De Magia Veterum: The Deification (2012)

Sonic Chaos

Most of us have at least one person in our lives who has to tolerate our music. Most of it ain’t pretty, after all. For me, it’s my wife. She can for the most part ignore it (or at least appear to ignore it), while I entertain the kids and my toddlers dance to the music.

But there are some exceptions. There is a kind of music that even metalheads can only describe as “fucked up”: Your Portals and Mitochondrions, and to a lesser extent your Ulcerates and Deathspell Omegas. This is the stuff that sounds so abrasive and runs so counter to the typical rules of music that even among our odd contingent, you must say it’s an acquired taste. De Magia Veterum is most certainly that kind of band, judging by my wife’s reaction to hearing it.

Varg: Guten Tag (2012)

Ich Bin Ein Metalhead

We already had another review of this record, but I would be remiss if I didn't post this second look by Metallattorney.

Okay this one threw me too. I decided after some bad experiences that I needed to investigate bands before listening to them. Just to get some kind of an idea of what I am in for. So I checked out the ever-reliable Encyclopedia Metallum for some information about this band. I saw that they were listed as a pagan metal band with lyrical themes about Norse mythology and fantasy. I suppose that may have been true at one time, but it is definitely no longer the case.

My first clue was the album cover. It does not look like the kind of moody landscape picture you would normally expect out of a pagan metal band. It looks more like something that a dirty hard rock band would use. So already things are a little strange.

Spawn of Possession: Incurso (2012)

Demon Spawn

Review by Metallattorney. He is the law.

Spawn of Possession is yet another technical death metal band. The band has been around for awhile now, though I have not previously had an opportunity to check them out. This is the band's third full-length and their first one in six years. I had heard good things about their prior albums, with some calling them a cross between Obscura and Necrophagist. So I was kind of anxious to hear this group.

The first thing that I noticed with this release is that the band bears a much stronger sonic resemblance to Obscura than to Necrophagist. I have mentioned several times my standard for what is good technical death metal compared to bad stuff. Even though I like Necrophagist, their sound can sometimes come off as cold and sterile. It is as if the band exists to be as technical as possible without much concern for crafting decent songs. Again, I like Necrophagist, but some imitators such as Brain Drill come off as far too mechanical. Obscura on the other hand sounds more human, though still very technical.

Dark Americana Briefs, Part 3

I keep on listening to more and more of what I call dark Americana. I wrote these brief reviews before my brother died, but the music speaks to me now more than ever. Raise a glass to pain.

The Builders and the Butchers: Dead Reckoning (2010)
4 out of 5 stars

After wading through dozens of unknown entities without any discernible connection to metal or punk, I finally found one that was really worthy of attention. The Builders and the Butchers is a folk-rock band that sound like a combination of Man's Gin and 16 Horsepower, fronted by Eddie Vedder. It's catchy, mostly dark (drug themes, etc.) and has the right Americana vibe that I'm always looking for, with a laundry list of different instruments all making an appearance. The search has been worth it, and will continue. Check out Dead Reckoning.



Tangentially, why would you have a laundry list? You wash the dirty ones.

Buy Dead Reckoning

Malignancy: Eugenics (2012)

Reckless Technicality

Review by Metallattorney. He is the law.

Malignancy has been around for a long time, forming in the early 1990's, but despite hearing of the band several times, for some reason I had just never gotten around to checking them out. Until now that is. Malignancy formed out of the same area of the country and in the same general time frame as Immolation and Mortician. But other than playing death metal, they really do not have a lot of similarity to them. Malignancy is far more technical than their more straightforward death metal peers.

The music on this release is hyperactive, technical, and bizarre. Malignancy is a brutal death metal band that utilizes a lot of very technical riffs and sweeps throughout their songs. But there is just something off-kilter about their brand of technical brutal death metal. The whole thing feels off somehow. Malignancy does not really follow a lot of the cliches and expected ideas that a lot of technical death metal bands do. Though their style is definitely technical, something about them just does not fit in with groups like Necrophagist, Obscura, or any other bands. I am not sure how to explain it really, something is just different about Malignancy.

Call On Me Darkness

I was cleaning up the basement tonight, organizing and generally making it a nicer place to be. The last part I did tonight was picking up Legos. Most of them are my brother's old Legos. That's when it hit me hard.

