My Darkest Time - Transient

This is probably one of the least detailed reviews I've ever writen. As there really wasn't much essense to the album.

The first track "Consoler" was a nice and melancholic piece, but unfortunately only went for about fifty seconds. After that it quickly went straight into the next song without there really being any syncronisation between the songs. It felt like it was trying to rush me into the doom metal album. Something which should never happen. Not ever. But that's what they did.

Quickly after that we went straight into the second song "Taken Away." This would have to be the only moderately good song at all on the album as far as I was concerned. It actually reminded me a lot of Ankhagram. With heavy keys backing a standard death-doom groove. It continued to feel rushed though. Once half way through the song the guitaring starts to sound quite sloppy and out of time with the rest of the music around it. Then after that we get what is possibly the only melodic and interesting part of the entire release. A melody created by both the guitar and the keyboard. This sort of dawdled on until the song eventually ended.

What happened after that was really a My Dying Bride effort, without the effort. Lots of sloppy guitaring without many interesting riffs or melodies or hooks. Just lots and lots of palm muting. This is the sort of collection of songs you'd find if you went through your musician friend's computer after he got bored one day, sat down and just mucked around on the guitar until he had a whole bunch of tracks layed down that he never really talks about. That's exactly what this album felt like.

It is true that if you bother to sort through the mediocrity you find a couple of well created areas. Fleeting Shadows had an eerie and haunting chorus. But as with far too much of this release it's just surrounded and drowned by sloppy palm muting. The song also had a weird mid-section where it faded to a very quiet sound before returning to it's previous volume. If it was an attempt at atmosphere it was a complete failure as it completely distracted me from whatever doomy goodness this song had to offer. The song was further mutilated by the "detuning" of the song right at the end.

The only real redeeming factor behind this album is probably the female vocals. They're relatively well executed and fit into the background nicely giving an almost elegant, gothic touch to the rather, well, flat and boring landscape provided by the uninspired approach to the creative process within this *cough* artwork.

And that's about all that you can expect from this release.

Since this album is already a free download in digital release, I won't bother uploading it to my mediafire account. And here you go:

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Mortification - Scribe of the Pentateuch

When a friend of mine found out I hadn't actually acquired any Mortification releases, he more or less quickly went out and got me the latest copy saying "Review it." He was very interested to hear the opinion of someone who hadn't listened to all the earlier songs and could therefor could come up with an unbiased account for the EP.

Since he bought me the damn thing, how could I not? And I could definitely understand his reasoning after listening to the first three songs. Having heard the songs "Too much Pain" and "God Rulz" before, I had a vague idea of what to expect from an entire release by this band, lots of heavy, fast thrash influenced death metal. And it was that, but there was some definite trad doom injected right into this EP.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a doom album. Not by any shot. But a lot of the songs such as "Scribe of the Pentateuch" and "In Garland Hall" are much slower and atmospheric than true thrash death. About two minutes before the song Scribe of the Pentateuch ends some clean trad vocals come in that could bring you right back to artists such as Reverend Bizarre. In fact, that's exactly what it reminded me of, Reverend Bizarre on auditory steroids. With thick meaty guitar riffs that charge their way through the individual songs. Songs like The Jaws of Life came through with a dirty sludge like riffs suddenly giving way to fast thrashing which then fades back it's earlier sound. This is more than anything a good summary of the composition behind this EP.

The riffs continue to change from fast death thrash and then tone back into something a bit darker, a bit dirtier and a bit more soothing too, and then make their way back to the faster aggressive metal. The songs are more or less similar enough in structure, while still retaining their own unique sound that it's not hard to digest them together in one sitting.

Well, all the songs apart from "Weapons of Mass Salvation."  That song is much more distorted and actually sounds like it has a bit of blackgaze influence to it. Which I never saw coming honestly. It would have to be the most out of place song on the entire album. Using heavy grainy distortion to make chords slide from one to the other with a haunting effect that made me wonder what band it was that inspired it.

After the first six songs we have what looks to be a "Best of the 2000's mini-compilation." This contains the four songs "Priests of the Underground," "Too Much Pain," "Erasing the Goblin," and "Elastisized Outrage." This mini compilation mainly contains thick and heavy death metal with small amounts of trash influenced death metal poking through bringing the release back to a fast and explosive finish.

The artwork is pretty ridiculous. A giant robotic claw is writing on scrolls with a quill while bats fly out of a small explosion in the background. On the back you've got the claw again with a photo of Steve, Lincoln and Andrew. Inside you've got more of the same. Band pics with giant robotic claw and Mortification logo font script. The lyrics section was probably the most creative of the whole art behind the release, as it is a fold out poster for those who would rather chuck the album disk into a CD wallet and then hang the poster on the wall.

