It’s a relief then that the world post millennium tension is a safer place (in the realm of death metal) thanks in part to steadfast devotees such as Hungary’s Gutted; whose third release from 2010 (first I’ve heard) continues to show that there are plenty of heads out there content to simply lock down and blast their way to satisfaction. Mankind Carries the Seeds of Hell, is a competent palette cleanser (grinder) of orthodox, rampaging death metal that is content for what it is and knows what it excels best at. It won’t be considered as immortal, it won’t be considered as one of the greats, but it can be heralded for its honesty, focus and integrity.

Six minute opener “As the Sun Paints Everything Black,” is built on blurring, buzzing gallops and a furious clatter of percussive implosions. The vocals are painful, strained roars with a slight guttural tinge but are clear enough to decipher the unwholesome lyrical incantations. Despite the length and somewhat linear construction, there is enough variation and interesting passages of intricacy to prevent boredom or being simply overwhelmed by the single-minded ferocity. ‘Memory Devourer,’ builds on the opener’s momentum, cascading riffs and beats violently with the latter element feeling inhuman at times feeling due to the sheer level of intensity.

It’s this vigor that is Gutted’s greatest asset and it is also what carries but also invigorates the body of their work. Later cuts such as the unfortunately titled “Souls of the Raped Children,” maintain the pace of earlier pieces, be it with little variation, however, this shows that Gutted don’t really need gimmicks, curveballs or just plain nonsense to construct their compositions.

Having the courage to step outside of the comfort zone has resulted in some of the greatest albums in the history of music, death metal included. At times though, being comfortable and simply producing something that’s good and enjoyable is enough, especially in these times of emo-crunk, gorestep and whatever other gruesome genre splicing nightmares lurk around the corner.

For me, 2010 was a year of unheralded firsts, a year where many new and often unsigned acts cut a swathe through my top ten list and the usual big name stalwarts were left glaring in the wings. And for me, black metal was surprisinglyprevalent. Entrails? Arkheth? The Makai? Norse? Aiumeen Basoa? Who the fuck are these guys? Well, get to know them, as they produced some of 2010’s best metal.

1. Entrails – Tales from the Morgue

This album is so retro, I lost 80lbs and grew my mullet back. Filled with songs that were actually written in the heyday of 90s Swedish Death metal, Tales from the Morgue sounds like a long lost gem unearthed from is dusty tombs rather a neo throwback or lazy homage. Tracks like “Voices” and “Euthanasia” are pure Stockholm brilliance, with a guitar tone sent from God himself.

2. Arkheth – IX & I: The Quintessence of Algaresh

There’s ambitious and then there’s the second album from this Aussie duo: 2 CDs, 10 songs, 2 fucking hours of the most epic, regal yet organic and mesmerizing symphonic black metal of the last 10 years. It almost makes the scrotum bearing, man-goat rape on the cover worth while.

3. Deathspell Omega – Paracletus

I’m pretty sure that Paracletus was not meant for human ears. Like a dog whistle, its on audio levels, mere mortals cannot comprehend. Somewhere in hell, every time this CD plays, a demon bangs his head. The fact I only owned this 3 days before my year end list was due and it comes in as an instant top 5 album shows its dynamic, twisted, hallucinatory savagery.

4. Agalloch – Marrow of the Spirit

I tried not to be vogue with this pick, but to be honest up until Ashes Against the Grain, I always considered Agalloch to be pretentious and over-rated. And with 2010 being the year I returned to nature, their form of Grey metal topped other excellent like minded releases by Winterfylleth, Nechochwen, Ironwood and Negura Bunget. Like a walk in the woods after a snow storm, the brisk and harsh elements meld with elegant, organic and introspective musings. Complete with frosty breath and Perniosis.

