that sound (Nile). On one hand, I appreciate that Behemoth don't try to accomplish the entire effect of their album with the production--here it is audible, clear, unintimidating--but on the other hand, having grown accustomed to metal production, I think this could be heavier... In any case, nothing about the production lets the music "jump out," and it may be over-polished while allowing everything to be heard. But don't be ridiculous: in the finest tradition of metal, of course you can't hear the bassist!

I've listened to this album more than most nowadays death metal that comes my way, and there is some negative praise to lavish upon it: "thankfully devoid of metalcore," "not too long," "the embarrassing art and image don't contaminate the music," etc. But that is not the goal of this blog!

What is "mood" in death metal? Usually this only comes out in intros, solos, and other parts reserved especially for melody. Mood can exist outside of melody--irrational and angry moods--but our idea of mood in music is some combination of tempo, harmony, melody, and tone. All of black metal is arguably an exercise in mood. Death metal is not a "moody" genre, but Behemoth HAVE a mood: austere mystery; aloofness. This is not an "image," it truly comes out in the music, which has an antiquarian, studious quality. But this is not an INTERESTING or even engaging mood. Sadness, joy, plaintiveness, ecstasy: Behemoth doesn't trade in any of these. Instead there is 40 minutes of sterile contempt.

There is a lot of talk about classical music in metal. Mood is perhaps the one thing that classical music does best, and in order to truly grasp the essence of the great music of the past, theory and proficiency are not enough--there is the human element, mood, which Behemoth have carefully avoided in making this impressively robotic album.

Score: 2.5/5 stars (** 1/2)

Best songs: "Before the Acons Came," "Conquer All"

Deicide- Stench of Redemption

2009-01-12T20:33:00.001-08:00

This is a weird album, because the style is not so different from 1995's Once Upon the Cross: i.e. dumbed-down, simplistic, repetitive death metal--i.e. decidedly not "technical" and almost punk in its song structure--but with an important lineup change, which brings two incredible guitarists into the band. The effect is not unlike that of early G.I.S.M., meaning you really listen only for the guitar solos, which don't have so very much to do with the retardo songs on which the solos happen to be pasted.

No, that's not fair: while none of these riffs will go down as classics, the songs (incredibly!) stand apart from each other, and there is a kind of linebacker approach to aggression which makes these songs hard-hitting, even though the band is far less "brutal" than the rest of the death metal pack, at this point. It's almost quaint, but at the same time, very effective. Suffocation or Nile blow this away, in terms of being-heavy, but it achieves "total heaviosity" all the same. Perhaps because Deicide relies on 4 or 5 riffs per song, instead of... 80?

Yes, it's redundant and low-IQ, but it's a Deicide record! What makes this a mandatory Deicide record is the Van Halen solos that crop up in every song, a propos of nothing, courtesy of ex-Obituary and Iced Earth guitarists--these guys are amazing! It's a jarring stylistic pairing, since death metal solos are usually following from the Slayer/Celtic Frost atonal school, and the solos here are highly consonant and Guitar Magazine-friendly, but... it works, sort of.

As you can tell, this is a completely needless record which is massive fun. You still only are required to buy the self-titled Deicide and Legion, but *this* is the goofy, self-parodic death metal album kids SHOULD buy to get into death metal, instead of Cannibal Corpse. It's silly, but I can also imagine having some of these songs as my ring-tone.

Score: 3.5 /5 stars (*** 1/2)

Best songs: "Crucified for the Innocence," "The Stench of Redemption," "Desecration" (the entire first side, really)

Immortal- Damned in Black

2009-01-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

I'm a huge fan of Immortal's later period, following the loss of their guitarist (to metal-induced tendonitis): Sons of Northern Darkness and At the Heart of Winter are real highlights of their discography--while Damned in Black, the record under discussion here, has never really caught fire with me. While not *very* different in sound from, say, Blizzard Beasts or Sons of Northern Darkness, this is much much cleaner and has much more reasonable tempos than earlier classics Pure Holocaust or Battles in the North.

To the attuned metal ear, Blizzard Beasts is more Morbid Angel-influenced, while the albums from At the Heart of Winter onwards are more like 1980s Metallica. And Damned in Black has that very huge "arena" sound as well, while still being very no-frills.

