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.