Yeah. I'm really sorry man, but this was total bollocks. If it had been a pop album or even AOR I'd have said ok. If Schenker had titled it "Schenker goes pop" then yeah maybe. But with a tough-as-nails, come-and-have-a go title like that, and the super hard cover, I was expecting so much more. It's almost like Der Schenk had had enough and wanted to go out giving his fans the middle finger. I haven't been quite so disappointed in a long time.

I'm even considering re-reviewing it for a new section called "Must try harder", which I have yet to start. Good list otherwise though. I really enjoyed the Metal Church album.

Hope we're still pals .... :shycouch:

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Redeemer of souls --- Judas Priest --- 2014 (Epic)
I have to admit it: I’m no fan of Judas Priest. When Bruce was shaking his locks all over the TOTP stage screaming “Run to the hills”, I looked at Halford and thought “The guy’s got short hair! If you’re in a metal band you HAVE to have LONG hair!” Hey, give me a break: I was like sixteen at the time. So that was my reason for shutting Priest out of my metal life, and not listening to anything by them --- though I did of course get exposed to “Breaking the law” and “United” via the charts --- until ast year, when I shamefacedly admitted I really should have listened to “British steel” before I hit my fifties…

I still haven’t listened to any of their other albums --- no time y’see --- but couldn’t really let the release of their latest album be ignored in Metal Month, so this is only the second Priest album I’ll have heard. Hey! Keep that tar away from me! And what’s with the feathers guys? Guys?

The first album without legendary guitarist, songwriter and co-founder KK Downing, this is Priest’s seventeenth album, and it’s pretty crazy to think they started back in 1969, like, ten YEARS before the NWOBHM and a decade before anyone had even heard of Iron Maiden, even in the little clubs. Certainly survivors of the movement that swept so many new bands into the gutters of history, Priest no doubt looked on with the nodding or shaking head of the wise old veteran as these new young guns rose, fell, rose, fell. They’d seen it all before, and did not feel their throne was threatened. In that. they may later have discovered they had underestimated at least one of the bands, who went on to dominate world Metal and eclipsed the old campaigners in just about every area.

But undaunted by the pretenders to their crown scaling the charts and amassing an army of followers across the globe, Judas Priest have continued on a slow and steady path to Metal glory. They haven’t had the chart successes of Maiden, but they’re just as popular and they probably always will be. To underline that, this, their first album in six years, went to number six in the coveted Billboard US charts, number 12 in the UK and took the top slot in the US Rock AND Hard Rock charts, as well as the UK Rock and Metal Charts.

With the ominous sound of approaching thunder, “Dragonaut” kicks into life on the back of new guitarist Richie Faulkner’s axe allied to that of mainstay Glenn Tipton, before Rob Halford’s by-now familiar growl leaves us in no doubt that one of the oldest Metal bands in the world are back! Fretburning solos are the order of the day, and there’s little time to catch your breath as we hurtle on into the title track. It’s a real anthem, swaggering along with a studded, leather-clad fist punching the air, great interplay between the two guitarists. It would of course be wrong of me to say there’s a Maiden influence on the song (though there is) as I know Priest were going long before Bruce, or even Paul, and the boys, so I’ll just say I can see where both Maiden and Manowar got their inspiration, and it’s pretty evident in this track, which could grace any album by either band.

Speaking of Manowar, as I said I know little about Priest, but I don’t think they generally favoured songs about mythology prior to this, so the next three tracks really are something of a surprise, lyrical contentwise. “Halls of Valhalla” recounts the raids by the Vikings, hoping to die in glorious battle and so be admitted into the houses of the brave. With a big chunky guitar fading in it gives a real epic feel, then changes as the guitar becomes a standard hard metal one, Halford letting out a mighty roar worthy of Eric Adams himself, Tipton going wild on the guitar while Faulkner keeps the rhythm going. You can almost feel the ”Spray on the storm’s maul” as the mighty Norsemen fight the ocean on their long trek west in search of booty (not that type, Franco! :rolleyes:) and glory.

For a man reaching his sixty-third year, Rob Halford still has a mighty set of pipes, and he gives them full vent here, a scream that would give Bruce a run for his money! Great backing vocals too. Proghead nerd sidenote: the album cover is designed by Mark Wilkinson, well known to fans of Marillion as being the man behind the first four album sleeves and also many of those released by Fish when he went solo. What do you mean, you don’t care, this is Metal Month, fuck off out of here you prog wank --- that’s not very nice now is it? Okay okay! We know when we’re not wanted. Put that bloody axe down, all right? We’re going.

Another warrior tale is related in “Sword of Damocles”. Whether it references the actual legend or not I don’t quite know; it may be just used as a metaphor. But it’s a slower, hard cruncher with a sense of swinging about it. Again a fine vocal performance from the main man, and an introspective guitar passage in the middle, during which Halford goes all soprano for a moment, which is a little unnerving, but it doesn’t last before his dark growl is back and we’re on track again. I’m not sure if “March of the damned” is about zombies, or again if it’s meant to be a metaphor for all the dead from various wars, but it’s got an odd, almost Numanesque vocal to it. Yeah I know. It’s a mid-paced monster, with a screaming guitar solo and deep, kind of breathing noises which are either made on the drumkit or on Tipton’s synth. Very effective either way.

You know, that vocal is so different I wonder if it’s someone other than Halford singing? Does Tipton sometimes sing? It just does not sound like the usual vocalist, though maybe he’s just that versatile a singer. What do I know? But if anyone does, please let me know. “Down in flames” has a sort of almost thrash metal vibe to it, rocking along well, with some good backing vocals. “Hell and back” thought it would get me, with its gentle, acoustic opening, but I knew. I knew! Marching along as a tough metal cruncher, it gives Tipton and Faulkner a different outlet for their guitar skills as they grind and snarl where before they screamed and shrieked. Sort of a heavy blues feel to this track too with a healthy dose of Manowar. Yeah, I said Manowar. Wanna fight about it? :ar_15s:

With a title like “Cold blooded” you’re expecting another slowish cruncher, but what you get, rather interestingly is another slowish cruncher. Yeah, like a slower Tank or a more polished Diamond Head, Priest rack out the kind of lyric you would expect from a DSBM album but hit you with enough killer riffs and crashing drums that you can’t be depressed even though the lyric is very bleak and hopeless: ”You suck my life/ And all that I live for/ I’m left for dead/ Cold blooded…” “Metalizer” then kicks everything back up to ten, hammering along with a big scream from Halford and the kind of guitar I usually expect from Maiden’s poster boys. Kind of a Black Metal feel to the lyric --- Thrusting from a grave of unholy earth/ Giving all his worth let the damned be saved/ All that evil sin buried underground” --- with some truly awesome drumming from Scott Travis that is in danger of knocking you out cold.

“Crossfire” reminds me of the late great Rory Gallagher, with a hard blues edge to it, especially the guitar solo. Sa-weet man! “Secrets of the dead” on the other hand is very progressive metal, though Priest would probably skin me alive for suggesting such a thing! Love the sort of eastern tinge to it, and say what you like but it reminds me of a Kamelot song I know, so there. Well we started powerfully, can we end the same way? “Battlecry” certainly goes for it, hard rockin’ all the way in an almost “Aces high” vibe, but “Beginning of the end” seems like it may close the album with a ballad. Certainly a relaxed opening on acoustic guitar and soft synth, echoing vocal from Halford. Pretty heartbreaking song, which seems to reference the death of a loved one. It is a ballad, and a great one, and though almost out of place, it puts the finishing touch on a great album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Dragonaut
2. Redeemer of souls
3. Halls of Valhalla
4. Sword of Damocles
5. March of the damned
6. Down in flames
7. Hell and back
8. Cold blooded
9. Metalizer
10. Crossfire
11. Secrets of the dead
12. Battle cry
13. Beginning of the end

If anyone thought there was a hidden message in the closer, the band have denied the rumours that this was to be their last album, and yet remain strangely ambiguous about the future: “In a way, I suppose it’s also our farewell album, though it might not be our last one” --- Glenn Tipton. Huh? Whatever the future holds for Judas Priest, having survived the turmoils of the NWOBHM, the punk revolution, grunge and hip-hop, they’re still standing proud, bold and defiant, and this album is their mission statement. In two and a bit words: “We’re back!”

Okay then, time to roll up my sleeves, gird my lions (no I don't mean loins: have you not met Ben and Jerry?) :D
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grit my teeth and head into the maelstrom again, hoping to the metal gods that I don't end up having to listen to any more grindcore. Yeah, it's time for our second visit of the month to
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Enter password: password entered. Password accepted. Engage Random Selection Function: Random Selection Function Engaged. Processing... processing ... please wait ... processing... Band found!
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Well, at least it isn't grindcore! These guys hailed from Russia --- and I don't mean the USSR, for anyone as old as me, as they have only been around since 2010, although they were known as Prostan from 2008 to 2010, so technically they've been in existence six years. Still, that's pretty young for any metal band, and as a consequence they only have the one album. Can I find it? Well let's see. Spotify: negative. Grooveshark: negative. YouTube: negative. No luck then, though I did find one video of them, playing oddly enough under the name Miliard...

So we'll have to go again. Enter details etc and what have we got this time?
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Already split up over twenty years, and with one demo to their name --- with the picture of it showing a cassette tape! --- Ah, I'm just not even going to bother looking. Next!
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You know, that's mighty weird! Not only are this band split up, not only do they have demos and nothing more to their name but they formed in the same year as Endless Dawn, despite being American and therefore thousands of miles apart. What else have they in common? Yeah, they're no good to me. Mind you, with their two demos entitled “Gloating over corpses” (Oh! You heartless gloater! --- Blackadder joke) and “Slaughtered for food”, I don't think I'm missing too much. Push Random button to engage...
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Another American band, another Black Metal band. What is it with my luck? Why can't I get a single progressive, power or symphonic metal band, or even a good ol' thrash or speed metal band? I ALWAYS get bloody extreme metal! Well, by the rules I set this is my last chance. If these guys --- who have three EPs, and therefore the largest output of the four choices I've hit up here --- can't be located then it's over for this week. Where's my shotgun and hunting dog? Oh no! Jerry is after him! DOWN! BAD lion! Down! Don't you glare at me like that... um .... good lion ... easy now ...

Right, now that I'm safely locked in my Panic Room we can get down to business. Although there is no sign of this band anywhere on my usual sites, I have managed to find about seventy percent of their second EP on YouTube, so we'll have to go with that.

Well first of all they're Black Metal, so hooray for that I don't think. I also get the feeling, from what I see of them, that they're not going to be leaning anywhere towards the more atmospheric, ambient side of the scale. I think brutal and nasty and savage are words I could probably rely on here. As I say, they have three EPs but no albums, but appear still to be active. They're also a he, as in, they're a one-man band, where one Marius Koslowski does, apparently, “everything”. Whether this means (just!) guitar, bass and drums or whether he throws in keys and other instruments I don't know. Is he another Panopticon? Can we expect ambient passages among screamed or growled vocals, or will this just be a blinding, hammering, exhausting guitar-led dash to the finish line, with added snarls to go?

There's little real information on him, other than the bands he's played in or been part of previously, where mostly he seemed to handle guitar, keyboards in some and also bass, and that he's from Tampa in Florida, so maybe he and Austin Lunn could growl to each other across the states. The last of his EPs came out in 2011, with nothing since, so I don't know whether he's working on an album, or even another EP, but here's what I can find out about him.

Band name: Mondhaurn
Nationality: American
Subgenre: Black Metal
Born: 2009
Status: Active
Albums: None, but three Eps: “Demonizing passions” (2009), “Maze of desolation” (2010) and “Cursed blessings” (2011)
Live albums: None
Collections/Anthologies/Boxsets: None
Lineup: Marius Koslowski (“Everything") F

He can't be a superstar at any rate: of his three EPs, two of them were limited to a pressing of 33 and 66 copies respectively; whether this is all he could afford or that was all the discs he had I don't know. It doesn't mention how many copies, if any, the third one was restricted to, but somehow I don't think you're going to find him playing Giants' Arena or Madison Square Gardens any time soon. But should be be regarded as an undiscovered gem, or is he just another guy messing about in his garage/basement/bedroom, making music and running off copies for his friends? The fact that he's here at all, on EM would indicate that he has some sort of following, but then again, you never know. I guess I'll have to make my own mind up.

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Maze of desolation --- Mondhaurn --- 2010 (Svartgalgh Records)

As I say, this guy's music is not easy to track down --- and little wonder, considering how few copies of it got out to the public --- so I've only been able to find a total of four tracks from him, three of which appear on this EP, which is why I've chosen it out of the three. According to the tracklisting the EP opens with “Dawn of devastation”, which is one of the tracks I've been able to locate on YouTube. It's a fast guitar all right, but definitely some melody in there, almost thrash I would say, the drums as fast as if not faster than the axe. Then it sort of slows down a little into a hard and heavy riff reminiscent of the likes of Metallica or Slayer. The vocal when it comes in is not in fairness the worst I've heard. Yes, it's that scratchy, scary sort of growl-hiss that seems to permeate so much of Black Metal --- or at least, the little I've heard --- but I've experienced much worse.

The guitar work is very accomplished and technical, even if it is superfast most of the time. Don't hear any keyboards, never mind cellos or piccolos, so it's probably going to be the Unholy Quartet of guitar, bass, drums and vocals again, but that's ok: that's the format upon which Black Metal --- indeed, thrash, speed and many other subgenres --- is founded upon. Great solo there in the fourth minute, and while I would not of course be a fan of Marius's singing, it is mostly recognisable as such. The next track is “In the light of deception”, but I can't find that one so we move on to “Redemption through darkness”, which has a harder, more sort of marching guitar and is slower, though no less heavy, than the opener. I certainly wouldn't call it a cruncher by any means, but it pulls back the speed a decent amount.

Now it speeds up on the back of the hammering percussion, with guitar fusilades going off all over the place. Good decent solo there again in the last minute or so, and the vocal has fallen away as Marius concentrates on cranking out all the riffs he can from his guitar. Oddly enough it fades out. Hmm. And into what sounds like violin too, with dark thunder and wind noises. In a way it's possibly a pity that we don't have “Damnation”, the next track, as I wonder if that unexpected strings ending was leading into something similar for the fourth track? But we don't have it and so we close on “Kiss of the plague”.

Another fine heavy guitar intro with battering drums, then a big roaring growl from Marius before he gets into the vocal properly, snarling all over the place. There are no lyrics so I don't know what he's singing about, but maybe the Black Death? Or it could be that humanity is the plague? That's certainly a favourite subject among Black Metal bands. Then again, it could be about Judgement Day, or who knows what? I certainly couldn't determine it by listening to his singing, so we'll have to remain in ignorance I'm afraid. Nice almost power metal riff there in the third minute, and develops into a pretty fine and impressive solo. This track also fades out, which is odd given the power and anger in the song.

TRACKLISTING

1. Dawn of devastation
2. In the light of damnation
3. Redemption through darkness
4. Damnation
5. Kiss of the plague

I'm not for a moment suggesting that I'm getting into Black Metal, for who would believe that, least of all me? But for what it was, this album was not too bad. When I think back to the likes of Sauron, who kicked this whole section off (literally) a year or two ago, and some of the other bands I've had to suffer through in the name of randomness, this is by far not the worst band I've ever stumbled across in The Meat Grinder. Sure, I'm not gonig to be playing this while doing the dishes or when I'm out and about, and I wouldn't play it at the New Year's Eve party --- If I went to any New Year's Eve parties. Or any parties --- and in fact, there's probably a 99% chance I'll never even play it again. But if it happened to come on, I wouldn't immediately rush to shut it off.

And that, my friends, is about as much progress as you'll get from me in terms of Black Metal. But it's better than I used to be.

So, all things considered, and with the fact that even the vocals, though not my style, were not terrible, I think I can safely award this EP, possibly to my own surprise as much as anyone else's

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So that's it for the second foray into the unknown during Metal Month II. Hey, here's a thing: do you notice how, when all the bands I picked were Black Metal, their logos were all kind of similar? All have that kind of spiky, spread-out-wings sort of thing going on. What's with that? Is it mandatory if you're in a Black Metal band to have your band logo in that format?

Before I leave, let me just try one more thing. I'm finished, and have found and reviewed the band I was looking for here, but just for the craic .... yeah, another Black Metal band! Looks like I'm doomed to forever walk the dark paths. Still, at least the scenery has a sort of savage beauty to it, and it beats going in to the office!

Hey, anything beats going in to the office... ;)

Dude, you've only heard 2 Priest albums? The hell? I thought you had listened to, like, every rock album of the 20th century..!

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Haven't done this for a while so let's have a bit of fun with it. The theme this time out is places, the only stipulation being that, of course, they all have to be Heavy Metal songs of one stripe or another.

