Category Archives: Metal
Bitter End – Guilty As Charged (Music Review)
Bitter End
Guilty As Charged
Deathwish
Rating: 3.8 out of 5
Links:
Bitter End: http://www.myspace.com/bitterend
Deathwish: http://www.deathwishinc.com/
It’s been way too long since we have had a band who can churn out a great hardcore metal album like this, and where Climate Of Fear was an in-your-face, here-we-are offensive, Guilty As Charged pulls back and concentrates more on the elements that drive this band.
What drives this band is the steam train of guitars and the raucous fury of the rhythm. The Texas heat does not stop Bitter End from being the powerhouse they are, holding a power chord out into infinity (“Means To An End”) or being creative enough with their landscape to pull off the Sepultura-infused tribalistic instrumental of “Suenos Muertos.” It’s like a durango version of “Fade To Black” that transitions into a tsunami of metal fury that will keep your fist in the air as
And so what if the title track rubs off of “Corrupted Souls,” both sounding similar, this metal musique concrete is vicious and you will be wiping off the bruises. Forget that the intro to “Broken” is to “Enter Sandman” as “Ice Ice Baby” is to “Pressure,” their mid-tempo agro-groove and pit-stomping party will set off the National Weather Service.
The power is in the punch and this band has taken great care into crafting the lyrics and the music into a dust storm of realism. Not since the early Victory Records days have I spent time slobbering over myself.
Lair of the Minotaur – Evil Power (Music Review)
Lair of the Minotaur
Evil Power
Southern Lord
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Link: http://www.lairoftheminotaur.com/site/
Almost as good as any At The Gates album, chalk Evil Power up to another superb metal release. With Nate Olp taking over on the bass and guest backing vocals by General Diabolical Slaughter of Usurper, Evil Power has more oomph than the band has pushed in the past.
This album has velocity. “We are violence. We are decay. We are the plague of death. We are the end of days.” When they sing it, you believe a song like “We Are Hades.” Built on an ancient mythological background and presenting the same bringer of fear as any social, religious, or political entity throughout western civilization, Lair of the Minotaur does not just stand in the eye of the hurricane, fueling its power, they are the hurricane and you are its destruction.
You cannot imagine how beefy this band is until you dig in from the beginning. There is no fluffery here, just full on fury and pure muscle. What pushes this band up front is the talent this band has. These musicians have the chops to make Metalica look like little sissies. “Let’s Kill These Motherfuckers” proves that. With a guitar crunch and the pounding drums, it’s a steam train of metal fury. Sure the lyrics are elementary, “We fucked them all. Let’s fuck them all again,” but it’s damn effective.
Evil Power is a metal fan’s metal album.
A Perfect Murder – Strength Through Vengeance
A Perfect Murder
Strength Through Vengeance
2005 – Victory
Origin: Montreal, Quebec
Style: Metal
If you want a perfect example post-millennium Victory Records-style hardcore that is influenced from the classic Victory days (think Warzone), then this album is it. Not only does it shine on the Victory roster, it shines within the bands hierarchy of releases.
A sound that is influenced from south of the border, the band holds tight of that East Coast mentality. However, there is a certain sign that the band, or part of the band was leaning towards another direction, that of the Northwest sludge scene and bands like Clutch and Alice in Chains. But A Perfect Murder does not stray too far and head back into hardcore territory towards the end of the release.
However, before this album, the band was as heavy as steel girders into the metal scene. They ripped and shredded with the best of them. What caused the shift in dynamic is uncertain, but they did create a significant change in their sound just from the previous year.
Soon after this release, the leave of an original guitarist eventually caused a doom and gloom scenario that would ruin the band until 2007 when they tried it one more time and released War of Aggression.
Cross-Reference: Warzone, Sick Of It All, Clutch
Pythia – Army Of The Damned (Music Review)
Pythia
Army Of The Damned
Self-Released
Rating: Hilariously Awesome!
Link: http://www.myspace.com/pythiamusic
Listening to Pythia’s “Army Of The Damned” is like playing every PS3 fantasy game, only on warp speed. This symphonic metal epic takes everything The Gathering did and 75 percent of any Century Media band and double-time it.
Listen to this and once the initial laughter of awesomeness wears off and the TNT references end, you get a “Lord Of The Rings” head-bashing of a good time. The song ends with the poem “Suicide In The Trenches,” recited by British actor Brian Blessed, that sounds like Patrick Stewart reciting Vilvaldi’s The Seasons.
The kicker (at least for me anyway) is that the song abruptly ends and if you have a song immediately following on your iTunes (for me it was Dick Dale’s “Ooh-Wee Marie”), you may be in for a surprise depending on how stark the transition is.
Joking aside, Pythia can conjure up a thundering fistful of metal that almost makes you forget that humans are actually making this music.
Kerretta – Vilayer (Music Review)
Kerretta
Vilayer
Midium Records/Carrot Top
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Links:
Kerretta: http://www.myspace.com/kerretta
Midium Records: http://www.midiumrecords.com/
Carrot Top: http://www.carrottoprecords.com/
Sometimes you just need to shut up and jam. Kerretta’s collection of instrumentals does just that, even when they are going at a slow pace.
Vilayer may be wordless but the album is chock full of enough guitar jams to keep your mind occupied. Hell make up some words yourself, it does not matter what.
Whether it is power groove of “The Square Inside” or the consistency of “Maven Fade,” either one gives you every reason to put your skinny wrists to the sky. And no I am not talking about the realms of metal in the progressive sense here. And I am not going near jam band territory. What Kerretta does is exploratory.
Often times each member drifts off into their own microcosm, but then gets pulled back into the group as the band knows just exactly when to become unified and rock.
These instrumentals have the fat trimmed off of them. The members are very well touted to keep a disciplinary time structure, and they work so well together, something that’s necessary when you rely on your instruments to carry you forward.
Beauty and brawn, that’s what you will find within Vilayer’s seven songs.
