Roman Kostrzewski - Woda (2007)

Cost: $1.00

It was exciting to find something this eclectic/exotic in the bargain bin, much more so than the music itself.  Unfortunately, besides Roman's voice, this bears no resemblance to Kat at all.  It's some sort of atmospheric/ambient rock that strongly reminds me of world music (a few parts brought Enigma to mind a bit, too).   Not too far in I lost interest in actively listening to it, so I ended up letting it play in the background while doing other things, and I suppose it worked pretty decently as mellow background music.

Domination Black - Haunting (2008)

Cost: $2.00

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.  While I don't think they were going for a deeply serious horror vibe, some of the themes and aesthetics of this EP seem like a mismatch with the music--predominantly power metal with some modern heavy metal mixed in.  There are some slight gothic metal overtones, but definitely not as many as the vocalist's bright-goatee-and-top-hat look might suggest.  At times they sound like a power metal take on Sentenced's upbeat later material.  The cover of Kiss' "A World Without Heroes" is fairly good and heavied up without being overdone.  "Evil Has Found a Home" is an acoustic guitar track that eventually adds demonic toy (well, that's what I imagined them to be!) voices that implore "Don't be afraid - just come closer."  It seems a little King Diamond-esque in that way.  Not a bad listen by any means, but nothing really great either.

MercyKill - The Order of War (2008)

Cost: $1.50

The artwork and band name made me think groove metal or perhaps even metalcore, so my hopes going in weren't particularly high, but when I saw they covered King Diamond's "Welcome Home," that made it an automatic purchase.  Would I have taken the chance and bought it otherwise after some consideration?  We'll never know.  The cover had me feeling more optimistic, since how can you really go wrong with any band that likes classic MF or KD?

The music is a bit of a mishmash--mostly death metal or death metalesque riffage, plenty of thrash influences, some unfortunate groove metal chugging, and maybe a tiny bit of melodeath in the mix.  Dual style vocals here, with monotonous, somewhat forced death metal vocals and very forced raspish vocals.  The actual music style they play is better than I expected (despite the more modern influences to their sound, which I could do without), but it doesn't come off as very inspired.  Most of the tracks have a pretty decent part, usually a thrashy one, but I didn't come away thinking any of the original songs were particularly notable or cool.

The "Welcome Home" cover is quite good musically.  No, they don't even bother to attempt King-style vocals--while I'll agree their regular vocals aren't ideal, they're a far more sensible choice than a bad King impression.  This would have been one of the better songs on either the Dwell or Necropolis King Diamond tributes, and compares pretty favorably to the Agressor and Prototype covers of the song.

Crimson Spectre/Uwharria - split CD (2005)

Cost: 99¢

This CD is available for trade.

Wasn't sure what to expect here, but the Crimson Spectre songtitles sounded sort of grindcorish, and there's a D.R.I. shirt in one of the booklet photos.  They turned out to be pretty disappointing as they're punk/punkish HC with screamy vocals.  There's some natural thrashiness just by virtue of it being punk, but nothing to a satisfying degree.  The Uwharria side initially seemed relatively similar and had me thinking this CD was going to be a total bust, but they at times they actually kick into full-on crossover mode ("Devil's Gut" is pretty cool).   I was further amazed that the "Riparian Trilogy" is quite strongly NWOBHM influenced!  The vocals here are also a punkish screamy style, although wilder and more spastic than Crimson Spectre's. 

Exhibition - The Sign of Tomorrow (2003)

Cost: 99¢

This CD is available for trade.

The mummy on that cover sure is reminiscent of a certain iconic metal mascot, huh?  The Egyptian-themed artwork in the rest of the layout further brings Maiden (or to a lesser extent, Iced Earth) to mind.  Decent progressive/power metal.  The power metal component is definitely a '90s US style as opposed to a Euro style, and the progressive influences are quite varied--there's older Fates Warning/older Queensrÿche influenced stuff, but also mellower emotive sections (including a balladish song) and keyboard pieces that are more Dream Theater-inspired. 

The CD was fine to listen to--I appreciate that they maintained a pretty good balance and didn't go overboard with the prog--but after it ended, nothing really stood out as having much wow factor.  They seem pretty versatile in terms of being able to play both heavier and lighter material, but I'm hard pressed to identify anything really great about it.  It's good for a dollar bin pickup, but it doesn't seem like something I'd be inclined to revisit.

Elektrik Mistress - Elektrik Mistress (2001)

Cost: 99¢

This CD is available for trade.
 

