Oct./Nov./Dec. 2012 finds

No store breakdowns or introductory paragraph (obviously because I didn't keep close track), so we'll jump right into things:

Arch Enemy - Dead Eyes See No Future - $1.99
Title track, 3 live 2004 tracks, and 3 covers.  I'm no big fan of the first 3 Arch Enemy albums, so I won't pretend Angela Gossow is totally to blame for my disinterest in them.  I can think of worse extreme metal singers, but she's obviously in the band for novelty and sex appeal reasons rather than quality vocals.  The live tracks come off alright, although the overzealous stage banter before "We Will Rise" is straight from the Anselmo school of dumb aggression posturing.  Instrumentally, the Megadeth and Manowar covers are passable, if a bit simplified, but Angela's stilted vocals don't follow the song melodies and ruin them.  Musically the covers aren't that extreme, so the vocals come off as silly and overdone.  It's not saying much, but I thought the Carcass cover was the best thing on the EP--I'd take the real deal over this any day, but I'm sure Mr. Amott playing on the original song didn't hurt at all, and Angela does do a better job here of emulating the vocal style and timing than on the other covers.

Die Krupps - A Tribute to Metallica - $1.00
I hesitated on grabbing this, realizing I'd probably only listen to it once....But the disc was in excellent condition and it was extremely unlikely I'd ever see it cheaper, so the completist in me won out.  I wish these covers had been done as instrumental versions, as the weak vocals really detract from everything.  Still, the only song here that I truly found interesting beyond the novelty factor of the whole concept was Blackened.  It's not really that much better than those forgettable The Blackest Album tribute comps. that Cleopatra or whoever is putting out (they made it up to 4 volumes?!?!  Christ...)  So yes, as I type this moments later, I think that will probably be my only listen.  >:)

Head Trauma - Psychotic Episode - $2.40
Imagine a brutal death metal band playing '90s groove thrash songs.  The guitar sound and overall heaviness is definitely death metal, but the songs are full of groovy passages and start/stop riffing.  The vocals are of an aggro type but they're deep enough to bridge the stylistic differences here.  "Remember" is notable as it's a mellow instrumental (well, it's pretty much a bass solo with backing instrumentation at points) that reminded me slightly of Metallica (a less-progressive "Orion" at some points and a black album-style ballad at others).  I was also slightly surprised to find out midway through listening that the instrumentation is handled by Desmond Tolhurst of Mortician/Malignancy fame.  Interesting and very telling that I couldn't find any real reviews for this, only press sheet tripe which plays up Desmond's musical background or distro list descriptions that use adjectives to avoid specifically categorizing this.

Living Sacrifice - Reborn - $1.00
This album marked the change of the band's sound to modern metalcore garbage.  It's slightly better than the later albums since there are faint traces of the band's thrash roots here and there--the opening riff to the first track was quite furious and thrashy, and took me by surprise thinking there might be hope here...well, until the chugga chugga began a few seconds later.  "Something More" and "Liar" also stood out as being thrashier.  Since it was only a buck, I don't mind having bought this from a completist standpoint, but what I really want the bargain bins to deliver are the band's first three CDs!

Manowar - Into Glory Ride- $1.00
Cool to find this, but any excitement was somehwat dampened by the fact I've already owned it for years and years.  This is a solid album, and some individual tracks stand out as exemplary--"Warlord" is great, and "Revelation" is one of my favorite Manowar songs ever--but for me personally it was always greatly overshadowed by Hail to England.  Just take the more epic songs from the album--sure, "Secret of Steel" and "Valhalla" are okay, and "March for Revenge" is quite good at times, but for me they just don't hold up against "Battle Hymn" or "Bridge of Death" or "Guyana."


Nemesis - Eden? - $1.99
Guitar-driven progressive metal.  I'm kind of on the fence about how to further describe this, as it's usually too progressive to really call it power metal, but there are definite European power metal influences compared to say, Dream Theater and Fates Warning.  Pleasant to listen to, but not really my cup of tea, with one exception..."Faith" is an instrumental, very unlike the rest of the album but exactly the sort of thing I was looking for but not really finding when I would pick up less metallic shred/virtuoso albums (Satriani/Vai type stuff)...Tasteful but not overzealous guitarwork over dreamy background music.

Obituary - Anthology - $1.99
Compilation of stuff up to the Back from the Dead era.  There are two previously unreleased tracks at the end, one of which is an industrialized remix of "Boiling Point"...So the only reason to bother with this is the other unreleased track, which is a cover of Venom's "Buried Alive," recorded during the World Demise sessions.  Musically it's fine, but the vocals seem a tad restrained (to be fair, given that they were pretty thorough in recreating the intro, they may have not wanted to deviate from the original too much by having full-on deathy vocals).  Probably would have been better had it been recorded earlier.

The Secret - Solve Et Coagula - $1.00
Seeing the Southern Lord logo instantly made me think of doomy and/or avant-garde things, despite the goat on the cover.  This combines black metal (definitely the vocals, and most of the guitarwork), hardcore (not so much musically, but in some of the tempos--fear not, there are no breakdowns), and grind (during their speedier parts--while their songs are generally fast and short, there's not much outright blasting).  I should clarify that there's really no old school influence here, so they don't belong to the crop of bands mixing D-beat and black metal influences.  Nor does the grind element bring them anywhere near the Blasphemy/old Beherit sound.  I'm reminded of the band Infernal Stronghold in a way, not musically, but because both bands incorporate quite a lot of outside influences in their underlying sound, but still sound predominantly black metal.  Ironically, having mentioned Southern Lord and their doom associations, it should be mentioned three tracks ("Cross Builder," "Bell of Urgency," and the latter part of album ender "1968") are longer doomy/sludgy tunes.  They represent a minority of the material here but I find them to be more effective and less monotonous songs, so maybe they should have dumped the HC trappings and just done that style.  All in all, not great, not terrible.

Skid Row - Slave to the Grind - $1.00
This is one of the pressings where "Get the Fuck Out" was replaced with "Beggar's Day" (the shame is that "Get the Fuck Out" is actually a bit better).  For a long time I really didn't bother with the band and was only really familiar with them from MTV, so I thought the two big ballads from the first album were pretty representative of the band.  It's kind of surprising how heavy and gritty they can get, particularly the first two songs on this album.  That said, there are still commercial tendencies all over the place here.  Pure heavy metal this band was definitely not.

Testament - First Strike Still Deadly - $1.99
Re-recordings of old stuff, with Alex Skolnick back doing leadwork, and 2 songs with Zetro Souza on vocals.  These can't touch the originals, but I will say that this is one of the better "re-recorded classics" albums and in most cases I would happily choose this over listening to anything past the band's second album.  The only semi-miss here is "Alone in the Dark" due to Zetro's odd clean vox (keep in mind I thought the Legacy demo version was fine--he doesn't sound like that here).  Would have been nice if "Do or Die" or "Curse of the Legions of Death" were on here, but what can you do...