5. The Makai – Embracing the Shroud of a Blackened Sky

Here’s a release I could have submitted as a couple of other things; best vinyl release, best song, best EP- whatever. Consisting of one brilliant 27 minute song that culls from black metal, metalcore and post rock, “Embracing the Shroud of a Blackened Sky” remains one of the most epic pieces of music Ive heard in the last few years. its a shame those without LP players wont get to hear it until it’s (hopefully) released as a CD at some point in 2011. Then Ill wait for all the “HOLY SHIT ERIK- you were right- I want your babies!!!!” emails to pour in. Listen to this.

6. Aiumeen Basoa – Iraganeko Bide Malkartsuti

Auime–what? Iraqanko bide- huh? I’ve owned this album for 6 months and still have no idea what these Basque folk/black metallers are talking about. Needless to say though, when you beat out the likes of Equilibrium, Kivimetstan Druidi, FInntroll, Heathen Foray and Heidevolk for the years best folk metal album, who cares. Brilliant, ambitious and beautiful this new act is sure to stay on my radar for the next few years.

7. Norse – Hellstorm

Who would have though that an Australian unsigned black metal act who took nearly two years to record their searing debut would unleash the most perfectly title album of the year? That’s not a black/death metal album- THIS is a black/death metal album. Yes, that ‘s a Crocodile Dundee reference.

8. Nightbringer – Apocalypse Sun.

This paranoia inducing slab of discordant filth came very close to stealing Deathspell Omega‘s thunder. As it stands its simply one of the best , most disturbing and truly evil USBM records of the last few years without traipsing in the woods or delving into post rock trends. Sick and cathartic, I’m still paying for therapy.

9. Iron Thrones – The Wretched Sun

Another self released gem, the second album from Iron Thrones proved the No Label Needed contest winners did not in fact need a label. Mixing sublime Opeth textures with elegant Burst, Isis and Callisto crescendos, ebbs and flows, The Wretched Sun is a near perfect listen with “I Once Had the Crown” simply being one of the best songs of the year in any genre.

10. Jaldaboath – The Rise of the Heraldic Beasts

Thats right, you cant keep my British lineage down. Yes, a tongue in cheek folk metal, heraldic Templar rock, Monty Python core album from a crusty old guy that was in The Meads of Aspodel made my top ten. I grin from ear to ear whenever I hear “Hark the Herald”, “Bash the Bishop” and “Axe Wielding Nuns”. Lets hope the left over, more serious The Meads of Asphodel hues are filtered out for the next album. Hey nonny nonny!

11. Rotting Christ – Aeolo

12. Negura Bunget – Vîrstele Pămîntulu

13. Decrepit Birth – Polarity

14. Nechochwen – Azimuths to the Underworld

15. The Red Shore – The Avarice of Man

16. Black Breath – Heavy Breathing

17. Shadow of the Colossus – Shadow of the Colossus

18. Woe – Quietly, Undramatically

19. Hail of Bullets – On Divine Winds

20. Equilibrium – Rekreatur

21. Heidevolk – Oit Oude Gronde.

22. Amia Venera Landscape – The Long Procession

23. Heathen Foray – Armored Bards

24. G0d Dethroned – Under the Sign of the Iron Cross.

25. Wuthering Heights – Salt.

Best Songs: Entrails “Voices” + “Euthansia”, Iron Thrones “I Once had the Crown”, Jaldaboath “Hark the Herald”, Heidevolk “Beest bij Nacht”, Svartsot “På Odden af Hans Hedenske Sværd”, The Acacia Strain “Impaler”, Rotting Christ “Aeolo”, Arkheth “Faint Whispers in the Heart of Orion”, Keep of Kalessin “The Divine Land”, Aiumeen Basoa “Aintzinako Guduen Oroimenak”, Dimmu Borgir “Dimmu Borgir”.

Albums that might have made this list if I had more time to listen to them : The Meads of Asphodel – The Murder of Jesus the Jew, Winterfylleth – The Mercian Sphere, Ihsahn – After, Melechesh– The Epigenesis, Sigh –Scenes From Hell, Weapon – From the Devils Tomb, Withered – Dualitas, 1349 – Demonoir, Journal – Unloria.