Occasionally I'll pick up stoner rock looking discs from the bargain bin in case they're more on the doomy side.  Don't find the COC (Deliverance-era)/Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age influenced stoner rock here that interesting, and with the lack of metal, this is a miss for me.  Vocals sound like a cross between Pepper Keenan and the guy from Saigon Kick, and the song "Blakk Room" is a Collective Soul-style acoustic alternative rock ballad.  Should add that there are online reviews that REALLY overstate the space rock elements here as if Elektrik Mistress were Hawkwind disciples (which I would have greatly preferred), but then the album ends up having like two songs with a couple seconds total of minimalist spacey effects.

Relicseed - Upcoming Second Studio Album Promo EP (2012)

Cost: 99¢

Opener "Slaughterhouse" initially seemed like some sort of modern thrash, but I began to suspect something was up with some of the rockish elements and the melancholy clean section (which is admittedly well done).   Then the Hetfield vocal mannerisms really increased for the next two songs, which are groovier metal/rock hybrids obviously influenced by the s/t (and later) Metallica.  The last track is built around a much longer stretch of the moody melancholic stuff.

While they avoid the common pitfalls of djent/-core sounds, there's a certain modernity and lack of heaviness here I find off-putting.  The thrashy parts that are here are pretty unfulfilling, and the songwriting isn't nearly as memorable as the later Metallica they were influenced by (or for that matter, most of the bands that followed suit in the wake of the black album).  This makes the inclusion of the more modern and rock elements here frustrating, as if the music has been intentionally watered down and neutered for nothing.  While the songs are quite varied, it still feels very tedious at times for a 20 min. EP.

The booklet has a hyperbole-ridden quote from a fairly well known nerdy '80s rock journalist, and despite the clear influences, I'd say it's pretty laughable to even infer that Relicseed could be "the best Metallica inspired band in the world."  Actually, this could have been interesting and potentially Katatonia-like if they had focused and expanded on the somber sections in the first and last tracks.

Meltdown - Demolition (2006)

Cost: 99¢

Pulled this one off the shelf after seeing the spine, and initially I was excited, since the cover definitely looked like something a retro thrash band might use, especially in conjunction with the band name (speaking of which, that style of the cross used in the logo makes it look so goofy!  It's bugged me ever since I saw it).  I was immediately disappointed when I turned it over as they were clearly a hardcore band based on the live photos.  Decided to look it up online anyway, and they were described as being pretty metallic, so I figured I'd buy it even if just for trade fodder.

The first track wasn't particularly impressive and made me think they were just going to be somewhat Integrity or Cro-Mags sounding metallic HC, but they can get surprisingly thrashy as the disc goes on.  Slayer seem to be the primary influence on their thrashiness (the end of "True Heroes" sounds like it was inspired by the "Hell Awaits" intro, although in simplified form) but I can hear a tiny bit of Souza-era Exodus too.  It's better than I expected and the thrashy riffs are pleasing, but I can easily get a superior thrash fix elsewhere without the HC-styled vocals and breakdowns.  May hang on to it for now and see if I revisit it but I don't anticipate it being a keeper.

Charlotte the Harlot - Agamogir (2016)

Cost: 99¢

Just a short mCD.  "Experiment Report" is black/death with a Japanese-sounding melody interwoven into the guitarwork and chanted background vocals, making it more Oriental sounding than the other tracks.  The other two songs are blackened (mostly due to the vocals) melodic death metal.  They use additional gang/chorus vocals (almost like what you might expect from Japanese punk/HC/thrash) more heavily on "Lick the Picture," which seems like an unconventional (but not that bad-sounding) choice.  The main vox themselves as well as the method of layering vocal styles reminds me a little of the vocals on early Chthonic stuff.  Quite a nice little find--the short length means they don't wear out their welcome, and the various backing vocals add just enough of an exotic touch to raise this above generic melodeath and cookie-cutter black/death hybrids.

B-Thong - Damage (1995)

Cost: 99¢

This CD is available for trade.

I'm not a groove metal fan by any means, but I did like some parts of this band's debut, particularly "Schizophrenic Pavement" and "Power Ranger" (admittedly, a lot of that has to do with the unintentionally humorous lyrics).  Some semblance of that would have been welcomed, but unfortunately this CD is a huge step (further) down.  While Skinned was energetic and pretty thrashy at times, this is far more moody and angsty, mixing many of the worst '90s elements that plagued Pantera and Chaos A.D./Roots-era Sepultura, such as aggro vocals and unfulfilling groovy riffs.  It's a lot more vocal-driven than the first album, and I didn't find any of the songs or riffage to be memorable.  The vocals are more forced, although stylistically there's not that much difference from the debut.  There's also some rather pointless attempts at atmosphere/weirdness, such as a didgeridoo section in one song.  None of these help.

