13 Winters - Where the Souls Wander (2004)

 Cost: $2.00

There's a chain of regional music stores close to me, and for years and years, nearly every location I went to had several copies (both new ones for consignment and used) of this disc (as of this writing, some still do!).  I always passed because they never seemed to go under $5, and I wasn't really interested in a disc that looked to me like unspectacular gothic metal.  I found one in the bargain bin of a totally different store, and well, here we are.

This isn't quite as spastic-sounding and incoherent as many kitchen sink bands, but there are a lot of subgenres and influences mixed here, seldom yielding decent results.  It's not terribly hard to pick okay-ish parts or interesting ideas, but as a whole it comes off as being below average.  The majority of the music is a mix of gothic metal, doom, and some black metal, along with some other influences.  There are some faster brutal passages which I think were meant to be death metal inspired, but many of these sound muddy with the guitars pushed under the drums and keyboards, so they don't really come off as such.  I was also unpleasantly shocked to hear bouncy groove metal style riffs in several places, like the opening track and "Hands on Thorns."  The main vocals are BM style, very obviously female, and seem overly forced, perhaps like a slightly worse version of Onielar from DNS.  Despite me not being a big fan, they're still better than the clean "vocals," which are just the frontwoman talk-singing unethusiastically.   

Listening to this just makes me wish the band had gone full-on into gothic or atmospheric doom such as mid-era My Dying Bride--the doomy songs ("Beauty is the Beast" and "Cold, Dark, Empty") come off stronger, and the violin and keyboard work is probably the band's most interesting aspect musically.

Orcus - The Forgotten Prayer (2002)

Cost: $1.25

This CD is available for trade.

This blog exists to document any metal CDs I come across cheaply, but when I started, I was particularly interested in covering two specific kinds of discs.  The first are what I would consider to be less known roster-filler bands on medium-large indie labels.  Titles that generally had decent distribution (think Crash Music, etc.), and while the type of music was usually obvious, there wasn't much in the way of reviews or press.   I'm not going to pretend most of these are hidden gems, but there are some decent releases among all the mediocrity.  One such $1 CD inspired this entire blog, but that's a story for another post.

 

I also wanted to blog about "local bands" (though they could be from anywhere) and independently produced CDs I happened to come across.  Even with current online resources, sometimes there's just not much info on a disc.  This can be problematic as musical quality varies widely, online music samples can be scarce or non-existent, and often because of the nature of these bands, any online reviews and comments (usually by friends or acquaintances) are extremely positively biased, and often don't even describe the music.

This particular Orcus disc is in the latter category but isn't terribly obscure.  Initially I was cautiously optimistic as one online review claimed it was oldschool thrash, but then I saw the suspiciously overpraising metal-archives review that trumps this up as some sort of unfairly overlooked death metal gem.  So given who both reviews were by, I figured it was probably neither of those.  Indeed, it's '90s-style thrash, and while beefier with downtuning, it's not really anywhere in the death metal realm.  The gruff-yet-intelligible vocals are perhaps more towards the extreme side (thankfully they're not aggro/HC style), but again, I hear no actual death metal in anything here--only slight superficial similarities at best.  Considering when this was recorded, it's no surprise that groove metal influences have crept in, although thankfully they avoid the most annoying Pantera-isms.  There's a fair amount of Metallica (MoP through Black Album) influence in the riffage, and although decent enough, it also seems a bit generic since that's such a well-travelled road.  They're grounded enough in thrash where the music is not terribly off-putting or offensive, but at the same time, this seems far too modernized to be considered oldschool thrash.

Overall, an OK find for the price.  It's a bit more straightforward than other groove-influenced stuff from the late '90s/early '00s like the Overkill and Testament material of that time, although I'd still pick those as being more musically interesting than this.   I doubt most classic thrash enthusiasts would be particularly impressed with this, but it certainly isn't as bad as the drummer's Pantera shirt might suggest.

Arsis - A Diamond for Disease

Cost: $1.00

Just getting around to this older score, from mid-2019 I believe.  Picked this up at one of my favorite semi-local CD watering holes, and it was sadly part of a paltry two disc haul which were the last things I've gotten there to date (I was back once in early 2020 right before pandemic craziness ensued, and disappointingly left with nothing).

