Band: BRIBE

Country: Italy

Title: Bribed

Label: Selfreleased

Year: 2008

Style: Brutal Death Metal

Review:

Debut release for this Italian band, "Bribed" contains 5 tracks (15 tracks) of fast and brutal Death Metal played by quite skilled musicians. The tracks, although complex and variated are prooving a good display of how to curdle all instruments into a stong whole, but still keeping their own way to a point you start thinking there was no link between the instrumentists when recording: good brutal Death Metal growls with occasional screams and gurgling Grind vocals, two guitars that never stand still like walking your pitbulls on a leash, and an insane drummer. I can see this band on top of the Italian Death Metal scene that's so great nowadays. Recommended!

Reviewed by Adrian

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Band: FIRE FROM INSIDE

Country: Italy

Title: Healthy Therapy...

Label: selfreleased

Year: 2008

Style: Stoner Metal

Review:

I think I am reviewing at least 1 Italian band for each of my reviews-sessions, and that's either for this country's bands knowing how to promote themselves and to search promotion, or for the overwhelming quantity of bands that comes from The Boot. The good part is that this strong rivalry brings the Italian bands to be better and better every year, so who said quantity excludes quality? 

Fire From Inside are bringing to the table a very groovy and catchy style of Stoner Metal that, in my opinion could have been more curdled, but as this is their first effort it's very understandable that they are experimenting and searching for their own way. For now they have chosen combine old-school hard rock with newer kind of (Thrash) metal, and they did it quite well, the album is interesting, never boring and keeps you tight to your speakers to find out what's next, how the next track sounds. That's because each track is different, they take their inspiration from very different genres like Stoner (that's the main, the base for FFI's music), hardcore, hard rock, thrash and even punk. During the 12 tracks (1 hour of playing) FFI prove to be good musicians with interesting ideas, you'll like it if you're an openminded metalhead, but I'm curious to see if they'll find their own way on their next release.

Reviewed by Adrian

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Band: GOAT TUNNEL / GOURVA

Country: Finland

Title: Split

Label: Death Worm Records

Year: 2009

Style: Drone Doom Metal

Review: 

I have the pleasure to review the next output of these two bands, as you read, it is a split tape. This piece of music was already announced in the interview I made with Gourva. 

That Finns can be creepy and strange and sick is known in the whole world and this tape is a certain proof for it! People who know this bands will get the expected sick and dark music, 33 minimalistic but intensive minutes. There are eight songs, 5 from Gourva, 3 from Goat Tunnel. They fit perfectly together and you don't really hear a difference, so really a split in that case, that they worked out together a CD and not just taking some songs together. 

Every open minded and now excited person should join their Madness.

Reviewed by Robert

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Band: IMPERIUM INFERNALIS

Country: Greece

Title: Victims of Subhumanity

Label: Selfreleased

Year: 2008

Style: Black Metal

Review:

The 3rd EP of this Greek Black Metal horde (actually it was a full-band until some years ago when it became a two-men-band), "Victims of Subhumanity" is a 6 tracks effort lasting for almost 40 minutes. This could have easily been named as full-length, but from the 6 tracks 2 of them are live-recorded. Anyway, a lenghty EP that sevres us a good dose of aggressive Black Metal, mostly Raw and Old-School, but the style of playing guitars with two or even three overlapped guitar lines (track 3) gives it a sinister melodic atmosphere. Adding the very good old-school type of vocals Charon has (hoarse but comprehensive and oh so evil sounding), plus the intros, we get a putefying release for the underground BM followers out there. If Charon, the main person behind Imperium Infernalis, will improve the sound quality or take a bit more time in a proper studio, we'll get yet another proud act coming from this so prolific Greek Black Metal scene. I'm sure that by using a proper studio to record I.I. won't loose it's raw feeling and atmosphere.

This is not an innovative band, but it's not about originality here, what we're offered is a honest and serious old-school '80's like Black Metal so if you're expecting anything else you'll be disapointed for sure.

Reviewed by Adrian

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Band: INFERIUS TORMENT

Country: Russia

Title: Your God Liar

Label: Cold Breath of Silence

Year: 2008

Style: Satanic Black Metal

Review:

Inferius Torment was formed in 2003 and released 1 demo and 1 EP before getting to record and release their debut album, the album in case here. "Your God Liar" is a half an hour piece of Satanic Black Metal consisting of 10 tracks. A very good effort I would say, very hateful, dark and expressive; fast and uncompromising Black Metal made of: hoarse, aggressive vocals, ultra fast drums (well, except on track 9), regular Black Metal guitar riffage and sinister intermezzos. Nothing extravagant or original in what concerns compositions, but a true piece of Raw, aggressive, dark and not boring, as such a band should sound. My only complaint would be the drums sound that is so raw that after a while gets to be anoying. Recommended to the ones of you into raw sounding old-school Black Metal with satanic / anti-christian lyrics.

Reviewed by Adrian

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Band: KORPBLOD

Country: Sweden

Title: Uråldrig Samklang

Label: Selfreleased

Year: 2009

Style: Pagan Black Metal

Review: 

This review belongs to the second output and full length album of Korpblod, a young couple of swedish artists. And as though the pagan metal scene is not the brightest these days, there are still spotlights on the dark sky. And this band is one of them. 

