Deceased - Behind the Mourner's Veil (2001)

 

Cost: $2.00

This is one of the other Deceased CDs I mentioned finding in my post about The Blueprints for Madness. One of the reasons it took me so long to get around to this one was that I already had it, so it was less of a priority. Speaking of priorities, when I originally got this, I was super focused on the cover songs and hardly paid attention to the original tracks.

1. It's Alive!

A very thrashy song that feels more intense than the thrashier material from Fearless... and Supernatural..., in no small part thanks to the very Mille influenced vocals.

 

2. The Mausoleum
A more melodic track in line with the Supernatural Addiction material. This made me realize one of the reasons I'm generally not into post-'92 Deceased as much is the lack of creepy riffs despite the horror themes of the material. While they occasionally use slower tempos, it seems like they've cut back on them a lot.

 

3. Zombie Attack (Tankard)

Musically, solid cover. King's vocals here are a little cleaner in an attempt to emulate Gerre, but I wish he had just used his normal vocal style. 

 

4. Reaganomics (D.R.I.)

It's funny to me how they covered stuff like this and Impetigo so well, yet grindier influences never really manifested in their own sound. Up there with the best covers on the first Rotten to the Core CD.

 

5. New Age of Total Warfare (Warfare)

Good. 

 

6. Deathrider (Anthrax)

Probably the best Fistful of Metal cover song ever (offhand I can't think of any "Metal Thrashing Mad" covers that have really grabbed me). This feels so much more energetic and over the top than the other covers here. My only complaint here is that Neil Turbin's vocals in the pre-solo part on the original (the "here it comes/you better hide.." part) are very distinctive, yet here they're pretty flat. Still awesome though.

 

7. Victims of the Masterplan (I-V) 

For listening purposes, forget the 5-part thing. That's based on the lyrics. It's really two parts. Although I still prefer older Deceased, the first ~6 minute part is the kind of thing that should have defined quality death/thrash in 2001, not overly modern Swedish stuff like The Haunted or Hatesphere. The second half is instrumental and way more traditional metal influences, with lots of dueling solos. While it's great, unfortunately the solo trade-offs remind me of the magnum opus of a certain veteran Japanese band. While they're ultimately not that similar sound-wise, it's also a reminder that they completely obliterate this from the top of their hill...

Ambassador - Living & Dying (1998)

 

Cost: $3.00

This looked like it had potential and I was excited to listen to it, but unfortunately it ended up being very meh. Calling this straight-up power metal like Metal Archives is a major oversimplification at best, although the music contains enough semblances of it where I suppose it's not totally inaccurate. 

After the intro, the first track delivers somewhat thrashy power metal, although as it progresses it picks up some chunkiness and stop/start groove metal riffage. Then "Open Your Mind" is straightforward groove metal, and "Feel My Rage" retains some grooviness, but it's tempered with more melodic elements and feels less prominent. The closing title track probably has the best guitarwork of the disc, although it comes off as a mishmash of various power, heavy, and thrash metal elements (with choir keyboard effects) than a cool cohesive song. The opening riff even reminds me somewhat of the intro to Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love."

The vocals are one of Ambassador's lower points. Often more weak than outright bad, they're only a few steps above being an accented speaking voice most of the time. On the plus side, despite the groove metal influences, there are never any aggro vocals.

The drum sound is the other negative point. I didn't take any great notice of the drumming on my first playthrough of the opening track, but the second song has extremely artificial sounding drums. After listening through the whole CD, I think it's safe to say an electronic drumkit was used for the whole thing, although it's not nearly as prominent as on track #2.

Usually even amateurish demos and indie releases can have a particular charm, and to a certain extent, that's the case here too. But ultimately, there's not anything particularly memorable here. 

Bloodbath CDs

 

Cost: $2.00 each

 

I was quite happy to find these, since I thought they would be my very first Bloodbath CDs...Much to my surprise, while making room to slot these in on my shelf, I saw the original 3-track press of Breeding Death. Huh. No recollection of where or when I got it, and no memory of what it sounded like.

I was never in a hurry to check out their material since so much other metal took priority. Before hearing them, I had a sense it would be decent, certainly better than the musicians' current output in their main bands, but probably not spectacular. I do remember hearing a song from one of the earlier full-lengths and being kind of disappointed because it seemed they were hyped up as a largely HM-2 worshiping supergroup, whereas I recall thinking the track I heard sounded more like something like Insision than any of the Swedish death metal classics. On the other hand, I did hear a few songs from Survival of the Sickest, and they more like what I originally expected. Not great, and maybe not as old-school sounding as I would have personally liked, but good. 

Bloodbath - Breeding Death (2006 reissue) 

Hey, this is actually really good! It's not as overtly Entombed-influenced as I was expecting. There's the obvious nod to the Phantasm-inspired section of "Left Hand Path" at the end of "Furnace Funeral," but in general the music seems to be more influenced by Dismember, Grave, and Carnage. I didn't perceive any particular Morbid Angel influence on the first playthrough, but the bonus demo version of "Breeding Death" starts off with short reversed riff snippet ala "Immortal Rites," and really highlights their influence in that recurring intro riff.

 

Bloodbath - Nightmares Beyond Flesh (2005 reissue)  

Unfortunately no debut in the bargain bin, so we'll have to skip forward to their second full-length. This is far more contemporary sounding and has less of a tight focus on the old Swedish death metal sound. While most of the more melodic guitar lines on the EP seemed to be a Dismember influence, here there are some that have more of a Heartwork-era Carcass feel to them. The snarlier side of the vocals that pops up occasionally is even reminiscent of Jeff Walker. It's fine, especially considering what I paid, and there are definitely some cool parts, like the slower ending section of "Stillborn Saviour," but I much prefer the EP. This reissue even tacks on the same two early demo bonus tracks that were on the Breeding Death reissue, and they stand out as being way better than the album material.

Zakas - Shunk Daddy Grind (2000)

 

Cost: $2.00

When I saw this in the cheap bin, there was actually some slight name recognition. I had seen the cover of the band's second album (this is the first) somewhere online, likely back when CDBaby actually, you know, sold CDs. I remember assuming it was power or traditional metal based on the fantasy artwork with the white-haired fellow swinging a sword at a monster coupled with a very typical looking symmetrical band logo, but I never checked out the actual music. The weird album title (and no, there's no grind in the music), song names, and sheer amount of tracks made it evident this wasn't going to be a straightforward metal album.

Typically for the purposes of this blog, I'll listen to something in its entirety and summarize my thoughts afterward. Two songs into this, I realized that would likely just lead to me unhelpfully describing the whole thing as strange with some sparse examples and moving on. So here's a more descriptive track-by-track. All 18 of them...

Also should add, the main drumming on the album is all programmed, so for better or worse, any track with it automatically has strong industrial overtones. I'd rather just mention it once then keep having to reference the synthesized percussion over and over below.