Never been a fan of this band, as I tend to gravitate towards less technical forms of extreme metal, and they also aren't a style of melodic death I particularly enjoy.  The long title track wasn't appealing, and the re-worked demo track was slightly better comparatively but still did nothing for me. I was genuinely excited about the cover of "Roses on White Lace," as it's an Alice Cooper song (along with "Black Widow" and a few others) that I can see translating well to death metal, and the band does have the chops to pull it off.  It's not that good, particularly the vocals, although it's a more interesting listen for me than their originals. The Icarus Witch version (which I find to be a tad overdramatic itself) kills this Arsis cover.

Mandatory dollar bin gripe: this was the 2014 reissue, but of course there was no o-card. 

Dead Element - Industry of War (2005)

 

Cost: $2.00

Took a chance with this disc since it looked like it was somewhere on the modern metal spectrum (I was hoping thrash), and even though I didn't have particularly high expectations, this was a disappointment.  The opener and a few other tracks are standard groove metal.  Nothing interesting for me, but kind of what I expected.

Then I was a bit surprised because instead of doing the straightforward Pantera/Machine Head aggro thing, several songs have clean vocals and go down more of a '90s heavy alternative rock path.  Several tracks also have simple electronica intros which give off a vaguely industrial vibe, so there are similarities to, I don't know, Stabbing Westward or something like that?  There are even a couple sections of forced guttural vocals. This EP ends up being about half groove metal and half rock, but regardless of genre, the variety of vocal styles and musical influences failed to make this any more interesting for me. So metal fans should just be warned that the 1:22 long "Dizzy" (groove metal, but with one of their "better" aggressive riffs) and a very short heavy break that pops up in the hidden track (which seems to be some parody anti-corporate punk rock song, possibly a cover?) are about as good as this gets.

Dischord - Siege of Darkness (2007)

 

 Cost: $2.00

This has some decent moments, but often feels uneven.  The first few tracks are a mix of classic and modern thrash influences, although they feel rather disjointed because of the overly extreme vocals (there are standard gutturals too, but the vocalist obviously has a great love of higher raspy DM screams).  Other than them sounding kind of silly and clipped during the more rapid fire deliveries, I have no problems with the actual vocals themselves, they just seem largely out of place.  The vox work far better with the greatly increased death metal influences of the last two songs, which are unfortunately both overly long tracks at the end of the disc, well after ear fatigue set in.  There are even some occasional progressive thrash touches, like the solo section in "AK-47" and the acoustic guitar in "Angels' Inferno."  

 

This doesn't quite suffer from the same sort of generic mediocrity many of my other bargain bin finds do, though even with some raging riffage here I won't deny I wasn't particularly impressed overall.  Not a bad score for 2 bucks; just be warned it's not the straightforward classic thrash listen the hype sticker and some reviews would have you believe.

Wrath of the Weak - Wrath of the Weak (2006)

  

Cost: $1.00 

This CD is often compared to Velvet Cacoon, both in praise and criticism.  The guitar sound and overall atmospheric black metal approach are certainly similar to Genevieve, though this is a bit more minimalist.  The raspy reptilian vocals are so sparse, it's nearly an instrumental album.   The album is quite monotonous when trying to listen to it actively, but I found it worked far better as atmospheric background music to zone out to.  In this sense, as BM muzak it's not bad, but other than the cheap price and my intial interest in checking it out, I can't really point out any real benefit to picking this for the task over, say, well done ambient or dungeon synth.  Speaking of which, there is a short ambient interlude track, and then the final track ends with about 15 minutes of guitar feedback and noise (seems rather counterproductive to any trancelike state the preceding BM monotony put you in!).  Aside from these sections, while this creates similar atmospheres as more droning and purely ambient forms of music, they aren't actually incorporated as musical influences.

Bloody Terror - Shadow of Death (2014)

 

Cost: $1.00

I was expecting much worse from the generic band name, album title, and "logo."  The core of this is black metal, but the lead guitar stands out as being extremely prominent and unusually proficient for this style, with lots of shreddy soloing.  There's plenty of keyboard usage, which ranges from somewhat cheap sounding gothic metal-esque flourishes to more subdued synths reminiscent of mid '90s atmospheric BM.  Together with the guitarwork, the keys often give the music a very strong neoclassical feel.  Going even further, the final instrumental bonus track dispenses with the black metal entirely and is pure prog./power metal.