Overall it was a good album that I will find myself coming back to now and then when I want some heavy metal that isn't just focused on one single style without letting outside influences into the composition and production of the music. It wasn't a fantastic album, but it was definitely good enough that I'll remember it from here on in.

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Eightball Cholos - Satan's Whore

It's definitely hard to grasp what was going through the artist's mind as this album was made. It starts off with some cheesy ambience that sounds like it came from some poorly made thriller film. Eventually the guitar makes an appearance, that's when you wish it didn't. The riffs feel like they were ripped off of some generic nu-metal artist. This is then followed by some extremely artless yelling. It's pretty clear he's trying to sound emotionally close to breaking. But somewhere between the unforgettably bad lyrics, bad mixing and the repetitive nature of the vocals a vitally important aspect to all music in general was lost. And that is quite simply, quality.

With the emergence of the second song, things hadn't improved. The verse riff showed some promise, unfortunately this was the worst possible thing. It was catchy. The sort of catchy that will one day force the atrocity of this song back into your head. It reminded me of Lady Gaga. Badly composed and designed to worm it's way into your head and torture you for hours. Half way through the song turned into some kind of weird jazz improvisation. Which I'm sure was a miserable attempt at being creative which wasn't pulled off, as it was neither good jazz, good improvisation, or a section of the song that fit with the rest of ear ache.

Cry for Love started off with some sort of audio insert that was supposed to be a baby crying but sounded closer to a five year old having a fit when not given a chocolate bar. I honestly couldn't detect much that separated this song from the first. When the solo kicked in I tried to consider what happened there. Was he drunk? He couldn't be, as he kept time. Was he simply a bad guitarist? I hovered on that conclusion until I realised that due to his speed he must have been playing for a while. Was he bored? Probably. Or, maybe he was just tone-deaf because that would explain quite a bit actually. It was just a smattering of fast notes, with no care for where they landed once again proving speed does not make a good guitarist. When the song ends there's a tangible feeling of relief.

But is that it? Oh, no. No, no, no. There are still thirteen more songs to go after that one. Any sane person would stop listening at this point in order to avoid further auditory suffering. But as I was planning to review the album I stuck it through to the end.

As the next song continued with no discernible improvement, I found myself wondering, "Why?! Why did someone think re-issuing this album was a good idea?" The fifth song on the release, "Valley of Meggido," caught me by complete and utter surprise. After the one and a half minute mark some tasteful sweep picking commenced. And by the three minute mark I found myself thinking, "This is a good song! Not great, but nothing like the rest of the drivel displayed so far." It was not meant to be though. Just after half way through, the song lost all direction and almost as if retaliation for allowing any vestibule of enjoyment being gleaned from the song, it turned into the most tasteless conglomeration of noise heard yet. So you can understand what I mean, I will detail what happened. Instead of working together like before to create two riffs that complimented each other, one guitar just started palm muting the one chord every now and then without any kind of rhythm or pattern, sporadically distracting you from yet another guitar solo that was improvised without any regard for what notes he was hitting or even, ultimately, what it sounded like.

Eventually we came to the song "Mountains of Dead Babies." Nothing could have prepared me for a song this bad. While it sounds like a macabre punch line to a jest, the reality of it is that this is a joke of the worst taste possible. Like most of the songs by this point it starts off with a horrible audio insert. This one is of some children singing a popular children’s christian song before it is abruptly cut off and a child says something half intelligible before some stress inducing shrieking. After this you are left to endure three minutes of dance beats, a low thick voice continually voicing the track title as the main vocals sound like a drunk mad man yelling obscenities in the street. There weren't even any guitars in this song. You would think that a blessing. But all it did was highlight the drums and woeful vocals.

By the time I reached the title track "Satan's Whore" I had come to be thankful for the trashy audio inserts as it was more or less the only reprieve from his irritating and stressful yelling and bellowing.

Song twelve, "Broken," was another surprise. Instead of throwing the listener more under-produced rubbish, we are thrown some under-produced mediocrity. A light melody is played on the guitar while the vocalist whispers about how miserable he is. The song would have been just slightly more than average had it been kept an instrumental.

After that song there's three more stress inducing talentless songs before the last track which is an outré of some drunken guy talking about something.

