United We Stand compilation (2000)

 

Cost: $2.00

Knew nothing about this disc or any of the included bands, but bought it solely for the one band who I figured would be metal. Not a great find musically, but I'm glad I ended up getting it, because it seems to be pretty scarce.

1. Damned Cause - Sterilized Nation

Didn't really take great notice of the band and track name until I got home and looked the CD over. I figured this might be groove metal based on the logo, and I was right. Unfortunately the vocals make this very wigger/nu-adjacent-sounding, even though the guitars remind me a bit of something Chaos A.D.-like. At least there's an attempt at a guitar solo.

 

2. Anubis - Make A Wish

Some sort of pop/punk and alternative mix I guess? I thought the singer was a chick until about halfway through.

3. Resin - Past

In a complete reversal of what almost always happens, based on their old webpage address the band considered themselves hardcore, while I'd definitely say the riffage puts them in some sort of groove metal or at least very metallic HC territory. The super aggro vox get on my nerves though.

 

4. Liquid Edge - Heal My Wounds

At first, the guitars made me think this was going to be more groove metal, and there's a recurring riff that's pretty heavy. But as soon as the vocals kick in this lightens up tremendously. I guess it's some sort of somewhat progressive rock/metal? The guitar solo is quite good.

 

5. October Thorns - Page One

Even though I wasn't familiar with them, this is the band that inspired me to get the disc. Solid prog. metal.

 

6. Atmosfear - Target Realm

The band name had me hoping this would be more full-on progressive metal, which unfortunately wasn't the case. Rumbly guitars, but otherwise the situation is similar to the Liquid Edge track. There's a bit of quirkiness/progressiveness here, and the vocals kind of weaken this (although he does suddenly break into some falsetto shrieks at the end).

 

7. MindTwist - B.U.F.F.A.L.O

Nu with aggro vox.

8. All For Nothing - Last Attempt

Some sort of rock. I wouldn't call this metal but there seem to be influences in the guitarwork. As with the Anubis song, it can be hard to determine the singer's gender at times.

 

9. SkrewTape - What?

Promising (at least for this comp.) start, but devolves into nu-crap. At least the guitarwork is kinda thrashy compared to the MindTwist track. The vocals seems silly and amateurish, sounding like they were recorded spontaneously over the backing music without being properly mixed.

 

10. DIM - Smug

Dark alternative rock, like a much darker version of Bush. Quite interesting just by virtue of being the most unique sounding band on here.

 

11. Invision - Don't Bleed For Me

Late '90s alternative/college rock sounding track.

 

12. Vent - Fish Outta Water 

Female-fronted pop-punk.

Poets of the Plague - Poets of the Plague (1999)

 

Cost: $1.00

Not quite the death/doom I was expecting from what I read online. This is varied early-mid '90s sounding death metal, and while there are some slower doomy parts, none of that is consistent throughout an entire song. On the other end of the spectrum, there's quite thrashy, faster-tempoed material too, like "Spun" and "In God He Trusts." Vocals on the opening track and "Broken Home" are typical DM gutturals, but otherwise, the main vocals are a somewhat more intelligible raspier style.

There are quite a few spoken word parts scattered across the CD, including a full recitation of Edgar Allan Poe's "Alone" poem as the intro for the second track. Plenty of concept albums or more theatrical-themed bands use a lot more of that than what's here, but it seems kind of unusual for an independent CD. Mostly, I didn't care about these parts either way, although admittedly the shoot-out voices and cheap-sounding effects in "Pushed" (about James Huberty's McMassacre) and the domestic squabble that intros "Broken Home" come across as overdone and silly.

One aspect here that really stands out is the super thick production, with an almost black metal buzziness to the guitars. I've read this was a deliberate decision by the band with them intending to make it sound extremely heavy, but they felt the end result was overdone. I quite like it, and I wish they had ultimately included more doomy riffs, as the guitars make the slow stuff sound especially heavy and nasty.

Being perfectly honest, I didn't think this was fantastic, but it was definitely worth the dollar and immediately after listening, I felt positively enough about it that I was thinking to myself that I may revisit it once in a while. Then I immediately realized that may be overly optimistic considering all the other stuff out there competing for my listening time. We shall see.

Apostle of Solitude - Last Sunrise (North American version) (2004)

 

Cost: $1.00

Every review I've seen of this mentions how terribly the cover art for either version fits the content, and this one will be no different. I understand what they were going for conceptually, but it's just a bad choice for a doom metal album.

