It's only a matter of moments into Phoenix Rising until you realize that Deströyer 666 has raised its intensity level by a considerable degree. New drummer Jarro/Deceiver metes out some hyper-blasting akin to faster European bands as a hallmark of the opener "Rise of the Predator", but to the Australians' they don't focus on this entirely, using it only as a weapon to create contrasts with the more middle paced rhythms; consistently throughout the entire album. There's still a lot of Bathory vibe here with the tempos, with a lot of very straightforward riffs in a Marduk mold (especially those blasted parts), but they've got a ratio of about 1:1 for some memorable rhythm guitars and then others you'd heard before and would quickly forget.

Altogether, the album has pretty great production, with no muddling or imbalance to the levels of the instruments, and a clear delivery which highlights all of them. The guitar tone isn't anything too striking, but it's got a good balance where the tremolo-picked melodies and lower rhythms feel evenly distributed, with the bass poking through all the time on its own crusade. The drums are a pretty noticeable technical improvement and these also sit evenly, while the vocals are at the fore, but not enough to smother any of the playing. I think this was K.K.'s best performance to date, especially his sustained rasps, they just seem a little more in tune with the music and slice a little harder when you pay attention to the diabolic details. The songs are all solid, though some of my favorites are nestled deeper into the track-list like the swaggering, almost folkish black metal of "Ride the Solar Winds" and "The Birth of Tragedy", or "Lone Wolf Winter" with its urgent sense of melodies and an atmospheric vibe that foreshadows records like Wildfire.

Also, that song's title and lyrics seem like a callback to the cover art for the first full-length; and speaking of callbacks, they have a new version of "The Eternal Glory of War" from the Violence EP and it's quite tidied up. This will please some, and piss off others, but I think this is the more effective incarnation. However, I'd say that about 5 of the tunes here are top notch, while others are held back by a few generic riffs that don't do much for the imagination, but at least have the production to maximize their impact. And there isn't that much of a gulf in the quality, I can definitely sit through all 40 minutes without any impatience; Phoenix Rising is consistent and well-balanced enough to get its points across and catapult the band into more of a contender against their Scandinavian and American peers.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

Three years later, Catharsis Instinct answers some of the production shortcomings of Unbleed, with a louder, fatter, more straightforward mix more representative of more mainstream extreme metal in its era, but musically this feels quite close to the debut. The emphasis is on the driving melodic, harmonized passages, lead breaks, shuffling if not terribly powerful drum beats, and black metal vocals. You can hear Chris Black getting a little more comfortable with the playing here as he busts out some more traditional heavy metal/hard rock leads, but there's no obnoxious wanking or showing off whatsoever, they always seem to service the song they are splashed over. The acoustics are also still pretty important as they create the biggest contrasts on the record, but I did not find them as tasty as those on the debut, even in their better moments like the "Bleeding City" interlude they are just a forgettable support for the melodies.

I think one issue this has it 12 songs, about half of them doing the same sort of style of the debut, and then the rest are headed off into more thrashing or death/metal territory, like "Halfman" or "Mudslicer" which occasionally border on a less brash At the Gates sound. They still have their moments mind you, or even "What Are You Running From?" which reminds me of In Flames at the turn of the millennium, maybe a little Edge of Sanity circa Purgatory Afterflow or Infernal. Chris had been joined by another guitarist for this one, longtime member Scott Hoffman, and the pair are certainly adept at exploring all these more trendy sounds, especially with their penchant for the melodies and leads, but I do feel as if part of this record is headed down the wrong direction, away from that blindingly melodic stuff that captured my imagination in the first place. Another thing is that I feel the vocals get sort of crushed by the guitars in a lot of places, they're a little deeper and less raspy than on the last album and I think, especially when the guitars get the most melodic, they are just drowned between them.

There are a few other new touches, like the cleaner howling vocals on "Cosmos Disease", a pretty cool tune with the proggy keys too, and this is obviously something Chris will explore a lot more in his other bands later. So it's unquestionable that this is a progression from Unbleed, a modernization of the style that keeps holding on to large chunks of its past, and though I like most of what's here, and certainly the production level is a welcome upgrade, the songs themselves are often a mixed bag, and maybe in an ironic twist, that cleaner sound might have sapped away some of the atmosphere that I found myself lost in. At any rate, Catharsis Instinct has its moments; it's one of my less favorite albums in their backlog, but there's plenty of creativity and evolution left in this band's future. Might just take a few tries.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

Increased Damnation is an interesting fan package which covers a few historical components for Aura Noir, studio and live material for the completionist. That said, this is not a compilation you are turning to for consistently, the contents are all over the place, but, along with the first two records and the live record they'd put out years later, dating back to 1996, this sort of 'completes' the first phase of their career. The entirety of the Dreams like Deserts EP is present, giving that a needed reprint for the time, and there are a selection of live tunes from another of their 'Elm Street' gigs, though I think these are later recordings than on the live album and there is a track difference since Deep Tracts of Hell was available, with "Swarm of Vultures" represented in a pretty raw and blistering form.

The Fenriz-fronted "Mirage" starts things off, transplanted from the EP, but featuring his vocals, and this is a much cleaner-produced version that fits more with forthcoming album The Merciless than the original EP. There are also some demo tracks from Deep Tracts of Hell, and they sound pretty sweet, I'd hazard that I found these a bit more impactful than what ended up on the actual album, just some writhing and nasty Teutonic-flavored thrash with ravenous vocals that hover just below the attack of the guitars. As the closer of the compilation, they've even got the most primitive version of "Tower of Limbs and Fevers" with just Aggressor performing, and his vocals are wild and hilarious almost like some sort of drunk narrator...some of their goofiness actually reminds me of lines that Fenriz has included on some of the 2000s Darkthrone output. Ridiculous but also charming, and this version of the tune has a weirdness in general to it that almost sounds like it's part Ved Buens Ende if that were thrash-injected.