Let's kick it off with Manowar's classic “Gates of Valhalla”

Follow that up with the title track to Axxis's “Doom of destiny”, which is subtitled “Arabia”

Interesting one from Anthrax, from their debut, this is “Across the river”

Can't forget good ol' Black Metal! This is “Witchery”, with “Midnight at the graveyard”

Something more progressive, and totally the other end of the scale, from Christian metal band Theocracy, this is “Bethlehem”

One of Batty's favourites, this is Suffocation, with “Images of Purgatory”

And one of mine. Straotvarius, with “The hills have eyes”

One from the undisputed masters of Metal, this is Black Sabbath with “Jerusalem”

Bit of fun from Tankard, with “Cities in flames”

and we close on another Batty favourite, soon to be featured in the Viking Metal section, Bathory, with “Oden's ride over Nordland”.

No, like I said, I always discounted Priest simply because of Halford's hair. Ah, the stupidity of youth... :rolleyes:
Also, I started getting into progressive rock about 1983/4, so leaned a little away from metal. All I had was my CD collection (and vinyl) with no real recourse to downloadable music till Audiogalaxy came along, then Napster, so I was kind of in a rut up until then. And then suddenly I had more metal, prog rock and every other type of music than I could ever possibly listen to...

I'm not the rock vampire you seem to think I am, you know... ;)
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In the run-up to Metal Month II, and in an effort to make it more participatory, I asked for recommendations for albums I should feature. You responded strongly, and I received a lot of tips on what albums to review. I also asked for top ten lists. Again you responded well, and I chose three, two of which have now been run. Finally, I asked if anyone would like to write a short --- or long --- entry on what metal meant in their lives? How does it make you feel? I asked. How does it affect your life? Have you favourite albums, fond memories, gigs you've been to, moments in your life when metal has been the soundtrack? Why did you get into it, and how? Any or all of these questions could be asked and answered, I said, or you could write whatever you wanted.

The response was this time very low. I think I had two people who said they would participate. Now that's fine: not everyone can or wants to write on demand, and many of you may prefer to keep your innermost secrets, you know, secret. But thanks to those who did respond, and if you still want to, there's time yet. Just scribble down whatever you want to share with the world --- or at least, the readers of this journal --- and pop it over to me either in PM or with a link from which I can download it, and I'll run it before the end of this special.

First up to the bat was our old friend Briks, and this is what he has to say...
(Note: to preserve the spirit of what was written I have not changed anything in the text other than incorrect spelling (of which there is none). I have left the formatting as it is, not changed paragraphs except once where I think it needs to break up the flow, and have done my best to leave everything as it was written. I think it's only fair, given the time and effort that must have gone into this, that I don't fuck with it.)
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A brief history of my metalheadship
by Briks


Picture this. You're eleven, you only listen to whatever's on the radio, the stuff your parents play in the car, and some albums that are on on your little 2GB MP3 player. You've just gotten home from the mall, where your father bought you a sweet-looking CD by a band you'd never heard before. You put it on, and are totally overwhelmed. The vocals are more energetic than anything you've ever heard, the guitarists are unbelievably skilled and the riffs are hella technical, the choruses are catchy and make you want to sing along, and it's live, so the chanting and clapping from the audience enhances the whole experience. It just feels like you're there.

This is what happened to me. The album was Flight 666 by Iron Maiden. I didn't really care THAT much about music back then, so this was just another album added to the little stuff I knew, but it sure made a lasting impression. My interest in music started growing when I was twelve, I think, but I was still just listening to Queen, Bruce Springsteen, a little Oasis thrown in there, y'know, some of the big names in rock. But eventually I got the desire to listen to other things, and listening to Iron Maiden felt natural, so I booted up Spotify and heard the studio versions of the hits for the first time. That's how a kid discovers music in the internet era. I ended up buying Powerslave. Yay, my first metal studio album! It was on sale, and it had some of the songs I knew on it, so of course I had to buy it. I had by now gotten used to Iron Maiden, and was curious about more metal. The natural next step was the other classics, and I'm pretty sure Black Sabbath was my second metal band. I started listening to the hits (I hadn't started listening to full albums yet), and dug them pretty hard: “Heaven and Hell” was some of the most bitchin' stuff I'd heard. So, you know, I started listening to the other classics: some Judas Priest, some Motörhead, that kind of stuff.

Late 2012 I registered here on Musicbanter, mostly to ask stupid questions in the emo forum, but I liked it here and decided to stay. New music surrounded me on all sides, and I couldn't avoid stumbling over a metal recommendation or two, so my musical knowledge expanded faster than ever before (and it didn't take long before I started listening to full albums rather than songs). I also got recommendations from one of my friends in my scout group. He liked some cool stuff, so we started discussing music, and soon our tastes were developing parallelly. One day in the fall of 2012, he sent me a Facebook message saying something like this (it was in Norwegian):

Dude, if you want to hear someone who's sick at power metal, search on YouTube: 'Through the Fire and the Flames'. Watch it all, you'll be impressed.

I've already mentioned this in a journal entry I made about Dragonforce. Anyway, I searched them up, and holy mutton, I was amazed. “They're playing so fast!* And the chorus is big and catchy! Did he call this 'power metal'? Gotta look into that.” So both of us started listening to power metal, and it became his favourite metal subgenre as well as mine. Actually, I think it was the first subgenre I got into other than classic heavy metal, but it stayed my definite favourite for a while. And so we went on, both digging deeper into the realm of metal (as well as other genres: both of us were fans of Green Day, for instance). Then quite recently, early 2014 actually, we decided to make a metal album club. It was only the two of us to start with, but soon after, two other metalheads from our scout group joined, and we made a little Facebook group to organize stuff. We were (and still are) using a “pack system”, were we chose around seven albums at a time, each in a different subgenre, and selected new ones when everyone had listened to them. I also opened a journal section named “chunks of metal”, where I would review the albums we chose. Actually, that was my first journal section to not be a Trollheart ripoff. Anyway, the pack system meant that we had to explore parts of the metal realm we had barely dared to touch before, like black and death metal. We started off lightly, with Venom as our first black metal album, but eventually we had to move on to the rawer stuff. I was surprised when we listened to Hvis Lyset Tar Oss by Burzum and I actually enjoyed it, despite it being the work of one of the most infamous Norwegian murderers ever. And now black metal is slowly becoming my favourite metal subgenre. Well, that's the history of my metalheadship. So:

What does metal mean to me?

Warning: This might sound like a Manowar song

It's like the Force, man. Once you learn to appreciate it, rather than use it, it will flow in your veins, and be there for you even during the hardest times. Also, the Metal Gods have something for you no matter what mood you're in. There's thrash metal if you're angry, there's black metal if you're absolutely pissed, there's power metal if you're happy, there's folk metal if you feel like dancing, there's doom metal if you feel like having your soul crushed by blackness and so on. And if I'm faced with a challenge, like having to do something hard in gymnastics at school (well, I'm not really faced with a lot of other challenges), I find myself thinking “what would Dio do?” or “keep running in the name of Dio” and it keeps me motivated. Cheesy? Naah.

Audiogalaxy? You ****ing dinosaur.

My first ever introduction into the world of free, downloadable music. I was crushed when it got shut down. Kids these days won't understand, with music so readily available from so many sources (Spotify, Pandora, Grooveshark, YouTube, Torrents etc) but back then this was a seachange in how people got their music. Instead of having to buy, or borrow and tape the music you wanted, you could actually download it for free! Before the Man clamped down on it and burned it to the ground, of course. I learned a lot in those days, thanks to AG and also to the long-lamented Allofmp3.com, first of the Russian "Dollar-an-album" websites. Respect.

The days when you downloaded songs

Get out from behind that thing man, of course we are. I do want to add this though, the solo in Systems Failing is one of the hardest solo's I've ever tried to learn, and I probably couldn't play it right now to save my life. But yeah, it's all good. Different mindframes.

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So we’ve spent a week in sunny Brazil, soaking up the sun and the music, checking out the scenery and the women and wondering why we hadn’t the foresight to do this WHEN THE WORLD CUP WAS ON, and now we’re back closer to home, to look a little into the music of a country which has certainly risen from the ashes of defeat to become a dominant world power, especially in the finances of Europe. Yes, all hail Chancellor Merkel! It’s time to go all teutonic and see what Heavy Metal is like in
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Of course, Germany has a rich and varied history in the Metal scene, with bands like Scorpions, Accept, Rammstein, Helloween and Kreator hailing from their borders, to name but a few. It’s hopefully obvious that I have no chance whatever of getting though all the well-known bands, and equally obvious that some major names may, and probably will, be overlooked in this brief foray into German Metal. But bear in mind that all I’m doing here is picking examples of the music played and enjoyed in this country: they do not have to be, nor are they necessarily meant to be, representative of the country. Just as though Brazil has a lot of Thrash Metal it probably quite likely has equally as much Doom, Death or Prog Metal. I’m restricted in my choices, having only five artistes to look at and just one week to showcase them, so forgive me if your favourite, or just a really well-known band is left out.

I also am trying to take examples from artistes who may not be that well-known anyway. Anyone can go to Germany and present Kreator or Helloween as the band they want to check out, but I’m trying to go down maybe less travelled roads, and listen to bands I have never heard, nor perhaps even heard of. Hah! Wait till we get to Ireland! But right now we’re in Germany, and this is the first album I want to look at.

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Moral & wahnsinn --- Die Apokalyptischen reiter --- 2011 (Nuclear Blast)

All right, first things first: the band’s name literally translates to “the apocalyptic riders”, so essentially we’re talking about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse here. As the name is so long and hard to spell I’m going to use the acronym DAR to refer to the band. They have been around since 1995 and have eight albums under their belt, of which this is the seventh. Originally they favoured a mixture of Black and Folk Metal, but their more recent material has ditched many of those influences and has become more of a traditional Metal. Their early albums also tended to feature a mixture of lyrics in English and German, but in recent years they have decided to sing in just their mother tongue.

“Die boten” gets us underway with a big crashing rolling drumbeat and hard metal guitar, but then settles down to piano and softer guitar, slowing down as the vocals come in from the unfortunately-named Fuchs, and his voice, while rough, is nothing I haven’t heard on any viking Metal or Pagan Metal album before. There’s certainly a lot of passion in it, and the piano, with Dr. Pest (obviously these are pseudonyms) behind it changes to a synth, while the guitar in the hands of Ady gets harder before changing to Spanish for a moment. It’s a good hard opener and is followed by a somewhat more frenetic song in “Gib dich hin”, which almost edges into Power Metal territory and has, of all things, whistling (!) in it. Nice bass solo by Volk-Man as Sir G hammers away on the drumkit. No complaints so far.

DAR apparently don’t go in for long songs, or at least not on this album, as everything comes in just slightly over or under the three-minute mark, which is just about right for music like this, especially when I can’t say anything about the lyrics. Hmm. Sounded like a sitar there; perhaps made on the synth of the good Doctor. “Hammer oder amboss” has a more relaxed, bluesy feel to it, much slower and low-key, though the guitars kick back in --- Fuchs plays the guitar as well as singing --- and if anything the gentler part reminds me a little of RHCP. Very nice sparse piano passage, as Pest accompanies Fuchs solo for a short moment before the rest of the band join in. More bluesy guitar, kind of slide, in “Dir gehört nichts”, though it’s a more uptempo and features what appears to be synth brass from the Doctor. I like this one a lot; it has an almost hard rock sensibility to it. The horns definitely add something, and there’s some great work from Ady here too, kind of the first time we really hear him cut loose.

The keyboard man gets his own song next, with the track entitled “Dr. Pest”, and I would have expected it to be a keyboard instrumental, but there are vocals. It is however as expected led by an almost Nick Cavesque piano, this solo with perhaps some bass (though that could be created on the synth) and the vocal much less ragged and angry, reinforcing the similarities to Cave. Some violin there too, whether it’s real or on synth I don’t know, but given that this is the pianist’s own song I would guess it to be synthesised. Nice strings section too, with choral vocals. Very, very impressive. Sort of a gothic/doomy feel to the whole thing. The title track is up next (no I don’t know what it means) and it kicks the tempo right back up, Ady re-establishing his mastery of the music as he cranks off some excellent riffs, Pest adding in almost electronica flurries. The song takes on a heavy, dramatic turn as it slows down and strides along majestically until almost funky guitar jazzes it up again.

Speed guitar again holds court as Ady stamps his authority all over “Erwache”, the song the closest this band has come so far to Thrash Metal or Speed Metal, the keys of Dr. Pest though helping to push it in a more Power Metal direction. Fluid solos from Ady and clever work by Dr. Pest combine to make this song really quite special, then we’re into the only instrumental on the album. As you might expect, “Heimkehr” is carried by Pest’s lilting piano and soft keyboard, with some lovely strings effects adding to the overall flavour. It’s less than two minutes long but an emotional and compelling piece.

“Wir reiten” (we ride?) opens on atmospheric guitar and a relatively low-key vocal, slow percussion and gentle synth that makes me wonder if this might be a ballad, and despite the momentary roll on the drums from Sir G which I expected to presage a sudden heads-down charge it doesn’t happen, and the song remains a ballad, or a possible one. I would have thought there was a role for piano here, and indeed it does come in a little later, taking the tune as Fuchs continues to sing. Some nice backing vocals as the song moves towards its conclusion, with “Hört auf” taking us close to the end of proceedings with a big crashing drum and snarling guitar, the song marching along on a solid synth line in a sort of mid-paced style despite the rather cannoning drumbeat at times.

A false ending allows Pest to take the reins, with synth effects and layers of keys, while Ady’s guitar moans in the background, Sir G slowing down the percussion but it ends strongly and takes us into “Ein liebes lied”, the closing track with a sort of acoustic opening almost reminiscent of folk, perhaps a nod back to DAR’s original influences. The vocal is softer, more restrained, but then rises on Ady’s suddenly soaring guitar solo as the closer takes off, before it returns to the low-key opening, ending on a single plucked guitar string.

TRACKLISTING

1. Die Boten
2. Gib Dich Hin
3. Hammer Oder Amboß
4. Dir Gehört Nichts
5. Dr. Pest
6. Moral & Wahnsinn
7. Erwache
8. Heimkehr
9. Wir Reiten
10. Hört Auf
11. Ein Liebes Lied

It’s a good start for our brief odyssey into German metal. Though I didn’t understand a word of this album I really liked it; the piano and synth helped raise what could have been a fairly bog-standard Metal album to the status of something much more. Whether I would listen to another one is not a question I can answer right now. I’m a big lyrics man, as most of you know, and not to be able to follow the lyrics is a big minus for me. But I certainly enjoyed this album and would heartily recommend it.

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I’m not the biggest fan of Doom Metal, but after Cryptopsy and Znowhite I’ll be glad to have a chance to slow things down, hopefully. The Wiki entry for this album describes it thus: ”... features haunting slow guitar riffs, beautiful soprano vocals, meandering keyboards/piano, violins, cellos and clear yet aggressive male growling vocals.” Arcane Rain Fell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Other than the growling vocals --- which is something I’m very slowly getting used to --- this looks like it could be interesting. We’ll see.

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Arcane rain fell --- Draconian --- 2005 (Napalm)
Recommended by Carpe Mortem
When I read further, I see this is a concept album and I even like the premise --- Satan’s fall from grace and the creation of Hell --- so I have perhaps not high hopes as such, but ones you could climb up on and maybe feel a little lightheaded. There are only eight tracks on it, but of those, two shade the ten minute mark and one runs for over fifteen, so this is either going to be a good thing or a bad thing in terms of track lengths. There are also female vocals credited, so hopefully there’ll be some gentler, softer singing to counterbalance the rough male vocals described above. I also note the use of piano, cello and violin, so at least Cryptopsy this is not going to be!

Perhaps predictably, we open with the sound of rain falling and thunder crashing, then in the distance but getting louder we hear a single guitar playing a mournful dirge as the storm continues, eventually fading away completely to leave just the guitar until it’s joined a short moment later by the rhythm section. The vocal is a spoken one, down low in the mix as the guitar continues to hold court, courtesy of Johan Ericsson, then as “A scenery of loss” gets going the vocal goes all death metal, dark and growly, with sombre keyboards joining in. The overall effect is of a dramatic, tragic scene unfolding, and indeed it is, perhaps one of the most tragic stories of all, as we listen to Satan bemoan his fall from Heaven.

A female voice now joins in, as soprano Lisa Johnansson adds her lament to the song, the somewhat dark operatic element enhanced by her contribution. Ericsson winds up on the guitar now, and it gets a bit more forceful and a little faster as Johansson takes over the vocal, Jerry Torstensson hammering the drumkit to great effect and building the tension. Original vocalist Anders Jacobsson returns and so does the spoken vocal. Even though this opening song is over nine minutes long, it doesn’t seem like it. It never drags, never seems overlong and there’s not really any part of it I could see being left out and the song still surviving. It’s exactly as long as it should be.

