My Ruin - The Shape of Things to Come... (2003)

Cost: $1.00

I was a bit pissed off after getting this EP because I was familiar with the band and used to have one of their full albums, but no warning signals went off in my brain at all when I saw this.  There was a vague familiarity with the band name which I couldn't place, but I saw the Century Media logo and the mention of a Plasmatics cover so I passed it off as some gothic metal act.  Now, honestly, since this was only a buck, I would have still bought it just because of the Plasmatics cover, but I was still disappointed I failed to recognize this as Tairrie B.'s latest project.

I find her history as a female rapper to be hilarious on a personal level, but ultimately, I don't care too much.  I remember Manhole and Turu Satana from ads in mid '90s 'zine(s) (Pit, I believe?), and I thought they were terrible aggro bands regardless of whether you took her rap career into account or not.  My Ruin continues this trend with female Anselmo-wannabe vocals over an uninteresting groovy alterna"metal" base.  Coupled with this are cringeworthy ham-fisted (pun intended) lyrics about female self-image acceptance.  If there was ever a band for angsty ostracized fat girls, this is it.  The cover of "Sex Junkie" is musically okay, but whereas the original had a very snotty punk vibe, the ultra-forced vocals just steamroll over what little worth is here.

The Holy Mountain - Entrails (2005)

Cost: $1.00

Of course I automatically associate the band name with Sleep.  Even though it was pretty obvious what this was going to be given the other stuff I found with it and that it was released on No Idea, I still held on to a faint hope that it would end up being more metallic.  Things didn't work out that way, but this isn't bad for what it is.  Certainly in a d-beat vein, although I'd say they're not as crusty as some of the other Dis-bands, adding in touches of classic US hardcore instead.

Dichotic - The Deepest Rise (2008)

Got this one in a trade.  Groovy, mid-paced thrash.  The vocals are that aggro style I hate, though they're slightly less-forced than other examples that come to mind.  In fairness, I will admit I found this a bit more palatable than say, your typical bunch of Pantera wannabes, but really, at that level, there's no great accomplishment in being less worse.  It's like rating which band member I'd most like to casually socialize with--I'd certainly pick the bassist (who looks a bit like Tom G. Warrior if he enjoyed methamphetamines and wearing bandanas) over the fat black vocalist, but when it comes right down to it, neither seem like great shakes as company.

The end of the CD actually had some nice--but all too brief--deviations from the band's normal sound.  "Delivery of Peace" starts out with a Middle Eastern flavored intro, and the final title track begins with a bass-heavy, progressive-ish intro that builds into what are the best riffs on the album.  Of course, right before the vocals kick in on both songs, they promptly go back to groove mode. When I initially looked this up before my trade I noticed most of the online comments and reviews mentioned some sort of classic metal element.  Either these reviewers' idea of "classic metal" is stuff from 1994-1996 or these were shill reviews, but there's really nothing like that present.  There are a couple instances of interesting dual guitar work or solos--it would be interesting to see the band (minus the vocalist) play in a more traditional metal setting, but there's unfortunately none of that here.

Epidemic Cause - Far East (1996)

Cost: $2.00

Picked this up off of a distro's cheapo list.  I had pretty low expectations for this going in and was still kind of disappointed.  Metal-archives listed them as "industrial death metal," so I was prepared for some sort of industrial element to the music.  Looking back, I do think I was being overly optimistic, hoping this would be like old Hellchild or Transgressor, just with a drum machine.  Even some mix of industrial and death metal might have been okay.

I can't really say there's any death metal here, though.  It's certainly industrial influenced metal, and the guitars are quite heavy, but I don't really see any coherent death metal element to the music.  In fact, what the first song brought to mind musically was Chaos A.D.-era Sepultura, not any DM.  As should be expected, the programmed drums are the primary focus of the music and are what provide the music's industrial feel.  Most of the vocals are mechanically distorted and range from heavily Japanese accented spoken vox to unintelligible vocal hysterics to shrieking.     

Innominandum - To Improve Fit for Smaller Heads (1996)

This CD has an unusual distinction in my collection because I previously owned it, traded it away, and then ended up getting the exact same copy back a few years later--I happened to buy a bulk lot of discs from the guy I had traded it to, and guess what happened to be included?

Nothing about the CD itself indicates that there's anything remotely heavy here (except for the band name, perhaps).  The layout looks like something a mid '90s alternative rock band would use.  Songtitles and lyrics are all rather nonsensical.  I remember being quite confused and concerned by the look of things since I was trading blind when I got this.  I thought it might have even been a grindcore band using that kind of imagery for irony's sake.

I think this would be best classified as death'n'roll.  Vocals are typical for the style--gruff but not to the point of being full-on death metal growls.  The guitars are downtuned, but the song themselves are rather bouncy and groovy and seem more rock than metal-based (with one big exception).  When thinking of death'n'roll, I normally associate it with more rocking, high energy riffage and '70s influences, but these guys seem to favor slower tempos, resulting in an almost doomy sound at times.  The bass line is actually higher in the mix than the guitars and that highlights the groove in their sound.  But again, it still feels very much like a death'n'roll band to me...It gets nowhere as weird or strays as far from metal as say, some of the Finnish bands who moved on from death metal and were considered death'n'roll or grind rock.

The one exception I mentioned is the last track, "Morning Wood," which has considerably more death metal influence than the other tracks, including a fast middle section that pretty much justifies me having this CD.   Still, this is a definite step down from the band's '92 demo, which was straightforward death metal (hell, they even shared the stage with Blood a few times in the early '90s!). 

Victory - Culture Killed the Native (1989)

Cost: $0.99

Okay, judging by the price tag, I bought this in...oh boy...2003.  It's been filed away in a box since then.

I have the band's second album and live album, both of which made it much easier to postpone listening to this.  I wasn't expecting this to be all that heavy, and it wasn't.  I'd wager most of the metal-related interest in the '80s material of the band is due to Herman Frank being in the lineup, who joined them shortly after leaving Accept.

The album as a whole is heavy hard rock--big choruses, commercially-aimed but not overly sugary production, and (comparatively) heavy guitars that provide a harder edge to the band's sound.  The first couple of tracks, particularly opener "More and More," totally remind me of Def Leppard's Pyromania era.  While the guitars are quite heavy at times, they don't do enough to push most of the album into true heavy metal territory.  In fact, the only song here I'd be comfortable actually calling metal is "Let It Rock On," and even then, it's still quite commercial.  This album isn't pretending to be anything it's not and it's fine for what it is, but even for the more polished Euro sound, my ears prefer something a little heavier, ala V2, S.A.D.O., or even Paganini.

Fleshcrawl - Made of Flesh (2004)

Cost: $1.99

This is in the same general vein as all the later Fleshcrawl material starting with Bloodred Massacre--the chunky, classic Swedish-styled guitar work is still the most prominent feature of the band's sound, but there's a much greater use of melodic riffs and leads compared to the band's first three albums, which got downright doomy at times.  This is not my favorite of theirs, but it's still solid.  Oh, and on a personal note, I'm totally disappointed that this is the first album since the debut (no, I'm not counting that Black Mark compilation) without a cover song on at least one version/pressing!  They did an absolutely fantastic job with the Demigod, Demilich, and Carnage covers, and even the non-death metal cover songs were at the very least interesting to listen to.