I had wondered about the band's name and remembered to look it up before this post.  It's a play on the Swedish word for concrete, which at least makes some sense given their musical style.  Still looks really dumb as a band name though!

Enders Game - Game Over CD-R (2003)

Cost: $1.00

The first 3 songs are primarily melodic thrash, mixed with some slight progressive metal tendencies and unfortunately, some modern metal elements.  Considering that the band name is perfect for a prog. metal act, I was actually a bit surprised as how thrashy they really are. Sadly the vocals are mostly aggro nonsense, and when the vocalist attempts a cleaner style, he just sounds like he should be in a '90s alternative rock band.  The last track, "Systematic Killing of the American Dream," is quite generic-sounding groove metal. In short, this is not as good as the band logo suggests, but not as bad as the band pic suggests.

Goat Thrower - Cult of the Germanic Horde (1998)

Cost: $2.00

Distro/mailorder descriptions and the Gonkulator connection always made me curious about this CD.  When I finally saw the band photos and songtitles online, it was obvious they weren't a terribly serious band, and I assumed they'd just be a black metal parody with either ultra generic or ultra exaggerated music.  I saw some places give it a thrash descriptor, which I didn't take particularly seriously.

Let's not beat around the bush--the vocals here are crap. They're heavily processed (pitch shifted higher plus reverb, I think?)  They're a cross between cartoon imp and robotic voice changer, and since they're a weird style that doesn't really fit the music, they don't even have the comedic value that ridiculous vocals typically would.  The shame is, aside from the vox, the music seems like a fairly decent mix of black metal and thrash, which really surprised me.  At its best it's similar to a far more simplified, speedier take on Ritual's Soldiers Under Satan's Command album, although they unfortunately throw in some pointless blastbeat sections.  The main riff of "Battle Scars" also reminds me of the chorus riff to Sodom's "Witching Metal," though keep in mind I'm just recording my immediate thoughts as I listen, and this shouldn't seriously be compared to the greatness of early Sodom.  The Conan album intro and some of the acoustic guitar parts used to open songs are fine, but they can go overboard with the cheesiness (though given the look of the CD, what else would you really expect?) There's an untitled Halloween theme-ish interlude that sounds like it was cobbled together from a Halloween sound effects CD, and the "Praise Be Thy Goat" outro is silly mock ritual/incantation stuff (though they would have been better off letting the chick talking do the main vocals!).  Ultimately, the inept vocals completely neutralize anything positive about the disc.

The Gathering - Nighttime Birds (1997)

Cost: $2.00

Even though it's been 20+ years, this actually picks up right where I left off with The Gathering, since I bought Mandylion from a Media Play sale bin in the '90s not too long after it was released (and since then, the only The Gathering I've ever seen in a bargain bin is the remix version of Always...).  I'm aware their later material took a very non-metal trajectory, but I haven't heard any of it yet and have no great desire to.

This is far more stripped down and lightened up music than Mandylion.  I never got on the Anneke bandwagon and didn't go nuts for Mandylion, but the album has its positive points and is certainly atmospheric if nothing else.  Nighttime Birds is far less metallic and doomy.  I don't place much value on the more relaxed sound and rockish elements here, so there's really not anything here for me that the preceding album doesn't do better.  All that said, I did find the second half of the CD to be marginally more interesting overall.   Again, I haven't heard any of the material that came after this, but their shift from metal to rock doesn't seem particularly surprising based on a lot of the music here.

Eternal Reign - Forbidden Path (2005)

Cost: $1.00

I'm a total sucker for bands doing old metal cover songs.  Whether it's an oft-covered classic or something more obscure, I'm usually very curious about hearing it, and more often than not it makes me have a positive bias towards a disc without even hearing it.  That was the case when I saw Eternal Reign had covered Breaker.

 

The band play solid but unremarkable melodic power metal, somewhat like Symphorce perhaps.  I hear sparse hints of Angra, and there are some points (such as "Into My Own Hands") where the band sounds they're doing a more power metal take on Ripper-era Priest.  I've seen some reviews that overemphasize the progressive elements here--while there are some atmospheric and slightly progressive touches as well as some relatively light keyboard usage, it seems hardly enough to warrant any sort of progressive descriptor.   It's personally disappointing because I wanted (and with the Breaker cover, expected) the overall album to have stronger traditional metal influences, and they just aren't there.