The lack of rare or unreleased materials here limits its viability to me as a product, sure there are specific mixes of tracks you haven't experienced, but several are redundant just to this compilation. Granted, there was not a lot of Aura Noir material out there by this period, and if you hadn't had access to the EP then this might have been worth it for that fact alone, but this is not something I would ever have even broken out for a listen again if I wasn't writing through their discography. That's not to say it sucks at all, some of the alternate mixes are quite good or perhaps even preferable, but unless you're hell bent on grabbing everything the band has ever released, this is easily passed over for any of their full-length studio material.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://www.facebook.com/auranoirofficial

Macabre's a band I never get around to revisiting often, but don't let that fool you, I think they're a fairly interesting and quietly influential act that had a pretty big impact on the deep-dive serial killer studies that other bands like Church of Misery have continued with. They also occupied a niche seemingly to themselves, where numerous genres combined, no one of the thrash, death metal, punk or grind really dominating the rest, and then the insertion of humorous elements into the music also transforms them into a carnival of Midwest extremity. The first four albums in particular have the most to offer, with these sprawling track lists, few ideas left on the cutting board, and though the tongue-in-cheek qualities can become distracting, they can mete out some mean fucking metal on your ass.

Dahmer is the band's exploration of its titular serial killer and it spends equal time tackling this topic, comprised of 26 tracks, most hovering around the 1-2 minute mark, a few beyond that, but that's where a lot of the grind aesthetic comes in here, because the band isn't always playing a million miles a minute with the splattering vocals and accelerated hardcore you'd expect. Many of them take a punk rock approach with gang shouts, accessible riffs, and then this is alternated with hyper-thrashing pieces that catapult themselves into the death metal spectrum. But they also delve a little deeper, with some more dissonant thrash riffing that even reminds me of Voivod, like in the opener "Dog Guts", and they'll bust out these solid leads that also seem pretty ambitious compared to the surface level of their style. So the idea that one could ever write Macabre as some group of gory goofballs would be misinformed. They are crazy motherfuckers who put an emphasis on exploring different sounds and then unifying them behind a chosen theme, which is conceptually impressive, even when it's something really zany like the thrashing surf rock of "Do the Dahmer" (something Ghoul might have picked up on).

Ironically, it's this variation that can both work FOR and AGAINST an album like Dahmer, because the shorter track lengths mean a lot of the stronger, evil riffing ideas will be broken up and you never quite get enough if you're digging them. Like the churning caveman death metal of "Hitchiker" ceding to the "In the Army Now" anthem, or the blasting, chaotic "Bath House" giving way for the "Jeffrey Dahmer and the Chocolate Factory" tune, which is essentially a twisted cover of the Oompa Loompa song from the old Gene Wilder film. However, by that same argument, every time I think I've gotten my laughs in and am about to phase out, they'll shift back into some more intense and interesting, so I can imagine that the scattershot inspirations and execution of this album might be an attempt to dive into the psyche of a character like its own subject. But I do think overall this might be an aspect of Macabre that has held them back from greater success, it's not like Mr. Bungle where the musical freakshow is the entire DNA of the writing, but something they swap on and off. It doesn't always land for me, either, but this and a few of their older full-lengths hit more often than not.

The vocals of Nefarious and Corporate Death are impressive in their versatility, from gutturals and sneers to higher pitched wails that you might not expect, and then the gang vocals I mentioned before. The guitars have a nice, organic tone to them which seems to work well across the constituent genres, frilly enough for the crisper thrashing riffs, fluid enough for the punk chords, and then some solid effects on some of the leads. The bass playing is quite busy and plunky, and this is a component which can even be highlighted within the sillier tunes, and I could say the same for the drums, these guys are just an overall, musically impressive act even if they only exhibit briefer bouts of technicality among the more simplistic, accessible writing. All told, there's not a lot I can really compare this with, or maybe just too MANY things to compare it with...some of the faster, thrash/death parts recall some Deceased of the same era, and there are obvious punk and hardcore references, but say what you will, Macabre is quite unique, and if you can pull yourself away from the Netflix documentaries, this is quite a bat-shit but well-rationed exploration of the infamous cannibal and necrophile.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

https://murdermetal.com/

It would be nearly a decade before Armored Saint came out of its early retirement, reuniting the Symbol of Salvation lineup and remaining within the Metal Blade family. I remember being quite excited by this news, as I wasn't a huge fan of the three albums John Bush had done with Anthrax by the turn of the millennium. Sound of White Noise was alright, don't get me wrong, but he needed to get back to where he belonged, and so there was genuine jubilation when I found this album among the physical promos I would receive for the paper zine I was writing back in those years. Following up Symbol of Salvation is an unenviable task, and there was pretty much no way that Revelation was going to pull that off, so I have to give it credit for at least remaining in the band's general style and offering a couple catchy tracks.

That's not to say this is great, of even good, because it's definitely a lot more straightforward and risk averse, at best taking just a chunk of their earlier sound circa Delirious Nomad or Raising Fear and then modernizing it with the studio wizardry of a later decade. Still a lot of hard rock roots poking through here, and there's even a slight element of stoner-y style, like "The Pillar" which opens up like an outtake from the underrated Trouble record Manic Frustration, though it does transform into something decidedly Saintly once the verse bobs along. There are some solid tunes like "After Me, the Flood", "Control Issues" and "Creepy Feelings" with its cool melodic, harmonized intro, that strive to match the quality of past records, but I don't think the band had let these tunes mature quite enough to offer that same level of unforgettable. Where they do branch out a little, like "Damaged", they go for a bass-driven, almost alt rock/metal feel and a simple chorus or two, in fact they remind me a little of the purely prog/alt rock era that Seattle's Queensryche were slogging through around the same time...only not that lame.