The thunder and rain return as Andreas Karlsson’s piano plays a soft but bitter passage, the spoken vocal bringing the song to an end and opening the album very impressively. “Daylight misery” is another darkly atmospheric track, with the spoken vocal backed by a jangly, introspective guitar and slow, doomy drums while Jesper Stolpe on the bass keeps the beat like a broken heartbeat. Lisa (the surnames are too long, so I’m going to refer to them all by their forenames) has a part to play in this too, “The apostasy canticle” recounts the creation of the Universe by God, and how Satan and his minions feared and hated it. ”He blinded us/ Polluted our minds and forced us/ To drink his blood” he sings, and vows vengeance on the Almighty. Andreas’s keyboards play an important part in this song, painting a bleak and unremitting darkscape against which Johann’s guitar growls and wails, like a soul in torment.

The ragged, snarling vocals of Anders work very well here, his angry, pained voice encapsulating perfectly the mindset of the fallen one as he rages at what God has done, at the freedom lost when ”We knew not the grip/ The bondage of light” and swears revenge ”In this abyss we shall be free/ Here we will celebrate the coming war.” The tempo gets a little faster and more intense halfway through as Satan declares war on God and gathers his followers to him. Looking up into the unimaginable distance from Hell to Heaven, his former home, he vows to bring down the crystal towers that surround God’s kingdom and rule over them. Choral vocals on the synth, crushing percussion and Anders’s growling vocal all go together to show us Lucifer taking his throne of blood and plotting the overthrow of God through his creations, humanity: ”I will show the world God’s true face/ I will let the thunder roar.”

The spoken vocal opening “Expostulation” comes from guest Ryan Henry, who also wrote the lyric. It’s a short but brutal piece, dripping with anger and the lust for vengeance, and the dark delight of someone who destroys something created by another. Backed only by synth with choral vocals Henry speaks in Satan’s voice, as if writing a poison pen letter to his former master, as he describes the evil he will wreak, and has wreaked, on Earth. ”For this I slither in aspect/ Through Eden's gleanings /For this I bid Cain slayeth his brother/ For this I rend the weakest salient of thy diadem /As I, its jewel and very metal shall reflect no more/ Your light - the light of enslavement.” For a short piece it’s exceptionally powerful and you almost shrink from the hatred Henry puts into his voice --- Lucifer’s voice --- for God. Bravo.

I have a slight problem with the opening lines of “Heaven laid in tears (Angel’s lament)" --- ”Behold the skies, they’re full of lies, in disguise.” It’s a little trite, but this album is so good I can forgive that. Also, they’re sung by Lisa which gives them power they might otherwise not have had, not to mention that the melody is quite relaxing, almost laidback for much of the song until Jerry pounds in with the drums and Anders spits the vocal out in the chorus. It’s almost like a duet between a devil and an angel, though if so, this is an angel who has switched her allegiance and now serves Satan. The song gets more intense as it moves towards its conclusion, very powerful and moving. “The abhorrent rays” sees Satan rail against the sun, which is no friend of his. It opens with a growling vocal and thunderous drums as Johan cranks out some fine riffs and the tempo ups again.

I’ve yet to hear a bad track on this album, and the previous two are vying for standout in my mind at this moment, though we have still to get to the fifteen-minute closer, which at this point I’m very much looking forward to. Some fine phased guitar here too, really adds to the atmosphere. But no Lisa. Guess she can’t be on every track, and this is a rant, best carried by Anders’s powerful voice shouting hate at the orb of God’s brightest creation. The spoken vocal does make an appearance though, breaking up the harsher singing, and Andreas’s synth vocals add another layer of epicity to the song. Oh, there’s Lisa, right at the end! Nice one!

A slower, grinding guitar opens “Everlasting scar”, with Anders at his angry best, spitting hatred and scorn at God, and joined by Lisa early in the song. Great extended burning solo by Johan here before it slows down again and Lisa takes the lead in the vocals, Anders (or possibly Johan as he does backing vocals as well as playing the guitar) joins her in a short duet. There’s a very tragic feel to the guitar work; there has been mostly throughout the album but here it’s almost as if Satan is accepting his fate, and it’s unaccountably sad when he roars ”Walking the earth as the solitary reaper.../ Dressed in the lost voices of time/ I bathe in quiet waters of tearful shades/ (And) I suffer in every corner of your sanctuary/ Embrace me now, for I will die/ The pain I feel inside will never leave.” It’s almost like listening to the dying cries of a wounded beast, but being unable or unwilling to end their pain.

The closer is “Death, come near me” and begins on haunting piano and synth line before Johann cuts in with a sharp guitar, the vocal not beginning until we’re nearly three minutes in, but as I mentioned this is a fifteen-minute track. The spoken male vocal is first, quickly followed by Lisa in a star turn as she pours out her heart, entreating Death to grant her release from this world of woe. She’s joined by Anders as the two create a powerful duet which somehow really works well. In the seventh minute everything falls away to a single guitar line and the spoken male vocal, with violin and cello coming in to add their mournful voices to the lament. It’s quite stunning really.

This is an album I wish would not end, but we’re already halfway through the final track as Johann sets up a gentle, emotional guitar passage, backed by the lush keyboards of Andreas, then harder guitar pulls in the drums and bass as the vocal from Anders comes back in, lamenting ”Embrace me now, delightful ease!/ Give me a world of wondrous peace!” Lisa rejoins the vocalist as they duet again, against a slow beat maintained by the rhythm section and by Johann’s steady guitar. ”Oh, shed a tear /For the loss of innocence” cries Lisa with either Johann (normal voice) or Anders, and I do. You wouldn’t think it was possible for someone to make you feel sorry for the Devil, but somehow Draconian make you feel that way. The music and the songwriting is just that powerful. Never quite heard or experienced anything like it before. An aching fadeout on piano and guitar and I have a new artiste I need to check into, perhaps even a whole new subgenre.

TRACKLISTING

1. A scenery of loss
2. Daylight misery
3. The apostasy canticle
4. Expostulation
5. Heaven laid in tears (Angels’ lament)
6. The abhorrent rays
7. The everlasting scar
8. Death, come near me


I realise that a lot of the reason I am drawn to this album is due to the incredible story and how it’s handled, but it’s more than just that. This style of --- what would it be called? Gothic Doom? --- is something new to me and mixes the best elements of my two favourite subgenres, progressive and gothic metal, coupled with some amazing vocals and truly outstanding musicianship. The fact that most of the singing is done in that growly way I hate, and yet I can listen to it, is testament to the effect this album has had on me.

I certainly hope there are more like this, both from this band and others in this subgenre, and I’m eternally grateful to Carpe for turning me on to this music.

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Although the title was appropriate, considering that to some extent Slayer had spent several years in the abyss, with fans still clamouring for the true successor to “Reign in blood” and not at all happy, overall, with “South of Heaven”, this album could as easily have been titled “Back to Thrash”, because that's essentially what happened, what they went for. Faster, harder, more brutal playing, more gutteral vocals and themes that eschewed much of the fantasy elements that had informed their music up to now. To put it in a nutshell, and as no doubt Kerry King would have snarled, they weren't fucking around no more!

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Seasons in the abyss --- Slayer --- 1990 (Def American)

A big, growly guitar punch leaves you in no doubt as to what to expect before Dave Lombardo's drums cannon out at you like a fusilade as “War ensemble” continues Slayer's decrying of battle and conflict, perhaps odd given their “bastard hard” image, but then, many Metal bands have spoken out against war. After all, who really supports it? Araya screams the vocal with delighted abandon, as if glad to be getting back to basics, and Kerry King just solos all over the place. The songs are generally longer on this album than the previous two, with most around the three or four minute mark, while the closer comes in as the longest ever to date, edging over six and a half minutes.

Of these, “Blood red” is the shortest, just two minutes and forty seconds, slowing things down slightly with something of a cruncher, but still of course heavy enough to crush your skull, and those of any careless enough to be near you. “Spirit in black” speeds everything back up, and despite being over four inutes long it's played so fast that it's over before you know it, taking us into “Expendable youth”, bringing the tempo back a little as it marches along, while “Dead skin mask” gives us the first real listen to Tom's voice without growls or screams in attendance as he speaks the intro in a normal tone before his growl comes back in as he begins singing. The percussion is militaristic as Lombardo drives the tune along, and I feel it bears some resemblance to Metallica's classic “Enter Sandman”.

“Hollowed point” blows down the walls with way too much C-4 and comes out fighting, kicking and screaming as King lets loose with a tremendous barrage of spot-on riffs, Lombardo hammering his kit like there's no tomorrow, and the basic feeling is that of being bludgeoned to death with a guitar, but in the best possible way. The drumbeat opening to “Skeletons of society” is very reminiscent of Maiden's “Run to the hills”, but it drives along well in a sort of Sabbath/Dio mould, with a double vocal from Arya which works very well in the chorus. “Temptation” keeps the tempo high, and indeed “Born of fire” raises the bar, speeding along like a boy racer trying to escape the cops. That takes us to the closer, and title, and as mentioned, longest track to wrap up Slayer's fifth album. With a slow, grinding, very Sabbathesque opening and some slow, atmospheric guitar from Hanneman and King, you could almost think it might be Slayer's attempt at a ballad. Yeah, if you was a fool, that is! Slayer don't do ballads!

But it is certainly the slowest track on an album that has pretty much blinding speed as its trademark and mainstay, and with a two and a half minute instrumental introduction it's easily the closest to the old progressive metal that crept into much of “Show no mercy”; it's also far and away my favourite on the album. A superb and yet much more understated than normal solo from Kerry just completes this song and brings the album to a really satisfying conclusion.

TRACKLISTING

1. War ensemble
2. Blood red
3. Spirit in black
4. Expendable youth
5. Dead skin mask
6. Hollowed point
7. Skeletons of society
8. Temptation
9. Born of fire
10. Seasons in the abyss

Whether as a direct attempt to win back the fans they may have lost with the previous album, or as a way to prove they still had it and had not sold out after really hitting the big time with “Reign in blood”, Slayer here show a marked desire and determination to return to their roots, to get back to basics and reaffirm the faith of their fans in them. The songs are faster, harder and better constructed, and yet, almost paradoxically, the last track seems to nod back to the days of their debut, a sound they had been said to have been trying to leave behind, or develop beyond.

Whatever the thinking behind the change in musical direction, this must have worked because every Slayer album from here on in would feature the same sort of brash, brutal, uncompromising style that would keep this band from California sitting at the very top of the Thrash Metal tree, their feet planted firmly on the skulls at the base of their iron throne, and though many would try down the years to unseat them, they would remain there for a very long time.

After seasons in the abyss, Slayer were back!

Seasons In the Abyss is a great album, even if it's kind business as usual. That short drum solo/fill/whatever-the-**** immediately after the end of the second chorus is one of the most metal things I've ever heard. And I think you're missing something on the influences of the title track. I see it as the culmination of the more melodic experimentation on South of Heaven, but realized better. It's got that same kind of melodic, but creepy atmosphere as "Spill the Blood". "Seasons In the Abyss" is probably my favorite Slayer song. If they hadn't run out of steam by the next album, I'd have loved to see if they could have explored that sound even further. Also has my fav Slayer lyric ever, "Inert flesh/A bloody tomb/A decorated splatter brightens the room/An execution a sadist ritual/Mad intervals of mind residuals". Especially those last two lines. The alliteration, along with the rhythm of the delivery, just make it so memorable. The entire thing has great lyrics though.

Breathing? Oh are you talking about the sound of marching that plays towards the end of the song? hahah Come on Trollheart. It's called "March of the Damned" so there is marching. By the way, that's probably one of my favorite Priest songs.

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I remember buying this album and just being so impressed by it, considering I had at that point never heard of the band. Even the title sounded metal, both of the band and the album, and I had a feeling I would not be disappointed. I wasn’t. From the first glance at the sleeve you get a sense of awe and majesty, power and strength, and you know this isn’t going to be any “wimpy” soft rock album. In fact, through a clever campaign of publicity Manowar raised their profile and interest in their debut by utilising what I believe was the first I ever heard of the term “False Metal”, and urging those who listened to their music to reject same.

False Metal was deemed to be anything that masqueraded as Metal but was not seen to be hard enough or dedicated enough. The likes of glam and hair metal would have fallen under this banner --- Motley Crue, Hanoi Rocks etc --- as would anything that used too many ballads or keyboards, girly vocals or wimpy lyrics. Manowar would ally themselves to the new breed of Metal bands coming up like Tank, Venom and Slayer, as well as bands who were established and had proven their credentials like Priest, Maiden, Motorhead and Sabbath. These bands all played True Metal, and were to be either revered or accepted. Anyone else was not.

It was a clever ploy, but as I mentioned when I reviewed “Hail to England” some time ago, Manowar’s bastard-hard-come-and-have-a-go stance was purely for the cameras, as it were, revealed when they were reported to have run from a fight with another band. I can’t recall the details but it was reported in The Bible (no, not that one: “Kerrang!” of course!) and I remember I think it was Joey’s grinning admission: “Hey, we’re musicians, not boxers!” As an impressionable kid who had believed every word these guys said and expected they practiced what they preached, it was a huge blow to me at the time to find out that it had all just been words, a ploy to help them sell albums and gain fans.
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Battle hymns --- Manowar --- 1982 (Metal Blade)

But when I bought this album on its release in 1982 I knew nothing of Manowar’s true lives and excitedly dropped the stylus onto the vinyl to see if what “Kerrang!” had been saying could be right, to see if the hype was deserved. It was. From the moment this album starts it’s like suddenly getting hit in the face with a steel glove, spiked and studded, and until the final chords of the closer you never get a chance to recover. The sound of a motorbike is synonymous with Heavy Metal and as this one revs up we’re suddenly subjected to the guitar punch of Ross “The Boss” Friedman, quickly followed by the high-pitched scream of Eric Adams as “Death tone” opens the album that would become, for me at least, something of an epiphany.

With lyrics that flip off society in that way you love when you’re that age --- ”I give some square the finger/ Now he won’t look again!” it’s a powerful statement of intent as Eric growls ”Pull alongside if you’re looking for a fight!” In somewhat the same way as Ian Gillan did with Deep Purple --- but nowhere near as good a range --- Adams sets the tone for Heavy Metal vocalists for years to come, a loud, angry, triumphant scream that can go into yells and roars at times. Ross the Boss rocks on, but won’t come into his real element just yet. “Metal daze” gives him something more of a platform to build on, a faster, rockier song as Adams again lays down the marker: ”Only one thing sets me free/ Heavy Metal, loud as it can be!”

It pounds along with a kind of boogie vibe and a chanted chorus that would ensure they would receive adoration onstage: ”Hea-vy Me-tal!” simple but effective. Manowar certainly knew how to work the system, and they gave us what we wanted. Their fans became known as the Army of the Immortals, and when you listen to their music, that’s how you feel. Like nobody can touch you, like nothing can hurt you, like you’re gonna live forever. The thing I quickly learned about Manowar though was that they relied very much on power and bombast rather than the speed some of the bands coming up during the time of the NWOBHM --- Raven, Motorhead etc --- preferred. Even “Fast taker”, which you would expect to rocket along, well, does, but it’s not the heads-down, break-your-neck speed that the likes of Slayer and Anthrax would later espouse.

There’s a great solo from Ross here, his first real chance to show what he can do, and he does not waste it. Of course, Manowar were really an eight-piece: four guys and their egos. They had no compunction about going around saying they were the best, and inviting other Metal bands to take them on, a real case of “Come and have a go”, but it must be accepted that the talent was there. They knew how to play, and they knew how to write. They also knew how to project an image, before many Metal bands had a clear idea of how they wanted to present themselves to their fans, and went through various changes, Manowar had it down pat. “Death to False Metal!” they roared, and we roared back in delight. Had we horses, and could we ride them, we would have followed them into battle. It was just that empowering.

Much of their lyrical content concerned, at least on the first album, the Vietnam war, with it being mentioned in the opener and the main theme of the next track, “Shell shock”. Later they would turn to more historical/mythical, even fantasy themes, recalling great battles and warriors, and musically worshipping Odin and the Norse gods. But here they were still sort of shaping their ideas, and war and Heavy Metal always go well together, so why not? The next song however is their mission statement, and is simply called “Manowar”. It’s a faster, more driving song, with drummer Donnie Hamzik thundering the beat, and tells the story of the band’s formation, somewhat embellished --- ”We met on English ground/ In a backstage room we heard the sound/ And we all knew what we had to do” --- with perhaps what The Batlord would term the goofiest and yet most satisfying chorus line --- ”Manowar! Born to live forevermore!/ The right to conquer every shore!/ Hold your ground and give --- no more!” Oh you have to laugh now, but back then we believed every word passionately, and loved it.