Stuff I heard in 2010 that would have been on my 2009 year end list: Painted in Exile – Revitalized EP, Cormorant – Metazoa, Sickening Horror – The Dead End Experiment, The Ruins of Beverast – Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite, Hull – Sole Lord.

Best non Metal album – Eminem – Recovery

Best Reunion/Comeback – Atheist – Jupiter, Fear Factory – Mechanize.

Best EPs – Nails – Unsilent Death, Fleshgod Apocalypse – Mafia.

Biggest Surprises – New Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth albums not sucking.

Best Free, Digital Release – Contaigeon – Death at the Gates of Delirium

Biggest Letdowns –Arsis,  Ov Hell,  Iron Maiden, Cephalic Carnage and Dawnbringer

2011 releases that are going to be on this list next year: Fen – Epoch, Mitochondrion – Parasignosis.

Armed only with a seriously down-tuned guitar (no bass!), drums and a yowling, bellowing female lead singer (the unexpectedly pretty Kat Katz, also of Agoraphobic Nosebleed), the three-piece slowly and steadily pounds out one lengthy, droning assault after another. As expected, it’s all ferociously bottom-heavy, smoky and filthy, and despite the slow, drawn-out tempo, the overall effect is one of relentless, single-minded and murderous purpose. Knock it down and this thing will just get up again and keep on coming. Eventually.

Despite a basic appreciation for what Salome is able to pull off with so little, I personally found Terminal to be well, interminable. There’s melody here, well kind of, but it’s far too stretched out to really follow along. I was only able to get into the right hypnotic groove a couple of times before my mind started wandering, mostly towards wanting to play the new Agalloch again. As background music it’s pretty cool, but I won’t be listening to it on my drive to work.

The fact that there’s a 17-minute piece of noise in the middle of the album didn’t really help matters either; it’s the equivalent of me filling up a paragraph with kajfhasldkfj;alfa;lmdk flaskfd.lkajf lkjzx.l,mc jnal skfsj.LKJC>l,zm xc. mzNJFCklja;ljk fq wjjdb qwk jqwwwdkjdhk MC,masndoi HFKZ JXN.C,MN zx>LIFCHa;i fj.,zm xcn.,mzXNC>liha;FLKJD.,ZMXCN.,MZafak jdnkenw kasn dcx,mndcjahw akdnqwkjdjns d kdjhnzAcndaKJSH DKL JCMNZX,MCN,A KJHFDL KAHNLD WKJ A,msdn,zxmnc,mzxnc,ahldkhn,xmcn,KH WKEL ja.d,m zx.,cmdw wqnbm.

Heck, my favorite album of 2009 was a a self-released effort from Kalisia. I get even more pleasure of receiving and reviewing self-released CDs because of all the hundreds of nameless and faceless digital promos I get inundated with from big name labels/bands that get put on the back burner.

On their self-financed―on their own imprint Final Legion, though―five song debut EP, this duo (featuring Brian Carrigan, former vocalist  of grindcore act Exitium) crank out some very impressive melodic black/death metal that reminded me of Order of Ennead/Council of the Fallen and Epoch of Unlight… only with a dash of grindcore.

It’s very tightly played, delivered with a big label production and the songs have the perfect balance between seething vitriolic black metal, slicing melody and deeper death metal injections. The often blistering pacing is matched by the hawk like shrieks and the death metal is by way of some gruff growls and some transitional lopes.

Jumping right into the fray with opener “Terror Pontifex”, and during the 1:15 minute mark, Nahurak throttle you into paying attention with a killer blasting melody. The same level of tenacious yet melodic delivery surfaces in the third track “Adversarial Ligature” heralding that Nahurak’s songwriting ability as the tune also includes a killer thrashing romp about three minutes in. Then “Excoriated Earth Incantation” shows the band dabbling a more complex delivery with shifty time changes and tech intricacy interwoven into the black sheen―tech/black death grind maybe?