Ultimately, enough of this didn't work for me to mire it in mediocrity, like the Spanish track "No me digas" or the dull Stone Temple Pilots pandering of "Deep Rooted Anger". The production is very much brick-walled compared to the older albums, and it sounds like a case of the band just communicating lightly and decided to just throw something together, and not waiting for better ideas to gestate, which is a huge downgrade from the incredible Symbol of Salvation. Revelation has a cool cover, and it's not nearly as staggeringly lackluster as its own follow-up, La Raza, which would take another decade to appear back unto a scene that wouldn't care much, especially with its lack of weaponry. It seemed like trying to stamp on a few minor style changes to fit the times was a complete bust for Armored Saint, whether in 2000 and 2010, and if they had called it quits for good after this one, I would not have been too disappointed. We know now that they'd be capable of greatness once more, but those three decades were pretty rough.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.armoredsaint.com/

Necrotical was obviously not meant to be the end of Non Serviam's trajectory, as they released another single around the turn of the century, and there was enough interest to get their demos out through Nocturnal after Invasion Records had pretty much folded. Having only a middling opinion of their 1997 debut Between Light and Darkness, I wasn't too excited by what The Witches Sabbath would represent, a re-issue of the two demos the band released leading up to that debut. Also, like the two albums, the band just never had good cover art, it was always a little bland or obscured, and this twisty digitally tooled image of some chicks lusting with the devil or a demon is just another prime example of how this style wouldn't age well whatsoever...

The demos sound fine, however, in fact they probably sound a little more engaging than the debut album, and most of the same tracks appear on both, so it's understandable why the band might want these put out there for the public to consume. That doesn't really improve the musical quality, they were gunning for that nexus between the Swedish black metal and melodic death all along, but I would say that the sounds here, perhaps being slightly cruder, favor the former genre just a smidgeon. A couple of cuts like the title track from that second demo sound pretty decent in this incarnation, wistful and erotic black metal with enough atmosphere to carry you back to that vital 90s era when so much of this was breaking new ground for us crusty old heshers. In fact, I'd say that if you could just track this collection down, and then head straight over to Necrotical, or the Hellspell album; that would be in your best interest, the tunes just seem a little more authentic in this format. But then again, it's not that inspiring when there were so many better choices during these years.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

Gardens of Gehenna swapped over to Last Episode for their second recording, and it marked a small if insignificant shift in style as they began tiptoeing around the inclusion of some industrial elements into their Gothic, drudging death/doom framework. We're not talking the full rivet-head package here, but in tracks like the opener "Requiem" they have that one grating industrial tone in the verses along with the guitar that gives it a bit of a weird, crunchy groove. The synthesizers are more prominent, not always just following along the rhythm guitar as they often did on the debut, and they are continuing their mix of haunted house tones and slightly more industrial effects. Overall it's an incremental evolution for the Germans, but one that at least makes this more interesting than the tawdry Mortem Saluta.

There's a little more depth in everything, from the roil on the rhythm guitar, to the grunts and growls, which while stylistically are the same, have a little more variation within them, a bit more ugliness too which casts its shadow over the listener. The bass is present but rather mundane here as on the prior effort, but the lead guitar melodies are more mournful and effective to compensate. They are also willing to strip some of the flourishes away at moments to do something like the churning "Tod und Teufel", a more frightening sort of tune where the synths are more used for the background to create a mix of horror and martial/industrial for the chugging guitars to brood upon. These songs usually falter when it comes to becoming truly 'catchy', but there are a few simple passages and configurations that are at least fun enough to nod or bang head along to while you're in the moment.

It's almost like someone shoved some keys and other electronics at Paradise Lost between Lost Paradise and Gothic and told them to have at it, or a pauper's early Therion, so if that sounds appealing you might make it through at least a couple listens of this sophomore outing. It's pretty harmless, and shows some modicum of growth, but I still feel as if there's not enough payoff that they can build to in these tracks. Still, the better production, the fractional increase in atmosphere and mysticism make this a much better starting point to the band's catalog than the first album.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

Germany's long been central to the Gothic metal world (and adjacent styles like Industrial/EBM), but it's always been a double edged sword. Many of the artists are quite qualified and serious, capable of penning a couple good tracks at least, but they also come off as harbingers of the medium's most goofy aesthetics, often to the point of caricature. How many crazy contact lenses and colored faux-dreadlock extensions can we really stomach? There's got to be more to this corner of the 'dark music' spectrum than its narcissistic overreach...fuck, the Sisters or Mercy did it with only shades and leather. The Bloodline is another of many acts who took a crack at the Gothic/doom metal style back when groups like Theater of Tragedy or Crematory were established, but faded very quickly into obscurity...

And to their credit, the debut Opium Hearts is no joke. It's rough around the edges, and somewhat derivative of other German acts like Pyogenesis or the abovementioned Crematory, and that makes sense, since one half of the duo, Roman, was a bassist and songwriter for the former. Perhaps the material here is an attempt to bridge backwards from that group's experimentations with pop and indie rock, to the morose death/doom of something like Sweet X-Rated Nothings, but the difference is the more electronic percussion and industrial lite synths and effects which drive the array of chords and mournful metal leads. The vocals are largely focused on the grotesque guttural, though they will occasionally layer in some ethereal female vocals tastefully. This is definitely not your full-blown, overproduced EuroPop Goth metal written for an arena with seven or more musicians, loads of orchestration, but rather it's more subdued and sultry, at times comparable to Betray My Secrets but without the world music angle.

The biggest issue I take is that it's a little dull. Even when a catchier piece like "Opened Eyes Dream" is chugging along and then gallops into its minimalistic but effective bridge melody, you just start to expect some sort of climax that never arrives. The atmospherics and effects are decent and remind me of anything from lower tier 80s pop and New Age, but they lack the confidence to stand out once the melodic guitars and growls arrive. It's sad and serious, even when they go for a peppier mid pace tune like "Lost Souls in the Land of Delight", a CLEAR nod to the Sisters, but most of the tracks feel as if they're merely reaching the cusp of quality, and the album lacks the production and push to go all the way. Don't mistake me, this is better than I personally expected, and it's not musically or lyrically tacky before a few genre tropes, but I can understand why this might be ignored in place of other bands' more vivacious explorations of the niche.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

While it's not as annoying as the two covers before it, the Germans of Sleeping Gods still did not seem to realize the importance of aesthetics that would help them scale the ladder of doom. What do these old timey fellers have to do with the sound of your music? Were you just desperate for something? Why the third bland logo and title type in the span of three albums? There is really not much to go on if you're browsing through the metal albums at your local record shop, looking for something with a spot of crushing heaviness to it, unless of course you had already read about the band or heard the prior albums, in which case you still might find this unappealing do to the lackluster choice.