1. Flying 2 Kites

Starts off with heavy guitars and feels almost dirge-y for about 45 sec., then tribal drumming kicks in and despite the chuggy riffs underneath, the vocals make it feel more like heavy alternative than metal. Halfway through the song the vocals suddenly permanently switch to being very nasally for the chorus, which is admittedly catchier. There are also male choir effects and towards the end of the song they throw in some funk bass parts.

 

2. Bunechu Shenobi

Begins with a very brief sitar part, but almost immediately switches to a more Far East-sounding melody with flute that persists throughout the song. The main vocals, performed by a deep-voiced black guy, are more like slightly melodic narration than singing (their drawn-out cadence reminds me of the Bushwick Bill parts on the Geto Boys' "Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta," but they have absolutely nothing to do with rap, that's just the first thing that popped into my head). There are some female backing vocals, but the strangest backing vocal contribution to the song is the use of ancient text-to-speech software, which makes it sound like Stephen Hawking is interjecting during the chorus. Ultimately feels more like an Asian influenced prog. fusion track than anything.

 

3. Tranq. Dart

Arguably the most metallic guitarwork of the album so far laid on a bed of rhythmic tribal drumming. Unfortunately the vocals are in a homeboy pseudo-rapped style which really detracts from the song.

4. Brand Old

Seems like an amateurish attempt at a '90s pro-environmental pop/rock ballad, but the artificial drumming and guitar shredding make it feel especially cheap.  The worst part are the gruff semi-yelled secondary vocals which keep popping up. There's a pretty long stretch of vocal-less song around the guitar solo, and in fairness, I must say I found it quite pleasant.

 

5. No Right Turn

Alternates between a very Balinese-sounding pan drum led rhythm, and more prog./Asian/shred fusion stuff. Totally instrumental, and much better for it.

 

 6. Behind the Veil

 Middle Eastern-influenced ambient with distorted, whispered female vocals.

 

7. Jewel of Shalizar

More Middle Eastern influence, but this time incorporated into a jazzy track with saxophone. The deep-voiced Laurence T. is back with some spoken word, but he actually sings too. Based on his sung vocals and a quick web search, I'm fairly sure this is Lawrence Thomas/Laurence Inkatha who was in the '60s Detroit soul group The Four Pro's and moved to Las Vegas (where the band's namesake Steve Zakas is from) later in life.

 

8. Welcome to the Club

Very prominent, funky bass-playing here, which makes the underlying music closer to straight up prog/jazz fusion than the earlier tracks. The deep vocals return again, although both the narration and singing now have more effects applied, making them weirder and less appealing than his appearances on previous tracks. 

 

9. Lion Wait

Shred over a tribal drumming/jungle noise background. Another instrumental that stands out positively both to being more metallic and not having any weird vocal styles. 

 

10. Tremble Tremor

Somewhat thrashy industrial metal with clean female vocals and interspersed with spoken Bible verses.

 

11. Floodgate

Uses the pan drum sounds again which makes it vaguely similar to "No Right Turn." The disjointed stop-start vocals are really jarring. It's a shame, because as an instrumental, the main melody would have been very unique, almost alien-sounding. 

 

12. Hounds of the Horn

Based on Michael Moorcock's Corum books. At first, I thought this was just going to be deep voice guy doing narration over a minimalist ambient background track. This is his last appearance on the disc, and unfortunately rather than being his shining moment with a cool dramatic performance, it's obvious he's reading a little hurriedly off a script. C'mon, even Orson Wells put some effort into "Defender." On the plus side, the sections of narration are interspersed with a repeating musical part that's actually a nice little piece of epic doomy metal. It's too short and simplistic to really develop into anything, and I wish the vocals were stronger, but as a small spot of pure metal on a album like this, I'll happily take it. 

 

13. Cro-Magnum

Other than some weird sound effects, pretty much straight-up industrial metal, complete with distorted shouty vox. 

 

14. Skylab

Thrashy/groovy industrial with a shreddy section. No real vocals, just text-to-speech gibberish representing alien language and some audio samples of space related radio transmissions.

 

15. Jahntu

Text-to-speech alien chanting over tribal music. The text-to-speech recites the album title in a very mangled fashion at the very end, so I'm wondering if the title was already established and they just ran it through the voice synthesizer, or whether the "Shunk Daddy Grind" title actually came from the odd text-to-speech vocalization. Steve Zakas himself is dead, so we may never know. 

 

16. SmakRulz

Throwaway groove track (with nu-sounding vox). According to the inserts, it's about sports radio host Jim Rome.

 

17. Jungle Karma

More of the same, although marginally better due to the thrashier music and use of a faux Indian accent at the end.

 

18. F-Johnny 

Short Howard Stern Show-themed joke track, comes off a little better than the last two since it actually sounds like a groove metal parody that would come from a radio show's production staff.

 

 

The individual tracks are less avant-garde and off-the-wall than I was expecting. Most of the weirdness comes from the hugely varied nature of the song and vocal styles, and the lack of consistency between them. A few semblances of good ideas here, but none of them justify sitting through a 68 minute CD. Two bucks for this feels like I overpaid.

Azrael's Bane - Wings of Innocence (2005)

 

Cost: $2.00

 

While this doesn't sync up much with my personal old school metal tastes, it's still well-performed enough to be enjoyable. About half the tracks feel like they could be on the cusp of being power metal, but never fully commit to it. The multi-part harmony layers in the vocals give off major Euro power metal vibes and contribute a lot to the power metal-adjacent feeling. Several songs have attempts at hookier, more hard rock (think late '80s) songwriting, which I didn't find as appealing. Overall though, they don't stray from the melodic metal side of things, and there are enough progressive metal touches (particularly in the guitarwork) that I can see it appealing to prog fans too.

 

This particular version of the CD is a reissue which adds a cover of Ozzy's "Diary of a Madman," which is great, but as such, completely overshadows the original material. Good find.

Neurosis - Masters of Thrash (2007)

 

Cost: 50¢

 

This was an extremely lucky find in a blind bag sale from a closing distro, where I bought 100 mystery CDs for $50. I was a little shocked at the relative rarity of this compared to everything else, and it was one of the discs that interested me the most musically, since around 80% of the haul was modern black metal and goregrind.

 

There are covers of Slayer, Blitzkrieg, Asphyx, Death, Motley Crue, S.O.D., Destruction, Black Sabbath, Hallows Eve, Metallica, Nirvana, and Diamond Head. I'm not going to waste time with a track-by-track, since the cover quality is consistently decent across the board. Other than some overly altered/improvised guitar solos, the only issue I have is every single song is performed with fairly monotonous death metal vocals, so there's much less sound variety than you'd expect from such a wide array of covers. Ironically, you'd expect the vocals to be weakest on the songs that originally had cleaner vocal styles, but I thought they stood out as most lacking on the cover of Asphyx's "The Rack," since they just come off as ultra-generic compared to Martin van Drunen. 

 

Even with the severe shortage of Hallows Eve covers in the world, the best renditions are Destruction's "The Antichrist" and Death's "Forgotten Past." The Death song and the cover of "Postmortem" by Slayer are closest musically to Neurosis' own death/thrash sound, so they're the two renditions that feel most natural stylistically. The CD closes out with a new original song and outro track, which are fine, but I'd much rather listen to the Verdun 1916 album or even the earlier demo.