There’s enough quality riffs packed into this compact EP to warrant the $5 asking price.

If any drummers out there fancy being part of what looks to be a very promising US based black/death metal act, go ahead and hit them up while you order the CD from their MySpace page.

That being said, I’m not really sure of the need for this act if you own all of Tyr’s albums. Joensen’s signature voice (singing exclusively in Faroese) and the distinctly early Tyr-structures, its virtually impossible to distinguish Heljareyga from Tyr ― even if the new band uses only explicitly new arrangements rather than traditional Faroese music.

With only five songs and a running time of 48-minutes, Heljareyga isn’t an instant easy listen with the rangy, complex songs―all hovering around the ten minute mark―that simply meld into one super long foray into progressive, folk tinged metal.

It’s not so much about war marches and violent clashes of steel, but a more restrained, artful and poetic delivery. There’s no rousing choruses like “Hold the Heathen Hammer High” or soaring layered vocals of “Sinklars Visa” or stirring traditional pieces. Instead, there’s a steady stream of generally upbeat noodling and riffage littered with lots of acoustic bridges, lengthy solos and more convoluted, stuttering structures. It’s all played with expected passion and skill, full of Joensen‘s evocative croons. The songs wind and wander with aplomb, but by the same token, they don’t really go anywhere or do they truly peak.

Tracks like “Heljareyga”, “Lagnan”, and “Vetrarbreytin” have a hard time grabbing me. First and foremost, they seem to showcase the band’s undeniable skill, rather than develop into actual, enjoyable songs: They play more like the background music to an SCA-event, rather than draw you into a world of stern warriors, pillaging and general testosterone.  On the other hand, they do sort of become an extension to Tyr and most of all, Joensen. Thus, die hard fans will certainly appreciate this release but personally, I’ll simply wait for the next Tyr album.

The album opens with a horn blowing and some fire crackling as thunder strikes. Had me instantly thinking of Viking warriors leaving a battle where they just destroyed a temple full of monks. Very cinematic and serves as a great intro before the first actual song. “…Where His Ravens Fly” is a fantastic all clean sung danceable track and an epic way to start the album. The clean sung vocals had me thinking of the band Tyr, which in my opinion isn’t a bad thing. Keeping a steady staccato based beat and almost march like rhythm, the song eventually closes with finely picked classical (mandolin?) guitar.

The next song “Time Between Dog And Wolf” starts with harmonized choir-esque vocals until the demonic rasps make their way into the playing field. Keeping the same mid-paced feel the song adds some classic black metal riffage that brings Burzum to mind.

A river’s stream is present in the beginning of the instrumental track “Tanfana”, signaling the nature aspect found in most albums of this kind. The song itself has a pretty-ish flute melody that dances around the mid-paced drums. That changes around the three minute mark as the flute takes on a haunting yet beautiful sound as soft synths emerge in the background. The mandolin eventually adds itself to the mix and the song continues with the intro melody until the end. A little long for an instrumental but it held its purpose rather well.

The last three tracks have the band continuing with the mid-paced jams. From harmonic choruses and layered clean vocals to finger plucked melodies and Burzum-esque riffs. It seems as if the band is running out of ideas as most of these tracks follow a similar path. It would have been nice to see more flute brought out on some these tracks and the pace could have quickened up a bit as the whole album is a little slow and does get a little boring towards the end.

If the band can work towards bringing in a more diverse sound and adding some more instruments to their art then they will in fact have mastered their craft. It is what it is – a strong Viking metal album; they just need to focus and take a little more time in piecing together their music.

Fitting snugly alongside the likes of Grave, Hooded Menace, Runemagick, Autopsy, Coffins, Funerus and such; loping mid-paced lurches meld with a few sloppy blasts filled with sickly cavernous growls. It’s all very organic, primitive and natural sounding with nary a triggered blast beat or arpeggio in sight and those wanting a break from the clinical precision of Decrepit Birth and their ilk might do well to check this out.