Another cracking solo from Ross as Joey de Maio thumps out the bass, then the beginnings of their move towards a more fantasy lyric with a darker, grindier sound comes with “Dark avenger”, which slows everything down to Doom Metal speed, as Adams shows that he can sing at the other end of the scale too. A raw, angry lyric speaks of the lust for revenge of a hero left to die after his enemies have taken everything he has. The gods, impressed, allow him this opportunity for vengeance. Taking him to the land of the Dead, they resurrect him and send him back as their instrument of retribution. This song could be on any Sabbath album, and includes, rather amazingly, the services of the famous Orson Welles, narrating part of the story. It’s a powerful addition and really adds gravitas to the song. It sounds like there’s a synth backing, but I can’t find any credit for it, though Ross did later play keys on other albums, so maybe they snuck one in but didn’t want to tell the Army of the Immortals about it!

As the song reaches its climax, Ross goes wild on the guitar, Hamzik rattling the drums like galloping warhorse as Eric screams out his revenge with gusto, stretching his vocals cords to the limit. You can almost see the blood dripping off his sword, already slick with the life essence of so many slain enemies --- and many more to be slain! --- and the terrified women cowering on the ground sodden by the blood of their husbands, awaiting their turn. In a total change of pace, Joey deMaio gives a virtuoso display on the bass as he interprets Rossini’s “William Tell” for a Metal audience with the assistance of Ross, before we end on the big title track, a stunning almost operatic piece, opening on acoustic guitar which fades down as Hamzik starts slow then increases the speed as he calls in Adams.

A triumphant, victorious battle song, it’s the perfect end to this amazing debut album, and cuts right to the heart of what Manowar were about. With choral vocals evoking the feel of an army on the march, the lyric is full of words like “blood, steel, fight” and “glory”; in fact, the title of the followup album is prophesied here as Adams yells ”Sound the charge!/ Into glory ride!” In the midsection the song drops to an acoustic gentle passage, with more choral vocals as the battle pauses, but we’re quickly back into mayhem as Ross takes control, urging the troops on as dust rises about them in a cloud and enemies fall on every side. ”Kill! Kill!” screams Adams, and you could say it’s glorifying violence, but it’s hard to take it too seriously and it’s set to the backdrop of a battle. It’s not like Manowar are exorting their followers to go out and kill people in the street, unlike some bands I could name.

It all ends then in a run-up on the drums, a squeal on guitar and a choral interpretation almost of Orff's “O fortuna”, and with a final guitar chord we are out, and the battle is won. The fictional battle in the song, and also the battle for the hearts and minds of metalheads, who having heard this album became instant followers and fans of the band, and a legend was born. As Manowar had intended from the start. To quote the late, lamented Rik Mayall, the plan worked brilliantly!

TRACKLISTING

1. Death tone
2. Metal daze
3. Fast taker
4. Shell shock
5. Manowar
6. Dark avenger
7. William’s Tale
8. Battle hymn

Over the years I’ve given Manowar a bit of a rough ride, and that’s for two reasons. One, I did, as I said above, believe everything they said when I was nineteen and bought this album. I thought they were hard as nails, and Heaven help anyone who crossed them. When reality showed itself to me in the cold light of day, I was crushed. My idols had feet of clay. The other reason is that a stance like this can only be maintained for so long, and Manowar have now dined out as it were on this for over thirty years. The joke, so to speak, is wearing thin. It’s hard to take seriously men who are now in their sixties -- spookily, although I can’t find a birthdate for Joey deMaio, all three of the others were born in the same year, 1954! Destiny or what? --- raging about “False Metal” and talking about riding forth to slay the unworthy. Yeah granpa, just sit down in that chair and remember your blood pressure!

But I do love Manowar, and always have done, and if I poke fun at them it’s gentle and not meant in any way to be hurtful or dismissive. They filled my late teens and early twenties with some amazing music, with some great great lyrics and drew for me vistas with music I could only otherwise read about in my fantasy novels. When I bought this album and listened to it, it was like Conan the Barbarian had taken up a Fender and ridden into battle. It was that powerful, that influential, and the two albums that followed just reinforced my belief at the time that this was a band who could take on the world.

And they did. What can I say in closing? Into glory ride! Death to False Metal! Yeah!

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A band who are huge in Germany but of whose work I have heard precisely nothing is Rammstein, who have suffered accusations of Nazism and white supremacy throughout their career, though they deny it totally, saying their music is not politically motivated. They generally sing in German, so like DAR yesterday it’s unlikely I’ll be able to comment on the lyrics, though I do have a translation of each song title and a general idea of what each is about, so that will help.
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Reise, reise --- Rammstein --- 2004 (Motor Music)

The title can be interpreted a few different ways --- apparently words can mean several things in German --- but is said to translate as “journey”, and indeed it’s the title track we start off with, a dark, ominous slow keyboard laying down the backdrop, singer Till Lindeman sounding to my ears like Matt Johnson of The The, with a gritty, growly, almost muttered vocal full of anger and disillusionment. I see why they call it Industrial Metal: it’s sort of like Depeche Mode or The Pet Shop Boys decided to cut a metal record, but there’s a clear sort of operatic, cinematic element to the music too, added to by the strings arrangement on this track. An odd addition is the lead-out on of all things accordion, as we head into what has become something of an infamous song for them.

“Mein teil” (my part) takes as its subject matter the story of Armin Miewes, a cannibal who advertised for a willing partner to be killed and eaten by him --- and found one. He was subsequently charged with, and convicted of murder. It’s a punch-in-the-face, kick-in-the-balls metal song with snarling guitar and a raucous chorus, alternating with dark, bassy passages wherein Till snarls the vocal in almost a menacing mutter, taking the persona of Miewes. A screaming guitar presumably represents the death screams of the “victim” and the choir on this song adds a sense of unreality and surrealism to the song. Scary in its own way, probably moreso if I could understand the lyric. Claustrophobic, crushing and tense.

“Dalai Lama” needs no translating, a grindy, bleak and dark song, with snarling guitar and a sombre but raging vocal from Till. Great keyboard work from Christian Lorenz, and a sort of chant going on in the background with the return of the choir from the previous track. “Keine lust” (something along the lines of “no desire”) ups the tempo for the first time, marching along on the twin guitars of Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers, sort of a boogie feel to it. If these guys remind me of anyone it’s Tiamat, though again I’ve only heard two or three of their albums, but there are similarities, especially on “Amanethes”. Strange sound here, almost like a French Horn.

An acoustic start then to “Los” (translates as “go”) with a low, dark vocal and generally it’s quite a stripped-down melody, don’t even hear Lorenz’s keyboards yet, just guitar, bass and some perfunctory drumming. Now it all stops and the synth comes in but then fades back out, having taken the track completely for a few seconds. A short, restrained guitar solo from one of the guys while the other does a more squealing one, mostly in the background, With the first English lyric --- perhaps the only one on the album --- “Amerika” is a mock anthem poking fun at the greatest world power, using staples of global corporations such as Disney, Coca-Cola and Wonderbra. Great little keyboard flurry from Lorenz, and it’s a fun song which is bitter without being overly preachy. Powerful guitars too.

“Moskau” --- again, not too hard to translate --- is another fast-paced song with a great bassline and some whistling keys, rocking along nicely and featuring the vocals of Viktoria Fersch, a Russian singer who frankly sounds like one of those teenage J-pop singers. The choir returns to usher in “Morgenstern”, which even I know means “morning star”, a harder, sparser track than the previous with its almost singalong quality. The presence of the choir and orchestra adds a sense of gravitas to the song, but it’s still quite barebones mostly. A really nice solo piano then takes us into “Stein um stein”, which apparently means “stone by stone”, a much slower, doomier track with kind of echoing drumbeats that then ramps up on the back of the twin guitar attack, before falling back to the original tempo and melody,

Rather oddly, the album ends on not one, but two ballads, the first “Ohne dich” (“without you”) framed by a sumptuous synth and strings melody, while the closer “Amour” sounds initially more like something Vangelis would do. Nice restrained guitar line and Lorenz’s keyboards sound very new-wave, like something out of Ultravox or Tubeway Army. Interesting, and certainly shows great variety in this band, who I was expecting really just to be loud, fast and, er, loud.

TRACKLISTING

1. Reise, reise
2. Mein teil
3. Dalai Lama
4. Keine lust
5. Los
6. Amerika
7. Moskau
8. Morgenstern
9. Stein um stein
10. Ohne dich
11. Amour

Yeah, this was a lot better than I had expected. Plenty of variety, heavy in places but not like death or speed metal, just as heavy as it needed to be. Apparently Rammstein’s music has been described as “dance metal”: I don’t see it. There are some poppy/new-wave elements in the bass and in the synth certainly, but this is still metal with a capital M. Mind you, it’s my first (I think) taste of Industrial Metal, if that’s what this is, so I don’t know what the usual thing is to expect with this subgenre. But what I’ve heard I like.

I think I’ve had enough of the German language for now though, so the next band is going to have to sing in English. Hey, it’s the language of football, the language of Shakespeare, the language of rock and roll, why, the very language of God himself! If you don’t believe me, ask Alan B’Stard!
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How is it business as usual? I understand it's kind of the template for a lot of later Slayer albums, but at the time it didn't particularly sound like any of their previous albums.

Anyway, I agree, it's a great album. For me it's pretty much tied for first place in their catalog with Reign in Blood.

It basically took the last two albums and found a comfortable medium without really making a musical statement that they hadn't already made. They peaked with RIB, and while they were running out of steam as far as innovation was concerned with South of Heaven, they still went outside their comfort zone. Creatively speaking, I think Seasons In the Abyss was a bit of a bunt. A great bunt though.

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So we've gone through in some detail what Viking Metal is, now it's time to check out some of the major --- and minor --- players in this field. There are some who stand head and shoulders above the rest, glaring down with battle-maddened eyes filled with bloodlust as they swing their heavy, two-handed broadswords in one hand with the practiced ease of a warrior born, laughing darkly as they stand there, spattered from head to toe in blood. Some of it may be theirs, most is probably that of their enemies: it matters not. These men live for the fight, the hunt, the chase and most of all, the gory, bloodsoaked and glorious victory. They are the spearhead of Viking Metal, the shock troops, the berserkers. These men are always first into any fray, and never leave until all their enemies are dead at their feet, or they have given their own lives --- while making their foes pay dearly for their prize --- and assured themselves of a place of honour in Valhalla.

So where else would we start but with one of these, perhaps the greatest of them all, and acknowledged as a driving, even creating force, in the world of Viking Metal? They could quite literally be called the fathers of the subgenre, and they are generally credited with releasing the first ever Viking Metal album.
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Starting off as a Black Metal band, Bathory's Quorthon became interested in the tales of the Scandinavian gods and the mythical battles of both the Aesir and the more earthly Vikings, and after four albums he turned his creative focus towards fashioning a style of metal that would encompass, glorify and remember those ancient warriors and their gods. In total, Bathory released six albums that could be said to be Viking Metal; though “Blood fire death” does have elements of the subgenre, it's mostly seen as a Black Metal album. Quorthon was preparing a four-volume epic when he passed away in 2004, so sadly only two albums were finished.

The first one I want to look at is the album that showed the transition from Black to Viking Metal. It's that one I mentioned above, “Blood fire death”, and it's our first guest review, courtesy of Briks.


Artist: Bathory
Album: Blood Fire Death
Year: 1988
Genre: 1st wave black metal
Chronological position: Fourth album

I have written about Bathory twice before, including a review of this album. I gave it a 4/5 rating (which really was too high, as it didn't really grab me at the time) and moved on. It was the third black metal album I heard, so I was not yet used to the extreme subgenre. I liked the long, epic tracks: “A Fine Day to Die” and “Blood Fire Death”, but I dismissed the rest as uninteresting, generic black metal stuff (even though I didn't know crap about black metal).

Recently, I've started to appreciate black metal. So I revisited the album, and thought “wow, this is actually pretty cool”. Then I listened to it again. And again. Then I yanked the 4/5 rating right up to the deserved 5/5.

Blood Fire Death is credited with being the first viking metal release ever, but that's not really accurate, as there are only two viking metal tracks on it. After a three-minute long intro, “Odens Ride Over Nordland”, we are introduced to the first one, “A Fine Day to Die”. It starts out with some mellow singing over acoustic guitar and then turns into a fist-raising war anthem that makes me want to go out and buy a sword, hang it up on my bedroom wall right beside my grim Brvce Springsteen poster, and maybe take it down once in a while for cutting carrots in the name of Odin. Then we enter the middle area of the album, AKA the one I didn't learn to appreciate before just recently. Tracks three through seven are all brutal thrash songs that make Reign in Blood sound like a Beatles album. “For All Those Who Died” might be my favourite of the lot: that steady-pounding drum beat and repetitive buzzsaw riff makes me want to bang my head till my neck snaps. The closing track (if you exclude the outro), “Blood Fire Death”, is my definite favourite song on the album. It's the second viking metal epic, and it makes me want to take my carrot sword out in the woods and start furiously striking a tree while I'm dressed in a nerdy, black cape. It's that great.


TRACKLISTING

1. Oden's ride over Nordland
2. A fine day to die
3. The golden walls of Heaven
4. Pace 'til death
5. Holocaust
6. For all those who died
7. Dies irae
8. Blood fire death
9. Outro

Trollheart says:
Thanks Briks for that. Appreciate it. I said I wouldn't alter your text and I didn't, apart from spellchecking (which was again unnecessary), though I did add in a tracklisting as I prefer there always to be one. Great job!

After this Bathory went in a completely Viking Metal direction which would only be broken by a two year spell when they would release two albums that fell outside the Viking Metal remit, 1994's “Requiem” and the following year's “Octagon”, after which Quorthon would return to the themes of Viking Metal.

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Hammerheart --- Bathory --- 1990 (Noise)

As in most of his albums, Quorthon is the man here: he writes and composes all the music, plays everything except bass and drums, and even produces the album. I'm not quite sure what the opening sound effect is meant to convey --- a sword being cooled in water at a smithy? --- but “Shores in flames” starts off with acoustic guitar and a very clean vocal, something which later bands would ditch in favour of more shouted, grunted, snarly vocals. A heavy electric guitar then comes in with attendant percussion as the song ramps up, and it's one of two which are the longest tracks, almost eleven minutes apiece. Well, this one is the longest, at a few seconds over that. Mind you, of the eight tracks that make up this album, few dip below the seven minute mark, leaving aside the closing instrumental. There's power and grandeur in the song now as it sweeps along, a darker but still intelligible vocal relating the tale of the Norsemen as they make ready to set out on another raid: ”It says: Set your sails/ And let me take your ship to foreign shores/ Take farewell of those near you/ And your land of the North!” Backing vocals swell in a kind of tribal chant, perhaps the sort of thing the Vikings would sing as they rowed towards their next conquest.

This song is so good and entrancing that it's already approaching the eleven-minute mark before I realise it, and it's succeeded by one almost as long, as the men of the North give praise to their gods in “Valhalla”. I'm sure you all know, but just in case you don't, Valhalla was the place where every Viking hoped to go when he died; the hall of the brave, where men could sit side-by-side with warriors of legend, heroes and perhaps even the gods of Asgard themselves. But only the brave and the valorous got to reach that place, taken there by the Valkyries (remember Battleroar?) who would ift them from the battlefield and carry them to their honoured place. It's a heavy, powerful opening, very dramatic and portentous, till it begins rocking along on guitar riffs and mid-paced drums, though as yet no vocal as we head into the third minute.

”God of Thunder! cries Quorthon when the vocal does begin, ”Who crack the sky/ Swing your Hammer /Way up high!” Not the most original of lyrics I'll grant you, but they capture the worship of Thor, Norse god of thunder and of battle, whom all the Vikings revered as one of the most powerful and strongest of the gods, and upon whom they would call to bless their attacks. The chant accompanies the singing and really gives the impression of an army heading into battle, singing gloriously, unafraid of death and with only bloodlust and the desire for plunder on their minds. As befits any prayer evoking the thunder god, loud booming peals roll across the sky as Thor gives his answer, and the Vikings plunge on. And again, a ten-minute track is over before I even realise it.