 

The cover of "Ten Seconds In" is pretty good, but truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of the original apart from the chorus.  I suppose the idea of a band covering Breaker was more appealing than the actual cover ends up being.   Nothing wrong with this musically and it's fine as a dollar disc, but unfortunately they are a fairly generic sounding band in a category that's already far too crowded.

Sothis - De Oppresso Liber (2008)

Cost: 99¢

Wrongly assumed this would be some sort of black/death when I bought it--between the style of the cover art and my brain automatically associating the band name with the Vader EP, I guess I had false expectations of some death metal element here (and I didn't look through the booklet until after buying it, so I missed all the corpsepainted band photos).  Instead this is rather bland and uninspired attempt at '90s-early '00s Emperor/Dimmu style symphonic black metal.

The riffs are quite generic and forgettable.  The constant blastbeats and double-bass pedals in the drumming quickly become extremely monotonous.  Vocals are fine, and the keyboards are played well, but only fill out the songs with background melodies rather than providing any true atmosphere.   It does seem somewhat overproduced (which isn't entirely unexpected given the type of BM they play), but it seems rather wasted on the monotonous music, and there's much more at fault here than a sterile production.  There are a couple instances with some unexpectedly good soloing, but I seem more drawn to these just as monotony breakers in the guitarwork than anything really exemplary in the music.  Despite my criticisms, considering this is a blog about bargain bin CDs, this does fine in meeting my personal quality expectations for a dollar disc.  But I don't really see myself listening to it again.

Oh yeah, I must point out that the drummer's stage name is "Dross."  C'mon guys, why didn't you make it easy on yourselves...

Pain Principle - Waiting for the Flies (2007)

Cost: 99¢

To be fair, this wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting musically. I had prepared myself for straight up groove metal, and there is indeed some of that, but there's a huge amount of melodeath influence, and some modern thrash as well.  Still, with all the modern influences, this is sadly closer to melodeath-influenced metalcore than anything from Gothenburg in the '90s.  On the other hand, the vocals are what I initially feared--Anselmo aggro style.

Misty Grey - The Third Man (2014)

Cost: 99¢

Very Sabbathy doom, with several tracks having quite a lot of Witchfinder General flavor too.  This CD compiles the two original tracks from The Third Man EP, the Demon demo, and some live tracks.  The music is immediately enjoyable, but the female vocals are an oddball style that sounds like a nasally child's voice.  I'm guessing they might have been an ill-conceived attempt at emulating Zeeb Parke.  If vocals like these must exist, I think they'd pair better with a creepier/weirder atmosphere (too bad the band isn't more Italian sounding).  I did get somewhat used to them as the CD went on, but it goes without saying that I would have preferred more conventional vocals.

Unfortunately, the CD omits the two Pentagram covers from the digital version of the EP, but adds unlisted live covers of Witchfinder General "Death Penalty" and Pentagram "All Your Sins" at the end of the last track.  Both live covers are a bit on the untight side and don't end up being all that interesting, although the Witchfinder General cover seems the better of the two based on the strength of the original.

Annulation - Human Creatures (2004)

Cost: $2.00

This certainly looked like it fell somewhere on the death or thrash metal spectrum, but I wasn't expecting such a strong mid-'90s Sepultura influence.  It really does sound like a death/thrash framework with lots of Chaos A.D./Roots-inspired guitarwork and groovy riffs.  Even the main vocals sound like a deathier version of Max from that period (ironically, at times they sound a bit like later Wagner Antichrist).  Admittedly, metal being influenced by anything that comes after Arise sounds like an awful idea in theory, although they avoid many of the worst aspects of '90s groove metal, and the extreme influences make this a lot more tolerable.

Whether it's only through Sepultura or not, I have no idea, but there seems to be a bit of a Brazilian fixation here--there's some limited Portuguese in one lyric, and another song uses a berimbau.  The end of the disc has an unlisted track with two (possibly) live songs, one being a cover of "Roots Bloody Roots" (of course).   The cover isn't very compelling and the original song (the title track from their first CD) leans more towards typical groove metal,  so these are the least interesting parts of the disc (plus, the crowd noise is quite obviously a looped sample, although at least they tried to be clever about it by dubbing in the band's name being chanted at one point).

So yeah, listenable stuff, although there's nothing particularly inspired or great here.

Keymaster - The Lords of Everything (2005)

Cost: $2.00

The album name and several of the songtitles here are clearly meant to be facetious (the band name is kind of corny too, although I could totally see a band using it unironically).  I picked this up not quite knowing if this was a case of a band not taking themselves too seriously, or whether it was just complete parody stuff.  I was kind of expecting super-technical or avant-garde stuff that just played on metal cliches.