That being said, the almost Neanderthal approach to death metal is archaic, and beyond the enjoyable, nostalgic simplicity, there’s not that much to remember or come back to once the record is over. The initial retro buzz, burp n fuzz of “Burn Your Dead”, “Cannibal Abattoir” and the more feral ”Born in a Grave” has its moments of knuckle dragging glee but still, even the ever so catchy,  groovy and almost stoner main riff of ten minute closing instrumental “Death Metal Suicide” wears out its welcome about five minutes in.  Also the bands insistence of trying to inject blast beats here and there just aren’t very convincing. Instead, The Dead are far more convincing when delivering a pure unabashed, sludged out dirge like “Blood Angel”.

Still, those wanting a purely throwback album of sweaty, burly simplicity could do worse this than this and it at least come across as a bit more honest than the current wave of Incantation clones.

There’s not really a moment on this album that will make your jaw drop or wow you in any way. On the other hand, there’s also not really a moment on this record that’s disappointing or unenjoyable. Sure, it’s by-the-numbers thrash. But it’s very well done by-the-numbers thrash.

Coordinates of Confusion will catch the attention of thrash fans from the galloping opening riff of “Mind Decay.” Like most of the riffing on the record it’s fast, concise and tight, the hallmarks of the genre’s best acts. One of the things that sets them apart a little in my mind are the vocals of Alex Skofljanec. Beginning with the chorus of this opening track, he delivers a more melodic vocal style at times, reminiscent of Iced Earth’s Matt Barlow in his better moments. Thrash vocalists that can actually sing are rare, and often annoying, but Skofljanec walks the line well, and it really works, particularly on tracks like “Disharmony,” where he stretches it out a little more.

While most of the record is straight up thrash, they do throw in a few tempo changes. The soft interlude “The Way To …” is reminiscent of one of Testament’s short instrumental pieces, and there’s a bit of a melodic stretch on the chorus of “Addicted to Aggression.” Mid-tempo pieces like “Sickened” reinforce the Barlow vocal comparison and possibly tread a little too close to the Iced Earth sound, but they’re still good pieces. I prefer, though, the all out gallop and bashing of a tune like “Shark Attack.” Sure, we’ve heard it before, but it’s still a lot of fun.

There are some flourishes throughout the record, on songs like the title track, with an almost proggish bent that seem to imply a much greater promise under the surface of the band’s fairly typical take on thrash, and I’d like to see them explore that a little more. Hopefully they will on future efforts. It would be interesting to see where they could go with it.

Coordinates of Confusion won’t blow anyone away, but it showcases a young band with great energy and chemistry and a huge upside. If they choose to get a little more adventurous on future efforts, they could make a big impact on the current thrash scene.

On the War’s other side: bands fully participating in this, the most drop-dead exciting period in metal history by dressing to match. Bands who understand that what you wear can be, should be, I’d argue, a reflecting image of what you sound like—which is a working definition of one of the many things fashion is about.

These Fashion Bands suffer no ceiling on the size of their audience, what with them appealing to both sexes while Troo Dudes take a perverse pride in their incredibly limited, all-male audience. Which you might say something to do with metal in general being literally, anxiously, and often hilariously homosexual.
But more on that sort of thing later.

Children of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho, Slayer’s Kerry King, and Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Syke’s have all started lucrative fashion labels based entirely on an understanding that fashion isn’t ‘just’ clothes. It’s also about how we show identity, a silent peer-to-peer declaration.

In the same way that 70s gay men wore yellow or red handkerchiefs in their Levis to let fellow cruisers know what kink they preferred, so a Troo Dudes’ band-tee silently announces to other Dudes his preference of tech death over neo-pagan.

As for what this war actually looks like, a scan of any of this months’ metal mags tells the tale.

On the Fashion Band side there’s Volbeat fusing Johnny Cash bad-ass loner and ‘50s juvenile delinquency chic. The result: sleek designer leather jackets, pompadored hair, indigo jeans. A look that screams swagger and melancholy, just like the band’s songs do.