 

Initially I found the flashier guitarwork quite appealing, as it's a genuine difference from your typical Nordic BM clone.  Nothing really stuck out as being terribly memorable, though--without the guitar and keyboard flourishes, I don't think there's much of note in the underlying music.  Musically, it is literally a  power/neoclassical metal guitarist dropped into a black metal band, although it avoids being the terrible genre mashup trainwreck that may sound like. 

Agiel - Dark Pantheons (2014)

 Cost: $1.00

The band's full length (over a decade before this) was brutal, fairly technical DM with the distinction of having some minimal keyboard use.  Here, they've redone a couple of songs with full blown Emperor/Dimmu BM symphonics and multilayered vocals.  The new arrangements seem slightly more black metal-orientated, and while the underlying music under the effects is death, it doesn't always seem like it with everything else going on.  The vocals are still mostly gutturals but they're very toned down compared to the debut album.   The synths, vocals, drums, and leads are all pretty high in the mix and all fight for space, making parts seem overly chaotic (and not in a good way) and messy.

Fleshgod Apocalypse comes up a lot in other reviews of this.  It's inevitable, since ultimately they're both DM with some kind of symphonic element.  It's also not entirely inaccurate (especially when Agiel decide to blast), although I feel this has more of a black feel and comes off as more subdued. At times this somewhat brought to mind a weird alternate universe version of Cradle of Filth, where they still retained all the death metal elements from The Principle Of Evil... in the later, more symphonic material.

Baby Stab Horror - Manifesto Infernale (CD-R, 2006)

 

 Cost: $1.00

Admittedly the band name was so curiously stupid (it might work for a brutal DM or grind band, but not this), I was almost counting on this being some sort of odd fluke that was really good.   The bulk of the influence in the music seems to come from the early Nuclear Blast albums of Dimmu Borgir, and although they're nowhere near as symphonic sounding as DB, there are some limited attempts.  This is described as black/thrash, which I have mixed feelings about.  In a strict literal sense I do hear some '90s Slayer (unfortunately both less desirable Diabolus type stuff as well as decent Seasons in the Abyss influences) in the riffage, but absolutely none of the music has any of the '80s sound you'd typically associate with that tag.   Besides, the black metal influences are the primary ones, so this doesn't seem any significantly thrashier than say, an album like Spiritual Black Dimensions. 

Oddly, they completely shift gears on the closer "Sentinel," which sheds much of the black metal and seems more like a raspy-vocalled tribute to the Gothenburg melodic death scene.  The solo section and harmonized twin guitar parts are probably the most compelling music on the entire CD, although a guest guitarist is credited for a solo.  I personally think it's a shame, as I think I would have found a CD full of "Sentinel" style stuff to be more interesting.

Ancestor / Unlight Domain - split CD (2008)

 

 Cost: $1.00

I must admit I tend to gravitate (often irrationally) towards metal from more "exotic" locales, even though  the novelty in that is mostly long gone.  With modern technology, someone from the most obscure place can make an awesome Sodom or Hellhammer sounding recording, although of course it unfortunately almost always goes the other way, and trends merely extend to every far corner of the world.

This is an OK but mostly unremarkable split of two Cuban black metal bands.  Both are Nordic-influenced BM in line with the majority of the Latin American modern BM scene since the late '90s (I associate this style with a lot of smaller Brazilian bands that appropriately, often released split CDs).  Ancestor seem to have better guitarwork and riff ideas, although the drumming is really monotonous (I'm thinking it might be triggered or an electronic kit).  Unlight Domain put their own typewriter drums up high in the mix, which doesn't do them any favors.  Initially I thought they were even more monotonous sounding than Ancestor, but there are some tempo variations in the last few tracks that make them a lot more listenable.

This doesn't reach bottom of the barrel for black metal, and considering the dollar price, it's pretty decent.  But I'll say it again and again--this is a ridiculously oversaturated genre, and neither band is all that remarkable.