Hung - Hung (2012)

 

Cost: $2.00

So back when Hastings was still around, they had a cheapo copy of this album listed on their website, which I tried to order. Instead of the correct CD, I was sent William Hung's Inspiration album. Yeah, the tone deaf (all this time I legitimately thought he had some sort of mental disability until I looked up his current whereabouts while writing this) American Idol guy. Anyway, while they promptly refunded the mix-up, it took me several more years to find a correct cheapo copy. I find the whole situation kind of amusing now, and sadly, the anecdote may even be marginally more interesting than the album.

I do like the CD more than I thought I would. The bulk of the disc is decent melodic death metal. Musicianship is fine, and the vocalist seems to favor raspy BM style vox, but is versatile enough to pull off solid DM growls as well as some limited cleaner singing. It comes off well enough while the album is on, but this aspect of their sound had little memorability for me. 

There are also quite a few progressive parts incorporated into the music, which are far more appealing to the point where I found myself wishing they had just gone full-on progressive metal, death or not. Similarly, there are two instrumental tracks of acoustic guitar and violin, which are beautiful but annoyingly short. Along with some of the mellower and more atmospheric passages elsewhere on the album, I think these would have worked extremely well in a proggier or even doomier context. It's a shame, because with everything going on in the music, the most interesting facets of the band's sound seem like they're largely being wasted as embellishments for the more generic melodic DM.

This also extends to what seemed to be the main marketing point of the band, the electric violin player. Considering this is the eponymous band of a Julliard-trained violinist, the use of violin seems downright reserved at times. During the more straightforward melodic death parts, it often feels like it's pushed back into being another guitar layer, whereas there seems to be more room for interplay with the guitar during proggier parts, and more opportunities for unobstructed violin playing during the mellower sections. Also personally would have loved to see more frenzied Great Kat style violin shredding, which I could see working well over faster parts. It just seems odd considering she's the namesake of the band, though maybe they wanted to err on the side of restraint. While I feel that wastes some of the potential here, it also doesn't feel quite as overblown and contrived as, say, a lot of Ne Obliviscaris' stuff.

Alright find for the price, though I'm unsure if I'll be inclined to listen to it again. And I can't help but think that a better bandname would have spared me getting mailed a CD with "She Bangs" on it!

Hatewave - Hatewave (2000)

 

Cost: $2.00

 

I remember seeing positive reviews for Hatewave's 1997 demo in 'zines at the time, and distinctly recall the medieval impalement cover of the demo being pictured in Sounds of Death (thought their logo style was atypical, though cool looking). Never ended up buying the demo, and when the full length came out, I kind of soured on checking out the band after seeing a band pic where Weasel Walter was in his low-effort zombie getup, and the prematurely balding vocalist/guitarist sported the unfortunate combination of corpsepaint, a dog collar, and a tourist-merch Chicago t-shirt. It just reeked of being goofy and unserious. Further scaring me off, I think I read a review that quoted a bio mentioning their noise/no-wave origins. Still, I would have been willing to give the CD a chance if I had come across it cheaply, but that never happened until now.

 

As it turns out, there was never anything to worry about. This is quite an enjoyable mix of grind with black and death metal. I was expecting the black metal influences to mostly manifest in the vocals and production choices, so it surprised me a little how much it infiltrates the riffage at times, especially on the two opening tracks. The amount of DM and BM influence varies somewhat from song to song, although as a whole the CD leans a bit more to the deathgrind side. I also assumed the CD was going to be quite a bit weirder due to Weasel Walter's involvement, but this ends up being the most straightforward band of his that I've ever heard. That said, there are a couple spots with unusual time signatures, discordant guitars, or oddly structured, nearly mathgrindy bits, but these are minimal, and the music never gets too experimental for its own good.

 

The final 3 tracks of the disc are unlisted bonuses, and are the songs from the demo that were not re-recorded for the album. Stylistically they're the same as the rest of the music, although recorded with a much rumblier and grind-appropriate sound compared to the more metallic production of the album tracks, which were done at Quali-Tone with Brian Griffin.

 

Glad I was finally able to check this out.

Gallows Pole - Gallows Pole (2000)

 

Cost: 99¢ 

I remember seeing the cover of these guys' 2001 Exorcism album with the horned, three-eyed cat monster, and mistakenly thinking it was an album by the long-running Austrian band. Didn't realize there was an entirely separate German Gallows Pole for quite a long time.

Sounds right in line with the typical German power metal sound of the time, though some songs lean quite heavily into more lightweight melodic metal territory. I gravitated towards the heavier tracks on the disc--"Gallows Pole," "Tonight," and "God Bless America." "Revelation of John" is also notable for having very overt Maiden influences in the riffing. Solid stuff, not a bad find at all.

Volksmetal - Volksmetal (2012)

 

Cost: 99¢

On some level I suppose this qualifies as folk metal, since at times, it does fuse Volksmusik together with metal. Considering all the weird fusion microgenres and musical hybrids around, it's surprising that I've never heard of any bands mixing heavier music and oompah before. While it works alright, the tuba-laden oompah stuff is definitely at the forefront. I was quite disappointed by the amount of metal here, especially considering the name of the band. Many of the songs have a much stronger punk or crossover feel to them. There is some thrashiness, but most of the metal influences manifest as contemporary groove metal. "Küss Die Hand Herr Kerkermeister" kicks off with an intro that feels like it could be the beginning of a tuba cover of "Electric Funeral," but never further capitalizes on it. Ironically, the only part of the album that truly sounds like classic metal is the intro to the cover of Original Alpenland Quintett's "Mausig Schaut Mei Alte Aus," and this ends up being the best track on the disc.

As someone with no deep connection with with Alpine folk music, anything more than a few tracks as a fun diversion quickly becomes tedious, and I suspect anyone really into this style would prefer experiencing it at a Biergarten rather than on a full-length CD. I was not surprised they played the German festival circuit a lot in their day, as it's got a strong party band/festival-fodder feel. Certainly a unique style, but not very satisfying as a metal release.

Gauntlet/Contagion Black - split CD (2005)

 

Cost: 99¢

This CD is for trade. 

The vocalist of this particular Gauntlet was Craig Sielski, one of the more colorful and loudmouthed characters from the golden age of the old FMP forum. Never directly interacted with him there. I remember him being ridiculed a lot (often deservedly so), but I mostly found him entertaining. By the way, just by making this post, I fully expect some sort of combative message or comment from him, which I'll likely just ignore in lieu of listening to Torment in Fire. Anyway, I remember Gauntlet being mentioned on the boards, but never bothered to check them out.