As it happens, I was listening to music on shuffle, and Soilwork's "Sick Heart River" was playing. I know I preach about lyrics being unimportant to music, but that comes with the important caveat: Except when they are important. A few lines seemed fitting:

Leaning against what' next to me
Have no fear, won't see
Will it eat me up or bring me down
I'll gradually make up my mind, my mind...

Revolution within myself
I'm puzzled, still overwhelmed
By the stories that you would tell
They always send me something
Revolution within myself... within myself...

Let me give my best, I won't depend
This time I will make another plan to find
What's left and nothing less, still I won't tread
I'll find my own way to make it all worthwhile

Call, call on me darkness
Wait, wait on me now...
Won't you say...
Say that I'm sorry
'Cause I won't wait

I've found another form
It's breeding life
It must have been there
The whole time when I was dead
'Cause I was pledged to emptiness
And now I've let myself
To see all the things
I just didn't expect

Still I remember, still I repent
I'd walk through
The never
Despite my descent

Reborn, acknowledging the part of me that once was lost
I have repressed, too many years, my utopia was within my grasp

Doomed in absentia, left to be sentenced
Still rising to cherish, all the things I have left...

Call, call on me darkness
Wait, wait on me now...
Won't you say...
Say that I'm sorry
'Cause I won't wait

Sorry, but there won't be a review posted today. But I originally envisioned this as a blog where I could post anything I want. I hope you get something out of this.

Heimdalls Wacht: Ekte Westfäölske Svatte Metal (2012)

More Cowbell

Review by joanismylover, the third metal attorney.

Accompanying his referral of Heimdalls Wacht latest release, the right honorable Full Metal Attorney advised "I liked the last album I heard from these guys, so you might like this one too." I don't much like black metal, so I was not sanguine about his prediction. But duty calls - and I'll not shirk duty in the Full Metal Attorney Court - Internet Web Blog Division. Respectfully submitted, ladies and gentlemen of the metal jury:

The opening intro is, as with most of these types, a waste of time. Uninteresting and in furtherance of no purpose. Then the song which should've opened the album: an apparently typical black metal song "Ekte Westfäölske Svatte Metal" - screaming and noise without any discernable song or structure. On first listen. But then about a minute in the song starts to swagger. You should start to nod that head a little bit in here. We get a little hint of some of what's to come. Things get more interesting with "Unsiälige Kiär" which combines one of Slayer's most famous riffs with some Pink Floyd type choruses for an atypical but interesting aural experience. It isn't earth shattering but it invites further listening.

Satan's Wrath: Galloping Blasphemy (2012)

Worshiping at the Throne of Extreme Metal Pioneers

Review by Metallattorney. He is the law.

Greek band Satan's Wrath make their debut on this release. The band is the new project of former Electric Wizard bassist Tas Danazoglou who appeared on EW's last full-length release but has since moved on. Satan's Wrath is very much Tas's project as he performs the bass, drums, and the vocals with only Stamos K making up the rest of the band on the guitar. Tas has always been something of a menacing presence in EW so this project promised to be intriguing.

Things definitely start out ominously with some bass strings being plucked along with the screams of some poor tortured souls. This immediately leads into an opening guitar melody that would not sound out of place in the opening strains of a Slayer album, just to set the mood.

Zatokrev: The Bat, the Wheel, and a Long Road to Nowhere (2012)

Feel the Fire

It takes some serious balls to put the words a Long Road to Nowhere in the title of your album, when it’s a 76 minute slab of progressive doom metal. The jabs write themselves. But Zatokrev’s The Bat, the Wheel, and a Long Road to Nowhere is so damn good, they don’t need to worry about that. It may be exactly what you need to replace the hole that Opeth left in your life.

That paragraph could lead you in all sorts of wrong directions, so let’s clear some things up. The label “progressive doom” usually does not bode well, typically signifying some kind of psych-instrumental jam session, but that couldn’t be further from what Zatokrev has accomplished here. They’re not progressive metal in that sense, but in the sense that’s used to describe bands like Opeth or Enslaved. In other words, it’s not aimless noodling; it’s a series of interconnected but radically different parts creating a dynamic whole.

I plan to get back to regular posting tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed my top 12 list. Happy 2013! For people in my family, it's hard to imagine it would be worse than 2012.