Artist: Albert Bell's Sacro Sanctus
Release Title: Ad Aeturnam
Year: 2016
Label: Metal-on-Metal Records
Genre: Blackened Heavy/Doom Metal
Tracklisting:
1.Ad Aeternum
2.Terra Santa
3.The Messenger
4.The Key of Splendour
5.Hex and Heresy
6.Seal of Damnation
7.Invocations of Unlight
8.Illuminati (Will to Power)
One of the scene’s most important figure-heads, Malta-based artist Albert Bell’s solo project Sacro Sanctus has continued on a much more blackened doom style than his other works in the scene. Picking up from the last album charting the Last Crusades, the Templars' discovery of ancient hermetic texts, their persecution and executions, the curse of de Molay and the infiltration into secret societies by the surviving ones this second album was released April 29, 2016 on Metal-on-Metal Records.
From the very beginning, this continues to explore the fuzz-laden origins of doom metal with the lashings of traditional metal which leaves this with an enjoyable and dynamic old-school approach. The predominance of the churning, fuzzy doom sloughing through the rhythms here keeps this one for the most part running along at quite a lapse pace with the generally simplistic rhythms holding this one into the nearly perfect setting to keep the rumbling riff-work up-front and dominating the release while they run through the kind of general variances of plodding, sluggish patterns in the heavier end of traditional heavy/doom metal to slightly more up-tempo varieties that recall the kind of swirling black metal leads mixed into the procedings that gives this a more extreme edge than expected. Though that doesn’t necessarily get added into here quite as often as expected, it still gets in enough to off-set the predominate plodding rhythms here that does manage to drag this down slightly with those sprawling, sluggish doom crawls making the music quite down-beat and really lacking in energy. Though it does have the kind of bouncy rhythms here that do keep this listenable with the inclusion of a more traditional heavy metal background instead of a doom background, it does manage to keep this from really going where it could’ve had this been given a slightly more up-tempo backbeat.
Though it does come with a minor problem with it’s generally sluggish tempos, there’s still enough to really like about this one that it becomes rather appealing only for those who prefer the other works of those involved or who generally prefer this sluggish, plodding form of doom-riddled traditional metal.
Artist: Wildhunt
Release Title: Descending
Year: 2016
Label: Metal-on-Metal Records
Genre: Technical Thrash Metal
Tracklisting:
1.Age of Torment
2.Terror Right Below
3.Lifeless Birth
4.Death Spares (N)one
5.Erlkönig
6.The Wild Hunt
7.History Deletes Itself
8.Thrill to Kill
9.Crystal Death (U.M.D.A.)
10.Descending
From their start in 2011, Austrian thrashers Wildhunt have clearly been indebted to their old-school influences and have brought them along only with a great bent towards technicality. Now finally ready to unleash their debut album April 29, 2016 from Metal-on-Metal Records after a successful EP and a split release, this showcases their style and intensity to the fullest and starts them off on a great note.
From the onset this here is such a dynamic and appealing old-school sounding album that it really could’ve been brought forth from the 80s with it’s approach here. Ranging from tight, speed-metal crunch that permeates the tracks with a steady pounding charge that’s incredibly infectious to a strong series of blasting, full-throttle thrash and coming complete with some melancholic intros enhancing the song-lengths quite well, this attack is so enthusiastically old-school that it really should’ve been recorded back in the genre’s heyday. Even better, though, is that this approach is utterly mosh-worthy by itself before adding in the swirling technically-challenging riff-work that accompanies these rhythms which makes for a rather engaging experience with a frantic amount of speed-drenched patterns that also manage to show-off the kind of overt sense of showmanship within the music by being able to introduce all these different wildly-extravagant riffing patterns into the tracks which gives them incredibly varied tempos and pacing that gives off a wholly dynamic approach. This intense, calculated and varied approach is quite classy and manages to get quite a lot of positive marks for its overall performances yet does seem a little too clean and sterile to really fall in line with the aggressive and intense thrash acts, preferring mostly to adopt that mindset without taking on the attitude of those old-school groups that laid the foundation for their sound. While this is mostly just grasping at straws, it is a force that does need to be mentioned here since this does come up here.