To be fair, it's not the 3rd rate war metal I was expecting. It's also definitely not the "black thrash" or "almost 80's style Blackened Trash" that Metal-Archives and some mailorders oddly describe it as. I'd call it black/death with no thrash influence of note. It's somewhat chaotic at times, acceptable for demo level stuff but overall not all that good. The extremely buzzy guitars often give it a lo-fi BM sound that doesn't always complement the music, and the main vocals have an off-putting overly forced raspiness (it also sounds like there's some sort of distortion effect on the back end). They're serviceable, but I would have rather heard the brief guttural secondary vocals as the main style. There are also some absolutely ridiculous high vocals that come out in a few brief spots (based on the songtitles, I assume these may be attempts at emulating a screaming female victim?).

The Gauntlet side really only has two things going for it. A couple of the more primitive riffs have a fleeting old school extreme metal feel. Sadly, it's not consistent and any cool riffage is often overtaken by the more prominent BM elements. Then there's the obvious highlight of the entire CD, the Slaughter cover. It's from an earlier demo and sounds way better than the other Gauntlet tracks. Compared to Usurper's more polished version of "Tales of the Macabre," the vocals are far truer to the original (the scream is awful though), and there's a level of untightness that feels more faithful to the spirit of Strappado. The Gauntlet cover does get pretty sloppy during the fast part at the end, though.

The second band, Contagion Black, is actually the same guy who handles all the instrumentation on the Gauntlet tracks. The guitar buzz and production values are similar to the first half of the disc, although they fit Contagion Black's more straightforward black metal style a lot better. "Graveside" started out at a slower, almost doomy tempo that initially impressed me, but unfortunately ended after a minute. The vocals and overall execution of the material are much better than on the Gauntlet side, but the music is rarely above average, and there's nothing here to justify two 9+ min. tracks. The slower/mid-paced sections are generally decent and there's some early Burzum-inspired guitarwork at the end of "Death Doth Ride," but for the amount of material here, they represent very little reward.

So ultimately, I think of this as spending 99 cents for a reasonably good "Tales of the Macabre" cover, which doesn't seem like that bad of a bargain bin deal.

Gasoline Guns - Rust'n'Dust (2016)

 

Cost: $2.00

One of those metal/rock'n'roll hybrids. Given the Gromm pedigree of two bandmembers, I was a little surprised they didn't delve deeper into black metal influences and go for more of a black'n'roll sound. Opener "Jokers 666" gave me a slight Murder Junkies vibe even though it's not terribly punky, nor it is significantly different from the rest of the disc. "Panzer Rock'n'Roll" is the best song, feeling like a tamer version of Gehennah. Speaking of which, the album's gruff, croaky vocals generally remind me of a less charismatic (occasionally they're more spirited) Slavic version of Mr. Violence.

This particular style is hard to mess up, and it's loose enough where it's easy for a band to create a fun hard-rocking atmosphere, which Gasoline Guns do. But it also reveals the limitations of this style--most of the best ideas in their musical repertoire are used up by the end of the third track, and afterward it just felt like a generically enjoyable Motörhead derivative. Two things also hurt this a bit. First, they don't go full throttle as much as you'd think--much like Motörhead themselves, they're often deceptively mid-paced. In a lot of places, the music doesn't seem as powerful as it could be, and injecting more filthiness and/or extremity into their sound would have helped a lot.

Based on the rest of the disc, you'd expect the closing "Ace of Spades" cover to be a faithful rendition, but they do a mellow, stripped down country-blues version with harmonica. It's the one place where their vocal style might be a bit of a detriment, but it's far more interesting than hearing an unnecessary straightforward cover for the umpteenth time.

I'm just so used to this type of music often being a quick and dirty side diversion from metal musicians looking to explore their rock'n'roll side, but there's a certain inescapable feeling of sideproject-ness here. But it's by no means bad, just a little underwhelming overall. I got my money's worth out of this from the track "Panzer Rock'n'Roll" alone, so I'm satisfied.

Saposmittz - Kult Ov 666 (2004)

Cost: $1.99

 

Realistically assumed this was going to be industrial of some kind, although I was hoping for some kind of metal content, as several black metal bands (but also several nu bands) are mentioned in the thanks list. They're a sample-laden electronic band, with some tracks being very percussive and industrial-influenced, and others being on the more ambient side. Aside from the BM-sounding main vocals, the closest to metal this disc ever gets is the last track, "Unsane Robotikk Peoplefukk," where the overactive drum machine gives the music a strong grindcore or bestial black metal feel.

 

I normally don't care about this sphere of music, and I didn't like this as much as some of the limited electronic, ambient, and martial music side-projects of metal musicians that I've heard. But it's not unlistenable, and I will give them credit--it's not as terrible as the overly tryhard misanthropy themes, the overuse of "ov" and letter k substitution (seriously, never do this unless you're Sadistik Exekution), and band photos (they painted their faces in brown and green camo-like splotches, which reminded me greatly of Law of the Plague who I blogged about years ago) might suggest. So yeah, not a bargain bin success. Better luck next time.

Fallen Legion - Downfall (2018)

 

Cost: $2.00

I've hinted at this in other posts, but something I've noticed after years and years of bargain bin diving for CDs (and a secondary reason I decided to start blogging about it) is that there are certain types of indie/local releases that seem to attract reviews and commentary from people who clearly don't have a lot of experience with metal. The worst is when it's obviously a non-metal listener friend of the band who is trying to shill for them (I saw this a lot when CDBaby still sold physical media). It makes wish they wrote something generically benign like "This is heavy and awesome" than try to fake their way through a description.

In this case, Fallen Legion is listed as death/thrash at Metal-Archives, and this specific CD is called thrash on one site, and classified as death metal in a webzine review. I felt pretty safe picking it up, thinking it would likely be some sort of modern thrashy melodeath. 

Nope. 

And this is why I take the informational side of this blog quite seriously. 

After the intro, I was very unpleasantly surprised by metalcore filled with bouncy nu riffs and rather schizophrenic vocals. As the disc goes on, it's obvious the band is fond of adding lots of progressive touches to the music--odd time signatures, quirky bass runs, and some guitar noodling. Occasionally these parts seem somewhat System of a Down-inspired due to the vocals, although I'd say they give off more of a Between the Buried and Me vibe overall. While the proggy stuff is executed well, it's not in music I particularly wish to hear. Most of the extreme metal influence comes from the vocals, which incorporate both gutturals and shrieks. There is some melodeath here, and in fact I'd be comfortable classifying the final track "New Skin" as such, but elsewhere on the CD the core/nu stuff is very much at the forefront, and it's just not worth enduring the various influences here for such little return (nor trying to unravel them in written detail for a blog post). Two bucks not well spent.

The NULLL Collective - De Monstris (2010)

 

Cost: $1.00

Doomdeath-tinged funeral doom with added atmospheric effects and keyboards, as well as nebulous growls for vocals. Compared to a super minimalist funeral doom band, the various extra effects make it somewhat more listenable, but it still doesn't escape being quite monotonous, as the song lengths far outrun any good ideas. The overall atmosphere is quite bleak, but there aren't any truly crushing riffs to get excited about. The effects and keyboard work are utilized better on "Feed the Whore" than the band's other originals, and it would make for solid atmospheric background music, but I had serious trouble staying focused for the entire 17 min.+ duration of the song.

