lördag 11 maj 2013

IMMOLATION "Kingdom Of Conspiracy"

The New Yorkers with the vocalist Ross Dolan (the guy with the loooongest hair in the business) and Robert Vigna as the leaders of this everlasting death metal machine give us their latest album of intricate riffing and weird tempo changes. Yes, you got it, you will never hear clean singing or keyboards from these guys. From the "Dawn of Possession" album in 1991, to these days they have evolved through the years brilliantly. I can only remember that "Here In After" didn´t impress me that much. Otherwise they have always delivered full throttle, dark, heavy, intense and unique death metal. Always technical but not so technical you feel it´s a competition in who plays most notes per second. You will always hear that it is Immolation. Their riffing and the voice of the almighty Ross Dolan is terrific. I count him in my "big 4" among guys like John Tardy, Erik Rutan and David Vincent. His voice is darker than most vocalists and so powerful,  you can also hear everything he growls about if you listen carefully. This time around they give us lyrics about the world downfall, we´re all victims of the system that controls us. Smart and thought out lyrics about this scary place called earth, and not so much about questioning religion. The production is kind of similar to "Majesty And Decay". Heavy and crunchy, yet clear. Maybe I want some more dirt in the production, than it would be perfect. What can I say about the musicianship? Not much flaws here either, they know what they do and they do it damn well. The riffs crawl under your skin like snakes and the atmosphere created is utter tasteful darkness as usual. What I want is even more memorable songs, but Immolation is not really the kind of band that gives you catchy songs, it´s more like they give us a neverending scary nightmare filled with horror and riffs delivered directly by the devil himself. The songs flow together very smoothly even without songs with a "hit factor". They got the ability to give us quality music that you wanna listen to over and over again, because of the tremendous amout of power and great spooky soundscapes like they were from another world. Big words? Yes, but I think they are that unique.The only real flaw I can find is the new logo they have used for a while, the old one is much better. Anyway, Immolation equals QUALITY.

9,5/10

torsdag 9 maj 2013

THE MONOLITH DEATHCULT "Tetragrammaton"

What happened to this band? They were a decent death metal with a sound like Nile some years ago. What now? A mix of junglemetal a la Soulfly and horrific techno, add to that goth sounding music(I even hear some samples from an ICE T song, with ICE T himself screaming I guess).The death metal is still there though, and the death metal passages are well sounding, like Nile as they used to sound. But these moments are too few.They also got strange songtitles like "Drugs, Thugs and Machetes", pretty innovative but not my cup of tea if you´re a serious metalband. You either play death metal, techno or some metal a la Soulfly. Not all combined!! Did they possibly get some inspiration from the latest crazy motherfucker of a record by Morbid Angel? No this is not good, this is just messed up. Decide what to play next time, I won´t give this piece of music a lot of running time. That is a true fact. This time you failed guys. Best song: "Gods Amongst Insects", because this one is the closest they get to the old good TMD sound. Because of some good moments and a pretty cool albumcover among all the crazy cacophony I give this one...

3,5/10




tisdag 7 maj 2013

BONDED BY BLOOD "Aftermath"

After the highly appreciated debut "Feed The Beast", Bonded By Blood came up as one of the main highlights of the thrash revival. The wild vocals of José Barrales and the explosive songs with a crunchy production were a winning combination. The second album "Exiled To Earth" was also good, maybe a bit less memorable, but still catchy and full of energy. With the loss of José on vocals there is a new kid on the block called Mauro Gonsalez. Mauro has a voice that is a bit more articulating and his vocals are a bit more sung than shouted so to speak, he reminds me at times of the vocalist in Heathen and Joey Belladonna of Anthrax and he also got a more harsh vocalstyle about 50% of the time. I think he is a very capable vocalist, even if some critics says he´s a bit lame. It´s always tough to release album number three, especially when the first album is (almost) counted as a classic in the genre. The production on this one is quite "80´s" (A bit dry) compared to the first two records, and the overall feeling is that Bonded By Blood plays a bit more melodic style of thrash metal, yet with a lot of great riffing and excellent leads. But this record is by no means bad, just a bit more conrolled. Forget about the first record and judge this record for what it is instead of bashing it. The next record will be a slap in my face(I hope), you always need some time to get things totally killer with a new vocalist.

7/10