I've started listening to this album before searching any info on Skelator so after a few tracks, when browsing the net for some background data on this band I was absolutely sure I'm dealing with a band from the '80's, so not small was my surprise when I found out they are around "only" since 1999. Nothing would make you start a traditional Heavy Thrash Metal band around that year unless you were a group of fanatics. So right from the start I give my thumbs up for their true, honest feelings towards this kind of music. And getting to their music, I have here an 11 tracks (almost 70 minutes) of the rawest, most unpolished, "old-school"-est type of metal. The album starts off pretty weak, meaning the first track plus the next one (an epic intermezzo) are a bit scarse in power, but what follows is simply brilliant! A melange of Epic Heavy Metal, raw old-school Heavy Metal, straigth to your face Thrash Metal, Punkish Thrash, Bluesy '70's like Hard Rock, Melodic Rock, and even some (a few) Black Metal parts (!!!), absolutely brilliant and oh so entertaining! Their skills as musicians are displayed as mush as possible on all over the album through guitar solos, bass solo lines, drums virtuoso parts and the vocals... killer vocals reaching maybe the highest notes I've heard in Heavy Metal since the peak of the Maiden/Priest/Manowar era. No, this is not a perfect album for the nowadays expectations, but it's so complex and displays such an entertaining storyline that it would be a pity if you would not give these guys a listen. I declare myself a fan!
Band: SON OF APOLLYON / AESIR
Country: UK / UK
Title: Alliance
Label: wyldstone Records
Year: 2008
Style: Black Death / Viking Black Metal
Review:
An alliance between two up and coming UK extreme metal bands is something to stir interest, for sure, so let's see what we have here. Each band presents here 4 tracks, enough to get an idea. First to open is Son Of Apollyon, a young Black Death quintet formed in 2007. Their tracks are really strong, well conceived and interesting enough to make you crave for more: catchy guitar riffs supported by some good, entertaining solos, impressive drums work and dual vocals, screamed and hoarse as main and growls as background support. I have to admit I don't like that much the first ones which sound like the vocalist is really trying more than he can, but I think the growls are great. Son Of Apollyon is not the most original band around, but their side sounds fresh and interesting so I would follow their development in the future.
Next is Aesir, a Viking inspired Black Metal band with a 10 times lower performance than Son Of Apolyon. To start with the sound, that's a mess, it's hard to understand what's happening here, and that's the weakest point for Aesir, maybe with a better sound I would have enjoyed a lot better their side. Then the mixing and mastering is awful, not worthy of this release. The band, despite the abovementioned problems, does a very good job, if you are patient enough to listen carefully each instrument you'll discover a band that works hard to get a complex piece of metal, and they really have the skills to do it: dual vocals again, but this time the two vocalists are given the same importance, a screamed, Black Metal type of vocal and a clean, Bathory-influenced type of clean vocals, much more aggressive guitar work with fast, twisted solos, seconded by a rhythm and keyboard section to create a melodic, epic atmosphere. Once again, with a good sound this could be a great band, a band that Bathory followers would welcome with open arms.
Reviewed by Adrian
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Band: STUMP
Country: UK
Title: Sickgeeksnuffmovieparty
Label: Dead Tart Records
Year: 2009
Style: Porn Gore Grind
Review:
Second (or first? I've no idea) EP by UK based one-man-project Stump. Not many differences from the first one I have reviewed except for the volume of the whole which is higher now which makes it even more brutal and sick and maybe the addition of more Porn elements (movie cuts), but over all we're dealing with the same ultra-guttural, ultra-fast, infected and extremely aggressive Gore Grind project. I don't know where from Goatboy got the intro for "Sucking on a Stonned Chick's Tits", but it's fabulous, it's so funny it made my day. I like this project and recommend it to you, too. I'm curious what else we'll get from Stump in the near future.
Reviewed by Adrian
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Band: STUMP
Country: UK
Title: Vomited Flesh Salad
Label: 2009
Year: 2009
Style: Gore Grind
Review:
Stump is a one-man-band hailing from England, with Goatboy being the man behind it. There's not much info on the net about this project, but from the way he's moving I guess the Grindcore scene will soon hear of it. The name Stump comes from a German serial killer called Peter Stumpp.