Unfortunately, I cannot report that the music of New Sensation is in any way an improvement over the sophomore album. It's composed at about the same level, accessible but heavy doom accessed through very simple riffs that are rarely catchy on their own, slathered in mostly forgettable lead guitars and gruff, growling vocals. This is also the album where they went the most Goth with tunes like "Together As One", but they're even more awkward than their goofy peers Atrocity who also walked that road, and unlike Pyogenesis, who remained catchy even in their pop phase (though many original fans hated it), they don't exhibit strong songwriting that would be required to bridge the gap. It's not terrible, but the clean vocals feel second rate and like their last few albums, they can't pen a chorus good enough to justify what builds up to it.

Production is fine, with a nice punch to the drums, thick as syrup guitars that convey both the heaviness of the chugging and chord patterns, plus the slight sense for melody they throw down, but the tunes are just too mediocre to care, and its by no means an improvement over Regenerated. In fact, this album is hardly any better than Above and Beyond, and thus it's no surprise why they'd fold soon after. They just never quite lived up to any of the glimpses of potential they showed, and were beaten to the punch by other, more beloved bands.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

I absolutely LOATHED Crimson when it first dropped, I thought the band had pushed a little too far into the radio zone and neutered down even some of the elements that made Down and Frozen worth hearing, but in retrospect I might have overreaction just a smidgeon. Don't get me wrong, I still think this is by far the worst Sentenced album, and there isn't a single song here I ever feel any impulse to listen through, but I no longer feel the urge to throw it out the nearest window or onto a busy street where it will be ground up by tires into its trace elements. At the very best, the material here seems like it's a bunch of scraps left over from the previous, superior works, and then made a bit moodier due to the slightly darker vocals and duller riff selection.

I mean, if there's a Sentenced album that was written at the bottom of a bottle, this should be it? I don't think the style itself differs at all from what they'd been doing in the years leading to it, but every time I am expecting a catchier vocal hook or a tasteful, memorable little lick, I just get underwhelmed at the choices. It's a little more bluesy, and Ville is smoothing out his cleaner tones against the grain of his harsh vocal style, there is no doubt, but even where they try to pick up into something worthwhile like in "No More Beating As One", they can never quite stick the chorus landing. At best, you could take a handful of the stronger tunes like "Killing Me Killing You", "My Slowing Heart", or "With Bitterness and Joy" and make passable B-sides of them for a tune off Frozen. There's also just too much softness going on here, too many parts where they go for the cleaner, banal guitars that don't even have the stronger glinting riffs like they did in the past. 

Nothing here reeks of anything resembling creativity, it's just more of the same, just meant to help open the audience up a little more, but doesn't attempt to do so with the necessary good songs. But where I used to think it was offensively boring, these days I've warmed up to the point where I consider it simply 'weak', the album in their catalog I'm guaranteed to avoid, with not a single track making it onto any career playlist. That said, if you and your girlfriend picked me up and had this blaring out of the stereo on our way to some destination, I wouldn't strangle you from the backseat. We'd all make it safely to the party...because Crimson is safe, uninspired, and unremarkable in every way.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

The Chainheart Machine isn't so much a major embellishment or evolution upon the style of the debut, but rather a 'tightening' or 'cleaning up' of all Steelbath Suicide's elements into an even more effective array of proggy, thrashy melodic death metal which seems so energized and inhumanly efficient that you'd think they were hardwired to some glowing tank of testosterone. I cannot deny that this album rules and remains one of the best they've ever released, and I think I can pin that down to two specific elements. First, the production is a little cleaner, punchier and therefor more potent than the debut, and while its predecessor sounded fine (and still does), this mix is more able to rein in all the weapons at Soilwork's disposal. Secondly, the new drummer Henry Ranta brings an added level of muscle to his performance which both honors and surpasses his forebear, while contributing to just how pinpoint accurate these tunes are.

Every freaking song on this record puts in the work, throttling you with explosive riffs and melodies, an incessant battery of grooves and fills, and some sort of epic break that makes you want to flail around a moshpit of wire-strung angels, like the point in "Millionflame" where the propulsive verse riff peels away to that groove and the great, controlled leads erupt. Like Steelbath before, it, this one is definitely one of the closer efforts to that Slaughter of the Soul sound that obviously influenced it, and to that end it is quite the competitor with its bevy of more plotted-out, intelligent rhythm guitar riffs, a total modernization of thrash for the 90s and oughts. It's still one of Speed's more constrained performances, but I think here he sounds a little more vicious than on the debut, and also he's mixed a little better. It might be that this would be the first Soilwork album I'd point out if somewhere were pursuing more in that mid-90s popular style, but don't mistake it for a clone, it still goes over the top in musicianship, and so many of the ideas applied to that core death/thrashing construct feel fresh and compelling and remain so to this day, even where it goes into a dumber, bluesy groove like the depths of "Machinegun Majesty" and its screaming solos.

The faster moments on this record even set up to inspire one of Speed's earlier side projects, Terror 2000, which arguable takes the propulsion a little too far, but still itself produced some catchy cuts on each of its records. There are a few points where I'm listening to this one, thinking to myself that this or that specific riff might have helped birth that whole project (though it debuted the same year as this). The synthesizers continue to blend in seamlessly, although I think they are starting to adopt some tones and pads that are more often equated within the prog metal scene. Lyrics are also quite interesting, I like when all these European bands in melodic death or black metal were putting together all these new compounds like 'Chainheart', and that's all over the place with the song titles here and even some of the lyrics, with are otherwise these intense emotional outbursts which fit the modernity of the band's style well. I'd say the downside is that it also bridges them over into the radars of the more nu-metal oriented crowd, to which they did crossover slightly at one point, but quickly re-emerged from. But there's never any question of sincerity, and the quality of the performances and songcraft here really speak for themselves. My second favorite Soilwork album!