Pounding drumming is joined by chugging guitar as “Baptised in fire and ice” takes it to another level, and although it's a heavy, almost angry song, it's important because it shows us the other side of the Vikings, the side in tune with nature and explains their respect for their land: ”I grew and learned respectfully/ The Earth, Wind, Water and the sky/ The powers that decided the weather/ And rules both the dark and light/ I heard the voices of the spirits/ Of the forest call my name/ I saw the Hammer way up high/ Cause lightning in the rain.” We hear of the youth of a young Viking and how he is brought up, not only to be brave and fearless, but to respect the traditions of his people. There's also a seriously killer guitar riff throughout the song. “Father to son” opens like a movie, with the sounds of a village, a baby crying, steps walking, a dog barking before machinegun guitar punches through as the blacksmith looks at his newborn son, determined to ensure he grows into a fine young warrior. The beat slows a little, though not much, making this more a cruncher and less a heads-down fretfest, though there's plenty of guitar in it.

The shortest track then, bar the instrumental at the end, “Song to hall up high” is a hymn to Odin (or Oden if you prefer) as a warrior gives praise and hopes to die gloriously and earn his seat in Valhalla. It's almost acoustic, with choral vocals backing the guitar in a chant that echoes the warrior's prayer. A full Viking chorus then accompanies Quorthon (though in reality they're probably all his own voice) before we slam into “Home of once brave”, which swaggers, marches and strides along with the arrogance of warriors born claiming their birthright. Vvornth really does well here on the drumkit, creating the atmosphere against which Quorthon's guitar growls and snarls its way. A great sense of pride and power in this song, and the melody is really catchy. There is a lot of perhaps unnecessary roaring at the end though. Finally we come to “One road to Asa Bay”, the other track that vies with the opener for the title of longest, just missing out on the eleven-minute mark. With a jew's harp and the sounds of birdsong and then galloping hooves, it's obviously another epic, which should serve to --- almost --- close the album well.

After about a moment soft guitar comes in with what I guess I should be referring to now as “The Viking Chorus”, then harder guitar pushes it aside and keyboards add to the melody, like a battlesong to accompany warriors as they ride. It's a slow, crunching, marching song, but in a departure from the lyrical themes of the rest of the album, which speak of and glorify the raids and the life of the Norsemen, this song tells of Christian priests and missionaries who came to Scandinavia to enforce their religion upon the Vikings. ”And the bold man carrying cross /Had told all one of Asa bay/ The God of all man woman child had come/ To them all save/ And to thank Lord of Heaven/ One should build to God a house/ And to save one's soul from Hell..”

But even though, after resisting the new religion, the Vikings capitulated and hoped the Christians would go away and leave them in peace, it was obviously never going to be that easy. ”Now this house of a foreign God does stand/ Now must they leave us alone/ Still he heard from somewhere in the woods/ Old crow of wisdom say /...people of Asa land, it's only just begun...”

Indeed.

A tiny, twenty-second instrumental ends the album, but it's so almost inconsequential --- barely a few notes --- that it's hardly even worth mentioning.

TRACKLISTING

1. Shores in flames
2. Valhalla
3. Baptised in fire and ice
4. Father to son
5. Song of hall up high
6. Home of once brave
7. One road to Asa Bay
8. Outro

Is the case for Bathory being the progenitor of Viking Metal strong then? I'd say it's debatable. Although hardly what you would quite term Viking Metal, Manowar were including lyrics about Odin and Asgard as early as 1982, a full eight years before this album saw the light of day, and other bands, notably based in the power or progressive realm, have also dallied with deities in their lyrics. Even Blind Guardian --- whom nobody would call a Viking Metal band --- had songs about the Norse legends before Quorthon got deeply into it.

But what can't be argued is that, as a bona fide subgenre of metal, Bathory certainly did more than most to bring this collection of stories, legends and musical ideas together into one cohesive whole, and it was this blueprint that the bands who followed would look to for their inspiration. Quorthon pulled all the threads together and wove a pretty impressive tapestry that has lasted long past the death of the man himself. And for that alone, as a legacy of the man known as Quorthon, it's probably fair to place the crown of Viking Metal upon his head. No doubt he now sits in the halls of Valhalla, discussing musical theory with Odin and Thor. He's certainly earned his place.

The album to follow “Hammerheart”, and to expand upon Quorthon's Viking Metal ideas, was “Twilight of the gods”, but I already reviewed that in the first Metal Month, which was actually where I first heard Bathory and was pleasantly surprised. If you want to read it, it's here

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1374102.

A two-year gap would ensue, wherein Bathory returned more towards their original black metal roots, with a flavour of thrash, before returning with another Viking-themed album in 1996.

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Blood on ice --- Bathory --- 1996 (Black Mark)

This is a concept album, not based on a Norse or other tale but written by Quorthon himself, about a child who is the only survivor of a raid and returns to wreak his revenge. The album opens on “Intro: Blood and ice” and has a confusing mix of drums, sound effects, baby crying and then finally explodes into life on thundering drums and hard guitar with a “Viking Chorus” leading in the main vocal. With a slow, almost loping gait the song relates the attack, as ”Bursting through the icy morning/ Four times five black shadows ahorse/ Steel glimmering in the awakening sun's light/
And blood colours the white snow red.” Quorthon uses a dark, almost black metal vocal for much of the song but then reverts to a more listenable one. Since the song depicts the slaughter of the child's family and the destruction of his village, the moments of dark vocal actually work very well.

After all the men of the village have been slain and the women and other children taking hostage north, the unnamed protagonist hides out in the forests and learns the ways of the wood, growing strong and wise. “Man of iron” reflects this, with a medieval style of melody on acoustic guitar and with a clear vocal from Quorthon as he tells his story. ”I have learned to speak the tongue of the animal/ I have learned to read the signs in bark and snow.” It's a short song and leads to his encounter with the father of the gods, Odin, in “One eyed old man”, who tells him he has been chosen as a champion and will be trained to fight the great beast who was on the banners of the men who killed his family. A much harder, rocking, uptempo song with killer guitar, it flies along but not in speed metal territory. Great guitar solo from Quorthon here, and again a clear vocal, supplemented by the Viking Chorus.

In the middle it slows down to a single drumbeat as Odin speaks to the hero, explaining what is expected of him: ”And I see you riding up on a stallion as white as snow/ With the speed of the winds and endurance untold/ And you wield a sword of steel forged in fire and ice/ And the cry of a warrior you sound/ And victory is in your eyes.“ There's some lovely soft organ backing this, then it all breaks out in a big guitar riff as we head into “The Sword”, the tempo remaining high and heavy as Odin presents the hero with a magic sword that will help him defeat his enemy. ”A sword to protect the peace in troubled times/ A sword made to battle and to take a life”. A very Manowar-ish romping beat then takes the tune, like a warrior galloping along on his horse, and the Viking Chorus add their approving voices to his training.

Quorthon may have written this tale but he obviously borrowed heavily from Norse myth, as the eight-legged steed proferred by Odin in “The Stallion” can only be Sleipnir, the horse of the father of the gods himself. After all, how many horses do you know with eight legs? Parts of the melody here remind me of Manowar's “Blood of my enemies”; just in places. It's another hard, but not fast, song, guitar and drum-driven as Vvornth again gives it his all, Kotthar thundering on the bass beside him. Really, if there's a song I've heard from Bathory up to now that reeks of Manowar, this is it. Not saying he copied them or anything, but if anyone wanted to hear something similar to this I would play them “Hail to England”.

In order to steel him against his adversary, Odin has the hero meet the witch woman, as we move into “The Woodwoman”. She takes his heart, making him impervious to any weapon. ”She offers me the ability to take a fatal wound/ Every cut by sword or spear will be /Absorbed by her tree-womb/The magic will remain until it's time/ For me to part with this mortal world/ And all she'll claim is my young heart.” Yeah. Look, it's mythology, okay? Gotta wear your suspenders in disbelief, or something. It's a hard, marching track with powerful drumming and punching guitar and some nice tinkly guitar too, plus a smooth solo at the end. I tell you one thing though: it's the longest preparation for a quest I've ever heard of: thirty-odd minutes to get ready and the final battle only takes less than ten! Ah, sagas!

With the sound of wolves baying it's on to “The Lake”, where in a complicated game of one-upmanship Odin casts his eye into Mimir's Well, and his champion casts both his eyes in. Uh-huh! Remember what I told you about wearing suspenders? Okay, then, let's see if Quorthon can explain it: ”The one eyed old man told me that the face that I will see/ Has paralysed a thousand brave men sure of victory/ I cannot fight blindfolded and I'd freeze if I should see/ So I need to sacrifice my eyes to see all from within.” Yeah, seems clear enough. Kind of like Perseus using his magic mirrored shield to prevent him from gazing into the Gorgon's deadly eyes, except this guy takes his eyes out and throws them in a lake. Um. Anyway, our hero is now finally nearly ready to take up his quest, but first he entreats Thor for his blessing, in “God of thunder, of wind and of rain”.

A gong at the end of “The Lake” signifies that the time for preparation and training has come to an end, and a bluesy guitar accompanies sounds of wind, wolves, footsteps and rain before a hard driving beat takes the song as the hero looks to the sky and begs the thunder god for the strength and fortitude he needs to see his quest through. The Viking Chorus sing in unison (how else would they sing, now really?) and Vvornth pounds away enthusiastically as the hero sets off on his mission to ... I don't know. Something to do with descending to the Underworld and fighting this big two-headed beast he's been told he has to fight. With the twin ravens Hugin and Munin by his side, and wielding his mighty sword while astride Sleipnir ---- quite how he's supposed to see with no eyes I'm not quite sure, but this is myth and imagery after all --- the hero charges into Hel, the abode of the dead.

A gentle acoustic guitar carries the short “The ravens” before we hit the climatic battle in “The revenge of blood on ice”, the longest track, just short of ten minutes. It seems Quorthon has borrowed a little from Greek myth here too, as Hel is traditionally not guarded by any monster, but Hades is: Cerberus, the triple-headed dog. Guess he's lost one of his heads in the story, but this is the closest I can come to the inspiration for the hero's demonic adversary whom he plunges beneath the earth to do bloody battle with. As you'd expect, it's a rocking, rollicking, sinews-charging, chest-thumping battle anthem that describes the journey into Hel, the meeting with and eventual defeat of the two-headed monster and the victorious .... death of the hero? Well he sings about going to Valhalla at the end, so we must assume that though he defeated the monster he dies of his wounds in the end. Quite typical Viking ending I guess.

In the sixth minute most of the music drops away to just the sound of what I guess could be breathing, and the hoofbeats of the horse, backed by the bass of Kothaar, imparting quite an eerie impression and making you feel almost as if you are riding with the hero through the dark underworld. Battle is joined then and the music swells, tough and hard, the Viking Chorus back in full voice, and a big powerful dramatic ending as the hero's horse carries him, victorious, towards the gates of Valhalla.

TRACKLISTING

1. Intro
2. Blood on ice
3. Man if iron
4. One eyed old man
5. The Sword
6. The Stallion
7. The Woodwoman
8. The Lake
9. God of thunder, of wind and of rain
10. The ravens
11. Revenge of the blood on ice
12. Outro

Perhaps the pinnacle of Bathory's Viking Metal output, though I can't really say as I have not heard the older stuff. And I would like to do more here, but time is pressing and I have other bands to listen to. Although the story is derivative and pieced together from legends and tales from several cultures, and hardly an original work, it comes together quite well, and almost throws in a bit of Star Wars for good measure. The music is excellent and the vocals, despite my reservations, are all very clearly audible and understandable. A real triumph of the subgenre.

So, again, we must ask the question: are Bathory deserving of the accolade of the fathers of Viking Metal? Did Quorthon almost single-handedly create the style? To that I'd have to say no, but there's no doubt that he refined and improved it, streamlined it and threw down a marker for other bands who came later to try to measure up to. Did they, or do they? That question can only be answered in the next part of this feature. For now, as I think Batlord would agree, all I can say is: Bathory rule, man!

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In something of a change for Slayer, the next album would not come out for four years. Given that they were perhaps trying to win hardcore fans back this seems a little odd, but then when you listen to the album and hear how lovingly crafted it is, what a masterpiece of sound engineering and songwriting it is, and how Slayer began to really tackle proper world issues, maybe four years was not too long to have to wait.

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Divine intervention --- Slayer --- 1994 (American)

If ever the sticker “Parental Advisory” was created for one band, you would have to believe it was for Slayer, and with this sixth album featuring songs about everything from the SS to Jeffrey Dahmer, you can see why some parents --- most parents --- would not want their little precious buying and listening to it. And why all the little preciouses would be eager to do just that. With another powerful guitar intro, “Killing fields” explores the psyche of a serial killer, Araya hoarsely shouting the lyric with all the lack of control of a madman on the hunt for his next kill. New drummer Paul Bostaph adds a sense of fire and anger to proceedings, and King as ever is a master of the frets, his guitar screaming in pain as he racks out the solos. Coming it at a mere one minute fifty seconds, “Sex, murder, art” nevertheless squeezes a lot into its extremely short runtime, managing to reference BDSM --- ”Shackled, my princess/Dangling in distress/Here to discipline” --- fisting --- ”The urge to take my fist/ And violate every orifice” ---imprisonment and enslavement --- ”Caught, now you're mine/ The master of your whipping time!” and their usual healthy disregard/contempt for religion --- ”God is dead/ I'm alive!” Those PA stickers are seeming justified already! The music suits the raw, angry lyrics, pounding, screaming, violating. Heavy stuff.

No real letup then for “Fictional reality”, with a chugalong beat where the guys once again turn their hand to political lyrics, sneering at the notion of government --- ”Consumed democracy returns/ A socialist regime” --- with big, Iommi-style guitar riffs and a growling vocal, and the anger against society hits into overdrive as they pile into “Dittohead”, with one of the fastest vocals I have ever heard! How does he sing that fast? The music matches him as it hurtles along, but of course they can't keep this up forever and in a short time the beat has softened somewhat, settled down into a proper groove as Slayer rail against the leniency of prison sentences --- ”Slap your hand and you'll do no time” --- with the tempo increasing madly again and then spilling over into the title track, which seems to slow things down a touch.

Another long guitar intro and then Tom screams the vocal like a man in pain, which is appropriate as the lyric seems to hark back to “Angel of Death” on the third album, though here it would appear that God Himself is the torturer. Araya screams ”Violated, naked before you I stand/ Shattered shrine of flesh and bone/ God is piercing through my soul!” A machine-gun guitar assault accompanies him, but if pain characterises that song, anger sears through “Circle of beliefs” like a cleansing fire as Slayer return to beat on their old whipping-boy, Jesus and God, decrying the stupidity of those who follow the Christian religion. The tempo is breakneck --- though nothing comes close to at least the first minute or so of “Dittohead”! --- and again, for a song that runs for four and a half minutes it's over pretty quickly as we plunge into the infamous “SS-3”. Another song that would do nothing to dispel the accusations of Nazism, this chronicles the exploits of the SS and Gestapo during Hitler's reign.

Bringing the tempo down somewhat this track blasts along with fire and anger, and of course is open to misinterpretation, but for my money, unless they're singing “Heil Hitler!” (and not ironically) you can't really say someone is a Nazi sympathiser for writing a song about the SS any more than you can accuse the filmakers who wrote screenplays for World War II movies of the same. It's horrible, it's evil, but in the end it's just a lyrical theme for a song. It's not as if Slayer go on stage in Nazi uniforms giving the Hitler salute now is it? The song picks up speed about halfway through, and oddly King's solo seems a little distant --- bad production? --- but the second solo is crisp and pristine. Staying with controversial themes and a real two-fingers to the world of radio airplay, “Serenity in murder”, while probably the slowest song on the album and with a sort of odd droning vocal returns to the subject that opened the album, that of serial killers, while “213” shoots for the moon --- or the gutter, depending on your viewpoint and your intention --- crawling inside the polluted and dark mind of serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer.

With a deceptively laidback guitar and a slow rhythm, it's not really that hard to see how Tom Araya sees this as a love song, because in a very twisted, special way it is. But not a love song you'd want anyone singing to you! It gets going with a sort of boogie beat and hard, biting guitars, a yelled vocal recalling the pained one Araya used in the title track, getting more and more manic as the song progresses. It's one of the few Slayer songs I've heard, at least so far, without a solo from Kerry or Jeff. “Mind control” then kicks over the tables, sets fire to them and legs it out the door as the place burns down to the ground and Slayer paint the last daubs of freshly-harvested blood over the ending of the album, proving the only pussies they tolerate reside either side of a woman's legs.

TRACKLISTING

1. Killing fields
2. Sex, murder, art
3. Fictional reality
4. Dittohead
5. Divine intervention
6. Circle of beliefs
7. SS-3
8. Serenity in murder
9. 213
10. Mind control

The speed, power and raw aggression on this album is frightening to behold. Gone are the complicated progressive song structures of the last album, gone too the references to Satan worship and any other fantasy elements. Having spent “Seasons in the abyss” Slayer have looked deep into it, it's looked deep into them, and neither has liked what they see. But a very real and disturbing truth has become apparent, and that is that whatever awaits us beyond the veil, what we suffer here --- and the suffering we cause here --- on Earth makes that pale by comparison. The realities of life, the prejudices, the hatred, the wrongs and the evils, all combine to make us think there can't be anything worse waiting for us than what we've created here ourselves.

