Deceased - The Blueprints for Madness (1995)

 

Cost: $2.00

Believe it or not, although it's the first one I'm writing about, this is actually the third Deceased CD I've found in a bargain bin just this year (I was about to say ever, but I just remembered I paid $2 for my copy of As the Weird Travel On many, many years ago, on a distant shore).

This was a fantastic score in itself, but I have mixed feelings about the actual album. Deceased, from their second demo through 13 Frightened Souls, is some of my favorite death metal ever. Not just in a hyperbolic special-to-me way, either. If someone asks my favorite death metal albums, Luck of the Corpse is right in there with Seven Churches, Left Hand Path, etc. I like Fearless Undead Machines for its thrashiness, and I came to appreciate Supernatural Addiction, but aside from covers and some individual songs, later Deceased has always lost me a bit. Nothing they've released is terrible, and they haven't changed in the same way that makes me drop out with most bands, but I think they lost something special. I know mourning the lack of traditional heavy metal influences in Deceased seems very odd considering their current sound, but one of the things that was so special to me was the integration of real heavy metal sensibilities into actual death metal--I remember hearing "Psychedelic Warriors" for the first time,  and being reminded of a crazy death metal version of "Doomed by the Living Dead!" The new stuff is fine, but it feels more or less like a lot of old school influences and more melodic stuff beefed up, rather than SICK THRASH. Considering the time period, I always wondered if some of King's more straightforward HM influences in writing were getting diverted to October 31 and whether it affected the band a little.

For whatever reason, I didn't buy this album when it was released. It certainly wasn't because of low expectations, because the first song I ever heard from the album was "Midnight," (off the UHF/VHF comp.) which I loved--still my favorite track. I finally got it when reissues came out, and I thought it was okay, but I didn't love it. Now revisiting it, it's grown on me a bit, but I see it more as an album with a couple good songs on it than a great album overall. I wouldn't call this generic by any means, but this is the one Deceased release that feels the most like "typical" '90s death metal. It's never going to match the debut for me, but I even prefer the succeeding two albums a little bit. This also marks when they started to get a lot more cerebral with the horror themes, which obviously has continued to this day. And despite any fan criticisms I have, let's be realistic in context--for a two buck score, this is great.

The Crashing Falcon - The Bitter Glamour of the Heavenly Panorama (2003)

 

Cost: $2.00

Was very surprised when the vocals kicked in on this one. Based on the music I was expecting standard -core/screamo vocals, but they're standard death metal sounding gutturals that don't deviate. Aside from some limited screamy background vocals in the last two tracks, there are none of the vox you'd typically associate with -core stuff, which is a huge plus. The music itself is unfortunately quite core-rooted which I was expecting from the aesthetics and some of the tongue-in-cheek songtitles--it's a mix of progressive metalcore/mathcore and (mostly melodic) DM. It's not all bad, as the opening riff to "Magic Can Only Be Taken Seriously When You're Wearing a Tuxedo" seems very reminiscent of some (Scandanavian?) deathdoom riff I can't place. Sadly, little cool parts like this are quickly lost to the time changes of the spastic "progressive" songwriting. While this is still not my kind of thing, it's quite remarkable how the vocal style alone raises this from music I would probably find quite annoying to something tolerable.

Newk - The 1st. Escaping from Myself (2003)

 

Cost: $1.99

Even after many years of unusual finds when CD hunting, I'm always more surprised than I probably should be to find cheap discs from relatively exotic locales. South Korean CDs like this are certainly a rarity in the bargain bins, but I've found at least one before, so not entirely unheard of.

The "Metal will never die!" text and sword illustration on the cover meant I was going to buy this no matter what, but the inside of the booklet was far less promising. The band photos look like a (decidedly unheavy) contemporary rock band of some sort, and the opening track is an acoustic ballad. Ultimately, it ends up being an uneven album. Tracks 2, 3, and "I Wanna Be Free" are all solid heavy/power metal and well worth the purchase, but the rest of the album isn't that noteworthy. There are 4 balladish songs which felt a bit excessive given the cover proclamation and the album's running time. The other 5 tracks have the same metallic guitars and even some decent riffs and soloing at times, but the songwriting and execution feel a lot more rock-ish and upbeat than the full-on metal tracks. It's also evident that the mix and slick production benefit these types of tracks more than the heavier ones. I probably still would have bought it if the album were just comprised of these types of songs, although I wouldn't have been particularly excited about it. Despite some inconsistency, well worth the price for the 3 good songs.

Agnostic Front - Last Warning (1993)

Cost: $2.00

Not that big of an Agnostic Front fan, but I like both the "Eliminator" and "Your Mistake," which are on here, and the price was certainly right. I understand the historical importance of releasing this recording, since it was their last US show before the band initially dissolved (this was a posthumous release back in 1993). The sound quality is good, and it's not a bad show, but it doesn't seem like a particularly special or noteworthy one. The vocals are a bit low in the mix so that may be partially to blame, but Roger's singing sounds really worn out and unenergetic at times.

The latter part of the CD contains the 1983 United Blood EP. While their crossover stuff is okay, I really have no interest in AF's early pure NYHC stuff. It has plenty of punky speed, but I find it to be severely lacking in aggression or cool riffs. If I had to listen to early hardcore, I'd definitely pick something else.

Adonis Decay - Messenger (2007)

 

Cost: $2.00

I was more or less expecting typical metalcore and hesitantly bought this in case it was Slaughter of the Soul-core, but it was quite surprising how technical and progressive this is. The sole online review I could find for this compares them unfavorably to Between the Buried and Me, and while early BTBAM might be a vaguely fair comparison in regards to prog. elements, Adonis Decay are far more melodeath-influenced, have less generic -core aggro-ness, and place far less emphasis on contrasting extreme/clean sections. The vocals here also help further push the -core into the background--a wide range of extreme and clean vocal styles are used, but none of them are ultra-forced toughguy shouting. The main vocals are more of a raspy black metal style. 