The two short parts of "Repulsugloid" stand out slightly among the doomier fare because they incorporate brief fast parts that sound quite death- or goregrindy (because of the thickness of the guitars, this section in the first part is even a little old Mortician-esque). These fast parts also result in a very artificial-sounding performance from the drum machine, but that may have been intentional.

The most interesting track by far is their version of "Silent Night." Yeah, the Christmas carol. It's not at all as corny as it sounds. Ironically, the doomier parts didn't catch my ear as much as the synth-only middle where the guitars drop off, as this section is a quite beautiful (and faithful) rendition.

Purely as a bargain bin find, this wasn't bad for a dollar, but it failed to leave much of a lasting impression on me.

The End 666 - The Ultra Violence (2003)

 

Cost: $1.00

I was aware of the band when I picked this up, since I have their second CD, although I had zero recollection of what they sounded like. Also, for some reason I was under the impression this was sideproject of a French band, which I guess is true, but I was strongly thinking it was the black metal band Lord, and it's actually one of the guys from Imperial (who, spoiler alert, I'd much rather listen to). The gasmask and naked chick aesthetics brought to mind the late '90s/early '00s French BM scene (for better or worse, I tend to associate those tropes with Battlesk'rs or maybe even Spikekult to a lesser extent), so I figured it had a good chance of sounding in that vein. Then there are the weird, humorous songtitles, which made me think it might be more experimental and non-traditional, like Diapsiquir, perhaps.

And it's neither of those at all. I was quite surprised, because when the distorted, screamy vocals kicked in, they immediately reminded me of the first Abigail album. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the music, which is very noisy, kinda primitive black/thrash. There is some actual blasting, but because of the vocal style and rawness of the music, it comes across as far more grindier and punkier than it actually is. Sometimes I can even hear some vague parallels to the more chaotic stuff on Morsüre's old Acceleration Process LP, although The End 666 never gets nearly as thrashy or mechanically fast.

The more linear parts of the CD are OK--"Saddam Rules," "Racist," and the last 2 tracks all have some decent riff ideas. Beneath it all, "Rugbymen=Bastards" has the workings of a pretty good black/thrash song, and it's no surprise it's the one song that stands out as being most like Imperial's first album.

This is an interesting case because I wouldn't say I particularly liked this album, but I don't think of it as negatively as a bad or mediocre CD because it was an interesting listening experience. Can't say if I'll ever be inclined to put it on again, but the inspired songtitles and thrashiness in the music made it worth the dollar.

Iceland - Old Temples of Pagan Gods (2011)

 

Cost: $2.00

As a death/black metal band, all the musical components here are familiar, but they're put together in a way that's less common for death and black metal hybrid bands. There are a fair amount of orchestral effects here, and these help in creating a general black metal atmosphere and undercurrent throughout the songs. But the most forward presenting parts of the music--the guitar riffs and the somewhat forced gruff vocals--are definitely death metal in style.

While I'm sure there are some other bands doing music in this same general vein, I can't think of any specific ones, so the first sound comparison I thought of wasn't a super flattering one. The blastier parts remind me of the DM bands from around 25 years ago who, instead of actually incorporating popular black metal elements into their music, just got a keyboard player to add Dimmu Borgir-on-a-budget symphonic effects to their existing sound. I won't say Iceland are as bad as that, but it gives me a similar incongruous feeling.

Luckily, the songs that lean more heavily on mid-tempo riffs come across much better, and the album generally improves as it goes along. They really have it together by the last two tracks, which have a mild Unleashed feel to them.

The disc has its fair share of parts where the band are caught between the genres--I often found myself wishing they'd fully commit to more crushing mid-paced death and dispense with the black metal flourishes, and then other times when overuse of death metal brutality ruins what could have made for something substantial in a more pagan/viking metal vein. Despite it being a little uneven in that way, it's still fairly enjoyable and even very good at times, so I consider it two bucks well spent.

Municipal Waste - Tango and Thrash (2024)

 

Cost: $2.00

Since this was such a recent release, I was very surprised to see this show up in the cheapo bin. Admittedly, I've never followed the band that closely, so when I bought this, I assumed it was their newest album, not realizing it's a compilation of old tracks from some vinyl splits/comps. Even treating it as a mini-CD, it's also extremely short--it doesn't even hit the 10 min. mark. On the plus side, all of the material is from around the time of their first album, and I always found Waste 'Em All to be marginally better and a little less contrived than most of their later material.

And it is indeed in the same vein as their other early material. Opening instrumental "Escape from New York" is the thrashiest the CD gets. Aside from the vocals, the other tracks from the original Tango and Thrash split EP feel a little less overtly D.R.I.-influenced than the debut album--the relentless speed reminds me of variations on Nuclear Assault's "Hang the Pope" with Cryptic Slaughter influences mixed in. Then there's a previously unreleased version of "Dropped Out" from the Tango and Thrash sessions. It's not that different from the album version, and still sounds like a more metallic take on Dealing With It!-era D.R.I. 

Finally, there's a Poison Idea cover and two Corrosion of Conformity covers. The early COC covers aren't a musical stretch at all, but quite frankly, you can tell how even something like "Minds Are Controlled" is so much more interesting from a songwriting and compositional standpoint than most of the Municipal Waste originals.

Overall, not bad for a quick little blast of crossover, and especially because of the short running time, I'm glad I didn't have to shell out more than two bucks for it.

Sacram - Far Away (2007)

 

Cost: $1.00

The disc starts out rather mellowly with jangly guitars and ethnic-influenced melodies which I can't decide are more Mediterranean or Middle Eastern sounding. This has me prepped for much more progressive-sounding music, but then the rest of the short track was very straightforward melodic death metal with black metal sounding vocals. The beginning of the title track opens in much the same way (I was leaning a bit more towards it being more Mediterranean in sound), but later in the song there are several sections of clearly Middle Eastern melodies that are very reminiscent of Orphaned Land. The third track is more melodic DM, but they do throw in more of the Middle Eastern stuff towards the end.

The closing track takes on a slower tempo. There are melancholy, doomy-but-not-pure doom elements that remind me a lot of Scandinavian bands, but I also detect a bit of the atmospheric Greek touch--not any overly strong Hellenic influence, but it shares a bit of the undercurrent running through disparate bands like Horrified, Nightfall, Septic Flesh, and Rotting Christ's gothic era. That said, especially considering the type of melodic death here as well as the Middle Eastern melodies, I definitely would not have guessed they were from Greece.

This is a case where I actually wish they had explored the slower and more atmospheric touches in their sound (even going farther into progressive territory--gasp!). It's just a short mCD though, and the melodic DM is competent enough that it doesn't wear out its welcome, and even the small touches of those other elements make it stand out positively. Can't complain for a buck.