For the most part this here is an incredibly enjoyable and dynamic debut that takes all the best qualities of old-school thrash and whips them into a highly enjoyable blend of technicality and class that this will undoubtedly quench any thrash fans thirst for more or those looking for technically-proficient acts without being egregious about it.
Artist: Arkham Witch
Release Title: Get Thothed Vol. II EP
Year: 2016
Label: Metal-on-Metal Records
Genre: Heavy/Doom Metal
Tracklisting:
1.Love the Lamp
2.Sunshine
3.Ancient Fire
4.Serpentine
5.Blood on Satan's Claw
The new EP from UK heavy/doom metallers Arkham Witch follows along the conventions of their previous attempt at this style rather nicely which makes for a really fun time. This is still very much in their woven style of classic rock riffs and proto-metal rhythms that merge together with plodding doom paces and psychedelic-fueled riff-work into a stellar and overall dynamic mixture which allows for the music to really weave through several varied styles. Rocking along at a stellar mid-tempo groove with nicely churning rhythms, picking up the tempo with some stylish speed-drenched efforts that sound even faster against the sluggish, heavy-handed paces elsewhere all come together into an eclectic yet still-coherent mix that makes for a truly fun offering that winds throughout the tracks as it makes these seemingly at-odds elements sound perfectly natural within the confines of the dark atmospheres conjured up here, and it’s what really sells this one even with it being mostly cover songs for the most part. That the best track here is their original work does speak somewhat to the remaining tracks even if it all comes together nicely in the end as this one manages to feel like a solid piece of work despite the short running time here.
For the most part the tracks have a lot to like here. Opener ‘Love the Lamp’ immediately opens with a strong rocking riff with bouncy drumming keeping the rocking energy moving along at a steady pace as the change-over into steady, swirling psychedelic-styled rhythms plods along through the stylized solo section before getting back to the rousing up-tempo rhythms rocking along through the final half for a rather enjoyable opening. ‘Sunshine’ uses a tight, hard-hitting rocking pace with plenty of rousing, energetic drumming keeping the steady, straightforward rhythms as the buzzing psychedelic rocking riff-work keeps buzzing along throughout the engaging, energetic solo section as the rocking rhythms continue on through the finale for another decent enough effort. ‘Ancient Fire’ takes rumbling, buzzing rhythms and rocking drum-work settling on a buzzing mid-tempo pace with rumbling patterns leading into a frantic and energetic outburst of stylish riffing and tight pounding drumming carrying along through the rocking solo section and into the hard-charging final half for the album’s clear highlight. ‘Serpentine’ features a hard-rocking mid-tempo rhythm with solid, steady drumming holding the fuzzy, buzzing riff-work along at the rocking pace as the changeover into a steady, rumbling psychedelic-flavored mid-range break before launching back into the frenetic up-tempo finale for a fine and enjoyable effort. Lastly, ‘Blood on Satan's Claw’ features the call-and-response intro before turning into a stylized mid-tempo series of rocking rhythms and pounding drumming that keeps the energetic rhythms bouncing along nicely during the steady mid-tempo solo section and keeping the rocking rhythms along through the final half for a decent lasting impression.
Though there’s a few bum tracks that are decent if decidedly lacking against the others, this one still has enough solid points about it to warrant enough of an inclusion for fans of the bands’ previous works, lovers of Lovecraftian-inspired efforts or simply fans of the style as a whole.