Sadly, Damned in Black is devoid of the huge moments in which other Immortal albums are superabundant. There is a cool break in "My Dimension," the first riff to the title track is huge, and the first song "Triumph" knows its way around the Bathory discography--but for the most part, the songs are same-y, and you never need to put down your nail-clippers (or what have you) in order to start headbanging.

Most of all, Damned in Black is not a grower. At all. It is without charm, without "hits," and never distinguishes itself from their other albums in this style. It sounds cool, and I'm glad to own it, but---you know when you like a band so much, that even their lesser works get a lot of play, and they start to grow on you? Well, with Immortal, Damned in Black never really enters the rotation, it just sits there, not really demanding any re-evaluation. Which is not to say that this is not a veritable encyclopedia of riffs. But the whole is truly less than the sum of its parts in this case.

Score: 2.5 stars /5 (** 1/2)

Best songs: "The Darkness that Embrace Me," [sic] "My Dimension," "Against the Tide"

Graveland- Dawn of Iron Blades

2009-01-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

If Rob Darken continues releasing records at this pace, what once was distinctly mid-period Graveland will become lumped together as "early" with some very dissimilar records. Meaning, the first four albums (1994-1997) used to be a canon, and as long as the later Viking period (starting with Immortal Pride) remained decent, it was harmless enough. But now, there are SEVEN viking metal albums, which are largely interchangeable with each other, and no sign of letting up--soon the excellent early material will be only a footnote!

Which leaves me with the onerous and pedantic duty to make distinctions within the Viking-style Graveland albums. I should note, Viking Metal is an embarrassment that only came into being through the fluke of Bathory's development, and even Bathory couldn't make it interesting for more than one record. Why one needs seven (!) Graveland records in the style of "A Fine Day to Die" is a question for only the darkest wizard to conjure an answer.

Anyways, as far as the Graveland viking stuff goes, there seems to be a steady decline, and at the same time, each record is more similar to the last one. So, they get worse, but also more alike. Immortal Pride is an interesting and raw first foray into the style, while Creed of Iron could be the definitive statement of Graveland's capacities in this realm. Since mid-tempo pagan expeditions, unpunctuated by guitar solos, and cluttered with pretentious "folk" elements--Viking Metal, in short--is not my thing, and gets old fast, I would have been happy if Graveland had stopped with only these two Bathory-ish albums.

It's undeniable that the Graveland or Bathory fan will find something in all of these releases to enjoy, and I have certainly gotten a lot of play out of these mediocre albums, but from Memory and Destiny onward, they are essentially genre exercises, and not worth serious consideration. As Dawn of Iron Blades dates from 2004, it is worse than The Fire of Awakening, but better than Fire Chariots of Destruction. The melodies are too simple, the music is too repetitive, and the production has been leveled down to a muted roar. Graveland will always be worthy and capable of interesting moments, but this style (unpromising from the outset) has been tapped dry.

Score: 2 stars/5 (**)
Best songs: "Iron in the Fog," "While I Ride with the Valkyrie"

Cryptopsy- None So Vile

2009-01-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

Extreme metal's main shortcoming is that it usually turns into a competition: to be the rawest, the fastest, the "sickest," the heaviest, the longest songs, the shortest songs, the most chaotic... etc. Meanwhile, everyone knows that the greatest metal bands--Metallica, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath-- are none of these things; they just wrote the best songs and riffs.

Now, None So Vile is not a record you can just throw on, unless you are only trying to frighten your 14-year-old cousin who listens to Melissa Etheridge. This record exemplifies this blog's viewpoint on metal: one must either pay attention to it, or leave it alone entirely (which must be the fate of thousands of Cryptopsy CDs, purchased for their "brutality" and then sitting on a shelf unplayed). The first thing that should be said about Cryptopsy is that it really makes no difference whether you consider the album to consist of eight songs (as the CD indicates), or one long song (as my parents would say), or a million little unrelated parts pasted together.