Just what Triptykon wear, I can’t say. Like the brilliant video for “Shatter,” their clothes are like shadows Tom G. Warrior and his darkened crew paint on their bodies. I kept thinking of Christian Siriano—a winner on Project Runway—and his brilliant post-goth fantasias.

For sheer Holy Shit! value, there’s Melechesh’s S&M bald Arabic torturer look, complete with multiple rosary beads, arcane metallic necklaces, and scary guyliner (!).

For inspired WTF, Dimmu Borgir’s white-dusted, PETA-baiting leather-and-fur medieval warrior gear. It’s uncanny imagery that makes people download out of sheer curiosity: Total fashion WIN.

The inspired variety never ends. From Bring Me to the Horizon’s stylized prettiness to Ghost’s evil-Pope chic (!) to Watain’s gruesome heavy-sigil, Fashion bands appeal sell to both genders—the nerve!–courtesy seductively stylized layers of fantasy, strangeness, gender ambiguity and the sinister in ways only metal, of all genres on Earth, can provide.

And the Troo Dudes, in page after page of band profiles?

Jeans. Band tees. Long hair. Some kind of shoe. Good night and good luck.

Starving for an ‘authenticity’ that doesn’t exist, and would be irrelevant if it did (is In Flames less Troo because they use triggered drums?), the fledgling Troo band that attains the perfect visual blahness can join a legion of other 501-Levi-favoring bands who look exactly alike, with only most obsessed male fans and mags able to tell one band from the other, and with sales to match.

Incredibly, a certain strain of metalcore and post-hardcore find the Troo Dudes too stylish and so the single lasting element that suggests someone might be in a band—long hair—has been shorn to attain a new pinnacle of blah conservatism. And so bands like Underoath, A Day to Remember and Your Demise not only have short hair, but the studied un-cool short hair of the junior banker who turned down your student loan. More interesting bands like Torche and Kylesa have just thrown up their hands and opted out of the War entirely by dressing like indie bands.
Meanwhile, the dis of choice lathered on Fashion Bands by the Troo are ‘gay’ and ‘fag’. This despite the fact that the stunningly gorgeous Ville Valo attracts female fans in Elvis proportions while any given Troo Dude answers sweaty emails from tween boys about classic Charvel neck sizes.

This is what we professionals call irony. And one of several reasons Troo Dudes work so darned hard toto keep up their side of The War, to look dull, loathsome, unbathed, infested by gnats or worse, has to do with what I mentioned earlier, about metal’s intrinsic gayness.

Metal guys constantly joke with varying degrees of nervousness about the subject but that doesn’t change the fact that metal, with sometimes traumatic exceptions we’ll get to in a moment, has always looked hilariously homosexual (close your eyes and think Manowar, Venom, Danzig and Rollins) and that metal operates in a queer fever dream of sweaty, half-naked boys bumping against each other in dark, dingy clubs followed by ritual merch table genuflections before favorite axe masters and poster downloads of Zakk Wilde in extremis.

And girls? Girls? Ha ha ha—you so fooney.

Instead of supporting female metal at least as a way of deflecting charges of being in a genre created in part by delightful gay people like Judas Priest’s Rob Halford and horrific ones like Gorgoroth’s despicable Gaahl, Troo Dudes barely know the incredible wide world of female metal even exists.

Sure, there’s Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow. But Angela, with all respect, rocks a tomboy drag that neutralizes the gender threat lurking in her cookie monster. And there’s Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia. But swell voice aside, Scabbia’s as edgy as a retired Suicide Girl signing autographs at an adult video convention. She has an advice column in Revolver magazine, for crying out loud.

Beyond that? It’s just pitiful or sad—I can’t decide.

Femme-led goth-metal is a joke to Dudes and Dude-identified critics.  Full-blown metal art music by the likes of Karyn Crisis, Julie Christmas and the goddess Jarboe garner passing and/or dismissive praise—or more depressingly, that praise floats from a magazine’s pages into an abyss of reader disinterest.

