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Pyro: siste 10 saker

Metal Review: 10 siste anmeldelser

Diamanthian - Arcana Doctrina
[4.5][4.0][4.0]

It has been a while since I have heard an album like Diamanthian’s Arcana Doctrina.  Arcana Doctrina is death metal that does not lend itself to any particular qualifier.  Containing elements of brutality, technicality and melody, but none too excess, Arcana Doctrina is just straight up death metal, and as the song goes: “There ain’t nothing wrong with that”… at least in theory.

Diamanthian in their slower moments resemble bands such as Incantation and Immolation, with a dark brooding sound that oozes malevolence. However, slow and heavy is not Diamanthian’s only trick:  Boosted by some furious double bass, the band is equally adept at high speed tremolo picking in the vein of classic Morbid Angel. In addition, the band’s music is complemented by some sparse, but very tasteful guitar solos, such as the gem on “Defiling the Eucharist.” 

From the above description Arcana [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Jeremy Morse

Burzum - Belus
[4.5][4.5][4.5]

So there’s a new Burzum album. Wow, where does the time go? I remember when I was a lowly high school sophomore just starting to submerge myself in the depths of the metal underground, and I immediately took a shine to Burzum as I began exploring all the old Norwegian black metal bands. No doubt his controversial history made a big impact on my impressionable young mind, but there was also something about his music that really spoke to me in those formative days of my metal-listening career. I remember reading about his prison sentence and thinking about how long it would be until anyone heard anything new from the project, and how much it would probably suck if it ever came. I mean, personal politics and history aside, how often do these long-dormant revivals actually yield results even marginally as good as the classics that made them anticipated in the first place? I can’t blame anyone for being cynical of Varg’s ability to even remotely conjure the essence of his past material after such a long stint outside of the music world.

But her [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Chris McDonald

Heathen - The Evolution Of Chaos
[5.5][5.0][6.0]

Truth be told, I’ve only been a moderate fan of Bay Area thrash veterans, Heathen, as they’ve always kind of come across as a band that couldn’t decide whether or not they wanted to sound like Iron Maiden, or Exodus, so they decided to try to sound like both while packing the firepower of neither. But what I respect is the fact that vast time and countless trends have not sullied the direction they’ve taken, and even though it’s been the greater part of two decades since Victims Of Deception came out, their songwriting chops are just as sharp as ever, while their technical skills are still quite flawless, with quite a few moments of purely shredding thrash excellence on display.

The exotic untitled opening sitar instrumental (performed by Steve DiGiorgio) is a lithe introduction to The Evolution Of Chaos; a light, nimbly played Melechesh-like piece that leads directly into “Dying Season”, rich with rhythm guitars battling for tensely chugging supremac [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Jim Brandon

The Ruins of Beverast - Foulest Semen Of A Sheltered Elite
[6.0][6.0][6.0]

For those that don’t know, The Ruins of Beverast is a one man black/doom metal band consisting of former Nagelfar (the German one) drummer Alexander Von Meilenwald. And with his third album, he has released an album that would have easily been a top 3 release of 2009 had I found it for cheaper/earlier.

As with 2006's Rain Upon the Impure, the album is a long (80 minute) listen, but incredibly worth every single second of its depressive, but still majestic art. With a fuller production and even more use of clean chants and synths, Foulest Semen is even more regal than its predecessor, with even more lavish, hypnotic plodding and moistened musical depravity that’s rife with shimmering, yet despondent brilliance.

The album starts with the solemn hymnal chant of the 10 minute “I Raised this Stone as a Ghastly Memorial”- a start that might perturb some more elite black metal fans with its plodding pace, but things get nastier when some cavernous growls and shrieks finally ki [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Erik Thomas

Dark Tranquillity - We Are The Void
[5.5][4.5][5.5]

Dark Tranquillity, Gothenburg’s most consistent sons, return with full length number nine. When discussing their extensive melodic death metal history, most fans agree that the band has peaked twice, first with The Gallery, an undisputed classic amongst all metal and one of melodeath’s true essentials, and later with 2002’s Damage Done. Since that particular colossus, the band has been on what could best be described as a lower plateau. Their more recent music is still of a very high quality, particularly within the style, but hopes that they will ever again equal their two greatest achievements have slowly diminished. Unfortunately, We Are The Void does nothing to change this opinion, but fortunately it gives Dark Tranquillity yet another great set of songs and further cements their continued importance to the scene.

Much like 2007’s Fiction, We Are The Void is a conglomeration of the band’s past. The sound here has a greater focus on keyboard melody than recent al [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Zach Duvall

Manimal - The Darkest Room
[5.5][4.5][5.0]

"Dr. Jonathan Chase -- master of the secrets that divide man from animal, animal from man...MANIMAL!!"