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10]

https://www.soilwork.org/

A lot of folks seem to get hung up on the title of this album, as if Helloween was suddenly about to put out a thrash or death metal album just because the word 'Dark' is in it. Sure, the cover art seemed rather ominous, the inky splashed logo and title font, and the earth circling around the massive obsidian pumpkin which seems ready to devour it at any moment, but in truth The Dark Ride has all the staples of the modern Andi Deris incarnation of the band, with the same penchant for glorious, emotionally resonant chorus parts and melodic guitars flying everywhere. In fact, over here in my neck of the woods 'A Dark Ride' refers to a haunted amusement park attraction, and even if that's not their intent with the title, it really fits how this one sounds. Yes, the lower end on the record is quite heavy, maybe the chugs or mutes pound a little harder than some previous albums, certainly on "Escalation 666", but it's not like they were about to take the stage in corpse paint and eat a baby. It's not macabre or evil, maybe just a bit determined.

This album fucking slays, and it totally exceeded even the high marks that were set by records I loved like Master of the Rings, The Time of the Oath and Better Than Raw. Most every track on this one burns itself directly into the brain and hangs out there for me just as long as a lot of their golden oldies in the Hansen and Kiske eras. As the swan song for Roland Grapow and Uli Kusch in the band, it's quite the achievement, and has arguably the most potent production of anything in their post-millennium era. "Mr. Torture" and "All Over the Nature" bring back that anthemic Helloween feel with their guitars and choruses, and while a lot of folks probably dislike "Escalation 666" for that gut-turning down-tuned chugging in the verses, it erupts into a great, proggy, atmospheric chorus which is one of the most engrossing on the album. "Salvation" and "We Damn Night" are both underrated masterworks, and then you've got one of the most radio-sellable songs they've ever written in "If I Could Fly", which I almost want to hate, but cannot, because its so obnoxiously catchy from the steady groove of its rhythm guitars to that little peak in the solo.

The Dark Ride is front-to-back exceptional sounding, with a thickness to the guitar tone that still manages not to obscure the considerable amount of melodic licking that Weikath and Grapow can shred into juts about anything. Uli Kusch also gives a beastly turn, and Grosskopf serves to really moor this whole thing in that lower, punching tone, which honestly isn't totally unique to this album...certainly I felt it on Better Than Raw and some of the albums after this. Andi by this point became my favorite Helloween vocalist, not because I don't love his predecessors, and not because he's 'technically' the best, but he had by this point shown the most consistency across the four albums, and he's always pleasurable to listen to because of the characteristics of his voice which can range from decaying fragility to a higher, siren-like plane of execution. He wasn't just chosen for his looks and stage personality, the guy is a powerhouse, and what way to honor the previous front men than by hiring someone just as unique. Kiske had four albums too, but two of them left a lot to be desired...nothing so far in the Deris canon left me dry at all, and The Dark Ride is hands down one of my favorite albums they've done.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10]

https://www.helloween.org/

Midian was the second album in a row where I felt Cradle was dropping the smutty Gothic vampire Wordsworth mentality to explore some more compelling concepts that fit their musical style pretty well. I'm not saying that there isn't still a bit of that libertine sizzle in there, or that the delivery of the lyrics or the instruments had changed terribly much from efforts like Dusk and Her Embrace or Cruelty and the Beast, but I can't think of many bands that, from their inception, were pretty much destined to pay tribute to their countryman writer Clive Barker than this one. If the album title didn't give it away, he was a huge influence on this, with a healthy helping of Lovecraft for good measure. The cover artwork on this might not be their sexiest or highest quality photography; the creature looks a little cheesy as does the figure up in the purple clouds, but at least it has some detail to it and a nice color scheme that differentiated it from their others, with their awesome logo just at home as on any other of their releases.

What isn't in any question for me is the quality of the writing here, because SPOILER ALERT, Midian is my favorite album of their nearly three-decade career to date. The compositions are rich in variety, with a salvo of riffs in every track that instantly stamped me as memorable. This also has to be one of their best incorporations of pianos, synthesizers and ethereal female vocals that work in lockstep with the metal instruments, never coming across quite like a gimmick but rather a stew of components that would seem mandatory to create such a paean to the horror material which inspired them. I think the production also holds up quite well, especially at higher volumes, despite everything going on I can hear all the little guitar zips, every percussive strike, all the panoply of schizoid Dani Filth vocals and the numerous guest vocalists like Sarah Jezebel Deva and Mika Lindberg. Having Pinhead himself narrate on three of the tracks could have proven goofy if handled incorrectly, but instead he gives us a tone like the deepest lines of his iconic Cenobite and it blends right in. And while Cradle of Filth by this period was already a target of mockery for the black metal gatekeepers, before they seemed to magically reclaim acceptance in the late 'Oughts, Midian was sure as shit more creepy and evil sounding than a lot of the other bland purist third wave black metal spewing forth from Europe and the States by the turn of the century.

With all the rage over nasty speed metal acts like Midnight over the last decade, it's a little surprising that Minnesota's Impaler wallows in such relative obscurity. Not that they're entirely unknown or unapproachable, they've got a pretty decent internet presence and continue to record and play gigs even after decades; but their love of horror flicks, wrestling, their mesh of speed, heavy metal, and punk, and the cinematic gore and camp of their stage shows seems like it's a concoction that should have appealed to a far wider audience, especially as they've just been doing it for so long and never really turned from their path. Maybe they don't write the most impressive licks, but they've got the heart and sincerity in spades, a speed metal institution forever destined to sit below the radar.

One Nation Under Ground was their fifth full-length album released through the now-defunct Root of All Evil Records, and while the production had come a ways from their earlier efforts like If We Had Brains ...We'd Be Dangerous or Rise of the Mutants, the style is roughly the same. Simplistic rock & roll riffs played with metallic energy and slathered in Bill Lindsey's signature splatter-punk vocals, which can range from a more meaty bark to something more petulant and punky, with lots of gang shouts thrown in there for good measure. The way he exaggerates his style with that grimy, constipated edge almost reminds me of Alice Cooper, one of his biggest influences, as enforced by the presence of a "Teenage Frankenstein" cover which is second-to-last on the album. The drums have a great tone to them, the bass and rhythm guitar are fairly clean in the mix, but manage to catch a little bit of that infectious punk vibe you'll recall from a lot of your faves in the 80s. There are plenty of lead guitars, too, usually with more of a bluesy, reckless hard rock feel to them, fitting to the rhythm riffs but not too memorable on their own.