There is a kind of conceptual synaesthesia that Cryptopsy are completely reliant upon, but which has gone unnoticed as such: namely, why should "chaotic" and "brual" go together as a sonic pair, at all? Cryptopsy make it looks easy, but there's no natural affinity between the out-of-control or unorganized, and bludgeoning force. Grand Central Station can be "chaotic," and a trip to the dentist can be "brutal," but those experiences don't resemble each other. The genius of Cryptopsy, I think, is making extremely complicated music that is never "noodly" or meandering--though I must confess they have a tragic penchant for slap bass. At times, the songs verge on feeling edited-together ex post facto (like Miles Davis' early 1970s albums). But while a Cryptopsy song rarely *ends* well, they often begin distinctively, and one eventually finds a grip on these "songs," even if the writing and rehearsing of this music is inconceivable.

The way to listen to this record is to just follow it very intently: nothing is going to "jump out" at you if you stray in the least, while rapt attention is rewarded. The vocals are a dead-end; I recommend just paying attention to the drums for an entire listen through. The album is well-constructed, and there are countless neat parts, and it is shockingly well-paced.

i began by suggesting that None So Vile is out for a Guinness Book of World Records style of metal: most brutal, fastest, most chaotic--and it undoubtedly is (or was at the time) all of those things. This is an unhappy, very loud record. But I don't think that says anything about its appeal, which is in its constant shifting of attention and its intricacy, so that many have felt, far from being the superlative of death metal's excesses of metal-ness, that there is something avant-garde and high-concept about this release. That is perhaps in the mind of the non-metal listener, but it does suggest the basic topography here.

Score: 4 Stars/5 (****)
Best songs: "Crown of Horns," "Phobophile," "Slit Your Guts"

Vital Remains- Dechristianize

2009-01-09T20:53:00.000-08:00

Introduction:
This is a blog based on the assumption that one should pay attention to music. Meaning, really sit down with and listen to your records. In a world of mp3 blogs, itunes, youtube, etc., every music-listening convenience is a deterrent from prolonged, album-length attention spans. On the other hand, never has there been such a wealth of information available: discographies, reviews, message boards, online gossip, etc. The result is that one can be very well-versed and opinionated about music, without really having put any time into the activity of listening. And, even worse, one can "like" a great deal of art without really knowing why (or "what-it-is" about this particular thing).

The blog is about metal, but it as easily could have been about rap, jazz, hardcore, reggae, or classical music. The single thesis of this author, on the topic of listening to music, is: a "good" record is one that rewards many listens. This is not a controversial thesis on first appearance, but how many times has a record been defended on OTHER grounds than this? Conversely, a bad record is one that you don't find yourself reaching for very often. I'm not into genre-exercises.

Metal asks for close listening, and this writer intends to ignore any hype or canonical status or sub-sub-genre favoritism, and just say whether a record holds up or not.

*
Vital Remains has a weird lineup: the drummer also plays all the lead guitar parts. I wouldn't want to be the other guy, trying to explain to my friends what exactly it is I do in this metal band. Can you imagine being the guitarist in a two-man band and *still* not being the "lead" guitarist? Also, on this record, Glenn Benton from Deicide stepped in to provide vocals.

The three things to take away from this album: 1) the new sensation that maybe Glenn from Deicide should not be a punchline any more (after famously proclaiming he would commit suicide, and then living to ruin Deicide); 2) the drumming is outrageously fast and "clicky"--even by death metal expectations! 3) all the blasting death metal parts seem to exist only to provide a framework for some beautiful, flowery guitar passages (but no solos).

The first song, after the obligatory garbage spooky intro, is the title track, which puts all the album's strengths on the table: ridiculously fast drumming, ornate and memorable "pretty" guitar work, and some vicious slow mosh parts. The band basically juggles these elements for six to ten minutes on all their songs, occasionally (as in the title track) combining the swooning technical lead guitar with slower "breakdown" rhythms. This often feels like the goal of their songs, and the basic death metal stuff can seem like just a means for getting there. But just as often, the reverse is true: the incredibly brutal, unornamented death metal is very appealing, and stopping for sigh... another woozy lead break can seem a distraction. Especially since there are very few ripping solos (one is to be found in "Infidel")--and so these stand-out parts can start to sound very similar.

At an hour of music, with only three or so tricks in the bag, Dechristianize is far too long. Neither the songs nor the album build to anything--at best, it is a collection of "neat parts." But, it's always catchy, and sometimes it is very very catchy. It's neither a "grower" nor is it dumbed down.

Score: 3 Stars/5 (***)
Best songs: "Dechristianize," "Rush of Deliverance," "Devoured Elysium"