FADE IN: Midnight -- lamp-light reflects off the wet, inky streets recently swept by a cold October rain. Three officers gather around the latest victim in a series of serial murders inconsiderately dumped into one of the city's many dead-end alleyways.

A fiery Detective Brooke Mackenzie stormily paces as he shouts into his phone.

Detective Brooke Mackenzie: "Damnit, Jonathan, you're supposed to be helping us with these murders! What's gotten into you lately?!? If I don't see you or some beastly form of you in the next twenty minutes, we're gonna need to have a serious man-to-Manimal discussion!"

Dr. Jonathan Chase: "Sorry, Chief, but the only animal I'll be morphing into from here on out is a Heavy Metal Maniac! YOU CAN'T CAGE THE POWER METAL PANTHER!! WAAAAAAAAAAHHHhhhRAAWWRRrr!!"

*click*

Detective Brooke Mackenzie: "WTF???"


Written by: Michael Wuensch

Anima - Enter The Killzone
[5.0][4.0][4.0]

Despite deathcore being somewhat of a dirty word, it hasn’t stopped the likes of Chelsea Grin, Carnifex, Annotations of an Autopsy, and Germany’s Anima from dropping some solid, if more death metal inspired releases early in 2010.

I wasn’t overly impressed with 2008's The Daily Grind, and while Enter the Killzone is a much better release, I’m still not sure why Metal Blade signed Anima when they already have much better acts like Job For a Cowboy, The Black Dahlia Murder, Whitechapel, Rose Funeral, Molotov Solution, Fate and (rumored) standouts Painted In Exile on their roster. Anima simply mash together elements of all those bands into their clichéd, if powerful sound.

As with Carnifex and Annotations of an Autopsy, there’s been a bit of maturation and more of a death metal development, as Anima is now much less purely rooted in The Black Dahli [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Erik Thomas

Fates Warning - Parallels (Special Edition)
[5.0][5.0][6.0]

In its original incarnation, 1991's Parallels was my introduction to Fates Warning. I'd heard the band's name before, then as now almost always mentioned alongside Queensryche and Dream Theater, and since I was (and am) a massive fan of the first of those two bands (up to the tipping point that, at that time, they hadn't yet reached), it made sense for me to explore Fates Warning post-haste. So I started here, inadvertently beginning with the band's most commercial and most 'Ryche-like moment. Coming off a string of four consecutive future-classic releases, Fates shifted gears, streamlining their sound, which was, by this point, almost wholly removed from the traditional metal that characterized their earliest efforts.

Although songs like the moderate hits "Eye To Eye" and "Point Of View" are certainly more radio-friendly than most previous Fates efforts, Parallels is still filled with the requisite [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Jeremy Witt

Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of Orwarrior
[6.0][5.5][6.0]

Six years in the making after the critically acclaimed Mabool, Israel’s  premier metal act return for album number four and what we have here is a brilliant, epic metal album, that’s an early contender for 2010 album of the year.

Conceptually based on the battle between light and dark and the OrWarriOR (‘light’ warrior), The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR comes with all the trappings of a concept album as the album comes in three ‘acts’ and thusly delivers the moods, lulls, peaks and shifts of the story it is telling rather than delivering ten or so tracks of just ‘songs’. And as you’d expect, the album has a host of guest vocalists and ethnic musicians (playing things like a Saz, Bouzouki, Oud, kawala Flutes, a Shofur and a Santur) that flesh out the band's patented, Middle Eastern take on metal; a form of metal that lies deftly between layers of prog metal, melodic death metal, gothic/doom, heavy metal and melds it all with an authentic Arabic ethnicity that’s artistic and captivating, yet not overdone.

[Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Erik Thomas

Convulse - World Without God (Reissue)
[4.5][4.5][4.0]

If you, like me, first heard Finland’s Convulse on their 1994 effort Reflections, the re-issue of their 1992 debut is going to come as a bit of a shock. If you are expecting the catchy, groovy upbeat death n roll that the band perfected and were revered for with Reflections, you had best brace yourself.

Back in 1992 Convulse was a pure old school death metal band, a band rooted in early, raw, Stockholm bands like Nihilist, Carnage, Grave, Nirvana 2002, Evocation, Gorement and country mates Disgrace. Evil, primal, rumbling, earthy and morbidly catchy, with a couple of B-movie spooky segments,  World Without God is as far from Reflections as you can get as it blasts and growls with a sloppy, primeval and for those familiar with Reflections, unrecognizable fury.

There aren’t any real classics on this album that elevate it to the levels of their Stockholm peers,   [Continue reading on Metal Review]

Written by: Erik Thomas