The music is straight up, mostly fast-paced power/heavy metal, but the opening song uses goofy high vocals, peppered with even more ridiculously exaggerated falsettos that are obviously a send-up of high-pitched metal singers. The vocals seem to be less irritating in general after that first track and the vocalist is actually decent when he chooses to be, although unnecessarily silly high parts are never that far away.

Due to the generally faster tempos, shredding/soloing styles, and general feel of the music, I wonder if some of the material was less influenced directly from power and heavy metal, and more from deconstructing those influences in melodic death metal.  There are definitely times where the music has a strong melodic death metal vibe...But, well...Without the death.

Even with better/serious vocals, I doubt this would rate anything beyond "just OK" for me.  But hey, it's way better than KeyDragon at least...

Grandexit - The Dead Justifies the Means (2013)

Cost: 99¢

I wish bands/labels would realize that yes, aesthetics mean nothing if your music is crap, but they can mean everything if I've never heard of your band.  Initially I was going to skip over this because it was on Lifeforce and just looked like generic metalcore/HC.  I looked up the band on metal-archives at the store and they were listed as death/thrash, so I went ahead and bought it.  Further online info was very conflicted and made me pessimistic.  I saw it described as both deathcore and death metal in various reviews, with The Black Dahlia Murder mentioned a lot.  The label itself touted it as a blend of progressive rock and death metal, unfortunately mentioning System of a Down and Mastodon--way to make me enthusiastic about this, eh?  The emphasis on the progressiveness had me somewhat expecting something Disillusion-like.

Of course, all of that turned out to be typical exaggerated advertising hype nonsense.  There's nothing remotely progressive about the music.  The only real odd/weird elements are the beginning of the album, where there are a couple more bouncy/spastic riffs (which I think is where the SOAD comparison comes in), and a few scattered sections with clean backing vocals.  As nitpicky as I am about such things (as evidenced by this blog), I considered it no big deal.  I don't even know if I would have taken any notice of it had I not been pre-conditioned by the promotional descriptions and reviews.

The Black Dahlia Murder comparison fits decently for some faster parts, but overall there's a far stronger The Haunted-style modern melodic death/thrash vibe.  The vocals are a tad on the forced side at times, but thankfully they're still not typical HC vox.  This isn't a type of metal that I particularly need to hear more of, but since they lean more towards the DM side of things and there are no super aggro vox, it's done well enough for what it is. As this blog attests to, I've done far worse in the bargain bin.

And Harmony Dies - Flames Everywhere (2007)

Cost: $2.00

Bands are often laughably overzealous in marketing themselves, and as a result I've seen plenty of ridiculously exaggerated sound comparisons and descriptions.  So I was quite surprised this actually does sound a lot like Arcturus mixed with some Devil Doll (in a more metallic context) influences, who the band cite as primary inspirations.  Most of the music is very much in an avant-garde post-debut Arcturus vein, particularly La Masquerade Infernale.  They tend to dip into extreme influences more, and early on there are a lot of full-on black metal passages (though far, far less than I expected before listening).  Much of the direct BM influence dies down as the album goes on, replaced by more Cradle of Filth-like extreme sections with rasped/growled vox.  On the subject of vocals, while I'm not a huge Arcturus/Garm fan, the clean vocals here are not that strong--they're not terrible, but I could see the accent and lack of polish turning off Arcturus fans looking for something somewhat similar. I also found nothing particularly special about the guest vocalists.  

They also go farther than the Norwegians in terms of musical weirdness.   There are lots of carnival type melodies that create quite a playfully sinister atmosphere, occasional electronic effects, and the track "Psichic Waltz"--the intent is clearly some kind of incantation with background tribal drumming, but it sounds equally like demented world music.  It's these types of things which evoke the Devil Doll influences.

Now, all of that's well and fine, but the original music on here isn't particularly up my musical alley. No, what really interested me is the unlisted cover of "At War with Satan."  It's 20:37 long.  Yep!  They do the whole thing.  I'm unaware of anyone else ever having covered it in its entirety (and the only cover I'd previously heard was the truncated version by Cronos' solo band).  It's a more gothic/symphonic-oriented take on the song, and unfortunately a lot of the progressiveness and atmosphere of the middle section are lost.  I was impressed by the spot-on cadence of the vocals at times, and the dreamy acoustic guitar section is wonderfully executed, despite not having the female vocals and pulsing effects behind it.  While no match for the original, it's commendable that they kept a comfortable quality level and avoided a total trainwreck--it's not too minimalist (and thus cheap sounding), but they also avoid overdoing it with too many effects and flourishes.