If you must know about all the songs not properly detailed then they can be summed up with this. They are all generic riffs that could be written by the most basic beginner of guitar. The solos are clearly improvised without any thought or planning into making it sound good. The vocals are a continual assault of yelling that does not let up or stop leaving you both sick in the stomach with a constant headache match. The drums are often simple beats that don't grab your attention to any degree, and often sound electical as though they were made with a computer program. There is no differation. Not one single bit.

My opinion is that this is the worst album I've ever listened to. I've never heard such a collection of bland riffs and headache spawning vocals all thrust onto one album. The only people this release could possibly appeal would be to people who think Disturbed playing too drunk to know what they're doing is a great idea, The fact of the matter is that this is an album released by two "musicians" who were so chuffed by the fact that they had something to release, they never thought about whether or not they should release it. After listening to the entire album I actually felt physically ill. I was further mortified to learn that the mastermind behind the composition of the music and drums was actually a guitarist for DIO from 1993 to 1999.

What I really don't get though is how this ever made it onto a label in the first place. Morphine Records and Sullen Records (for the 2010 Re-issue) must have been banking on selling this release through controversial value alone. Which didn't work anyway, as it became banned from almost all christian outlets for that very reason alone. This album is an abomination and should not exist for the public to purchase. This isn't even the sort of release that you get your hands on just to have chuckles showing it to your friends and watch them suffer through it. There will be no laughing through the purchase (or even download) of this album. Only regret. And more of that than you could possibly handle.

For those that want it:
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Prophets of War - Plains of Desolation

This album is significantly interesting as it sucks you up in it's variety of sounds. You could listen to it straight through several times and still continue to find new things about it. It has a myriad of different influences on it's sound. From the blackened death metal vocals style to the melodic death metal with hints of death doom in the structure of the individual songs. Not that the album is an immitation. Far from it. This doesn't delve into the muddy pool of over used gothenburg death metal sound. What grabs you most about this release is the atmosphere. And to go into that I suppose I'll need to go into detail about the songs themselves.

Crippled was a perfect start to the album. A simple start off with tremolo picking and piano work cruising it's way around the percussion which continues just long enough before launching into some solidly heavy and thick palm muting. The keyboardist uses his instrument to create a dark and pervasive feel, much like the sound surrounding My Dying Bride's Vast Choirs on their original demo. The chorus brings back the tremolo picking with high screamed vocals crying out. The nice thing about this song is that each time the verse starts it gets heavier. The bridge straight after the second verse is catchy, which honestly is the whole feel of the song. This continues even when the bridge stretches into a simple solo and then works itself to a very gentle slowdown. What comes next is in my opinion the best bit of the entire song. A drawn out scream, some more lead guitar work that eventually leads into a particular pattern that becomes mimicked by the piano that then becomes the lead instrument. The piano manages to carry the song all the way to the end beautifully capturing a melodic and well crafted ending.

Regeneration starts off with a fast aggressive blackened melodic death feel. Fast riffing, lots of tremolo and high vocals with some growls thrown in inbetween. A good way to describe this song is if Crimson Moonlight simplified themselves and then changed their tone. About two minutes in it slows down to give you time to catch your breath. It's a song made of sections rather than using a stereotypical song structure. It doesn't use verses and choruses but rather goes from one section to the next. You won't hear the same thing done repetitavely which was cleverly done. Half way through the song it speeds right back up again, letting the lead guitar do some more work this time rather than both guitars just thrashing out the sound. What did surprise me was when the clean vocals made an appearance. The clean vocals didn't last long but were done well. The song ends with some eerie guitar work before finally coming to a close.

In Pursuit of Divinity was definitely my favourite track. The song launches off with some guitar riffing which somes to a bit of a death doom feel with it's merging atmosphere of keyboard, guitar, drumming and drawn out growl work. The vocals are the most intense bit of this area of the song as they don't let up, continually growling out the lyrics amongst the organ style keyboard work and surrounding guitars. Once again I was reminded of a moderately less ferocious My Dying Bride from their Vast Choirs demo. Half way through the song it calms down to some incredibly well crafted melodic work from both the keyboard and the guitars as well as the drums. Three and a half minutes in the song completely throws itself into a whole new atmosphere of passion. This turns itself into upbeat guitar lines and more aggressive vocals thrown into the mix.

Fallen Celestials follows the general mood of the album. Heavy melodic death metal with doom influence punctuated with melodic intervals. The song is more down tempo in general than the rest of the songs. Not to say it doesn't have fast sections, but they're swallowed more by the doom influence which presides over this particular song. Once again there's another melodic section which happens half way through the song which then works itself back into atmospheric heavy guitar work. By the end of the song we have both undistorted guitar melodies working amongst spoken word vocals, distorted guitar and keyboard lingering to the end. I personally found that this song was more of a background song. Better taken in if listening to it while doing other things.

