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Keep of Kalessin – Kolossus (Nuclear Blast Records)

David E. Gehlke
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Keep of Kalessin – Kolossus (Nuclear Blast Records)

Fresh off a stellar stint on Dimmu Borgir’s The Invaluable Darkness Pt II tour, Norwegian trad black metallars Keep of Kalessin appear to be poised the upper-echelon of modern black metal with Kolossus. The follow-up to 2005’s tightly-wound Armada, Kolossus is every bit of a live recording one could come by, with the band opting to do live takes without the benefit of a click or Pro-Tools, a move daring enough to make anyone’s corpse paint run.

Led by guitarist Obsidian C. (also a touring member of Satryicon), Keep of Kalessin is perhaps one of the more riff-oriented BM bands, with Mr. C. rattling off an array of savory, spiky BM riffage with no end in sight. Some of C.’s more choice riff selections come in the form of the slo-mo prologue of “Against the Gods” or the hard-lined attack of “A New Empire’s Birth,” boasting a chord progression oddly similar to that of Sentenced’s “Nepenthe.”

The penchant for riff-based jams is none more evident during the ferocious blast portion of “Escape the Union,” where C. alternates between dazzling speed-picking and caustic chord combos. Even the wildcard number on the album, “The Mark of Power” is laced with memorable guitar action, as C. opts for more single-picked notes that give Kolossus a new realm in which to operate.

Outside of Satyricon, probably the forthcoming Immortal album, and maybe 1349, you’re not going to find this level of pure, primal BM on a large label. Our BM senses have been dulled by symphonic and basement BM overload, so it’s no surprise that Keep of Kalessin are receiving such high marks – no band is working this well in between the confines of second and third-wave BM.

 www.myspace.com/keepofkalessin

(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)

Headhunter – Parasite of Society (AFM/Candlelight Records)

David E. Gehlke
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Headhunter – Parasite of Society (AFM/Candlelight Records)

Defunct since the early 90’s, Headhunter made nary a dent in the American metal scene by the time Destruction’s Schimer was ready to hang up his studded belt and take some time away from the biz. With Destruction very much an active band, the move to resurrect Headhunter drew some raised eyebrows. After all, the difference between the two bands isn’t that large – Headhunter is more or less a more less-frills Destruction, created in order to fulfill Schimer’s creative needs.

Joined by now former Stratovarius drummer Jorg Michael and guitarist Schmuddel, Headhunter is retains some traditional thrash elements, yet comes across as too safe and predictable. Tunes such as the groovin’ “Silverskull,” “Doomsday for the Prayer” and especially “Read My Lips” (love the opening riff) are what you’d expect from a trio of thrash veterans and are buoyed by a mild power metal slant, which most likely relates to Michael’s involvement with Strato.

A cover of Skid Row’s “18 and Life” is a throwaway number, while the call-and-response “The Calling” and “Backs to the Wall” appear to be created for the sake of playing live, which when translated onto CD, fall a little short.

As workmanlike as Parasite of Society is, it would be a shock to see something different. The German metal scene gets what it wants and in the case of Headhunter, it got paint-by-numbers thrash, a more restrained Destruction, if you will. Good stuff, but hardly worth sticking one’s neck out for.

 www.myspace.com/officialheadhunter

(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)

Power Quest – Master of Illusion (Napalm Records)

David E. Gehlke
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Power Quest – Master of Illusion (Napalm Records)

You know, there was a time when being anything but menacing in metal was a rather large no-no. No smiles, no good times, and definitely, definitely not any ‘fun’ tunes. That all changed when Helloween came around and made melodic metal fun and peppy, but the ‘Weenie’s always had the tunes to back that approach up. In the case of Power Quest, there simply aren’t enough smiles, let along power metal clichés to brighten one’s day – this is bottom-feeder power metal at its best.

The aforementioned good times rolled out on Master of Illusion are apparent right off the bat when a saccharine keyboard melody guides album opener “Cemetary Gates” which is not the Pantera classic. Singer Alesso Garvello croons with little or any conviction on said track and subsequent numbers like “Human Machine” and “Kings of Eternity” which for all accounts, is a direct nod to Helloween’s happy and joyous tome.

Much ado about nothing has made about Dragonforce’s impact on the power metal scene, made all the more convenient considering from DForce keyboardist Steve Williams twinkles the ivories for Power Quest. Not sure who is worse – a band that openly makes a mockery of power metal along with having their studio tracks ‘doctored,’ or a band that is the composite of all that is wrong with power metal. Take your pick. I’m outta here.

 www.myspace.com/powerquest

(This content was originally posted on Blistering.com)

Withered – Folie Circulaire (Prosthetic Records)

David E. Gehlke
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Withered – Folie Circulaire (Prosthetic Records)

The “wall of sound” is a term often bandied about when discussing the rash of post-metal/hardcore/whatever bands that are currently inundating the underground. While excellent bands like Isis, Rosetta, and Cult of Luna have painstaking recreated the Neurosis shoe-gaze, huge wall ‘o sound template, it is Withered that have taken it to new extremes.