"Vomited Flesh Salad" is a 12 tracks (12 minutes) DIY EP that from my understanding is distributed for free in physical form which is not something a lot of acts do. Musically speaking we're dealing with an extreme form of putrid, disgusting Gore Grind with half of the total length being composed by different movies cuts, from horror flicks to normal UK movies. The actual playing is less than the movie cuts, but when in action Goatboy serves us with: ultra-fast drum-machine, low-tuned chaotic guitars, ultra-guttural, inhuman vocals most of the times, and some insane screams here and there. I like it, the addition of samles makes it interesting and not boring, so I recommend it to the ones of you used to UG brutal Gore Grind.
Reviewed by Adrian
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Band: TRUNAR
Country: Belarus
Title: Christs Not Christians
Label: Wings Of Destruction / Dead Center Prod.
Year: 2009
Style: Antichristian Black Metal
Review:
You won't find that much info on Trunar on the net, and recently I get lots of such bands that, I guess, prefer to keep it old-school and don't give a damn on promotion. But this is not necessarily a good thing. Anyway, is their option, I don't care. Regarding this release, we're dealing with a 9 tracks debut album out on 2 different labels, Wings of Destruction from Russia and Dead Center from Ukraine, so a Black Metal attack orchestrated 100% in Eastern Europe. And it definitely has the mark of Eastern coldness and raw expression. Lyrically, Trunar is an Anti Christian act playing in both their native language and English. Their musical composition are old-school raw Black Metal with aggressive, raspy vocals, fast rhythm section, old-school guitar riffs (I would have preffered them more varied, though), and occasional epic keyboards background. Good production, 4 pages booklet with a lot of text in Russian, so I have no clue what it's about, and the lyrics to 2 of the 9 tracks. The last track on the album is an ambient one based on monotonous, minimalistic keyboard lines with guitar/drums/whispers touches in the background, but it lasts for more than 12 minutes so for me it became boring after a while.
This is a good band, I would compare it to Dissimulation from Lithuania in what concerns potential (not music).
Reviewed by Adrian
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Band: TYRANEX
Country: Sweden
Title: The Evil has Arrived
Label: Selfreleased
Year: 2009
Style: Heavy Thrash Metal
Review:
Tyranex comes from Sweden, was founded in 2005 and seems to be a pretty hard working band in the Swedish underground. They have released 4 demos so far, "The Evil has Arrived" being their fourth effort, a 4 tracks effort lasting for about 17 minutes. Musically speaking Tyranex is an old-school fast, female-fronted Heavy Thrash Metal act. The tracks have a good dose of variation, good, catchy ideas based on the '80's sounds: strong twin guitar riffs with the occasional solos, fast and aggressive rhythm section and hoarse female vocals. Linnea, the good looking vocalist, has some killer hoarse vocals, but she gets a bit out of track when going on the shrieks path, she should work some more on those high-pitched vocals. I think the best job inhere is done by the guitarists (Linnea takes care of one of the guitars as well), the reason why I've listened to this demo a lot of times, so I'm curious what the future will bring to this traditional Heavy Thrash act.
Reviewed by Adrian
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Band: VEKTOR
Country: USA
Title: Black Future
Label: Heavy Artillery Records
Year: 2009
Style: Speed Thrash Metal
Review:
Man, I've started listening to this album more than a month ago and I've tried countless times to do this review but always ended up being stolen by this fabulous band, opening a bottle of wine and fuckin' enjoy their masterpiece. "Black Future", in my 2009 Top is most probably the Best Album, it's exactly how I want my metal to be, fuckin' forged in adrenaline! Just imagine the fastest metal you've heard times 10, add a Cradle Of Filth vocal type, fantastic virtuoso guitar playing, the right amount of melody, devastating mix of chaotic progressive rhythms played with the mathematical precision of a Swiss clock, insanely varied, rehearsed to perfection... I can go on and on with praises about this album, and for sure it will remain one of my all-times fave materials! I have already recommended the band to most of my friends, so here I'm recommending it to you, too. The Best Speed Thrash Metal album in ages!
Reviewed by Adrian
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