Uccultum - Wheels of the Black Sun (2006)

Cost: $2.00

Very tasty guitar tone here that often reminds me a lot of old Cianide. Other than saying it's doom, I'm not quite sure what musical comparisons to make with this. While a few songs have it to a minor degree, it's largely free of the rocking vibe I'd associate with the more stonerish side of doom metal.  However, it's also pretty garagey and minimalist, so it doesn't sound all that much like any of the classic '80s doom metal bands or their descendants. My brain tells me I've heard a dead ringer for this vocalist in some other band, but I just can't place it at the moment. Solid clean timbre although there's a certain flatness that makes him feel like an uncharismatic Scott Reagers at times. 

While not a hidden gem of doom, this is competent enough and I can't see anyone who can appreciate stripped down Sabbathy stuff not finding this to be decent.  Nice find for the price.

Venom - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik 2CD (1999)

Cost: $2.00

Expect lots of upcoming classic metal posts, as I've been finding quite a high volume of it in the cheap bins lately.  I have most of it in some form already and there should be nothing I need to describe musically to any self-respecting metalhead, but it still feels great to find it.

I already have some older single-disc pressings of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with the same tracklist, but curiously Deadline chose to needlessly split the tracks over two CDs even though there's no extra material.  The '85 gig is the Hell at Hammersmith show and has a few songs not on the video version and vice versa.  The '86 NY half is still a fine listen, but the song selection pales in comparison to the 1985 show.  The album did offer some live previews of upcoming material when it was originally released. The classic trio lineup plays "The Chanting of the Priests," and it's obvious their sound was beginning to shift a little even with Mantas still around, since it doesn't sound particularly different from the Calm Before the Storm album version without him. On the other hand, I do like "Buried Alive" seguing into "Love Amongst the Dead"--I think it's catchier than "Raise the Dead" and sounds a bit nastier and closer to the classic Venom sound than most post-Possessed material.  Of course the studio version (called "Dead Love") was eventually formally released on the In Memorium compilation later.  

Nothing bad I can say about this score except the minor inconvenience of having to swap discs out with this particular version.

Sam Kazerooni - Angry Planet (2003)

 Cost: $2.00

This was another instance where I grabbed a CD to reach the minimum purchase amount for a store sale without having to resort to buying a '90s R&B disc. I was happily surprised to find a listing for it on Metal Archives.  This is instrumental guitar stuff, certainly pleasant but didn't leave much of a lasting impression on me.  The majority of the 16 tracks are metal, but even the more mellow proggish tracks are enjoyable.  The album often feels closer to some sort of modern video game music than to '80s or '90s shred--it tends to be more song and mood based than riff and technique based, although I wouldn't have minded some more flash and pomposity to increase the memorability here.  Nice as a background listen but hardly anything essential.

Mensrea - Media Coil Interrupt (2008)

 

 Cost: $2.00

I was reading the liner notes at the store and  the name Cory Smoot sounded familiar, although I didn't make the Gwar connection until much later.  They're listed first in the thanks list and Sarah Jezebel Deva of Cradle of Filth fame does guest vocals on a track, so I can't say I didn't have other warning flags...

This is the kind of modern kitchen sink metal that I find to be almost no better than straight up metalcore--it mixes metalcore, melodic death metal, groove metal, and maybe some very slight hints of thrash, but of course in an uninteresting modernized vein.  It's too modern and generic to be engaging for me, and it's not even brutal or extreme enough to make much of an impression through brute force.  The vocals only come in two unfortunate flavors, a shouty aggro/HC style and a screamy -core style.  The second half of the disc seems to have a higher concentration of melodic DM influence, although that doesn't redeem the album by any means.  "March of the Malcontents" and "Memoirs" have riff ideas that might have been decent in a pure melodic DM context, but there's not even a full song of that here--everything eventually segues into something -core sounding.  Two bucks not well spent.