All very deep and existential, I hear you say, but Slayer surely don't give a fuck And you're most likely right. They don't. What they will have given a fuck about though is that with “Divine intervention” they came right back on track; the fans flocked back in their droves, even more young men were encouraged to start their own bands, and even more parents hid their faces in their hands in despair at this trash their kids were listening to.

And for them, worse was to come.

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All right, haters, get ready to hate...
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Maximum overload --- Dragonforce --- 2014 (Metal Blade)

Yeah, that's right, I said Dragonforce. You got somethin' to say? Look, it's my journal and I'll review what I want, and you can all say what you like that this band don't belong in Metal Month II, but they're categorised as power metal, and whether you like it or not, they're getting covered. I've never understood the vitriolic hatred and the sneering contempt this band inspires from almost everyone on this forum. I mean, it's not like they don't play fast, hard and heavy, and unless you hate power metal I can't see any reason to put them down. But then, even those who adore power metal seem to keep a special part in their heart where they would like to lock away and torture these guys. I seriously do not get it.

If somebody plays music I enjoy, as long as that music is not sampled or copied from someone else, as long as it's original (unless of course we're talking about a covers or tribute band) then I have nothing against them. I have a feeling this review is going to spark mercurial debate across my journal as member after member tells me, in graphic detail, why they hate Dragonforce and why I should not listen to them, but I don't care. If nothing else, it will inspire comments and controversy, and conversation, which can't be bad. I'd rather have a review spark a debate --- civilised or otherwise --- than have it pass unnoticed and unremarked upon. So do your worst guys: I'm going in!

This is Dragonforce's sixth album, and just to add to the hate factor for some people (cough!) Batlord (cough!) they're joined on vocals by Trivium's Matt Heafy, who sings on three of the tracks. I've already reviewed “Ultra beatdown” and “Inhuman rampage”, and while I would never place them as my favourite metal albums, or claim they were classics or anything, I certainly did not hate them and could see no reason why anyone would. At any rate, we kick off with a squealy guitar solo which brings in vocals from Heafy as “The game” gets going with a lot of progressive metal in it. Okay, the squibby sound effects on the keyboards are already a little annoying. Oddly enough, Dragonforce say this song was inspired by Sepultura and Slayer, but I don't see it.

The importance placed on the speed of the song --- “the fastest we've ever played” --- gives something of an inkling to me as to why these guys get such bad press. I don't know any band who say that. Sure, thrash, death, black and of course speed metal, and much power metal put an emphasis on speed, but that's not the most important aspect of their songwriting, so far as I know. It's just a byproduct of it, and not something to actually be proud of or to strive towards. Bit hollow really. Given that, this is a decent opener with a typical chorus which surely will go down well onstage. Given that, I don't see it as any better or worse than a hundred other power metal songs I've heard. “Tomorrow's kings” at first fools me into thinking I'm listening to Jeff Wayne's “War of the Worlds”, with a very similar sound effect opening it, then explodes into another power rocker with galloping guitars and cannonball drums, a big chorus but in some ways it's sung too fast, and I get the feeling the guys are just trying to get to the end of the song as quickly as possible. I don't hear any passion or sincerity here I must admit. Heafy is back for “No more” ([i]”If only!” shout all the Dragonforce-haters!) and though we're only three tracks in I can see a pattern developing here, with each song sounding quite similar to the others.

It'll be interesting to see if they try a ballad, but so far it's all speed and power, and to be honest I haven't found my old friend the Hook; when I listened to “Through the fire and the flames”, one of their best-known and successful songs, I instantly heard the hook in the melody, but here, no. I don't hear it. The solos of course are fretburning but again there's something missing and the sort of videogame effects on the keys are getting increasingly annoying. Now it slows, which was unexpected, though I don't expect it to last, and a chugging guitar rising in the background presages the resurgence of those breakneck riffs ... and here they come. Again.

Yeah. Well, so far, so meh. “Three hammers” has a nice sort of striding passage to open it, with marching drums, and I wonder if maybe they're going to cut down on the speed a little? Some soft acoustic guitar would seem to add weight to that possibility, and indeed this could even be a ballad. The harder electric guitar is now coming in, but the tempo, while rising slightly, remains relatively slow, compared to the rest of this album so far. Probably not a ballad but not a speed race either. Not too bad. Still, Manowar and Virgin Steele do this sort of thing so much better, and with far more conviction and belief.

Oh well, it was never going to last, was it? Here come the screaming, flaming guitar solos as the song kicks up, and to be fair, they sound quite inappropriate and out of place in this song, as it slows back down again, making it pretty obvious that the solos were pure indulgence on the part of Herman Li and Sam Totman, just written in so they could show off. I've seen it before with Dream Theater, and I never like it. There's an acoustic guitar and gentle vocal to open “Symphony of the night”, but as you would expect by now, it punches up into another heads-down, breathless battle between Totman and Li as each tries to outdo the other. Lordy!

“The sun is dead” has at least some nice ideas in it, and it's not played at Mach II all the time. The solos in it are actually interesting and attractive; see, these guys can play when they stop messing around like kids. This is actually the longest track on the album, so I'm sort of glad it doesn't follow what's rapidly becoming obvious as the standard Dragonforce format. There's a nice bit of organ there near the end, and it's devoid of game effects, so it works much better. If I have to choose a favourite track on the album, I'd doubt there'll be anything to top this. Mind you, there's not been a lot to choose from. But so far, definite standout.

And on we go. I'm rapidly losing interest now. Heafy returns for his final vocal appearance on the frankly awful “Defenders”, another by-the-numbers speedfest with a chorus that tries to sound hard but has no spine, “Extraction zone” the same. Sometimes this is more like playing a video game than listening to music. The speed of this one is pretty ridiculous. The bit in the middle doubly so. If I want to play a video game I'll plug in my Playstation. If I want to play a video game I'll buy a Playstation, then plug it in. “City of gold” is just the same; decent chorus and something of a hook, but I can't imagine myself listening to this again. The album, I mean, not just the song. Of all things, there's a cover of The Man in Black's “Ring of fire” just to finish us off. Why, oh why did they bother? That song is perfect, and they certainly didn't do Cash any favours with this ludicrous attempt at a cover. Not so much walk the line as staggers along blindly. God save us.

TRACKLISTING

1. The game
2. Tomorrow's kings
3. No more
4. Three hammers
5. Symphony of the night
6. The sun is dead
7. Defenders
8. Extraction zone
9. City of gold
10. Ring of fire

You know, I'm beginning to get it. The two albums I reviewed seemed okay, and I found it hard, as I said in the intro, to justify or explain all the hatred for Dragonforce, but it's getting clearer now. On this album, as I said, there's a real sense of everything being done to a plan, a blueprint; every song, with small variations, sounds pretty much the same as the others, with the exception of “The sun is dead”. That song is the one shining jewel, or at least bright spot in an otherwise lacklustre pile of cr --- er, paste. The ability to play faster than everyone else does not make you a better player, guys: you need to have proper melody and heart in your songs. Oh yeah, and you need to sound like you believe (in) what you're singing, not like you're running off a teleprompter, which some of this does.

Sorry, that's not fair. Which most of this does. I was very disappointed overall with the album, and apart from the odd good bit and one decent song I fail to see how these guys are so popular. I'm not going to say I'm signing up right away for the Dragonforce Haters Club, but right at this moment I'm standing outside the recruitment office, looking at the poster and thinking about it.

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Hmm. English lyrics, eh? Okay then, these guys will do. They sing in English and it helps that they’re the top of some nobody’s Best German Metal Bands list, so they must be at least half decent. The only thing that concerns me is their subgenre, which is described as "melodic death metal”. The last band of that type I listened to was Carcass, and there was nothing melodious about them! However, we’ll see. In existence since 1994 and with six albums to their credit, Burden of Grief hail from Westphalia, north of the Rhine, and seem to share a love of and respect for Slayer, Metallica and Maiden, so there’s some hope.

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Death end road --- Burden of Grief ---2007 (Remedy Records)

I have no idea which is their best album, so I’m choosing this one purely on the basis of the name, and also that the previous one from Rammstein was released in 2004, so I want to avoid reviewing another album from the same year, otherwise I might have looked at “Fields of salvation”, which I was looking at first. But this is the one I’ve chosen, so off we go.

The opener --- and title track --- is an instrumental, so I don’t yet know what sort of vocals we’re going to be dealing with, but the guitar work is pretty good. It’s a short track and leads into “Vita reducta”, a harder, faster song and the vocals are those shouty, screamy ones I don’t like, but I’m going to try not to let them ruin the album for me. Just my luck to get an album sung in English when I can’t understand the vocals! :rolleyes: Checking out the lyrics, I see this song is apparently about someone being buried alive. Nice. Guess we’re looking at some Doom Metal influences here, at least in the songwriting.

“Swallow the sun”, another cheerful title, does at least bounce along nicely with the guitar of Johannes Rudolph and Philip Hanfland to the fore, while vocalist Mike Huhmann is at least discernible, even if his vocals are very raw and raspy. Good overall melody to the song, and at least this time the term “melodic death metal” would appear to be deserved. Without the growly singing I could almost see this as a harder form of progressive metal to be honest. It’s not blindingly fast, there’s not so much emphasis on shredding as there is on “proper” playing, and the songs generally seem to be well constructed. Which is not to say that other melodic or even pure death metal bands do not put a lot of effort and thought into their music --- I’m sure they do. It’s just I can usually not follow it, the speed being too much for me.

The guitar attack continues and intensifies in “The game”, on which drummer Sebastian Robrecht really lets loose, and “Running scared” keeps the tempo high with the Duracell Bunny -- sorry, Herr Robrecht! --- still going strong, perhaps unaware the previous song has ended. Okay, let’s check back in on the lyrics and see what’s going on. I see, despite the seemingly bleak nihilistic title, “Swallow the sun” is in fact a rage against the injustices in the world ---”I ask myself why/ Why there's so much pain and rancor /Why there's war and poverty outside today?” --- while “The game” details the things one has to go through just to survive from day to day, and this track again reflects a sense of hopelessness mixed with the desperation to survive.

There’s no need for deep interpretation of the lyrics to “The killer in me” though, and it’s a pretty hard and fast fretfest with bombastic drums, the speed of the track edging into Slayer territory at times. “Drown in sorrow” seems to follow on from that, with the killer waking up the morning after and trying to come to terms with what he has done. ”What can I do?” he asks, ”What have I done?/ Is it just a joke/ Or have I killed someone?” More back on the lines of traditional metal this, with a big slice of Maiden in the song, perhaps even referencing the last line in “Killers”. Powerful stuff, even though we learn at the end that the guy is no killer, that this is just a bad dream.. There’s even an extended guitar passage here again reminiscent of Murray/Smith, yet no real solos. I don’t know if that’s something endemic to melodic death metal, but I’ve yet to hear a proper solo, and wonder if I will.

Another song that leaves you in no doubt as to what it’s about is “Schizophrenic”, with a big, tortured roar from Huhmann and another galloping beat. I’d like to say the BoG singer puts in a great performance as the man torn in two by conflicting personalities, and he probably does, but his usual vocal style just persists through this track so it’s hard to award him any extra points. Oh look! There’s a solo finally! Nice too. Worth waiting for, even if it does come at the end of the song. Now personally I find a song title like “Passion of the night” slightly incongruous here, but never fear! It’s no ballad (not sure Burden of Grief do ballads) and follows the basic format of their songs so far, most of which, while decent, have seemed quite similar to me, not much in the way of variety.

See, the problem is that in this penultimate track Huhmann is speaking in the persona, it would seem, of Satan, and yet he uses the very same voice for the schizo in the track before that. Now if you’re going to play the Evil One, shouldn’t you make your performance just a little darker, more evil, scarier? But there’s little or no difference between the two. “Road of visions” wraps things up --- you know, I’ve just now got the pun in the album title! --- and it’s basically more of the same, though the guitar is a little more restrained at times. But not that much.

TRACKLISTING

1. Death end road (intro)
2. Vita reducta
3. Swallow the sun
4. The game
5. Running scared
6. The killer in me
7. Drown in sorrow
8. Schizophrene
9. Passion of the night
10. Road of visions

Yeah, this really isn’t for me. I’m sure Burden of Grief are great at what they do and all, but this sort of music is never going to be my cup of tea. Mind you, as melodic death metal goes it’s far better than Carcass, but then that wouldn’t be hard. I guess you need to be into this sort of subgenre to appreciate nuances in the music and vocals I’m not hearing, but if they’re there they escape me. As it happens, there are two extra tracks on the album, but they’re remixes of songs off their debut, and as such I have no real interest in hearing them.

Bit of a disappointment, given that at least one person in the world cites them as the best German Metal band ever, but then, taste is subjective of course, and Burden of Grief are definitely not to mine. But if you like this sort of thing, they could be to yours.

Dragonforce gets hate because they can't write songs. Your average DF song is just a two-dimensional parody of a Stratovarius song without any kind of depth. The only real reason they're popular is because they just sound like a power metal stereotype that appeals to people who don't actually listen to power metal. They're a novelty band and nothing more. For a song or two they're not much more than boring, but an entire album is like an endurance test.

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And so we come to mythsofmetal, who has suggested this album for me. Now, due to running “The International Language of Metal” I’ve experienced some non-English-speaking bands, so this is not going to turn me off, but unfortunately I can dig up little information about the band other than that this is their second album, the first in four years, and that according to their website they will be releasing one more and then calling it a day. They hail from Austria but apparently sing in German, not that I’d know the difference!

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Seelenwund --- Mondstile --- 2012 (Indeendent)
Recommended by mythsofmetal

A quiet opening, with what sounds like surf and maybe wind, then a rolling drum and guitar fade in, getting louder and taking over the track as “Ich hab geträumt…” opens the album. A quiet, low-key vocal speaks in German, though as with Flaming Bess, reviewed in the Top 100 Prog albums in my journal, I have no clue what he’s saying. The track quickly becomes a fast sort of death metal affair, with roared vocals and much faster guitar, though still good. At this point I realise we’ve overlapped with “Mein inner sturm”, which must surely mean “my inner storm”? I guess the first track was a kind of introduction. This has real machinegun guitar and thumping drums, a lot of energy and power.

In the fourth minute it rather surprisingly drops to an acoustic guitar which is augmented by piano and violin, courtesy of Lundar, a real change in direction, everything slowing down before of course it all kicks back up with hammering drums and kill-em-all guitar as the last few minutes of the track wind down, taking us into “Im trauerhain”, where everything flies along at top speed, vocalist Wrath growling out the lines again while guitarist Leandin fires off some impressive shredding. I think in a way Panopticon prepared me for this sort of music and I’m beginning to get it now, to look beyond the unsetting vocal and listen to the music. Which is overall pretty good. Lundar’s violin comes back in here, but it’s kind of drowned out by the nuclear guitar and not half as effective as it was on the previous song.

Another acoustic guitar piece opens “Zeitenwandre”, with the beautful violin adding its voice too, but I can’t help but feel it won’t last. And it doesn’t. Another aural assault as the drummer (uncredited here) tries to destroy his kit, and even the re-emergence of the violin can’t stop the chaotic guitar. But it’s all in tune, and quite melodious really. Next up is “Die seele frie”, which opens with a solo violin before the guitar and drums crash down like avenging angels, but this time Lundar refuses to be beaten into submission, and the violin holds it own and joins the rocking melody, actually leading it at quite a tempo for such an instrument. Leandin’s guitar does take over though about halfway through, as Wrath continues to bellow before everything stops for another acoustic guitar line joined by the violin. It lasts longer this time but is still nevertheless kicked aside by electric guitar and stomping drums.

“Flammend” (flaming? On fire?) goes right for the jugular from the off, with a thunder of drums and a big nasty guitar reaching for your throat, It hammers along, but then .. you know what? I’m bored now. It was interesting for a while but the novelty’s worn off. Every song is the same basic pattern: start hard and fast then go slow then back to the original pace, or vice versa. But there’s not enough there. It’s good music but it’s too limited. It’s like trying to write a bestselling novel with only a handful of phrases or writing a TV screenplay with two scenes and one character. It’s a case of moving the same blocks around to make new structures, but the same basic shape remains, and while the violin is nice, as is the piano, they’re not used enough and when they are used, it’s more to break up the general guitar and drum attack. I need more than this to keep me interested.

So again we begin with acoustic guitar, a nice romping beat and violin as “Sehnsucht versus Leben” starts, but quickly it fulfils the expectation and hammers into another aural assault. Yawn. Could have told you that was going to happen. Tell you what: I’m just going to listen to the rest of the album --- there are six tracks left, including this --- sort of on autopilot, and if anything unexpected or out of the ordinary happens I’ll let you know. But I have a feeling it’s all going to be more of the same.