A Sound of Thunder - Out of the Darkness (2011)

 

Cost: $2.00

Wasn't expecting much from this. I'm generally not a fan of female vocals in metal anyway, but I was never motivated to check out A Sound of Thunder. I thought many of their themes and aesthetics were kind of corny, and some aspects of the band (including, obviously, the name itself) came off as a extremely contrived attempt to appear highbrow and nerdier-than-thou. Lord Weird Slough Feg, they are not. Also, especially considering they are fairly prolific in terms of releases, I've never seen them get much attention in classic metal circles or in any of the metal media I typically consume. It can't be just me, because as far as I know, this is the only album of theirs to have a non-self-released version (although the one I found in the cheap bin was the independent version and not the Nightmare Rec. press).

Ironically, I think having low expectations meant this made more of an impact. There are certainly plenty of traditional metal influences here, and although they aren't as retro as I would typically associate with the movement, I wouldn't have any issue with them being lumped in as a NWOTHM band. Still, this is hardly pure classic metal worship or '80s emulation, and the band don't hesitate using slicker, more commercial hard rock parts, as well as going the other way and getting pretty thrashy. Viewed solely as an oldschool metal album this would be a pretty big disappointment, but approaching it as a modern power/heavy metal album that blends some old influences with more contemporary elements, it's pretty good.

I have mixed feelings about the vocals. There's no doubt they're very powerful, but also very clean, and I have come to terms with the fact that I prefer metal frontwomen to have some sort of Leather Leone or Betsy Bitch grit to their voice. Her singing works a little better during thrashier parts in conjunction with the higher energy, but I thought her most expressive and emotive singing was a more mellow, restrained style used in the "This Too Shall Pass" ballad and a few other places. All that said, the best vocals on the entire disc are John Gallagher's guest appearance on "Out of the Darkness," which just made me keeping thinking how much more awesome the album would have been had he sung everything. 

Finally, not a real complaint or anything, just an observation. The beginning of the album seems to contain all the material that has more overt '70s Priest and Rainbow influence in the guitarwork, while the latter half of the album has the more mid-paced, galloping, and/or epic material that has more obvious Maiden/Manowar influences.

Worth the 2 bucks, and I'd even be open to revisiting this once in a while or checking out some of their other releases. It's not bad. But I also found myself asking if A Sound of Thunder was preferable to female-fronted bands that took a far more purist/traditionalist approach to metal, even if that admittedly made them more generic soundwise (I was specifically thinking of something like Savage Master). The answer was definitely no.

Power from the Vault compilation (1997)

 

Cost: $2.00

Wasn't expecting much from this, although one band in particular necessitated me picking this up.

 

The tracklisting swaps the order of Amboog-a-lard and Raped Ape, so the song order below is correct. Should add this CD only has the tracklist on the disc face and nowhere on the inserts, which is a layout/design choice I absolutely hate. It's only barely excusable if the CD doesn't have inserts or paperwork to put a tracklisting on, like say a promo or magazine pack-in disc.

 

1. L.U.N.G.S. - Mess Around (clean version)

2. L.U.N.G.S. - Kick the Can

3. L.U.N.G.S. - Around (I assume F**k around?, Mess Around explicit version)

I only know these guys because back in the mid-'90s, Pavement Music sent me a L.U.N.G.S. cassette single one time when I placed an order. While I consider nu-metal to be just some sort of heavy alternative rock with varying degrees of hip hop influence in the vocals, this has a dedicated rapping frontman, so it both leans more into the rap side (like Stuck Mojo) and the music, even if not totally metal, is at least somewhat groove metal adjacent. The two versions of "Mess Around" remind me of Biohazard during their Onyx collaboration days, while "Kick the Can" is full-on rap, just with some lead guitar in the backing track.

 

4. Raped Ape - Easy Way Out

5. Raped Ape - Self Made Man

Ugh. Their inclusion was the main reason I even bought this disc, but these aren't even technically Raped Ape tracks, they're from the 1995 Paingod demo (these 2 tracks were recorded in a different session from the rest, so perhaps they were originally intended to be Raped Ape songs. But the disc mentions the band name change, so no idea why the RA name and logo are used here).  Hardly anything of the thrashy Raped Ape sound left, as they went full in on groove metal. Huge disappointment.

 

6. Amboog-a-lard - The Wounded

7. Amboog-a-lard - Alone

While somewhat familiar with the band, I wasn't particularly interested with their inclusion here since I assumed they had gone in a completely weird and/or trendy direction. So I was very pleasantly surprised that these songs are still pretty similar to their earlier full length. '90s thrash with deep vocals that are sometimes nearly guttural. Both tracks use limited sound samples and have some minor progressive touches, but it's nowhere near their weirdest or most avant-garde as a band. Among other thrash bands they'd probably come off as a slightly quirky oddity rather than anything all that great, but on a compilation like this they shine.

 

8. Excessive - Spiritual Bliss

9. Excessive - Bored

10. Excessive - Manhole

First two tracks are a mishmash of rock, groove, and thrash elements. There are definitely metal influences in the mix but the songs don't give off an overwhelmingly metal vibe. "Manhole" is a punkier song. 

 

11. Quit - Remember

12. Quit - Did You?

13. Quit - Where Were You?

Pop punk. "Remember" has a pleasantly unexpected proggy mellow section in the middle. 

 

14. Bone China - I Think It Works

15. Bone China - Aliens

16. Bone China - Crystal Carry

The first two tracks are kind of oddball/quirky hard rock (especially "I Think It Works" could pass for a short Mike Patton-era Faith No More or even a Scatterbrain track).  "Crystal Carry" has a heavier, groovy swagger. Some definite metal influences in the guitars but they come off like a hard rock band.

17. In Your Face - Treading Water

18. In Your Face - Mother

19. In Your Face - Monkey

'90s hard rock, maybe even with some vague similarities to Bone China. The first two tracks have pretty impressive guitar solo sections, especially the very progressive sounding one in "Mother." 

 

20. Opposite Earth - Always Now

Kinda Sabbathy progressive metal with a thick, somewhat doomy guitar tone. In the company of other good bands this would be perfectly ok but probably not stand out as much. Here, it's one of the saving graces of the disc.

Demon Dog Sperm - Hopeless (2007)

 

Cost: $1.00

Figured I'd take a chance on this for a buck. The band name and cover art had me thinking some sort of stoner, doom, or hard rock, but the cursive script in the layout and the floral pattern on the back of the booklet made me think hardcore/metalcore. No band pic to aid me, either. 

The first track is very thick, rumbly sludge metal. I wasn't a huge fan of the ultra-forced guttural vocals, but they fit the music well enough. A sludge album wouldn't have been my first choice, but if the rest of the disc had been in the same vein as the opener, I would have been ok with it.

Unfortunately, rather than sticking consistently with straightforward sludge, there's a tendency to explore their stoner and groove metal influences with bouncy, chuggy riffs. Admittedly, some of the stoner metal elements are not unwelcome and give the album some variety, but coupled with the vocals, the groove metal parts just feel like generic aggro chugging. They also use secondary clean vocals in several places which come off as weak Southern metal vox, and I'm even less of a fan of these than the forced gutturals.