Vengeance - Human Sacrifice (1988)

 

Cost: $2.00

Here's the big find I mentioned in the Tourniquet post: the original pressing of the Human Sacrifice CD with unamended bandname and logo! I already have the Medusa press, and while I'm not particularly concerned with layout differences or press variations, it still felt great to find it for $2 (especially since when I attemped to order it online several years ago for $5 or so, I was sent a gospel/worship music CD instead  :-\).   Was even sealed in deteriorating shrinkwrap with ancient stickers from some long-gone religious bookstore, although since the case was pretty scuffed underneath, I'm not sure if it was actually brand new or had just been resealed.

This is easily my favorite Christian thrash album, no doubt in part to it being the most extreme major release in the category at the time (just to clarify, I don't really take Serpent Temptation into account since Incubus weren't really trying to target a specifically Christian audience).  Of course, the big reason is those insane, nearly-out-of-breath-slash-monstrous-bellowing vocals which sound totally unhinged. Never heard anything else quite like them, and I don't think even Roger himself was able to replicate them as effectively on any of their other material. Admittedly, while most of the album is solid thrash that's up to date for the time, it probably wouldn't be considered cutting edge in terms of extremity compared to what was going on in the underground--the vocals contribute most of the heavy lifting. But some nice little touches pop up here and there, like the solo run in the title track (somewhat reminiscent of the end of Possessed's "The Exorcist").  Then of course when you finally get to the end of the album, "Beheaded" is a total death/thrash rager--absolutely one of my favorite songs in the entire genre. 

So yeah, what a fantastic score! And I'm not even done with this small Christian thrash haul, as I picked up Once Dead too...

Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast

 

Cost: $2.00

Was pleasantly surprised to find a super clean copy of an old Capitol pressing in the bargain bin. Initially I thought it was my first Maiden CD (I've found their VHS tapes in cheapo racks before) that would qualify as an actual bargain bin find, but then I remembered I had picked up Brave New World for $3 at a pawn shop a few months after it was released (while I thought the album was a good comeback, scoring it was completely overshadowed by finding CD reissues of the Agent Steel and Attacker debuts in the same trip).

To be perfectly frank, over the years as I've delved deeper and deeper into heavy metal, I've gradually come to love the Iron Maiden debut more and more to the exclusion of everything else, though there are plenty of individual later songs I definitely enjoy, with "Aces High" being at the top of the Dickinson stuff.  I'm inclined to say The Number of the Beast is my favorite Bruce-era album overall--I don't know if I'd say it's necessarily better than Killers, but it's probably more consistent as a whole.  The title track and especially "Hallowed Be Thy Name" are fantastic, and "Invaders" and "Gangland" seem quite underrated in the Maiden catalogue. "Run to the Hills" used to give me serious ear fatigue from overexposure to it. It's still not a favorite of mine, but listening to this CD is the first time I've heard the studio version in full for a while, and it didn't bother me that much.  

Don't ask me to quantify it, but I feel this album has the last traces of a certain specialness Maiden had which was subsequently lost. Maybe it was the last vestiges of NWOBHM in their sound, maybe it was Clive's drumming, maybe they had to prove they could still deliver without Paul--maybe it was some of all of these.

Goatreign - Goatreign (2007)

 $2.00

Later project of Mike Hickey, whose claim to metal fame came from being one of the guitarists to replace Mantas in Venom and then later going on to Cronos' eponymous band. I wasn't really expecting any particular style, although the band name sounds like either stereotypical black metal or stoner/doom (thinking along Goatsnake lines). I enjoy Calm Before the Storm more than the majority of old-school Venom fans seem to as well as the Cronos solo stuff, so I had quite positive expectations.

And those were shattered almost immediately. This is a far more groovy and modernized metal than I typically like, sounding somewhat like Black Label Society at times. Some parts are better than others but I just couldn't get into the music or the shouty vocals that much. Most of the bonus demo tracks are less polished and have less processed vocals (making them sound even more forced), but otherwise don't offer anything significantly better or worse. The one saving grace of this CD is the last track, "Tool Town Grinder," which is a nod to Mike's stint as a live guitarist for Carcass during the Heartwork tour.  The guitar tone is somewhat Heartwork-like, although the riffage and overall approach seem to be in a more primitive Reek/Symphonies vein. As you can expect, since I like it, the track is only 15 seconds long.  Quite a shame, as I would have far preferred an EP full of stuff in the same style.