As Next Big Things are regularly made of much thinner gruel, it’s a sure thing that the face-ripping neo-Bolt Thrower-isms of Landmine Marathon would be headline news if only the band wasn’t led by Grace Perry, whose severe hotness, intense stage performances and gold standard shriek probably has Dudes screaming vagina dentata. Metaphorically, I mean.

It’s also essential that Perry, and the vocal flamethrower that is Firebrand Super Rock’s Laura Donnelly and the liquid smoke that is Anneke van Giersbergen and the angrily fluid folk-metal alto that is Rose Kemp not be given too much attention as it threatens Troo Dude macho hegemony (look it up, dude) which Fashion bands further  throw into crisis by being so un-Dude.

Finally (for now), I really can’t help but wonder how seriously critics, the ones who have a cow over Opeth and Porcupine Tree, would take the demonstrably more inventive, stone brilliant, seriously sui generis prog metal of Madder Mortem if lead singer Agnete Kirkevaag hadn’t chosen to be fat and a girl.
I mean, seriously, what was she thinking?

I don’t think this is garden variety misogyny. I think it’s bizarre-o-world homosexualized misogyny, as in: We don’t hate women, it’s just that we just like, uh, guys.

In its innocent form, this is due the fact that a goodly portion of metal fans are really young and really male, and as such, shit-scared of females. And so they retreat into the anonymous safety of jean-tee chic because Decibel’s featured bands do so.

Less innocent is the repetitive imprinting of these retrogressive, tight-assed, frowny-faced notions of what real guys can and can’t look like and act like and before long you’re like a total douche bag on an episode of Glee except, like, real.

There are reasons why the bands, and many of the critics covering them–who often love to identify themselves as beer-drinking, fashion-oblivious manly-men—insist on staying frozen in fashion amber.

One is that bands, critics and fans have, decade after decade, been in this attraction/revulsion, PTSD relationship with ‘80s hair metal. Especially those who survived the period.

I mean, damn, you look at Angel, Britny Fox, Hanoi Rocks, Faster Pussycat, King Kobra, Poison, Ratt, Stryper, Jon Mikl Thor, Twisted Sister, W.A.S.P. and Ziggy Stardust looks like fucking Daniel Craig in comparison. Just one set of Cinderella PR pics makes one imagine an entire generation of drag queens weeping, knowing there was no way for them to compete.

At the same time that Freddie Mercury looked 100% more butch than Poison—although ‘butch’ was in quotes but what Dude knew about camp?—hair metal bands rediscovered that the most important thing a straight guy could want—female attention—could best be guaranteed by looking like a girl.

Eventually the fad faded but those images and all they suggested had a lasting, inverse effect.  Everything since then has been relentlessly, crushingly hetero. Being crushingly hetero is what, in the case of Pantera, separated that band from the relative pansies in Nirvana.

There’s another real world reason for Troo Dudes’ gather-the-wagons entrenchment in retro non-style—it’s the real sense that metal is being assimilated into the culture at large.

It’s a hoot to see your favorite metal archetypes doing dumb things in Metalocalypse. And don’t tell me you didn’t get a thrill the first time you saw the ads for Iron Man using Black Sabbath’s eternal song. But aside from bringing marginal riches to your occasional Mastodon, unleveraged assimilation is every subculture’s worst nightmare. All the once-precious things used in those entertainments kind of don’t mean anything anymore. They’re just…stuff.

But what seems bad might be super-good: instead of returning endlessly to the same old shit—that is, doing what Troo Dudes do—Fashion bands need to ‘metal-up’ in new ways. Triptykon did. Ghost did on what looks like P!nk’s nail polish budget. If you want dark, forget Hot Topic: go to a gay fetish retailer for state of the art chains, leather and so on.

Or forget that shit altogether and…I don’t know, do something amazing.