Plains of Desolation had a slightly martial sound to it as it starts off with snare creating a marching beat while the bass pedals along next to it. As in other songs the other instruments launch in next to each other filling out the spectrum of the song itself. The keyboard plays a similar role in this song as it does in Crippled. Being a key piece of the melody while allowing the other instruments to accompany it. Over all the song was however my least favourite from the album. The ending of the song struck me as rather abrupt for the ending of such a well constructed and melodic album.

Over all. It's a well constructed album with tastefully done riffs, well layered atmospheres and sounds. It's a release you'd recommend to your friends looking for good, decent metal which takes you in and offers you an enjoyable 31 minutes of playing time.

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Terraphobia - Evilution

This album doesn't waste a lot of time getting into things. Aside from some intro wind and a little bit of guitaring that travels by itself for a short while, this album straight after launches into fast aggressive syncopated music. Fast drums, fast guitars and drums letting us know that this is a release that doesn't let up for any of it's listeners. And it's not just chunky thrash throwing us some macho metal that's fast without anything else to it's name. There's some great atmosphere that lies behind this music. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of chunky hooks and catchy riffs that fill out all of this release. But behind all of that there's guitar lead that travels through the music. Making sure that you're not just left with a face smash of brutality. You're left with a good dose of harmonies, vocals of pure wrath and some good ol' solos fast enough make sure that you're swimming in sound. There's even sections in some songs where it slows down a little, making sure you have a more appropriate speed for throwing your hair around while you hold your horns up high. This does however, come at a cost. By the third song I found myself checking to make sure it wasn't repeating one of the songs. All the sound is the same tones. Same distortion levels. Same vocal style. Although there were actually a few surprises thrown in. Fallen Hero was the first to break free from the same sound by having a melodic and slowed down middle section that was more soft than anything else.

The Unforgotten was the next song to introduce a new sound to the release. This song was more of a heavy ballad. Starting off slow and quiet, growing heavier all the time while still keeping to the same tempo. Also the vocals weren't as aggressive, allowing you to soak up more of the song's mood. And I'm not saying that every other single song sounds the same, no they don't. If you listen to each song you can hear the difference. What I am trying to say is each song sounds similar. It's much of a muchness to be honest. A good muchness. You can enjoy each song individually and quite a lot too. And thanks to the couple of differences this release was truly an epic release of ferocity leaving the entire album to finish with a slam. To be honest that's all that can really be said about the music in detail. Layered, fast, atmospheric, heavy thrash. Good. But not all in one sitting.

The artwork is entirely death/thrash influenced. With it's block text logo and skull over texture front design. All of the artwork is set in the same colours. Brown on orange, on brown on orange. Inside of the booklet you've got some sepia photos. One of a graveyard, and one of the musician himself, Michael Jelinic in a leather coat looking tough as nuts. The lyric pages each have their own pictures, each according to the theme of the song. Golgotha has the crucifix and a crown of thorns, Fallen Hero has an m60 machine gun and a skull wearing a military helmet.

You get the idea. I guess in this case the artwork firmly resembles the music itself. A lot of the same with some differences thrown in just enough to make it different.

Overall, I did really enjoy the release. The songs are extremely enjoyable, with good composition, audio quality and tight musicianship. However I wouldn't listen to the entire CD in one shot again, but would rather space it out piece by piece.

My Dying Bride - Evinta

For almost every decent band there's that album that most people view with a look of distaste. For Metallica, most would say it was their album "St. Anger." For Alcest it would most likely be "Cailles De Lune". For Amorphis it would have been the moment they stopped doing death metal that their releases lacked any substance. But as far as My Dying Bride goes, it's a bit unclear as to where they picked up, or where they let down. For those heavily into their earliest releases, "Towards The Sinister" and "As the Flower Withers," people would say "Turn Loose The Swans" was where MDB lost it. However, since MDB is best known for their gothic doom metal, let's say for now that was the album where they found their style and really launched off their career. That would lead us to say that "For Lies I Sire" was when they released a truly uninspiring release. The follow up to this being the "Bring Me Victory EP," which was the only song of any decency from the "For Lies I Sire" album, coupled with two covers, and a live song from their first ever demo. And then they gave us "Evinta."

