Best albums
1. Crescent Shield
- The Stars Of Never Seen
California quintet Crescent Shield serves up a heady yet no less
heavy prog/power brew on their second album for Italian label Cruz Del
Sur, not only avoiding the sophomore slump altogether, but bettering many
bands longer in the game. Epic (yes, epic) song structures recall latter-day
Savatage, while vocalist Michael Grant shines throughout tales of adventure
and discovery both physical and spiritual. An album destined to be a classic,
soon as the rest of the world gets on board.
2. The 11th Hour - Burden Of Grief
Multi-instrumentalist Ed Warby (Hail Of Bullets, Gorefest, Ayreon) and
vocalist Rogga Johansson (Edge Of Sanity, Ribspreader, Those Who Bring
The Torture) get their doom on in a big, lumbering way with Burden Of
Grief, warping further back in time to Nemesis' Day Of Retribution in
this paean to dejection, dope, and all that is foreboding. Warby and Rogga
work that clean/death vocal thing like magick here, monolithic riffs and
quiet keyboard interludes weaving together into a tapestry of soul-crushing
despair.
3. Way To End - Desecrated Internal Journey
Black metal need not only to suck the rotted cocks of Dead and Euronymous
in order to be true, and it goes against the spirit of the form to say
it does. Way To End may not court overt controversy as too many of the
current crop, but what they do (albeit more ambient) is no less sonically
caustic. Chasms of despair are wandered through on this journey, and trust
me, you won't emerge unscathed.
4. Isole - Silent Ruins
As the first part of what looks to be a high-brow saga for low-end emotion,
Silent Ruins resurrects in me that same feeling I got on my initial listen
to the first album that can truly be called Doom Metal, Candlemass' Nightfall.
Uber-melodic leadwork winds itself around crushing riffery, vocals ascending
and descending as will your moods when awakened to the world of Silent
Ruins. How music so forlorn can be so simultaneously thrilling, I know
not. Hope I never do.
5. Bleeding Fist -
Bestial Kruzifix666ion
After a few years of demos and one full-length Slovenian beast
Bleeding Fist injected a syringe of "none more black" into their
thrash-fuelled veins, creating what they would come to call "chaos
metal". A more appropriate description you won't find after having
your eardrums gouged out to make way for the visceral blowtorch that is
Moribund Cult debut Bestial Kruzifix666ion. You can take all your newfangled
studio trickery and shove it up your ass, quite frankly. That the album
was recorded in one 8-hour marathon with the band playing live makes it
all the more vicious.
Honourable Mentions: The Destro -
Harmony Of Discord, Birds Of Prey - The Hellpreacher,
Slough Feg - Ape Uprising, Candlemass
- Death Magic Doom
Biggest disappointments
- Ignominious Incarceration - Of Winter Born
I don't care how much money Earache is willing to shove up your asses
in order to shove your band down our throats, guys, England has been piss
poor for melodic death metal since, oh, ever! I don't see things changing
with Of Winter Born either. The band name smacks of being "discovered"
during a mad flip through Roget's Thesaurus, and the 3-odd minute farts
listed here as songs do nothing but leave one wondering how else they
could've spent the last 35 minutes of their lives. I'd rather eat glass.
- The Eyes Of A Traitor - A Clear Perception
I know, I know, quit harping on England. To be fair, England does
have its share of bad-ass bands, but when the crap flowing forth from
across the pond (well, from me at least) is of such a flushable style,
someone's gotta call bullshit. The Eyes Of A Traitor want us to know we
can believe in our dreams and that they'll fight with us to the end, blah
blah fuckin' blah. Sub-standard wannabe metalcore, boring from the start
and impotent. The title of their new single says it best. Nothing To Offer.
- That Children Of
Bodom is still a working band.
- That Candlemass
didn't tour the US this last year.
- Above all, the death of the print format
for former (now current - again) employer Metal
Maniacs. The underground and legitimate metal lost a true weapon
in our arsenal, but remember; this battle may be over, but the war has
yet to be won.
Best live concerts
1. Year Of The Pig/Writhing/Hellmouth @
Lager House (Detroit, Michigan)
2. Horna/Bloodstained Dusk/Nocturnal Fear @ Blondie's (Detroit,
Michigan)
3. Satyricon/Septicflesh @ Harpos (Detroit,
Michigan)
4. Testament/Lazarus AD @ Harpos (Detroit,
Michigan)
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