Artist: Cadaveric Poison
Release Title: Cadaveric Poison
Year: 2016
Label: Metal-on-Metal Records
Genre: Death/Thrash Metal
Track;listing:
1.Cadaveric
2.The Few
3.Rollover
4.Fight for Evil
5.Forfeit the Race
6.Never Put All Your Stones in One Basket
7.Face the Whore
8.Bombs Away
9.Violence Breeds Violence
10.Poison
The self-titled debut from International death/thrash supergroup Cadaveric Poison offers a lot of exceptionally strong work overall that makes them a potential powerhouse in the genre. This here is mostly all about simplistic, straightforward riffing featuring low, deep rhythm patterns creating a dark, heavy atmosphere that permanently dwells over the entire release emanating from the riff-work. There’s a certain dynamic spreading throughout the album as the cause of the straightforward, simplistic patterns keeps this charging along at pretty frantic, strong up-tempo paces that are far more enjoyable when it really lets loose with these arrangements as the heavy thrashing melds together incredibly well with the primitive death metal riff-work. Off-set by the ability to drop into a stellar mid-tempo sprawl that still maintains that evil, dark atmosphere for a sense of variety, this all makes this a wholly enjoyable and cohesive effort which does manage to highlight the one big flaw throughout here. The fact that the material does come off with a cohesive sound that it feels awfully familiar quite quickly here as it goes about doling out it’s attack which rarely deviates from either pattern throughout here. Considering the chance this had to really let loose if it did something about having both an intro and outro that would have provided more chances to deviate somewhat, but overall this one still doesn’t come off that bad with the enjoyment on offer here with how it executes the material/
The first half sets up this one’s work incredibly well. The instrumental intro ‘Cadaveric’ uses a haunting, ominous series of chords setting the stage for proper first-track ‘The Few’ ripping through pounding drumming and simplistic thrashing riff-work through raging tempos with swirling intense rhythms holding the raw, dirty rhythms along through the onslaught of tight riffing and a strong series of thumping, mid-tempo paces into the solo section leading into the raging final half for a spectacular, rousing opening effort. ‘Rollover’ features tight, swirling thrashing riffing and pounding drumming rolling through intense tempos as the series of sprawling, slow-down riffing makes for a fine segue into a rolling, blistering series of thrashing riff-work leading into the solo section and continuing through the blistering finale for another strong effort. ‘Fight for Evil’ immediately takes on thumping mid-tempo charging with infectious riffing and pounding, simplistic drumming thumping along through the steady paces keeping the simplistic rhythms along throughout the solo section and carrying through the steady final half for a truly enjoyable highlight offering. ‘Forfeit the Race’ uses a sprawling series of riffing before settling on thumping drumming and ravenous swirling thrash rhythms carrying the steady riffing along into the dexterous drumming and holding the steady thrashing riffing along through the blistering solo section and continuing through the finale for another solid, enjoyable track.
The second half stumbles a tad but still has a lot to like here. ‘Never Put All Your Stones in One Basket’ features rattling mid-tempo riffing and straightforward drumming running through a fine mid-tempo pace with plenty of rattling rhythms carrying the steady pace along through the steady paces leading into the solo section and carrying through the final half for a decent and solid track. ‘Face the Whore’ takes a steady, sprawling extended lead-in and melodic leads that turns into a rattling swarm of up-tempo thrashing riffing alongside the rattling drumming that continually pounds along to it’s simplistic charging pace into the solo section and on through the blistering finale for a rather dynamic and impressive effort. ‘Bombs Away’ uses a steady fade-in that works through a fine mid-tempo series that keeps the steady, straightforward riffing along through the deep, rattling patterns and plodding drumming that carries the steady rhythms leading into the solo section and keeping the plodding pacing intact through the final half for a still-decent-if-obviously-weakest track on here. ‘Violence Breeds Violence’ immediately blasts through the steady riffing and churning drum-work carrying the straightforward patterns along through the intense patterns leading through the furious riffing thrashing along through the solo section and keeping the intensity raging through the finale for another utterly strong track. Lastly, album-closing instrumental ‘Poison’ takes the sampled noises and ominous build-up into the light fade-out makes for a fine lasting impression as it ends this nicely.
While it does misstep a bit from time-to-time, there’s still a whole lot of enjoyable elements featured here that makes this a wholly worthwhile example of this genre that sounds ripe and ready for fans of the members’ other projects or for those who enjoy this rattling, primitive-sounding death metal variant.