With this CD you will get over one hour cold and dark pagan, black metal, which just artists from the north can create. No senseless lyrics, it is all in swedish and they are singing about their roots to mother nature and their country. A big plus for the authenticity. 

The music itself is raw but still in good quality, perfect fitting to the whole thing called Korpblod, in my opinion. Fast black metal guitars, good not to overtechnical drums underlining the simplicity of the music and idea behind. The vocals are screamed of Ulf, who also plays the drums and writes the lyrics. Disa, the other part of this project, plays the guitars and instruments like the flute or other old ones. The use of those last two is made in a good simple way completing the music and creating a great atmosphere. This is a great work and all lovers of authentic pagan, black metal should keep them in mind and give a listen.

Reviewed by Robert

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Band: LETHAL FIRE

Country: Colombia

Title: Rain of Fire

Label: Desolation Prod.

Year: 2009

Style: Thrash Death Metal

Review:

Man this is a bad, amateurish album... Starting with the amateurish sound, weak mixing and mastering, continuing with the absolutely monotonous and minimalistic guitar work, anoying drum-machine and enfing up with compositions that are '90's Deathrash influenced, but don't have anything from those years feelings, and sound like recorded during a few rehearsals, with lots of mistakes, of course. The only thing that's ok on this release could be the vocals, I mean the vocalist really tries and has an ok sound, but that's not enough for me to listen to the whole 9 tracks (45 minutes)... I've tried the Skid Row cover they did, thougth it was better, but it wasn't (except for the vocal parts)... Sorry, I wouldn't have bougth this album in the '90's and I wouldn't buy it now for sure. Maybe for the next release they will work a bit more. 

Reviewed by Adrian

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Band: MOLOKEN

Country: Sweden

Title: Our Astral Circle

Label: Discouraged Records

Year: 2009

Style: Progressive Doom Death

Review:

Moloken's "Our Astral Circle" has been one of the hardest albums for me to review in the last year. Trying to sum their sound in a few words is difficult because they don't seem to fit into any particular genre of metal. Some people may see this as a bonus but for me it left me somewhat confused. They are described as a mixture of doom and death metal in the early 90s style, British epic progressive rock, and ambient hardcore but i don't hear much hardcore at all in this. They have many doom elements in their sound but its not like traditional doom metal like Candlemass or the more stoner doom sound of Electric Wizard. Moloken's sound is more sludge driven but with a progressive rock edge. Opening track "Molten Pantheon" has a thick sounding riff and the vocal roar of Nicklas Bäckström knocks you back in your chair at first, he has a tortured vocal sound. The music is very bass heavy but with some strong melodic lead breaks inserted to add some real contrasting sounds. At first i was thinking Cult of Luna meets Swallow the Sun but after repeated spins i keep hearing something different again.. There is also some hypnotic rhythms with melodic drumming that you don't hear too often within a metal band. By the time you get to the third track called "Die Fear Will" you get a almost "Mastodon" type feeling about the band. The mixture of pure power chords and sonic ambiance is well done but just to confuse you even more, there is a almost "Neurosis" influence that shines through in songs like "Followers". The main feature of the band's songwriting is the use of dynamics, loud and quiet sections mingle together and melancholic leads blend with thundering sludge sections. The quieter sections seem to work best as in the moody intro to "Untitled I", another highlight is "My Enemy" which is a savage slab of metal but for doom fans "11"12" stands out as being the closet thing to pure doom.

Just to confuse you even more about this band, i must say there is a kind of looseness to the recordings on here even though the band is incredibly tight. This is a achivement on their part, to be able to record some real tight musical interplay but to also keep a live in the studio vibe. Elsewhere on the album you will more good tracks, there is no real filler material but the tracks i already mentioned do stand out as being the high points on the album. Musically Moloken wont re-define the doom/sludge genre but the crossover sound they have may point to a emerging trend with the doom metal style. Its not doom enough to be a pure doom album and not deathly enough to be death metal but this is still one hell of a heavy release. The production is excellent and the packaging is equally as impressive but the music contained within may take a few spins to get used to. As good as this album is, i personally think their best work is still to come. To me this is the sound of a band trying to figure out which road to take musically speaking and i mean no offense to anyone with that statement. This is a big step up from their debut "We all face the dark alone" and the band has the musical chops to create something really special next time around. Till then, my friend!

Reviewed by Ed

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Band: NATU SABVERATA

Country: USA

Title: Existing to Ensure Your Destruction

Label: Heaven and Hell Records

Year: 2009

Style: Hardcore Thrash Death 

Review:

Natu Sabverata, a pretty strange name for an extreme metal band... I have very few info about this band, so I'll just stick to reviewing what's happening on this album. Basically we are treated with 15 tracks (60 minutes) of mid-tempo Thrash Death heavily injected with Hardcore and Grindcore grooves, but this doesn't mean we're dealing with a Deathcore band. The rhythms are very catchy, but because tehre is not so much variation and the album is a long one you might get bored with it after a while if you're not into Groove influenced Extreme Metal. "Existing ..." is made of: double vocals (growls and screams on the background), Hardcore/Grindcore drumming and Old-School Thrash Death guitar riffs and leads. I have enjoyed this album, but you should give the band a listen on their Myspace profile before buying the album.

Reviewed by Adrian

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