There are 15 tracks here, almost all weighing in at around 2-3 minutes, with just a couple that go longer, like the darker, doomier sounding "Under the Dirt". Occasionally they'll incorporate a spoken sample, or some special effects like the bell and howl you hear in the depths of "Dead as a Doornail", to keep you on the page with their horror influences. Once in awhile the riffs can get a little bit more thrashy as in "Call of the Wild", but the majority of them are more rooted in punk and straight hard rock; almost all of them do feel as if you've heard them elsewhere, even by the standards of 20 years ago. Thankfully, the production makes up for this a little, the instruments and vocals sound brash and bright and energized. I guess my other complaint would be one that I'd apply to a lot of horror-punk, psychobilly or horror-influenced metal in that the musical choices themselves rarely evoke the more evil and dark side of the genre. There's nothing creepy ever happening outside of those aforementioned samples, effects or Lindey's gruesome vocals, the tunes could use a little more dissonance, atmosphere or 'evil' note selections to make them stand out...

...but again, I've had this issue since the Misfits. It doesn't make the music bad at all, but it's more like attending a Halloween party with your family, bobbing for apples, carving a pumpkin and having a good cheer rather than getting chased through an abandoned, dilapidated asylum by a serial killer or supernatural entity. The lyrics are fun enough for what you get, tributes to old or campy horror flicks and they even have a nod to Bill's love of wrestling entertainment with "Cage Match Tragedy". The Alice Cooper cover is pretty decent, and the material is consistent over the 41 minutes, but it just doesn't stick with me for long after I'm finished. It seems mostly built to go along easily with their live shows with all the blood, guts and debauchery that ensues, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/impalershockrock

Here's another Machine Head EP which was released in a few territories, presumably to sate the demand for more recorded live material and rare 'demos' that I can't imagine anyone actually ever having asked for in there lives. That said, it's possible that even Robb and the band didn't give a shit about this, that it was some sort of record label promotion to keep them on the shelves at the shops, or in radio rotation, or whatever crappy music industry justification for wasting natural resources on dumb material products. But unlike the Take My Scars EP, which had a mediocre Nirvana cover on it, Year of the Dragon has no curiosities whatsoever, just churning out the most generic short-playing fan cash-in possible, with one demo track that might make it a collector's item for collectors of trash.

"The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears" is the 'single' here, and it's presented in both its lame studio rendition, and one of the three live tracks that were recorded in Connecticut in 1999. It's following up after 3-4 other singles from The Burning Red album and one they put out for the Heavy Metal 2000 movie, which honestly baffles me, that any of the material could be considered good enough for air play... I mean, I don't know how anything by New Kids On the Block was ever considered quality, but they wrote better songs than these. At least I'm assuming...I wouldn't know much about that ::as he hides his copy of Hangin' Tough where you'll never find it:: The live songs are among the worst possible, between "The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears" and the awful "Desire to Fire" which is just possibly the most cringeworthy track Machine Head has ever produced in their mostly miserable catalog. "From This Day" isn't much better, it literally sounds like Limp Bizkit with a slightly heavier groove where he tries to do commercial rock vocals for the emerging Nickelback crowd.

The live tunes aren't recorded quite as well as those from the prior EP, but I suppose they are loud and brash and not as badly mixes as some I've encountered. So I'll give it a point for that, since I can't justify any of the musical value whatsoever except maybe the little 'HEY SLAYER GUYZ' riff that comes up late in "From This Day". "New Resistance" is the demo track closing out the EP, and I have no idea if this was something which was later reworked, but it's a horrible track that sounds like it belonged on The Burning Red or whatever Disturbed was writing at the time, there's a little bit of David Draiman in the vocals on that one but then again this wouldn't be the only case of that, the difference is that Disturbed has had the gall on a number of occasions to create memorably annoying songs, whereas Machine Head throughout the 90s just opted for the latter half of that equation.

Verdict: Epic Fail [1/10]

https://www.machinehead1.com/

I always got a sense with Quintessence that Borknagar wanted more of a 'sure thing' alongside their Norwegian peers after the somewhat mixed reactions to The Archaic Course, and to an extent this seemed to me possibly a bit of damage control. At the very least it's a curve back towards some of the sounds we were hearing on the first two records, but with more pronounced snarls and orchestration that were comparable to the material being produced through popular acts like Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir at the time. Being that this is Borknagar, of course, we're still getting a lot of the eclectic instrumentation and philosophical sheen they were already known for, multiple vocal styles being arranged throughout and lots of dynamic, progressive shifts that can be felt through Brun's note patterns and the heavily embedded synthesizers that ranged from organs over to more ambient and electronica-tinged pads.

After having such a prominent role on the album before it, ICS Vortex seems to be subdued here, at least his cleaner vocal style. It exists throughout the album, but is too often paired up with the rasp vocals which often end up sounding pretty silly. In fact, there are a lot of synth parts or melodies here that give the impression of a carnival or haunted house, not enough that for it to avoid the fjords of the band's foundation, but I occasionally feel like I'm listening to a more intense, hectic Arcturus and not so much Borknagar. There are still some great, charging Viking pieces here like "Ruins of the Future", which has some amazing melodies, especially the interchange between the synths and guitars. They also throw this filter on the snarls which is horrifying if over the top. "Colossus" is another track I enjoyed, one of the closest callbacks to the previous records, with a nice clean vocal presence and some swinging, swaggering mid-pace riffs. "Invincible" sounds like some badass carousel black metal, and the close "Revolt" has a nice contrast between its own circus-like synths simmering off in the background between the charge of the beat and the rasping.