This album had possibly one of the best beginnings I've heard for a very long time. Their song "In Your Dark Pavilion" was an incredibly haunting ten minute track. Launching off with some soft spoken word and elegant violins dancing around each other, female operatic vocals coming in and then fading out. Keys and synth working with each other to create some truly moving moments. Horns accentuated with percussion and organs, once again topped with more operatic sections and then piano coming on it's own before more strings and synth start filling out the background before moving on. All of this works within itself for a good first five minutes of the song. But the whole composition style suddenly changes once it hits the seven minute mark. It's like it stops trying to be a piece of oppression and suddenly becomes a lot more... free. Suddenly it's lighter with piano notes dancing all over the place, horns picking up the atmosphere among "high clouds" so to speak. As though a great big section of light has suddenly forced itself through dark and heavy overcast skies. The song starts picking up, building up, working itself to a very tasteful and incredible crescendo. But even still, it takes it's time to get there. Not forcing you to suddenly face it without some internal preparation. In come Aaron's vocals just when appropriate, saying exactly what needs to be said before suddenly... the song gently drifts itself to an end. After hearing this song... I gleefully anticipated the rest of the album, expecting great things. How wrong I was...

Track number two of disk one then came on. "You Are Not The One Who Loves Me." It started off with potential. Some rather moody piano chords being struck down with a moodiness only the depressed seem to really notice. Violins following that for a short while. After that comes a small piano section. Slightly flavourless, and not terribly inspired to any degree. Aaron starts some rather vague and meaningless vocals that don't really seem to follow any particular direction, story or anything really. The violin comes back, following the same tune it was doing before. Once that finished we get some truly second rate digitally created ambiance. To complete this particularly lifeless song Aaron decided to put in some more uninspiring lyrics not worth paying attention to. Not only are the lyrics rather bland, they don't even fit the particular song. This was to set the bench mark for the rest of the entire album.

Yes, this album does have some sections where the mood captures you and carries you to places of complete melancholic beauty. It does have sections where everything was composed perfectly. And everything holds it's own jewel of elegance. The real letdown is that almost all of those sections are held together by incredibly mediocre and forced sections of hollow sounding emptiness. Songs with irritating out of place harpsichord, horrible lyrics and badly created digital placements.

You hear a lot of influence from other well created neo-classical masterpieces. "Of Lillies Bent With Tears" has a strong resemblance to Ulver's "A Quick Fix of Melancholy," "In Your Dark Pavilion" has strong Dargaard elements to it. However, that doesn't necessarily work in this releases favour. Regardless of the fact that My Dying Bride re-used a lot of their famous riffs from earlier, popular songs in this three (or two disk if you didn't get your hands on the "deluxe" edition) disk abomination, it doesn't have it's own personality to the release. And by that I mean that this release has been so stretched by outside influences and tedious inserts that it doesn't have it's own soul. It's just a smattering of this and a splattering of that.

At this point, I'm just going to go right ahead and say it. My Dying Bride have finally lost it. And if the next release they have to give us is as mediocre as the compositions they've had to give us in the past three years, then it's pretty obvious they've given up the throne of UK gothic doom and it might just be time for an artist like My Silent Wake to come and hold the torch for the next few years to come.

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L.U.S.T. - L.U.S.T. & MRSA [Fuck off Underground Rock demo]

Me and a friend once had a black metal band. It really sucked, to be brutally honest. And after we ended out splitting up and moving in entirely different directions musically, we formed different bands. Me, into doom metal, and him, strangely enough, into glam rock. His band, The Skyrats were a band that was always on my "to see" list, while I never really bothered to attend any of their gigs. Every time that my friend would let me know where they were playing and how much it was, I'd often find myself saying "I'll be there," without ever actually making it. Eventually he informed me of a gig that I'd actually be 15 minutes travel away from on that specific night. Obviously, I decided to make an effort. His band was most amusing to see live, and I didn't regret attending at all. After checking out their set, I had a mosey to the merch table. That's where I found this release.

My friend was playing as an opening act for L.U.S.T.'s "First Tattoo" album launch, and considering the stickers and this demo CD were free give aways for anybody with a mood to grab it, I grabbed it. I didn't bother to stay for any of the bands that played after my mate's and quickly headed off for an entire night of pub drinking and general midnight shenanigans. It wasn't until about half a week later when I was finally home again and ripping new music to my computer that I finally took the time to check out this demo.

I was shocked. I was expecting cheesy, mediocre glam rock that wanted to be just like Nikki Sixx. Instead I got probably some of the best straight out punk rock I've heard in a long time. The lyrics were pretty simple, the demo opening to, "hey, you, fuck you!" But it was addictive. Catchy. Sexy and definitely enjoyable. There's really not much more to say about it than that, really.

Download@Mediafire

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