Artist: Hi-GH
Release Title: Till Death and After
Year: 2014
Label: Metal-on-Metal Records
Genre: Speed/Heavy Metal
Tracklisting:
1.We Are the End of All
2.Till Death and After
3.The Russian Border
4.Sex Machine
5.Drug Your Destiny
6.Devil's Fire
7.Born Under Evil Defence
8.Your Bloody Face
9.White Car Fever
10.Deal of Death
11.Forged in Hell
12.German Metal Attack (Hastighed cover)
The second full-length from Italian heavy metallers Hi-GH is a certainly strong and rocking effort that really gives their speed-driven anthems quite a bit of flair. In contrast to a lot of the written material for the band, the general air here is decidedly classic heavy metal with an admittedly prevalent punk-rock leaning in the simplistic, energetic manner of their rhythm work throughout this, making for a toughened, airy atmosphere throughout here being fueled by simple, repetitive riffing that generates a strong sense of speed for the tracks as a whole. This does drift slightly towards a melodic power metal scenario with the classic rhythms melded onto a speed-metal framework, but the general influx of truer heavy metal patterns does manage to keep this aimed more along that pathway. The biggest issue here is the fact that the strong punk influence here does manage to keep the tracks here pretty solidly and firmly one-dimensional without too many variations or stand-out moments of deviation within their arrangements here, only offered in a few small sections of the tracks which comes more from their traditional metal baseline anyway and really dropping the punk elements out of focus for the most part.
The first half here is a solid-enough start to this one. Opening storytelling intro ‘We Are the End of All’ features a sampled droning effect and a distorted speech that all sets the stage for proper first track as the title track fires off tight, raging speed metal riffing and pounding drumming augmented with the constant volley of galloping up-tempo riffing taking the rumbling rhythms and tight drumming through the solo section and on through the charging finale for an overall impressive offering. ‘The Russian Border’ uses a warfare-themed sample before firing into a steady, thumping series of tight riffing buzzing along to the rumbling bass-lines and pounding drumming charging throughout the solo section with the tight speed metal riffing carrying into the final half for another enjoyable track. ‘Sex Machine’ features an extended droning intro with rumbling riffing, frantic speeds and pounding drumming through the raging up-tempo paces through the rumbling, extended solo section filled with tight raging rhythms that carry on through the blazing finale for a less-enjoyable-if-still-entertaining effort. ‘Drug Your Destiny’ uses a steady swirling mid-tempo plodding rhythm with tight drumming that turns into a steady, rocking up-tempo gallop full of rocking rhythms and speed metal rhythms leading into the explosive solo section with plenty of driving riffing into the final half for another strong and enjoyable offering. The short rocker ‘Devil's Fire’ uses blaring punk-ish bass-lines and rolling drumming kicking into a stellar up-tempo pace with simplistic rocking punk rhythms raging along to the simple riffs thumping along with the rattling rhythms coming along with the strong finale for an enjoyable offering.
The second half here is certainly enjoyable enough with a few minor missteps. ‘Born Under Evil Defence’ brings a moody, atmospheric intro into a strong mid-tempo gallop with swirling riffing and charging energetic drumming racing through the blistering tempos with the stylish mid-tempo patterns continuing through the final half for another solid overall effort. ‘Your Bloody Face’ features a blaring bass-line rhythm and tight, frantic punk riff-work through the blazing up-tempo rhythms continuing throughout the finale for an even more impressive shorter thrasher. ‘White Car Fever’ slowly fades in from a steady speed-metal riffing pattern into a steady speed-driven series of rhythms as the thrashing punk energies are focused into the barreling tempos leading into the first solo section and sprawling through the second section as it leads to the pummeling final half for a highly enjoyable highlight. ‘Deal of Death’ takes thumping up-tempo rhythms and pounding drumming along the steady riff-work with plenty of tight patterns keeping this blazing along with a drop into fiery-but-more melodic rhythms leading into the solo section with the furious, charging rhythms continuing through the finale for strong back-to-back highlights. ‘Forged in Hell’ features a simple, charging riff firing through a blazing up-tempo pace with rocking energetic drumming carrying the frantic, off-the-rails intensity along through the simplistic rhythms with the blazing solo section and keeping the rattling tempos throughout the final half for a rocking, enjoyable track. Lastly, ending with their cover of Hastighed’s ‘German Metal Attack’ keeps the simplistic, driving intent of the original with a thumping, driving attitude from the pounding drum-work that continues on throughout the track here for a fine if non-essential listen to close this out.
