Dead Orchestra - Global Lobotomy (1992)

 

Cost: $1.00

This is an old find from 10+ years ago, and should have been one of the CDs I got from my very first visit to the same store that produced the June 22, 2013 haul.  Unfortunately, well...I accidentally left it at the store.  The dollar CDs there were in floor level cabinets, with some overspill stacked up on the floor. So while amassing my purchases, I was placing my to-buy stack on top of the CD stacks, and I inadvertently left a couple of the bottom CDs behind, including the Dead Orchestra disc (and of course it was the best disc out of the 20 or so I found that day). I only realized after the hour long drive home, but luckily it was still there when I went back a few weeks later.  That particular store has been gone for a few years, so I wanted at least one post to commemorate one of my first finds there.

 

The album is a great dollar bin find, although personally I think it falls somewhat short of being extraordinarily good.  The foundation here is quite technical thrash/crossover, and they certainly love their speed.  At the beginning I didn't make too much of  the meatier Exhorderesque riffs they'd throw in here and there, and I figured a lot of the speed was due to Cryptic Slaughter or similar influences.  But it's impossible to ignore the times when the vocals get quite evil  (on "C.C.V." they're quite Cancer-like) and they're playing total deaththrash passages.  I try to avoid moaning about wasted potential or should-have-dones since that's all hypothetical, but I do think some of my slight disappointment comes from the overall inconsistency with the presence of some of the more generic crossover stuff.  The extreme parts make me long for a pure deaththrash album; had they devoted themselves entirely to speedy tempos, they could have also given Sadus some heathy competition.  Then again, for a buck I'm not complaining either...

Bomberos - Hate (2004)

 

Cost: $2.00

Only picked this up due to the Mayhem connection (Maniac is the singer here) and not the actual music, which is punk. Even as a bargain bin find, this wasn't a particularly good value considering there's less than 10 minutes of music on the disc.

The music itself is fairly aggressive but lacks any noteworthiness for me and comes across as inoffensively generic.  Maniac's vocals don't do it any favors, as they're almost too laid back and unenthused (especially ironic considering I thought the Deathcrush MLP vocals bordered on being too hysterical/shrieky and not evil enough for my taste) in contrast to the energetic songs.  After hearing "Midnight Ride" it suddenly clicked that they're some sort of attempt at a Jello Biafra style.

Vulture - Vulture (2008)

Cost: $2.00 

Ended up buying this after seeing "doom" in the Myspace link listed in the booklet, although I was initially a bit cautious due to the logo aesthetic and lack of band photo.  Unfortunately rather than being straightforward doom metal, the doom that does exist here is very diluted by stoner rock and Southern metal influences as well as some unnecessary modern touches.

In fairness, there are some okayish slow parts, but the pleasing heaviness of the guitar tone just made me wish they'd dispense with all the unmemorable bouncy, rockish riffs and worship Sabbath more.  Vocals come in three varieties--a sort of gruff style I mentally associate with Southern metal but also sounds a bit like Lee Dorrian at times, relatively clean vox, and occasional guttural DM vox.

Just out of curiosity I checked out some tracks from the band's sole full length from 2012.  It's far sludgier and bleaker which makes it marginally more interesting than this mini CD as a whole, although the very forced vocals and overall sound also make me draw unfavorable comparisons to some of the more generic Relapse sludge signees.

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.