The band doesn't make any huge missteps but I found this CD to be underwhelming and ultimately kind of disappointing. It's just straight up doom, with no stoner/fuzz influences, and it's not even terribly Sabbathy, except perhaps for the minimalist "Letting Go of the Wheel." Unfortunately, many of the songs are way too long without having quality content to justify it--the songwriting and riffage is way below any of the classic '80s or '90s doom bands. It's kind of absurd to me to see people favorably comparing this to prime '80s Candlemass when it doesn't even reach Count Raven levels. At times I'm reminded of a more simplistic version of the later Solitude Aeturnus albums. There is some good material here, like "Frontiers of Pain" and its nice soloing or "Hunter Sick Rapture," but the album didn't rise above being something somewhat pleasant to listen to in the background. There's just too many 7+ min. songs to wade through. The vocalist isn't that bad of a singer on a technical level, and I got used to him as the album went on, but there's something about him I can't quite put my finger on that isn't the best fit with doom metal. Too clean and not mournful enough, perhaps?

I happened to get the North American version, which has different bonus cover songs from the European pressing...They're better than I thought, but I really want to hear the Thin Lizzy and Celtic Frost covers from the Euro version now. The cover of The Obsessed's "Streetside" is done very faithfully, although it's a bit wasted on me since I much prefer the albums that came before The Church Within. The Misfits' "Astro Zombies" cover is quite fun, even though the vocals are much closer to Michale Graves than Danzig. I'm not familiar with Born Against but it sounds like a pretty faithful HC cover, just with a noticeably fatter guitar tone than on the rest of the CD (the cover tracks were recorded in a different session from the album).

A Tribute to the Songs of Ozzy Osbourne & Black Sabbath (2004)

 

Cost: $1.00

A tribute CD of female artists doing acoustic covers of Sabbath and Ozzy. I've never heard of any of them before, but I saw several of them also appear on a Fleetwood Mac tribute on the same label. Oh dear. As you will note, the tracklisting skews towards very popular tracks, and there are no mellower songs like "Planet Caravan" or "Changes" that might have a decent chance of translating well. The whole concept seems extremely lame, but it can't be as bad as the Stryper tribute, right? Let's find out...

1. Linda Benskin - Hole in the Sky 

Not a big fan of this as a cover. The vocals feel weird in this context, although the arrangement is well done. I suspect this will be a recurring theme. 

 

2. Robin McDonald - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

I like the arrangement, but the vocals feel stilted and overly talk-singy at times. There's a slight reverb(?) effect on the vocals during the verses which makes them sound like an old woman.

 

3. Julie Griffin - Never Say Die

Much more soulful vocals here. Even if they come off a bit overzealous at times, at least they sound enthusiastic.

 

4. Linda Benskin - Crazy Train

Sounded promising from the opening melody but the rest of the arrangement is kind of simplified. It's the lethargic vocals that really bring this down, though.

 

5. Heather Nolan - Flying High Again

Southern lilt to the singing which gives this a bit of a country feel. Vocals are very unenthused sounding, but it's not as bad as the previous tracks.

 

6. Camille Boscardin - Iron Man

Stands out a bit from the other tracks due to the somewhat folksier arrangement and the layered vocals. Not great, though.

 

7. Aj Kusuhara - Paranoid

Not how I ever want to hear "Paranoid," but at least it's not as bad as some of the other versions.

 

8. Cindy Mendenhall - War Pigs

This song just doesn't translate to the style that they're going for well.

 

9. Jen Lettellier - Bark at the Moon

Again, weird choice to cover in this type of fashion. Vocals remind me a little of Lisa Loeb.

10. Julia Orr - Sweet Leaf

As a song this works better for this than some of the others. Vocals sound a bit like if the singer from the "Never Say Die" cover reined it in a little.

 

11. Kim Coger - N.I.B.

This was the cover I was most curious about, because I could see it working as an acoustic version, but given some of the other tracks, I was prepared for a trainwreck. This song certainly works a lot better in this style than a lot of the others. Vocals aren't the worst but not the best on this album, either.

 

12. Kymberly Evans - No More Tears

Strictly as a cover version, this is probably the best track on here. I think the original song is just okay (especially in comparison to some of the Sabbath classics on here), which says a lot about the compilation.