Otherwise, I think there are a few misfire tracks with some interesting tectonic rhythmic structures that simply don't manifest riffs of high enough quality for them to stand out. The instrumental ditties are a mixed bag, with the prog-goth organ & drum driven "Inner Landscape" sounding like it belongs on La Masquerade Infernale, and "Embers" giving off a "Planet Caravan" like vibe as it leads into the last track. The mix on the album is pretty solid, but I think perhaps some places there are certain instruments or vocals that should have been emphasized or dialed back. This was Lars Nedland's first album with the band, and I think they also overused his keys, just a fraction. I'm a HUGE fan of his, don't mistake me, in both this band and his mainstay Solefald; there are plenty of moments where he shines even here, but the album does come off a bit overcrowded or messy in certain spots. Ultimately, Quintessence is my least favorite of Borknagar's studio efforts apart from the acoustic Origin, but it's still pretty good. There's an EP worth of fantastic material here, and nothing else is necessarily bad, it just doesn't resonate with me as much as the first three albums or many that have arrived later on.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (swept toward a new domain)

http://borknagar.com/

Jurassic Jade has always been one of those fringe Japanese thrash bands that I'd place alongside a Doom, Gargoyle, or an Aion, so clearly trying to shed the conventional European or American influences, or at least morph them into something more distinct and avant-garde. Some of these bands did this better than others, and I can't say these guys were one of them. Probably best known for their 1989 full-length debut Gore, and for their front woman Hizumi, who has such an angry, barking delivery style that I find it almost impossible to determine her gender from the vocals. Not that I need to, but I feel kind of bad about that, because she's just got such a crazy, spastic attack on her voice, flying in and out of pitch and structure...even when she's calming down and singing something more clearly and have a hard time telling. Credit to her for that.

Wonderful Monument is obviously an album that arrived well past the 'death' of the thrash genre, or at least the 'temporary' death throughout the 90s, so you can hear how they latch onto all manner of disjointed, influences, making for one hell of an ADD-riddled, insane record that uses thrash only as its core blueprint. In fact, a lot of this album seems like a mutation of metal, punk, grind, mathcore and even stuff like funk somewhere in its DNA strands. All of this is unified by Hizumi's vocals, which range from a raving, pissed off hardcore/grindcore bark to some punkish vocals not unlike a Japanese Johnny Rotten. The riff-set is all over the place, with lots of bouncy rhythms that embed a layer of generic and uninteresting dissonance into the chord selections. Whereas a band like Doom was capable of coming up with interesting stylistic fusions into the riffs, I find that the guitars on this album are one of its weaknesses, alongside the vocals that don't ever stick with me despite how raving and novel they seem. They just never break out into some killer guitar hook that is so desperately needed, even when they're channeling bands I love like Prong and Voivod.

Now the bass playing on this album is actually fucking rad, a huge tone flopping all over the place with grooves that are more mentally stimulating than everything going on over them. When the band starts to space out with some atmospheric, jazzy, weird guitars over these lines, as in "This is Ma' Song", it finally starts to get interesting, to the point I wish it were all like that. The drums are good and flexible, usually playing some rock beat behind the weirdness but capable of picking up in intensity where needed, or laying in some jazzy groove or fill. On the other hand, some of the tunes create a departure entirely from their heavier sound, like "Itsuka (A Requiem for K)", which is more of an atmospheric ballad without percussion, and the whole thing just feels like a mess that can't play up to its strengths. Wonderful Monument is one of their more obscure albums that you'll never hear anyone really talk about, and there's a pretty good reason, it's just too scatterbrained and can't find its own way through the bouncing, pummeling oddity it has birthed. If you're checking them out for the first time, you're better off sticking to the more nasty, coherent thrash of Gore, which has more of a basis in bands like Slayer and then tacks on Hizumi's angry vox, and better riffs.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www2.odn.ne.jp/jurassic-jade/

By the later 90s, death metal had been inundated with so many more accessible traits via heavy and thrash metal that it might have made a lot of sense for an underground group like Damnation to boost their signal, but to their credit the only thing they really cleaned up here at all was arguably the production values. More than any of their albums prior, Resist feels like a gestalt of the Floridian extreme death that went into the band's older albums, primarily of the Morbid Angel or Malevolent Creation variety, with a few Deicide rhythms, but it also maintains that mild sense of atmosphere and experimentation they had used before with the admission of a few scant ambient/instrumental passages to flesh out the faster, harsher fundamentals employed.

The record is essentially a lot of jerky, tremolo picked rhythms with a lot of stop/start patterns that are capitalized on by the drumming, which is likely the most intense and audible across their career. The vocals follow the David Vincent style of intonation, harsh and guttural, nihilistic barks, but with the advantage of being a good decade later than our inauguration to that style, so they're a little more muscular in nature, though the patterns are often quite as sloppy, vaguely following the rhythmic patterns beneath them, giving their implementation a little more of an unhinged, asylum aesthetic which actually suits the music well. Never before have I heard the Damnation guitars this clearly, and while the wealth of the progressions they write are nothing terribly nuanced or special, they really dig into those strings here, with some of their most involved and rapid fire patterns, not to mention some of the best, wild lead lines they'd used to this point. The bass guitar also keeps a pretty solid presence in the mix, though it does get buried beneath the snare, fills, vocals and rhythm guitar whenever they are all firing off together into one of the more intense sequences.

Resist does lack some of the suffocating atmosphere of the sophomore Rebel Souls, and I also feel it comes up slightly short of that album in overall memorability, but note for note they are pretty close, with this, the band's swan song depicting their most intricate guitar work with a carnal clarity. The riffs do possess a variety I had not heard before, with a little bit of a clinical thrash element there in the intro to "Absence in Humanity", and some other tracks which reach slightly outside the comfort zone. Dark, ambient passages like "Voices of an Unknown Dimension" help lend a sense of evil and gravity to the track list, though the electronic and sounds used seem a little claptrap and cheesy, and most of them are embedded into the metal tracks without much of a strong purpose. The simple fact of the matter is that Damnation were a band reaching for something, and while they arguably got there in the 90s, they had more to their material than the already dulling proto brutal death and gore being pimped; a fusion of old school aesthetics with a slight regional spin. No, they weren't writing on the level of Vader or Behemoth or other countrymen, and it makes some sense that they got lost in the shuffle, but overall they had a good run as a solid second tier act which can still evoke a little darkness if you listen to them in the proper mindset. Rebel Souls and Resist were a pretty convincing one-two punch combo for such an unknown.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10]

While both of its predecessors were solid, competent entries into Napalm Records' catalog of oft-forgotten black metal recordings, it was The Horror Grandeur which tipped Jack D. Ripper ever so slightly further into the limelight. A new deal with Century Media Records, an 'upgrade' to the sort of grotesque morbid photo art which was all the rage at the turn of the century, what many would consider vastly superior production values, and further acclimation to the symphonic ingredients that were increasingly incorporated into the form by more popular Gothic and black metal acts were all reasons that this might prove many listeners' first exposure to Morgul, even if it still failed to carve large swaths in its field.