Also, just as a warning to anyone interested in checking out the band, I've seen an online review and some online shop descriptions paint this as some sort of stoner metal/death metal hybrid. I assume this is coming from the "growled vocals automatically equals death metal" crowd. Aside from the most superficial of similarities like extreme vocals (I neglected to mention they use a third type of BM-style backing vox in a few places) and downtuning, the more swarming guitar parts in "Dead Heart" are the only thing on this entire CD that could possibly be considered a tangible influence from death metal.

For just a dollar, not a big deal. Seriously doubt I'm ever going to relisten to it, though.

Virgin Black - Requiem - Fortissimo (2008)

 

Cost: $2.00

What a pleasant surprise. The other Virgin Black material I've heard was very symphonic and quite gothic-influenced. This album tones those elements way, way down, dials up the doom, and replaces the clean male vocals with gutturals, resulting in a very nice doom/death disc. As with the other parts of the Requiem trilogy, they recorded with a full orchestra, although since the symphonic aspects of the music have been scaled back, I really only took great notice during "In Winters Ash" and the string ending of "God in Dust." The choir backing vocals seem even more prevalent than the orchestral stuff.

The style here is not as unique as the band's older material, but that's no problem, as I personally prefer this old Peaceville 3-influenced sound much more.

Noctis - For Future's Past (2007)

 

Cost: $1.00

Quite morose and doomy progressive metal that primarily uses death metal style vox (as well as some black metal ones in "Eternity's Worth). The extremity of the vocals makes a world of difference to the sound, and beefs up the music considerably. They're certainly a doomy band, but I wouldn't say they have a particularly crushing guitar tone, and there's even a certain airiness to many of the riffs. But whenever those vocals kick in, everything seems way more doomdeath-like. There are also a fair amount of clean vocals, usually during the mellower, more progressive-forward parts. At these points, the music takes on somewhat of a (doom-adjacent) gothic metal character. Also really liked the "Nostalgia" instrumental, which is a great mix of ethereal and melancholic.

Nice little EP, glad I found it. 

White House Burning - I Am Hatred (2015)

 

Cost: $1.00

I wasn't really paying attention to the copyright date when I bought this, so based solely on the simplistic CG art, I kinda just assumed this was from the early '00s. I was a little shocked it was from 2015, because the cover would have already looked pretty dated in the '90s. The feel of the cheap-looking CGI art reminds me a little bit of the cover of the Corum CD I posted about ages ago, although the jail bars make me think of the 2nd Zoetrope album.

While the budget cover with non-logo and politically-charged band name would normally scream groove metal, I was actually quite optimistic about this disc. When I looked it up, I saw that the guitar was Damon Bernklau of Seventh Omen, who were a terribly underrated heavy/power metal band I liked quite a bit. 

I have mixed feelings about the CD depending on the song. For an old school metal devotee like me, the overall sound feels way too modern for me, and some of the tracks get pretty groove metal-ly or do too much playing around with vocal effects. They're obviously not trying to be an consciously old school band in any respect, from production to aesthetics. But at the same time, a lot of the individual riffs and solos don't feel very modern at all (the guitarwork is, as expected, very proficient) and there's a pleasing thrashiness to several of the songs, particularly "American Christ" and the title track. This comparison might be a bit of a stretch that is overly biased by the politically charged lyrics here, but a couple of riffs feel like they should have been used in The System has Failed/United Abominations-era Megadeth. Even the ballad "Stay the Course" has a solid melody once it gets going, although it feels terribly out of place among the other songs. 

The vocals are a gruff, mildly hoarse style which I disliked at first, though you get used to them. Even without being overly HC or aggro-sounding, admittedly they're not particularly good vocals, although they work pretty well on "White House Burning."

In the context of a bargain bin find, I think there's enough decent material here to justify spending a buck or two. But I would have been quite disappointed and/or livid to have paid normal used CD price or even worse, full retail for this disc. 

 

Avang'Hard 2 compilation (1994)

 

Cost: $1.99

Compilation with 5 obscure French bands who get 3 songs each:

Broken Arrow

The intro to "Highway Stranger" reminds me a bit of Anthrax's "In My World," then it becomes some kinda-thrashy-but-not-really-thrash stuff. The solo section is great though. "Sword and Sorcery" has some nice '80s sounding galloping trad. HM sections and an awesome solo, but it's let down by too many plodding parts and ill-fitting vocals. Last track is bass-driven, mellower, and has more of a proggy feel.

 

Hysteria

"La Raie Publique" is pleasant, rumbly metal. There's something in there that reminds me of a mid-paced Vulcain song, but it's not Motörheadish at all. From this, I had high hopes they'd be the best band on the compilation, but "Never Die" is kind of generic hard rocking, while "Extasy" brings back some heaviness but isn't nearly as interesting as that first song.

 

Queensway

Kinda disappointing. "Just Fight" seems hard-driving at first but the sleazy vocals and hair band touches put me off.  "No Excuses" seems like it's going to be cool with a very interesting Egyptian melody, but then the chorus parts drastically shift to very hair band-sounding stuff. "Don't Be Afraid" balances the metal and the L.A. influences a little better, but I'm not sure how I feel about the weird chorus and vocal effects. At least it stands out I guess...

 

Revert

Was not expecting this at all! Very shreddy all-instrumental stuff with a drum machine. These almost feel like stock music or backing tracks (I mean this in the best way possible) you'd hear in an older video game or other media when heavy music is needed. Even with no vocals and a drum machine, they're the most consistent band on here by leaps and bounds, and these songs come off as more fully formed and well-composed than the other bands. 

 

Daggers Drawn 

The name made me expect a punk/HC band. First 2 tracks are very alternative rock sounding. I suppose the last track starts to approach being some sort of prog./avant-garde/funk metal hybrid, but it's nowhere near interesting enough for me to want to further dissect it.

 

Not really that great in itself as a compilation, but somewhat interesting as a look at some unknown demo-level French bands. To the credit of the bands, I will say that with the exception of Daggers Drawn, any of this material would be believable as earlier '90s or even late '80s recordings.

Arnaud Krakowka - Antic Journey (2011)

 

Cost: $2.00

The first actual song on here, "Lifeforce," is progressive neoclassical metal with some nice shredding, and then "Apollo's Northern Land" is a much mellower prog. metal/prog rock piece. After that, while there's still some shreddy guitarwork here and there, the album largely shifts away from anything particularly heavy and/or metal. The last track does pick up with enough neoclassical guitarwork that I wouldn't argue if someone called it shred.

The bulk of the album is guitar-centric progressive rock, and with Arnaud's obvious love of ethnic melodies (such as the electric sitar use in "The Truth Behind Horus"), several songs exhibit a lot of world music influence, often bordering on some sort of progressive/ambient fusion. Often not very appropriate for the scope of this blog, but pleasant musically.

However, while Arnaud may be a talented guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, his vocals are plain and sub-par. "Lifeforce" could have been improved with a stronger singer, but since there aren't any super compelling vocal lines here anyway and several tracks (which tend to be more interesting) are already vocal-less, I think the album would have benefited from being completely instrumental.