 

I noticed the booklet only credits the singers, and the guitar playing is of a uniform quality all across the tracks, so it's obvious the same person/team recorded all the guitarwork. Even the "better" tracks don't really justify the existence of the CD--this doesn't even have the cheesy fun factor that can come out of string tributes or even those baby song tributes. I can see a few of these covers working at a coffeehouse's open mic night or a free public park gig, but not as the basis for a compilation CD.

 

Morfin - Inoculation (2014)

 

Cost: $2.99

Was curious to hear these guys, as they spawned from that California mini-movement of bands (largely) influenced by the Floridian-sounding death metal of the late '80s. Skeletal Remains and Rude are the others that come to mind, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few more. I also kind of wonder if these guys picked a bad time to do music like this. The music certainly owes a lot to Death, but around this time a certain Exhumed member came out with a band doing pure Death worship at, quite frankly, a far higher level.

Also, just to be clear, while the thrashier parts here definitely evoke Leprosy, to my ears Morfin sounds more like the most Death-inspired early Morgoth stuff than Death themselves. The vocals certainly bring to mind an American-accented Marc Grewe, although it could be equally accurate to compare them to a less extreme John Tardy mixed together with Leprosy-era Chuck. Compared to Skeletal Remains, there aren't really any direct Pestilence or Massacre influences. "Lethal Progeny" has some slight Obituary-ness to it, and while I'm sure Morfin are fans, they generally stay away from doomier or Frostier sounds. There are also some scattered not-sure-if-they're-paying-homage-to-Autopsy-or-Gorguts-debut-or-maybe-both moments.

This is pretty cool (despite my personal preference for more Rick Rozz divebombs), and the "Leprosy" cover is very well done. But in all honesty, early Skeletal Remains and early Gruesome were both much better at songwriting and riffcraft.

 

Beastmaker - Eye of the Storm (2019)

 

Cost: $2.00

When I found this, the band name was vaguely familiar to me, but I had never actually heard them, and certainly had no idea about the direct Haunt connection. The general aesthetic made me think it was going to be some kind of traditional metal. When I briefly looked them up pre-listen, I was rather surprised to see they were a doom band. I then learned after more research post-listen that they shed some of the fuzzier doom elements and incorporated more heavy metal on this particular release. My keen metal intuition strikes again.

While it's easy to identify doomy riffs and passages when listening, this ultimately doesn't feel much like doom metal overall. Typically when doom and traditional metal are mixed, I think of more epic metal sounding bands like Doomsword, Coven (13), Solstice, or even various Cirith Ungol-inspired stuff. This doesn't really have that kind of vibe. The harmonized guitarwork is very NWOBHM-ish, and the vocals have a very "British" feel as well. They're generally reminiscent of Kevin Heybourne, especially on "My Only Wish," but I can hear bits of Sean Harris in them as well. Ironically, some of the vocal layering on "Shadows" brought to mind the singing on the first White Wizzard EP.

 A solid EP with excellent guitarwork, well worth the 2 bucks. Releases like this remind me of the nearly incomprehensible amount of recorded heavy metal out there--while I fully recognize this is very good material in a modern context, it hardly leaves an impression compared to bands I consider excellent.

Garudas Mission - Omen in Onyx (2004)

 

Cost: $2.00

Progressive metal, with the heavier tracks showing off more power metal influences. Metal Archives specifically mentions them as having "dark ambient influences"--while I can see where this comes from, I think emphasizing it in their genre category is a bit misleading. The atmospheric keyboard work in the background is certainly more reminiscent of ambient music than in other prog. metal bands, although had I never seen dark ambient mentioned, I would likely have just described them as having slight tinges of gothic metal in their atmosphere.

Not my favorite kind of thing, but generally solid stuff, with two minor exceptions. The (thankfully) seldom-used extreme vocals (in "Solitude" and "Machine," specifically) are overly forced and screamy, sounding like they should be in a -core band. There are also a few places with more modern, chuggier/groovier riffs ("Spellbound" and "Poisons"), although again, they're used so sparingly, it's more surprising when they show up than actually annoying.

Speaking of surprising, the final track starts out very mellow, but then halfway through, some playful, retro-futuristic keyboards and chimes suddenly come in. It immediately brought to mind the music from some of those old '80s and '90s VHS tapes showcasing computer animation. Not really my thing either, but it made the track very unique.