This here is a highly enjoyable blast of speed-influenced traditional metal that contains enough dynamics and enjoyable moments to really work a lot of different facets into this one that gives it a lot of overall appeal to those firmly entrenched in the classic old-school metal style or fans of more energetic offerings overall.
Band: Risen Prophecy
Release Title: Into the Valley of Hinnom
Label: Metal-on-Metal Records
Year: 2015
Genre: Power/Thrash Metal
Tracklist:
1.The Descension
2.Brood of Vipers
3.Knowing Nothing
4.To the Wolves
5.Into the Valley of Hinnom
6.The Ascension
The second full-length from UK power/thrashers Risen Prophecy offers up plenty of rather fun and enjoyable elements here that truly make this an enjoyable and wholly interesting piece of thrash. Taking a more speed-driven approach here, the music is by-and-large epic with wholly raging tempos throughout here that retain the technicality, bristling speed and infectious melodies running throughout the album here that when this one gets the intense thrashing driving along there’s plenty of enjoyable elements at play here. That’s even before it starts to take into account the epic-style arrangements at play here, opting for a grandiose sense of bombast that makes for quite an enjoyable addition to the rest of the melodies and rhythms by taking the blazing speed through a truly over-the-top series of patterns that contain the kind of explosive speed required here to really sell this one far more than the rest of the arrangements would’ve without employing that kind of bombast to the remaining elements here. though this does seem a little undone by the quick running time and overall short number of actual tracks on display with the opening and closing tracks being brief interludes against the remaining epic-length arrangements, these here are the only minor flaws on display here.
For the most part there’s no real surprises throughout here as this is exceptionally consistent. Opening instrumental ‘The Descension’ offers a light, romantic notes throughout that eventually work into proper first track ‘Brood of Vipers’ which whips through rolling drum-work and plenty of scorching technically-proficient riffs as the intense rhythms and pounding drumming brings the melodies alongside the pounding rhythms through choppy patterns and scorching intense rhythms along through the spindly riff-work into the final half for a stellar opening impression. ‘Knowing Nothing’ uses tight, raging riff-work and a stellar series of choppy rhythms throughout the first half with scores of melodic sprawling alongside the mid-tempo run with the tight crunchy riff-work with the technical patterns carrying the scorching speed-driven rhythms along into the epic arrangements throughout the extended finale for another overall strong and impressive effort.
By-and-large the second half doesn’t really do much differently from the first half. ‘To the Wolves’ takes a steady, melody-driven intro into a fine, stylish mid-tempo charge with frantic scorching riff-work and plenty of intense, driving riff-work and equally pounding drumming blasting through utterly raging up-tempo flurries bristling with epic, speed-driven rhythms into the melodic solo section and carrying the speed into the driving final half for one of the album’s overall highlight offerings. The utterly epic title track uses a steady mid-tempo plodding first half with tight rhythms slowly working into a thunderous full-throttle charging with the epic arrangements bringing forth even more speed and precision into the frantic series of high-energy thrashing while taking a brooding atmospheric mid-tempo break into a meandering psychedelic dreamspace that finally leads back into the frantic, charging up-tempo rhythms with the epic arrangements that carry through the solo sections into the finale for a truly engaging effort. Album-closing instrumental ‘The Ascension’ takes on a cinematic soundscape with a light guitar droning over howling winds and drawing the epic soundscape through the final half for an appropriate lasting note here.
Overall there’s a ton of absolutely stellar material here that comes off so well and dynamic that there’s so little to find fault with here that it tends to wind up appealing for so many different crowds here this one ends appealing to nearly all of them, from those that enjoy ripping speed-driven thrash, to the fans of epic metal or even fantasy-influenced melodic metal all quite easily.