It can’t be denied that when they cut back with the violin and acoustic guitar Mondstille sound absolutely gorgeous, and both the guys are superbly talented, and by extension when they rock/metal it up they’re also great. I just don’t feel the two should be mashed together they way they’re doing here. It’s too jarring: you’re just chilling to a nice violin when suddenly there’s a big nasty roar and a guitar hammers you over the head. I would prefer if they kept these separate, or even as different pieces on the one track, rather than jump from one to the other. Now, as an example, “Der stille mond” (Silent world?) has a really nice laidback intro but you just know it’s going to explode in death metal madness … and there it goes. Makes no sense to me and hurts my ears, the sudden transition. Meh. Once might be seen as clever, bold. Every other track? That's just lazy or unimaginative.

I can’t even divert myself by concentrating on the lyrics, as I don’t speak or understand German, so I’m left to listen to the sudden shifts in each track, rolling my eyes :rolleyes: --- see? There I go! --- as each slow part succumbs to a fast, or each fast slows down to be sped up again before the track ends. This does not mean the guys are not good musicians: they are, really good. But I’m not used to things changing this dramatically and this suddenly. Panopticon know how to do it. Mondstille, in my admittedly very limited opinion, do not.

Title track has a nice melody to it but generally speaking it’s more of the same with not too much in the way of a change; it is an instrumental, and seems to keep, for once, the same basic tempo and mood throughout, which is nice. The closer is also an instrumental, lovely piano with the violin coming in to accompany it as “Erwachen…” brings down the curtain.

TRACKLISTING

1. Ich hab geträumt ...
2. Mein inner Sturm
3. Im Trauerhain
4. Zeitenwandrer
5. Die Seele frei
6. Flammend
7. Sehnsucht versus Leben
8. Ich, der Pan
9. Der stille Mond
10. Seelenwund
11. Träumers Flucht
12. Erwachen …

This album is odd. There’s a lot to like about it, and my own complaints notwithstanding, the harsh jarring of I guess death metal with softer, almost classical music is really refreshing. It’s just that every track does something similar and after a while you get bored with it. I said at the beginning that Mondstille had said the next album would be their last. If it’s constructed the same way as this one, then I won’t mourn their passing.

But the potential for greatness is, or was, there. If they only had made it more interesting and a little less predictable after three or four tracks, leading to boredom and a general lack of desire to see the album through, which I did, but I was glad when it was over.

So why should Slayer get all the coverage during Metal Month II eh? Eh? Tell me that. You can't, can you? Thought not. In that case, I'm going to take a leaf out of young Justin's book (see his really cool journal here)

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and look into how it all began for Metallica.

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Kill 'em all --- Metallica --- 1983 (Megaforce)

So what was the first indication impressionable young kids had on first playing this album that something amazing was happening to heavy metal music? The opening track acts for me like a mission statement, as indeed does the title of the album. Raw power, aggression and passion, but imbued with the kind of drama that opens operas and symphonies. The lead guitar of Kirk Hammet and the rolling, thundering drums of Lars Ulrich are the first sounds you hear, and as they pound out the introduction to “Hit the lights”, the general feeling I get, putting myself in the place of someone listening to this for the first time in 1983 in America is, hold tight, because you ain't never heard this shit before!

And they hadn't. Before this, metal in the USA was still more or less faffing about trying to decide if it was hard rock or AOR. The likes of Kiss, Aerosmith, Journey and REO hd a firm grip, even a stranglehold on American stadium rock, and the NWOBHM, despite being four years old at this stage and beginning to wind down across the water had yet to make any sort of substantial inroads on the US, with only Iron Maiden and Saxon making the big leap over the pond and bringing the exciting new music of the UK to the land of the free. In fact, Maiden were one of Metallica's biggest influences when they decided to get together and play.

With Slayer's debut not hitting till four months later, and Anthrax actually supporting them on one of their first gigs, Metallica were truly the very first American thrash metal band, and in fact the term thrash metal was coined to describe their sound. The album, originally to have been titled “Metal up your ass”, could not get a release due to worries on the part of their record label and so they changed the title to “Kill 'em all”, referenced I guess in the fact that there is no track on the album with that title. I would have called in “The Four Horsemen”, but there you go. They didn't, and metal history was made.

In more ways than one, really. I may be wrong, but I can't recall another instance of a band member being fired before the debut album, as happened here. Dave Mustaine, who had written much of the original music for half of the songs, was fired in April, two months before the album was released and while it was still being recorded, and replaced by Kirk Hammet, who would go on to be Metallica's mainstay guitarist. Mustaine then huffily formed his own band, Megadeth, and the two have been at loggerheads ever since. As a result, Mustaine never actually plays on any Metallica album other than the demo “No life till leather”, and would not cross paths with his ex-bandmates for another twenty-eight years, when Megadeth would play onstage with Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax in Poland as “The Big Four” that they had become, and been dubbed as.

Back to “Hit the lights”. With a big guitar growl it then piles into full speed, the drumming of Ulrich driving the tune along as he roars the vocal, Hammet racking out riffs that were partly his, partly those of departed guitarist Mustaine. There's no real attempt at finesse --- this is, after all, what would grow to be known as thrash metal, and that's characterised by speed, power, aggression and often a sort of controlled chaos. The faster and harder you can play, seems to be the accepted wisdom, the better a thrash band you are. And Metallica certainly play fast here, with Hammet racking off some scorching solos, then slowing the pace down very slightly we're into “The Four Horsemen”, a song with lyrical fare that would become a favourite of Metallica and their contemporaries, the end of the world.

A kind of chugging guitar riff pulls the song along, and you can hear the influence of British band Diamond Head in it, also the vocal stylings of original Tygers of Pan-Tang vocalist Jeff Cox. In the middle it slows down into a sort of southern boogie style, which Mustaine has, perhaps snipingly, referred to as being based on the riff to Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Sweet home Alabama”, and you know, I can hear it. Mustaine did not write this part when he wrote the song, hence the perceived sense of annoyance. A superb guitar outro from Hammet takes us out and into “Motorbreath”, a fast heads-down rocker, possibly a tribute to Motorhead, though I don't know. One of the two singles to be released from the album, “Jump in the fire”, is up next.

One of many later metal songs to be written from the viewpoint of the Devil, it's a fast rocker with frenetic guitar and postulates the question “who needs Hell when you have humanity?” In other words, people by their actions are sealing their own doom, while Satan sits back and laughs. Ulrich has said that it was inspired by Maiden's “Run to the hills”, and though the two songs are nothing alike, you can see what he means. “RttH” is about man's inhumanity to man, and “JitF” is about man sealing his own fate by his treatment of others, and by the sins he commits. A sweet guitar solo in the middle, it's another of the songs Mustaine had worked on before being fired, and he's credited with it as co-writer, as he is with the other three tracks he partially wrote.

Next we get the rather odd “Anesthesia (Pulling teeth)” which, rather like in ways Manowar's “William's tale” is completely played on bass by Cliff Burton, who makes the bass sound like a guitar, and is helped out by Ulrich keeping the beat on parts of the piece. It's pretty amazing: you would think it was a guitar he was playing, but even so it comes across as just a little self-indulgent, and I believe it's far too long. Very impressive though. A sad loss to the world of metal. “Whiplash” then comes in on his bass lines, before Hammet's scattergun guitar takes over and the song begins to belt along, with a full minute of instrumental before James Hetfield comes in with the vocal. I must say, I hear echoes of “Ace of spades” in there ...

Another fast thrasher in “Phantom lord”, with a blistering solo from Hammet, and then rather unexpectedly slows right down in a sort of blues frame of mind to perhaps presage one of their biggest hit singles, “Enter sandman” before Hammet's chugging guitar again takes it off into the sky, screaming like a pterodactyl who sees her nest under attack. There's a blast from my past for me in “No remorse”, as I'm told the song is the inspiration for the music from the computer FPS “Doom”, which is one of the few games I ever played and on which I wasted quite a lot of my younger life. With a fast, powerful, wailing guitar intro that takes it into the first minute, it marches along with a rocking beat and an unapologetic lyric: ”No remorse, no regrets/ Another day, another death” Yeah. I don't see the "Doom" connection, personally.

“Seek and destroy” starts slower, with a more almost low-key vocal from Hetfield. Again it's introduced by a minute-long guitar passage, and oddly enough, given the title, comes across to me as one of the least angry or aggressive tracks on the album. Not that I don't like it, but it just doesn't seem to have the same unbridled energy that the rest of this debut does. Also, I feel Hetfield's voice is slightly strained especially on the chorus. It does speed up in the midsection, a fast powerful solo injecting new life into what had been up to now not quite a boring track, but not as exciting as everything that has gone before. The song actually improves without the vocal, which comes back for the last two minutes of the just short of seven it runs for.

The album closes on the final track into which Dave Mustaine had any writing input, “Metal militia”, which ramps the energy and passion right back up after the somewhat lacklustre “Seek and destroy”, returning to the speed of songs like “Jump in the fire” and “Whiplash”, Hetfield back on form vocally. It's well named, being a virtual aural assault on the ears and ends the album well. I must however take note of one extra track. You all know I don't usually include bonus tracks, but this one is so important I feel I must. Of course, I've related the story before (in the section on them in “Witches, Bitches, Maidens and Monsters: the bands of the NWOBHM”) of how Diamond Head got a new lease of life, after disappearing from public view for years, with the cover Metallica did of their song “Am I evil?” Here it's included as a bonus track, and though they drop my favourite part, the “Mars: the bringer of war” intro, they do a decent job of it but I still prefer the original. Nevertheless, I must thank them for bringing a band who were pretty much dead at that point back into the light of publicity. The fact that Diamond Head never capitalised on that second chance says all you need to know about them, really.

TRACKLISTING


1. Hit the lights
2. The Four Horsemen
3. Motorbreath
4. Jump in the fire
5. Anesthesia (Pulling teeth)
6. Whiplash
7. Phantom lord
8. No remorse
9. Seek and destroy
10. Metal militia

Try to imagine --- if you weren't there at the time --- what it must have been like for Americans --- and for kids this side of the water too --- to have first heard “Kill 'em all”. Oh, we had Iron Maiden, Saxon, but they didn't have the raw power and aggression that was leaking from the pores of this new kid on the block like angry sweat. Sure, Motorhead were fast and loud, but I've never seen them as angry: Lemmy always seems to treat the whole thing as one sort of massive joke. Not that he's not serious, but when he sings “Iron horse” or “Overkill” or even “Ace of spades”, I don't hear anger or rage or frustration in his voice. It's just music.

Metallica were one of the new breed of bands who were going to shake up the whole world of metal. It would be fast. It would be angry. It would be fucking LOUD! Soon, they would be joined by contemporaries Slayer, then Anthrax and of course a disgruntled Dave Mustaine would eventually get his shit together and form Megadeth, leading to the four bands being dubbed “The Big Four” of Thrash Metal. And thrash metal itself would be born on on the tattooed arms and roaring lips of these fresh new faces on the US music scene; a whole new subgenre that would spawn countless bands, some good, some not so good, and lead to a total cosmic shift in the appreciation, playing and dominance of heavy metal for nearly ten years. Iron Maiden may have sown the seeds three thousand miles away, but Metallica were genetically altering and then harvesting them, and sharing them with the world. From this dark crop a world of teenagers, hungry for music they could identify with, could believe in, could perhaps one day emulate, would be fed, and would crowd greedily and eagerly at the trough, sating their hunger.

The revolution had begun, and it started right here.

Yeah, I'm finally beginning to see that. Took me a while. Now, where do I sign up? ;)

I'd also like to point out that their solos go on for entirely too long. I used to have Inhuman Rampage, and I actually timed the solos after the second chorus of each song, and they all, ALL, last for at least two minutes. Over two minutes of pointless wank. ****. That.

Amen, brother. And what's with the fucking twiddly keyboard/game noises? That's just wank to the nth degree! Ugh!

Like I said. Novelty. It makes it amusingly kitschy for the power metal tourists.

Their lyrics are also hilariously dull, cliched and repetitive. Only Dragonforce can release a serious song titled "Power of the Ninja Sword".

Members' Top Ten Lists
One more of your top ten lists to go. Have we saved the best till last? Well, let's see as we explore the top ten provided by
http://www.musicbanter.com/avatars/4...ine=1409009166
and starting off, as we always do, at number
10
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Filosofem --- Burzum --- 1996
A man whose political views, and his propensity for putting those views into action, landed him in prison on a murder charge, I've never heard anything by Varg Vikernes, but this is apparently the last album he recorded before being sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of Mayhem's Euryonmous. It's said to be Black Metal with tinges of ambient and minimalism, so at least it should be interesting. It's also only got six tracks, but then again, one of them is --- wait for it --- twenty-five minutes long! --- so essentially it comes out with a running time about as long as, or longer than, many full albums.

As it opens I'd consider this far more doom metal than black, but what do I know? Well, what I do know is that this is nowhere close to as bad as I feared it would be. Sure, the scratchy, screeching vocal is annoying, but ol' Varg doesn't stick to that all the time, and when he reverts to a “normal” voice he's quite listenable. The music, on the other hand, is pretty damn sweet. It's energentic and hypnotic at once, and catchy as all hell. I'm three tracks in and amazed to say I really love this so far, even given the often hard-on-the-ear vocals. Hey, the guy may be a murderer, a bigot, a racist, an antisemite and a dick, but he can certainly compose and play music!

The third track bores me a little but I love the gentle, minimalistic ambience of the first, what, five? No, ten --- no, fifteen minutes (is it all going to be like this? Twenty minutes now) of this twenty-five minute behemoth. Yeah, that's how it is all the way through. What a masterpiece. Right down my particular boulevard! Man I really enjoyed that. It was totally unexpected and very welcome. The closing track is nearly as good. Hell, I just became a Burzum fan! How the hell did that happen???

And so, suitably shaken but not quite stirred, we move on to Mondo's number
9
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Mental funeral --- Autopsy --- 1991

Yeah, this looks like fun. I may have prejudged Burzum --- wrongly --- but I feel this is gonna be like having teeth pulled without anaestetic. By a chimp. Wearing a welding helmet. And boxing gloves. In the dark. On a boat on a storm-tossed sea. Ah FUCK! FIFTEEN tracks?? Thanks Mondo! Well to be honest, with titles like “I shit on your grave” and “shit eater” on other albums of theirs, and looking down the tracklist of this one, maybe I've been spared the worst. Also, Wiki says 12 tracks so I'm gonna assume the Spotify version has extra ones which I'll ignore like the girl I am. Twelve is going to be more than enough, going from what I hear here. (Hear, hear!)

Delightful! Another dark growly singer like yer man from Morbid Angel. Guitar work is good though, and it's not all superfast, in fact some of it is almost doom metal slow, like “In the grip of winter” and “Robbing the grave” --- very slowly, it would seem. Oh, I notice a couple of tracks are less than a minute long. Praise be for small mercies! Well again I have to say these guys know how to play, and again at least it's not grindcore. But definitely not my thing. Moving on...

At number
8
we find
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Seven chalices --- Teitanblood --- 2009

Which I'll be covering in “The International Language of Metal”, so I'm skipping it, taking us to his number
7
http://www.metal-archives.com/images/4/7/47.jpg?2907
Bath --- Maudlin of the Well --- 2001

This gives me hope, as I see tags such as “progressive”, “avant-garde” and “dark symphonic”. Could be something more in my line, could be a cruel joke. Hmm. Soft gentle opening, keyboards, piano, reverb guitar ... looking good so far. Now as long as nobody comes in kicking and screaming and howling and ruins the atmos I'll be fine. Ooh! Sax! And not wild, uncontrolled, unprotected sax! ;) Nice low-key, soft, lazy, smoky sax, the kind I like. This is just great so far, though at the moment I'd be struggling to call this metal.

Okay, well now I can. And there's the voice I had hoped not to hear. Ruined everything. Like a different band entirely. Sigh. Oh and now some jazzy horns are getting in on the act. Just gets worse for me, doesn't it? :rolleyes: Third track is totally different, and knocks me further sideways. If I were listening to this blind I would think two different bands were playing. “The Ferryman” starts off great, on some very proggy organ, then kind of stops for about a minute before coming back in on softer organ, some nice guitar and as yet no vocals ---- oh there they are. And they're dark and growly. Why did I not expect this?

Oh but now there's a soft female vocal too. Look, this album is giving me a headache. Too much variety, and not in a good way like with Sigh. I've just settled down when I'm kicked out of my chair, then someone picks me up and rearranges my cushions, hands me the remote before turning the whole thing over again! I'm knackered! And we're not even halfway through! Generally I think this album swings between making sweet love to me and then unaccountably and suddenly becoming a homicidal raving bitch. It''s unsettling, y'know? But I think I love it more than I hate it.