The follow-up to 2005’s well-received Momento Mori, Folie Circulaire is the band’s first album with Prosthetic, a move that will certainly push this Georgia-based quartet into new territories. Folie Circulaire is as advertised: hulking, massive, with an ample amount of sweltering melodies and post-metal thrusts that will shake yer foundation and then some.

Opener “An Embrace” cuts right to the chase, with a massive array of big, throbbing guitars making their way through a maze of deep, dingy sonic thrusts courtesy of band leader Mike Thompson and fellow guitarist Chris Freeman. The post-apocalyptic minefield that is “The Forsaken Truth” sees Withered temper the pace to a degree, allowing for those hollow, sparse atmospheres to seep through, just as things were getting too heavy.

Melody is tossed about briefly, especially during the early moments of the thunderous “Purification of Ignorance” and rumbling strands of “The Fated Breath.” Withered is very careful to use such tools, for the bulk of the album stays within the huge wall of sound template they’ve been able to so successfully adopt.

Tailor-made for listening with surround-sound capabilities (no, this isn’t an advertisement…), Folie Circulaire is proof of how throttling and majestic the distorted guitar can be. In the very capable hands of Withered, the possibilities for sonic destruction seem limitless and ultimately, a formality.

 www.myspace.com/withered

(This content was originally posted on Blistering.com)

Daylight Dies – Lost To the Living (Candlelight Records)

David E. Gehlke
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0
Daylight Dies – Lost To the Living (Candlelight Records)

The missing link between the vaunted classic-era Katatonia sound and modern, morose dark metal, North Carolina’s Daylight Dies are now the full-blown torchbearers of all things doom and gloom. There is plenty of moods to go around, but make no mistake – DD are their at emotive and heavy peak with Lost To the Living an album that topples the towering Dismantling Devotion.

Indeed it was with Dismantling Devotion where Daylight Dies hit their stride. As opposed to the very Katatonia-esque and oft-scattershot Idle, Dismantling’sunsettling array of poignant melodies and blunt force rhythms proved that Daylight Dies were about to embark on some unchartered territory.

Lost To the Living retains many of the same characteristics, but as songs like “Cathedral” and lead single “Dressed In White” prove, it’s that DD refuse for any sort of comfort to set in. Just when a soothing, caressing melody moves in (see the tail-end of “Cathedral”), it’s when the band pulls the collective rug out for a dissonant, almost harrowing section.

Furthermore, the band’s growth is more evident during the gentle “Woke Up Lost,” where singer Nathan Ellis doles out a steady stream of hushed cleanvocals that would tempt someone like, an Akerfeldt. Along those lines is the dreamy “Last Alone” a number that wanders into terrorities new for the band, especially those crisp, clean guitar leads which recall that of The Cure in their prime.

As evidenced by their recent opening run with Candlemass and as far back at their 2006 tour with Katatonia, Daylight Dies are very much capable of pulling layered, multi-faceted material live. In fact, so strong is the new tunes in the live arena, it will prompt one to head back to Lost To the Living again and again, just to be sucked in by DD’s intoxicating aura.

www.daylightdies.com

(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)

Heidevolk – Walhalla Wacht (Napalm Records)

David E. Gehlke
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0
Heidevolk – Walhalla Wacht (Napalm Records)

Keeping with the theme thus far for 2008 that folk/epic/whatever metal has set up camp in our collective pysche’s, here comes Heidevolk, a band that no doubt are the bottom-dwellers of this style. If anything, Heidevolk are a poor man’s Thyrfing, without the spirit and good songs, with Walhalla Wachtlosing steam right from the get-go.

Aside from the band’s very remedial riffage and hokey folk slant, vocalist Joris is the main drawback. Joris’ throaty, after-hours mead hall tone wears one down almost from the start on “Sakensland” and proceeds to get worse on “Koning Radboud” and “Het Wilde Heer.”

Some half-decent ideas emerge on the Skylad du-jour “Wodan Heerst” and the title track, but are quickly cancelled out by those wretched vocals and half-hearted riffs and instrumentation.