The unusual time signatures as well as the more metallic music make this marginally more interesting than your typical breakdown laden shouty stuff (which is, quite honestly, exactly what this CD looks like it will be). But I'd still much rather listen to something else entirely.

Chronic Rage - Self Induced (1997)

 

Cost: 99¢ 

 

Make no mistake, this doesn't shy away from '90s groove metal trends, but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of actual thrashing here in tracks like "Confined Ways" and "Sense of Balance," and the guitarwork and soloing seems to be of a much higher quality than your typical Pantera or Machine Head styled band (I suspect all of this is largely due to two of the members playing in more traditional '80s Cleveland metal bands). The band seems to be extremely fond of gang vocals, which often lends the music a strong crossover flavor and makes the groove stuff more palatable. The main vocals are a gruff style--not my favorite but they don't seem terribly forced. Someone else contributes lame yelling vocals, but thankfully they aren't used that much.

 

Up until about halfway through the disc I was thinking about this fairly positively, at least for the style. Then "Meant Not to Speak" suddenly throws in a section with jokey crooned Elvis parody vocals. I thought this was a one time gag, but then towards the end both "Turmoil" and "Something Different" have more silly clean warbles. Who ever thought that was a good idea? There's even an overly long unlisted throwaday track of the band playing a simple instrumental line underneath samples of jet engines and radio chatter, and they could have easily thrown the clean vocals in there if they had to be included at all.

Metal Massacre Ten compilation (1990)

 

Cost: $1.00

Happened to find this when I was going through a box of CDs in storage. Still had the price tag on it, so I know exactly where I got it, but I have absolutely zero recollection of finding or buying this. It was boxed up for a while, so it had to have been a find from several years ago. I already have two copies in my collection, so I assume upon finding another, I promptly chucked it into a box, saving it for that inevitable day when you find yourself needing an extra copy of a later, diminished-in-quality volume from the greatest heavy metal compilation series ever.

 Nothing terrible here, but fewer true highlights and more mediocrity compared to previous volumes:

1. Betrayal - Sick or Sane?

Of course this is actually Betrayel, although back in the day I did think it was the properly spelled Christian thrash band for a while. Ok Bay Area sounding thrash with somewhat crossover-sounding vibes, although it's less raging and far milder than some of the material on their first demo. 

2. Solitude - Typhoid Mary

Aka the only band I know from Delaware. The clean intro is appealing, but then the slower part with angry vocals is a bit deceiving. Eventually opens up into something mid-paced and early Megadeth-ish. Decent but not great.

3. Murdercar - Mirage of Blood

I don't really like the bouncy/groovy chorus riff. Nothing really notable about the rest of the song.  Just an inoffensive throwaway thrash track.

4. Confessor - The Secret

For a long time Confessor was the most visible band on the comp. due to their Earache deal and subsequent releases, but due to old metal reissue mania and Confessor's lack of real activity for the past decade or so, I'd argue that Slaughter is better known nowadays. Genre- and convention-defying stuff that feels like tech. thrash slowed down to doomier tempos. For better or for worse, amongst more inspired bands this would probably just be a quirky oddity, but compared to a lot of the lackluster material on here, Confessor stand out very positively.

5. Dan Collette - Egyptian Falcon

I'd love to know the story behind this. Sounds ridiculous on paper--a trumpet player and backing musicians (who don't seem to have any metal associations) make a killer prog. metal instrumental with oriental harmonies in the guitarwork and a trumpet blaring over the whole thing. The underlying track would probably be just as awesome without the trumpet, but it doesn't detract from the song either.

6. Nihilist - Infected

At first I was thinking this was marginally better than earlier thrash tracks just due to the higher levels of speed and energy. But it's not as catchy and lacks the cool guitarwork of the Betrayel song, and it's not as technically interesting as the Solitude track. Energetic, but kinda forgettable.

This reminded me that I had seen a photo of a band member wearing Nihilist demo shirt (the cover of their first demo with skull in crosshairs) somewhere. I was fairly certain it was Curtis Beeson of Nasty Savage but so far the only pics of someone wearing a Nihilist shirt I could turn up were live pics of James Murphy in Obituary.

7. R.O.T. - Visions in Secret

Solid heavy/speed with some thrashiness, reminding me slightly of a thrashier version of Hammeron's "Sleepwalker." The singer has a pretty wide repertoire--his normal voice reminds me of an American-accented Ozzy, although he often switches to a shrieky style and there are even a couple short flashes of King Diamond-like vocals. Easily the most traditional metal influenced song here, and could have easily fit on Metal Massacre 7 or 8.

8. Wench - Mercy

Not a big fan of their second, thrashier demo, which is normally what they're associated with. This older song is less overtly thrashy and closer to a simplistic take on something like Metal Church/Reverend, with really powerful female vocals here that aren't overly gritty or husky. She sometimes feels like she's on the cusp of oversinging but never crosses the line into being bad. This is another track that probably comes off a little better than it should considering the company it shares.

 

9. Slaughter - The Fourth Dimension

From the Paranormal demo (do a lot of those songtitles sound like they could be early Sindrome tracks or what?) with the twin guitar lineup. Pretty much pure thrash with more of a focus on speed, and while the slow middle break hints at the style of the Strappado album, there's nothing here as death metallish or bludgeoning. Still, the heaviest track here, and fine for what it is.

10. - I.D.K - Stayed Up 4 Daze

Mid-paced crossover with a slow section at the end. Another case of nothing bad, just OK.