While I personally acknowledge its limitations, in particular the rather predictable form many of the riffs take, I hold a soft spot for this record due to its unflinching horror noir aesthetics, the Grand Guignol nature of its presentation. The prior albums were good, but had a slightly harder time in snaring my attention, where this one caught it immediately upon the record crackling and doomed, melodic onset of the title cut. The entire record is staged like a carousel of corny theatrics, whimsical organs and even a couple King Diamond ringmaster laughs, meshed with spurts of atmospheric black metal circa Emperor, Limbonic Art or Hecate Enthroned, but it just sounds so great due to the clarity of the mix. The strings and keys sound vivid and bright, and Jack's occasional use of clean vocals soars off into the album's near-threatening nightscape akin to a lot of his Norse countrymen like I.C.S. Vortex.

There is a sliver of experimentation here, like the industrial beats used to fuel segments of "The Murdering Mind" or "Elegantly Decayed", which would also be explored on the subsequent Morgul offerings, all tastefully entwined within the morbid modus operandi, rather than creating a heavily eclectic or scattered style like on Arcturus' The Sham Mirrors a couple years later. I had mentioned Jack's clean vocals, but that's only one of numerous styles he incorporates. Roaring black metal rasps, wavering and eerie chants, breathy whispers, or whatever fits his mental asylum narrative. The bass is not an enormous presence throughout much of The Horror Grandeur, but it does keep its end of the bargain so that the album has depth across a number of frequencies. The drums successfully shift from the more traditional rock and metal patterns into the electronic areas and back seamlessly, with a bright snare sound that offsets Ripper's harsher vocals fairly well.

I had mentioned that the riffs lag behind creatively, and that's mostly the case, whether they're the traditional black metal explosions with tremolo picking, the blackened thrash parts, some of which even seem to mimic the presence of Ministry circa their Psalm 69 album. They're all functional and well-suited to anchor the delirious atmosphere Jack is creating here, but often too predictable and not intricately woven with catchy melodies or truly diabolic chord patterns that a lot of other Norse bands were bringing to the medium years before this. That said, the slower, graceful melodic doom passages which sparsely populate the album are among its most magnificent and memorable, and the rest are at least percussive enough not to disrupt the flow of the album or its haunted house aesthetics.

I feel like fans of Arcturus and Dimmu Borgir at the time would probably have dug this despite the fact that it's not as unique as the former nor as massive as the latter. It's actually the Morgul record I break out most often, whether that's around the autumn time of year or just when I'm in the need for an interpretation of classic horror themes through this style. Lyrics cover subjects like evil dolls and Poe-like death obsessions, eloquently penned to stick to the narrative structure of the music, and it's just one of those underappreciated gems which tread slightly left of the beaten path without setting any new trends, while mutant and elevating the one-man band into a form that could in some alternative timeline hold its own against its kin.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (rattle your puppet limbs)

While the second attempt at creating a Grief of Emerald logo using some arbitrary low-level font failed miserably, and the cover artwork to their sophomore is more laughable than demonic as intended, I do think Malformed Seed takes a single stride forward in terms of effectiveness. The Swedes seemed to have better settled into the symphonic black metal histrionics here with a little more compulsion than merely to blast away as derivatively as possible and ride in the wake of far better bands who released prominent recordings 5-6 years earlier. I'm not implying a broad stylistic gulf between this and its predecessor Nightspawn, but a few times on this album I felt like I almost heard a genuinely decent riff churned out amidst so many vapid impostors.

There is a slightly deeper end to this, with perhaps a lot more double-bass groove patterns infested with the incendiary tremolo picked guitars and basic chord configurations that defined the debut. The synths seem to swell with a more voluptuous malevolence, all strings and fell angel choirs splayed out in rather common and predictable patterns that lend a fuller body to the thinner sound of the guitars. There are also a number of more chug-like bottom end riff patterns which fall somewhere between Samael's "Jupiterian Vibe" and any random sequence off Dimmu Borgir's Enthrone Darkness Triumphant or Spiritual Black Dimensions, performed with a warlike, steady bombast that gives the impression of a couple of gargoyle armies launching themselves to war in a massive subterranean cavern, its vaulted walls alight with the radiance of magma. Of course, whichever of these forces the ugly 'cover model' belongs to, I hope would be the loser, so that its ugly countenance can be smashed to pebbles...but I digress. Occasionally these lower, loping grooves take on a more death meta vibe circa Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick or Domination, albeit with less interesting notation.

While atmosphere was not exactly vacant from Nightspawn, Malformed Seed ramps it all up with that stronger contrast of bass-like tones and cavernous faux-organs. The vocals retain a stock rasp which presents them as indistinguishable from a hundred other bands in the medium, never arranged into anything that remotely resembles a fascinating threat, and in fact they often feel quite independent from the music, due most likely to the production. That aforementioned focus on the double-bass beatdowns also leaves me with the mild impression that the Swedes were going for a more mosh-friendly sound here, still accountable to all the Norsecore hordes, but aimed more centrally at an audience that at was the time more concerned with chug-laden melodic death metal and whatever was on Nuclear Blast that week. The result is at best like Samael's Passage without the soul and songwriting, and at worst just another of those countless late second wave duds that populated the later 90s to bursting. 14 years later, this retains a small modicum of cheesy entertainment, but it's absolutely faceless when paired up against any record that meant a damn.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10] (even you carry the thorn)

http://www.griefofemerald.se/