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Following on from their last album and having by now built u a massive following, Slayer decided it was time to pay tribute to the bands who had influenced them, and though this was originally intended to focus on their Heavy Metal idols such as Judas Priest, UFO and Iron Maiden (along with other, perhaps less expected influences such as The Doors), that idea was shelved and they decided instead to go with Punk Rock songs, covering such bands as The Stooges, Minor Threat and Verbal Abuse, as well as Dave Lombardo's previous band, Pap Smear. As a result, the songs are all very short, the only one over four minutes being the closer, which is an original Slayer song. Most of the others hit around the two to three minute mark, with a few struggling to last over one minute! As my dislike for Punk is well known, this could be the biggest test of my mettle as I wade through Slayer's catalogue, but I hope I'm up to it!

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Undisputed attitude --- Slayer --- 1996 (American)

As I say, I know virtually nothing of the world of Punk, so I can't tell you if Slayer did a good job on the covers or not, but be that as it may, we get going with the first of three from Verbal Abuse, two of which follow hard on the heels of each other. “Disintegration/Free money” opens with a suitably discordant guitar and a scream from Tom, then as you would expect the song pounds along at near-ridiculous speed, and after one minute there's a little bass run from Tom which I assume marks the border between “Disintegration” and “Free money”, though I don't personally see any difference between the two. “Verbal abuse/Leeches” is next up, and again it's so fast I can't really listen to it or say anything about it, other than it's fast, angry and frenetic. And over quickly, piling from the first to the last with a good guitar riff before the speed somehow increases for “Leeches”. Um.

TSOL are the next to be paid homage, and no I don't know who they are, but the song(s) Slayer choose to cover, “Abolish government/Superficial love” is (are?) at least more listenable than the first two (or four, if you count each as two. Is this normal in punk? Are the songs so short that they have to group two together? Seems to happen a lot of the time. If you know, please enlighten me. On second thoughts, don't bother.) Again a nice bass bit from Araya and the guitar is loud and angry but well played. Two tracks from Pap Smear kick the speed back to to unbelievable again as “Can't stand you” is, well, just indecipherable for the first part, then gets a little more recognisable for the last thirty seconds with some fine axework from the boys, though it speeds up into a blur again at the end and takes us into the shortest track, one minute one second of “DDAMM” which apparently stands for “Drunk Drivers Against Mad Mothers” and which to me is just a mess, the second and thankfully last of the Pap Smear songs.

If any of these songs have a redeeming quality, for me it's that they're so short. Minor Threat's “Guilty of being white” laid Slayer open to accusations of being White Supremacists --- why, I don't know: they didn't write it! But it's not too bad and of the songs on this album so far it's about the best I've heard. Then we have the final Verbal Abuse song, “I hate you”, which actually is not at all bad. At least it runs at a human speed level and the guitar riff on it is pretty cool. I can also make out Tom's vocals, which is always good and helps towards the appreciation of any song. Great solo from Kerry too, the first I've really been able to pin down. But all too soon it's over and we're getting the second cover of a Minor Threat song.

I have to say, compared to “Guilty of being white” this is awful. Played again at hyperspeed and with screamed vocals, “Filler/I don't want to hear it” has at least a scorching solo in it, but at over two minutes it's actually too long, which is not something I thought I'd say about these songs. The first of two from DI doesn't help my aching head as Slayer blast their way through “Spiritual law”, whcih I'm worried to see runs for three whole minutes! At least it settles down a little in the middle, kind of gets a little doom metalish, but of course that doesn't last and it heads for the exit as fast as it came in. “Mr. Freeze” by Dr. Know is next, and compared to the speed of most of the tracks here it's positively laidback! Great riffs and thunderous drumming, with a vocal which again I can hear and make out.

Speeds up near the end of course and takes us into DRI's “Violent pacification”, which typifies everything I hate about Punk, with my admittedly very limited knowledge of the subgenre. Just sounds like noise and someone shouting with pretty much just the title as the only lyric. Well, I hear other words now, and the rhythm has settled a little, but we're halfway though the song now. Nice teamup between the rhythm section, then it all speeds right up again with Araya crowing the title in increasing fervour and speed till the song burns itself out at the end on the back of Kerry and Jeff's manic guitar work. The second DI song is “Richard hung himself”, the longest of the covers, and to be fair it's pretty good. Doesn't speed along like a hurtling comet, has good guitar and I can make out the vocal, which has more than just the title in it. Not bad at all.

That leaves just two tracks to go, one cover and the final one, which is Slayer's own song. For their last tribute they choose The Stooge's “I'm gonna be your god (I wanna be your dog)” and to be fair I can see how these guys had such an influence on metal bands, as this is really more metal than punk to me. Rocks along nicely without breaking the speed limit, decipherable vocals and a great, mesmeric guitar riff. Another one I don't hate. Leaving us with the closer, Slayer's own “Gemini”, which is easily the longest track at almost five minutes. After the frenetic pace of the last thirteen tracks, it's a relief to hear the guys slow everything down in a real doom metal groove that just stomps along with snarly guitar and hollow-sounding drums, a laconic, dark vocal from Tom and some fine backing vocals. I'd like to hear Slayer do more stuff like this, but somehow I don't think I'll get my wish. Still, it's a good and powerful ending to a pretty terrible album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Disintegration/Free money
2. Verbal abuse/Leeches
3. Abolish government/Superficial love
4. Can't stand you
5. Guilty of being white
6. DDAMM
7. I hate you
8. Filler/Don't want to hear it
9. Spiritual law
10. Mr. Freeze
11. Violent pacification
12. Richard hung himself
13. I'm gonna be your god (I wanna be your dog)
14. Gemini

Obviously, before someone gets up in arms, my comments have to be taken in the context of the fact that I don't like Punk. If this were an album of covers of hip-hop songs, or jazz songs (can you imagine?) I would probably hate it too. I'm sure Slayer did a great job on all the songs here, but this sort of music is not my cup of tea and so I guess in most ways I'm badly placed to be reviewing it, but this is one of Slayer's albums and I promised I would try to cover all their recorded studio output if I could, so didn't want to leave this out, even though my blood froze when I realised what it was.

But yeah, so far as I'm concerned, easily and far away the worst Slayer album I've listened to so far and the hardest thing I've had to get through since I suffered through Slipknot's “Iowa” last year.

(Note: this review was written before I was dragged through the living hell inhabited by Cryptopsy and their grindcore buddies, especially the Japanese ones...)

The fact that it was being sung by a mestizo Chilean guy also makes that accusation pretty humorous.

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At the heart of winter --- Immortal --- 1999 (Osmose)

Reviewed by guest reviewer
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2...Killington.jpg
Buzz Killington

(For those of you not familiar with him, or Family Guy, here he is in action)

That's right. I'm sure he'll be right at home with this. Well, time for me to take a well-deserved break. I'll leave you in Buzz's capable hands. Buzz?

Thank you Trollheart. You know, when I heard Trollheart was running Metal Month II I said to myself (for I often talk to myself; 'tis the only way to get intelligent conversation! Oh ho ho but no, I jest, I jest!) I said, Buzz, (for 'tis my name), Buzz, you should get involved in that. After all, I was a metallurgist for nigh on forty years, and my father before me, and his father before him, and so on. You get the picture, I trust? Ah yes: be it nickel, gold, silver or iron, there's few metals I haven't dealed with, sold, mined or examined. This should be fun!

Immortal. Why that sounds like a fine name for a troupe of musicians. I think I can confidently predict that we will be hearing songs of a devotional nature --- hymns, psalms, choral voices --- oh dear! I do hope there aren't too many male sopranos in this band! I do so hate male sopranos. Wretched things. Still, none of these chappies in the picture that comes with this recording look like they would sing that high. In fact, they look a little rough for a choir. Hmm. All that long hair and leather. Now why would...?

Ah yes! Of course! They must be acting out a play --- a ballet perhaps, or an opera. Oh my stars I do hope it's an opera! There's nothing I like better than a good nine-hour opera, preferably in Italian or German. Bliss! Perhaps this concerns the fate of those dread cities Sodom and Gomorrah? Yes, yes: that would explain the outlandish garb these fellows are wearing, and the scowls on their faces. First rate. I'm sure this will be most enjoyable.

Now, let me see. One apparently inserts the strange disc into this slot --- oh look at that! It's going in as if there were a small man inside pulling it in! Is there a small man? A question, perhaps, for another time. But now some lamps are lighting up on the side of this contraption and I believe the “com-pact disc”, as they call it, is ready. All I need do is press this button marked “play” and the music should issue forth, soothing my weary soul. While we wait for that to happen, let us investigate exactly what it is that we are about to listen to. Hmm. The note with this recording says it is something called “black metal”. Hmm. Well that's obviously poppycock. I can see with my own eyes that this strange flimsy disc – which hardly looks likely to be able to hold one music-hall ditty, let alone six, as I see printed here it says there are --- is clearly silver, not black! What an oversight. Must be a typographical error. Which reminds me, I know quite the humourous story about a typesetter and three ducks in old Saxony... ah but no time, for lest my ears deceive me the music is start ---

Oh no wait. That can't be right. I must have done something wrong, do forgive me. It sounds as if the machinery is trying to eat the disc. Let me just see if I can stop it --- ah yes! Peace ensues. Now, if I can just get the disc thingy back out ... hmmm. Not as easy as it looks, you know. That slot into which said disc disappeared but moments ago is very narrow, and I cannot get my fingers inside. Perhaps if I seek a utensil from the kitchen? Ah, capital idea, Buzz! Capital! Excuse me just one moment.

(While we wait for Buzz to return, here is some music...)


Now then, let's see. This fork should have that thing out in a jiffy .... confound and blast it! How is one supposed to extract the thrice-damned thing? Think, Buzz, think. Perhaps one of these buttons ... Oh dear me no! That just started the whole cacophonous mess off again. I do hope the recording is not damaged. Wait a moment! This one is labelled REJECT. Perhaps I can ... huzzah! Success! Here comes our disc, and it seems not to be damaged one whit. Capital! Now, let me re-insert it and push “play” again and ... oh heavens! That same horrid noise! What is wrong with the blessed contraption?

Just one moment! Was that a voice I heard? Can it be ... is it possible ... can this be the actual recording? This does not sound very pastoral to me at all! You know, I really believe that IS the singer. And he's quite an angry chap, isn't he? I wonder if his butler forgot to lay out his favourite slippers this morning? I know that certainly makes me angry. I've been known to use all sorts of foul language: blast, damn, even ... bloody! Yes I know, but it really annoys me when that happens. I just lose all control.

I think this boy needs a good throat lozenge; he sounds positively hoarse. And the chap on the guitar: bless him, he is trying but he sounds like he only recently purchased the instrument and has not yet learned to play it quite how it should be played. Do-re-mi, young fella me lad! It all stems from that. Perhaps you should have attempted a nice polka or minuet before trying this advanced stuff? Mind you, I'm not one to criticise, but the chap on the drums doesn't seem much better. Oh dear. Perhaps they were short on money and could only afford cheap equipment. They should have asked me to help out: I still have my spoons up in my study. You never lose the knack, you know!

Well now let's see. According to these ... what do they call them in the business? “Liner notes”. Yes that's them --- according to them, this first song is called “Withstand the fall of time”. Well, if my hat withstands this without collapsing I'll be quite a surprised man. It really is very loud, is it not? How can one play such music without disturbing the neighbours and making a scene? Surely the constable would have to be called? My seat on the board of governors at the city university would be most in jeopardy, were I to listen to this sort of caterwauling. Oh dear me, yes. What have we next?

“Solarfall”. Well that's just silly, isn't it? The sun is way up there in the sky. It can't fall. God wouldn't allow it. Probably break into a million fragments. Tut. You would imagine these chappies would at least write about things that could happen. Ah, that reminds me of a rather interesting story about a bridge... no wait, where are you going? Ah yes, but it's a suspension bridge in my story. Thought that would make a diff --- you're still leaving? Oh I see! It's this terrible music that causes your sudden and most expeditious departure. Well I can't say that I blame you. This is certainly not what I studied for ten years for! Have yet to even hear about zinc, copper or even tin! Black metal, indeed!

Ah yes. Here finally is some nice soft guitar and a rather nice atmopsheric ... oh dear. Seems the singer fellow is all upset again. Why I bet that lazy chambermaid of his hasn't cleaned the hearth out and set a nice roaring fire in the grate. Grounds for dismissal, my dear fellow, believe me. Give these wogs an inch and they'll take a mile. Deal with it at the root: plenty more slaves – I mean, servants --- out there, desperate for work at below minimum wage. That's it: he seems happier now. Delighted to be of service, old chap! We men must stick together, what? Next thing you know, they'll be looking for the vote! No, no but I jest: of course such a thing would be ludicrous in the extreme.

Well these boys certainly have energy, I'll grant them that. They must eat a hearty breakfast every morning. Cornerstone of the day, breakfast. Nice bowl of hot porridge, some orange juce, grapefruit. Breakfast of champions. I find I rather like the guitar interlude in the midst of “Tragedies blows at horizon” --- surely that's bad grammar, boys? Tsk tsk! Didn't you learn anything at Harrow? Pleasant in a sort of homicidal way I suppose. I'm told that guitar near the end is reminiscent of Pink Floyd. Not that I would know. I have never even seen a floyd, let alone a pink one. Oh dear! That boy will do some serious damage to his throat if he does not stop growling like an animal. What's his name? Let's see: Abbath Doom Occultas. What an odd name.

I believe I'll just call him Abby. Ah yes. I knew a wonderful woman called Abby once, back in my youth. Borrowed a hundred pounds from me. Still waiting for her to return it, but I know she will. It's only been twenty years. Silly women! Forget their pretty heads if they weren't stuck on their pretty necks. Ah, me. More nice guitar to open, um, let me just get my glasses, light fading you know ... um ... oh my! “At the heart of winter.” That, I believe, is also what this disc is called. Ah yes. I believe this is what they call in the parlance a “title track”. Oh my. I feel like one of those dick jockey fellows. What's that? It's disc jockey? Dick jockey is something quite different? I see.

Anyway, this is nice and I believe “ambient” is the term that is used. Ah but then the poor lads get all annoyed and angry again. One would wonder what it is that raises their ire so? Perhaps they have not heard any good stories about ... oh very well. No more stories about bridges. I promise. What about looking at some nice etchings, eh? My word! You are hard to please, are you not? Well this is quite loud and aggressive is it not? I think I may have to pour myself a fortified wine to relax me...

(Buzz does not see an unidentified hand drop a tab of acid into his drink. Five minutes later...)

OHH FUCK YEAH! HEAVY METAL! BLACK METAL! FUCK ME! YEAH YEAH YEAH! THIS IS THE SHIT! YOU WANT SOME? YOU WANT SOME YOU FUCKER? WHAT THE FUCK YOU LOOKIN' AT? YOU WANT MY HAT? YOU WANT MY FUCKIN' HAT YOU COCKSUCKER? COME TRY AND TAKE IT THEN YOU PIECE OF SHIT! YOU CUNT! YOU MOTHERLESS FUCK! YEAH YOU BETTER FUCKIN RUN! I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE FUCKIN' EIGHT YEARS OLD! I'LL KICK YOUR ASS! GET THE FUCKOUTTA HERE! HEAVY METAL! BLACK METAL! PRAISE SATAN! HEADBANG! HEADBANG! FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKYEAHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Some time later, Buzz awakes in a hospital bed with no memory of his attempted attack on the eight-year old niece of his boss, and facing some pretty serious criminal charges, not least of which is the possession of a Class A drug. It may be some time before we hear from him again. If we're lucky.)

Trollheart says: I quite enjoyed this album. For a Black Metal record there was a lot of melody, some great ideas and the vocal, though harsh, didn't grate upon me that much at all. The playing was pretty much first rate all the way through, and even verged on the introspective at times. I'll probably have a listen to some more of their albums at some point.

Now, what ward did they say Buzz was in? What? No visitors? Declared dangerous and unstable? Just sits there starting into space with a mug of cocoa in his hand? Hmm. Perhaps I'll just send flowers. And a picture of a bridge, of course.
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Damn, I was hoping you'd like motW more.

And you must not have seen my revised list, it replaces Mental Funeral with Bloody Kisses by Type O Negative (you would have liked that one way more I bet, gothic doom metal), and Pwerslave with Piece of Mind.

Oh. Well don't worry, some surprise reactions coming up! You wanted Neurosis rather than At the Gates didn't you? I haven't got to those yet. Probably listen to them tonight, so just to make sure I listen to the right album.

Yeah, Neurosis took the spot