You can do much better than Heidevolk and to sit here and name what should be an innumerable amount of bands might be time better spent than withWalhalla Wacht, the veritable plankton in the sea of folk metal.

 www.myspace.com/officialheidevolk

(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com)

Desaster – 666 Satan’s Soldiers Syndicate (Metal Blade Records)

David E. Gehlke
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Desaster – 666 Satan’s Soldiers Syndicate (Metal Blade Records)

Kinda like throwback thrash, primitive churn-and-burn BM can be pumped out fairly easily. Not to say bands like Impaled Nazarene or the band in question, Germany’s Desaster are without merit, it’s just that when such a simplistic and bonehead style is performed so overtly, it’s easy to overlook the musical aspect in favor of just how quick and blunt this stuff is.

666 Satan’s Soldiers Syndicate is all that and a bag of chips, with 10 sharp, raw black metal offerings further defining Desaster’s rather nondescript career. The rapid-fire “Razor Ritual” is a quality slab, while the fist-banging “Hellbangers” (yep, the title gave it away) is one of the more immediate and is pulled off admirably thanks to Infernal’s layered and halfway charming riff-work.

While the ever-awesome A. Nementhanga of Primordial fame pops up on “Tyrannizer,” Satan’s Soliders Synidcate and more importantly, Desaster, have done very little here. Just some standard staying within-the-lines, full-throttle, punk-infused BM with no sight of dynamics or the drunken, haggard spew of an Impaled Nazarene.

 www.myspace.com/desasterofficial

(This content was originally posted on Blistering.com)

Deicide – Till Death Do Us Part (Earache Records)

David E. Gehlke
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0
Deicide – Till Death Do Us Part (Earache Records)

If this really is the last Deicide album (as Glen Benton has hinted in several interviews), then consider the band having come full circle. Naturally, there were some significant road bumps and career mishaps along the way, namely the God-awful (yeah, yeah…) Insineratehym and Torment In Hell, but Benton, drummer Steve Asheim and the boys have rebounded with two successive stellar albums in the form of 2006’s stunningly good Stench of Redemption and now this year’s Till Death Do Us Part.

Utilizing the same lineup (Benton, Asheim, Jack Owen, and Ralph Santolla), Deicide has forsaken the bulk of the knifing melodic guitar action that madeStench… so invigorating. Instead, a lot of Till Death… stays in the meaty and chunky realm, sounding like, as advertised, a cross between Legion and the aforementioned Stench….

In spite of Benton’s never-ending bellow (which can grate on one’s soul), the album unleashes some pretty strong cuts, especially the rampant “In the Eyes of God,” a track with a savage pace that is easily one of the band’s best pure death metal cuts. “Worthless Misery” follows suit, with a barrage of unsettling riffs set to the tempo of Asheim’s pounding drums. “Severed Ties” gets the nod for the album highlight, as it is the sum parts of Deicide: manic, slightly caustic and has one of Benton’s monotone, uninteresting vocal parts over top of a pretty killer groove.

Till Death Do Us Part will doubt satiate those turned off by the melodic tendencies of Stench of Redemption, as its unrelenting brutality and cohesiveness puts it on par with 1995’s oft-overlooked Once Upon Cross.

No, this doesn’t rank with Legion or even the first, self-titled album, but should allow Benton to maintain that shit-eating grin he’s been sporting since the Hoffman brothers left. More importantly, Benton should thank his lucky stars Steve Asheim is the creative force behind this band – no predominant figure in death metal has it so easy…

 www.deicide.com

(This content was originally posted on Blistering.com)

Belphegor – Bondage Goat Zombie (Nuclear Blast Records)

David E. Gehlke
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0
Belphegor – Bondage Goat Zombie (Nuclear Blast Records)

Last year’s Pestapocalypse IV from this Austrian duo was all-in-all, underwhelming. For a band that has made its work in the black/death realm, said album tapered off pretty quickly, so off went Belphegor back to work, returning with the much better and more vital, Bondage Goat Zombie.

Falling more on the death metal side of the table, Bondage Goat Zombie (great title, by the way) is characterized largely by the band’s knifing melodies. Sharp and edgy, Belphegor’s melody selection during cuts such as “Bondage Goat Zombie” and the outstanding “Stigma Diabolicum” thrust these numbers into new, exhilarating terrority for the band. When merged with the crazed blasting of drummer Serpenth, the band’s fuck-all speed template shoots through the roof.

Even with these excellent, feverish melodies floating about, Belphegor still tends to shoot itself in the foot with sleazy, dumb-downed numbers like “Sex Dictator-Lucifer,” which does itself no favors thanks to the inclusion of sound samples of woman moaning in delight. Very obvious and dumb, gentlemen.

If Belphegor were to accentuate on the jet-proppelled frenzy of the aforementioned two cuts and the just as formidable “Shred For Satan,” there is no telling what the band could accomplish. For all we know, they could be a better, more listenable version of Angelcorpse, proving that when the afterburners are turned on, melody and cohesion don’t have to be an afterthought. Next time, eh?

 www.myspace.com/belphegor

(This content was originally posted on Blistering.com)

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