Also should add the booklet has two pages of text with some new age-sounding diatribe (the lyrics also vaguely lean towards those types of topics, although no more than a lot of power metal bands do). Not really clear how serious it's supposed to be or whether it's an attempt to artificially inject the album with some sort of spirituality to make it seem deeper. I mention this because while the various world melodies somewhat play into this concept, I would have expected a far more psychedelic album from reading through the booklet.

Not something I'd put on if I needed a metal or even a shred fix, but I could see revisiting it in the future as mellower background music.

Celtic Frost - Into the Pandemonium (1999 reissue)

 

Cost: $1.99

I think my first exposures to Celtic Frost in any capacity were the video clips on the old Noise Rec. VHS compilations, but I'm fairly certain "Mesmerized" (on the Doomsday News compilation) from this album was the first Frost I ever owned on CD format. It definitely wasn't as cool as the "Circle of the Tyrants" video, but we'll get to that shortly. Despite that single song being early in my metal history, I ironically didn't hear the album in its entirety until after everything else in their original run (and nope, haven't heard Monotheist yet) because I just never saw it for sale anywhere.

It's not my favorite, but I don't really mind most of the avant-garde experimentation on this album. Considering this was from 1987, the strings and symphonic elements are integrated quite well, and I personally find "Oriental Masquerade" to be one of metal's standout outro tracks. "Babylon Fell," "Caress into Oblivion," and "Sorrows of the Moon" all seem like fairly natural progressions from the To Mega Therion sound into more experimental and atmospheric territory. And the "Mexican Radio" cover is very fun. But there's one thing that helps to kill a lot of potential enjoyment I would get from the album.

Those crap vocals. 

Yes, when I heard "Mesmerized" all those years ago, I thought the semi-moaned, heavily-accented gothic crooning was goofy, and whenever it pops up on the whole album, I still feel the same. Even when they're restricted to a fairly short section, like in "Babylon Fell," they help spoil the entire track with their corniness. That's why "Inner Sanctum" is my favorite track from the album, because it's free of those silly moanings. It's also fairly thrashy and even hints at the sound of some of the Vanity/Nemesis material.

So yeah, even as a die-hard Emperor's Return fan, I don't think the album is terrible so much as it is the victim of a very poor artistic decision in that one vocal style. I can completely understand people who think Cold Lake is a better album--I definitely thought so myself, although I haven't listened to Cold Lake in its entirety for years, so my views may very well have softened. Plus, those weird vocals aside, the more straightforward sections are quite good. The guitar sound is a little subdued and obviously better-produced from the earlier material, but the classic Frost tone is still there in some form.

Should also add while this album is often invoked as a groundbreaking influence on the more experimental and weird fringes of metal, which are largely irrelevant to my listening preferences, I don't think this album gets quite as much credit for its influence on the symphonic/atmospheric doom/death scene. I have vague memories of hearing My Dying Bride for the first time, and the juxtaposition of the heavy riffs and the violin immediately made me think of Into the Pandemonium and the influence it must have been on them.

Cwn Annwn - Blood of the Djinn (2008)

 

Cost: $2.00

Would have expected a band using this name to be more in a folk/pagan metal style, but the cover aesthetic and band picture were giving off groove metal vibes, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised that the first track sounded a lot like some kind of contemporary heavy metal--not overly old-school sounding, but the guitarists have obviously listened to some classic metal before. However, right out of the gate on the first song, they also introduce the two things I dislike the most about this EP. 

I'm not a fan of any of the vocals on here, including the main female vocals, which I'll admit are at least serviceable. She doesn't have a bad voice, but she doesn't really modulate her tone much at all, just the power level. It's the same kind of clean singing through most of the disc with no attempts at aggression and little variation, so it comes off as monotonous. Even some of the variations in Cwn Annwn's music make it clear her style would fit better in a gothic or progressive metal band. However I might feel about her, she's not as awful as the secondary vocals, which thankfully are used somewhat sparingly, (but still way too much for my taste). There's a sort of semi-shouted style, aggro screaming, and less obnoxious growling, which of course is used the least. That leads me into my other complaint, which is the decision to throw groove metal parts into the music. It's not a major component of the music and they seem to draw other aggressive influences from elsewhere, so I found the chuggy stuff needless.

The Scion 

This starts out with almost melodeath-sounding riffage. As mentioned before, they chose to put a chuggy break in the middle, but there's a cool, progressive, vaguely Middle Eastern sounding part (I guess technically the solo section) with harmonized guitars. There are some more substantial progressive metal parts later on in the disc, but they also have a habit of throwing in little proggy parts or bass licks here and there, which I quite like.

 

Calypso

This is the first and most abundant use of the backing vocals, and on top of that, I find the main vocal melody to be off-putting in this one. The underlying guitarwork isn't as bad as the backing vocals make it feel, but still the worst track.

 

Recoil

Nice prog. metal. The vocals are a better fit with the mellower sound. 

The Djinn

Easily the most aggressive song on the EP, very melodeath adjacent. Opens with quite a thrashy riff. The growlier backing vocals are introduced here, which fit the tune, but unfortunately but the backing screams and some chuggy riffs return. I would say this is the singer's strongest performance, and at times the juxtaposition of strong clean vocal melodies over harder music gave me After Forever/Within Temptation vibes, even though the music is a bit more extreme than that symphonic power metal type stuff.

The Fury

This track is from their earlier debut full-length prior to the female vocalist joining. Her vocals are on it and the CD calls it a remix, so I'm not sure if it's just the original track with new vox mixed in, or a complete re-recording. This is by far the most traditional metal-influenced track with some nice galloping riffs that are bridged by proggier "Recoil"-type mellow sections. I wish the entire disc had been like this!

 

So yeah, even with the interesting parts, nothing particularly great, but for the bargain bin price, this indie EP was definitely better than I was expecting. 

 

Post-listening update: So I quickly checked out some of the band's other material online. I was especially curious if more material from the band's first CD was in the vein of "The Fury." While it does have much more of a traditional metal feel than the EP I've covered here, I was rather taken aback by the awful and amateurish semi-shouted vocals, which ruin any old-school feel that album might have had. While I still don't think the singing gal is a great fit, she's a definite improvement over the vox on their earlier material.

 

Since Blood of the Djinn is a pretty varied EP, I briefly skimmed through some of their newer material to see if they leaned in any particular direction. A few tracks seemed like they moved in more of a progressive power metal direction, although I heard at least one track that was unfortunately very groove-metal sounding. 

 

I'm a little surprised the more extreme side of the music seemed to be greatly reduced. I thought there was a fair amount of modern melodic death/thrash and melodeath-sounding riffwork on the EP, but since it doesn't always feel predominant, I would guess that comes from general contemporary metal trends and influences, and not conscious influence from any old Gothenburg bands or anything. It could also be some of the shared classic metal influences in the guitar harmonies and axework making me think it's a bit more melodeath inspired than it actually is. Anyway, hopefully I'll come across more of their stuff in the cheapo bin sometime so I can do a proper comparison.