But onward. There’s also the annoying semi-threat of indie kids and hipsters not only adopting metal-esque face fuzz and long hair, but also wearing our Maiden, Nachtmystum, and Black Breath tees—sometimes without irony, even. Still, being a pint-of-mead-half-full kinda guy, I like the idea that actually listening to these bands will exert some alchemical power to turn the indie-ites into metal kids. Animal Collective and Deerhoof, begone!

In the mean time, I will assume this Great Fashion War of 2010 will end with at least some of the unbearably ugly, conservative, unimaginative, retrogressive and Troo withering away. Because believing otherwise is just too grim and anyway, good stuff does tend to, over time, wear away at bad.

Yes, we will have to suffer through the visual Ambien of Parkway Drive and the like and roll our eyes while metal media tries to sell us on the idea that the future of a forward-looking genre like metal lies in hyper-conservative iterations of the past, in a nu metal resurgeance, inmore post-hardcore, in more regurgitation, in uniformity when constant chage is really the only viable long-term alternative.

You can make fun of Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli making himself up to look more glam  than the tough girlfriend that you never had, but the fact is that  that  “’Crucify Me” is fucking radical pop metal art, it’s 4:59 minutes of atonal screaming, spazz-riffing, drop beats, and computer-assisted Robo-girl vocals. It’s metal in the process of redefining itself.

And it’s anything by Japan’s Sigh, whose Dr. Mikannibal rocks gender roles with her unholy-hot Hello Kitty dominatrix look while bleating super evil sax while keyboardist Mirai Kawashima, sporting his cyber wizard look, batters you with something akin to fun spaghetti western black metal.And it all works.

No other genre can hold such extremes as Bring Me the Horizon and Sigh and still work as a genre. And yet metal does. And the people who grasp that idea and act on not only win this seemingly silly fashion war, but the way bigger ones that operate in exactly the same way.

The basic genre is the same, but Holy Grail takes a slightly different approach. While White Wizzard revels in the camp of a pure throwback sound, Holy Grail puts a more modern spin on it, bringing elements of power metal and even thrash to bear in the tracks on this record.

It’s taken me a while to get around to reviewing this because I had to listen to a song other than “Call of Valhalla,” my personal favorite of the songs on Crisis in Utopia. It opens with a massive throwback traditional metal riff with just a hint of doomer or stoner rock in the melody and a huge chorus that gets stuck in your head.

That’s far from the only highlight on an album loaded with great, memorable metal. The lead guitar licks that open the record on “My Last Attack” will catch the attention of trad fans instantly. “Immortal Man” offers up a chunk of great galloping traditional metal straight out of the early 1980s. “The Blackest Night,” another favorite, has a great groove and brings some more modern influences in on the screaming, chugging chorus. There’s a bit of an Iced Earth feel to the song overall. “Chase the Wind” showcases more top-notch guitar work from Eli Santana and James J. LaRue, and another one of those huge, catchy choruses. “Requiem” delivers a sludgy, satisfying Sabbath-influenced opening riff before settling into more familiar territory, and “Cherish Disdain” opens with a charging thrash riff.

In terms of pure musicianship, Holy Grail probably holds the edge on White Wizzard by virtue of the dual guitar attack of Santana and LaRue, who wail impressively all over this record. The sound all around on Crisis in Utopia is locked in, focused and tight. I recall not caring much for James Paul Luna’s vocals on White Wizzard’s High Speed GTO, but I really like them on this record. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re a little more fitting for this style than the pure Iron Maiden throwback of that EP. They’re solid and, at times, quite impressive.

I really like the nostalgia factor of White Wizzard, and I’ve had considerably more time with that record, so it still has the edge in my mind. But for those who didn’t care for the camp of Over the Top, Crisis in Utopia might be more to your taste. Regardless, if you like well-played, memorable traditional metal, you should check it out. My year-end list has been done for a week or so, but I believe I need to edit it.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Why the misspelling of the name? Is it simply to distinguish yourself from acts using the “Contagion” name?

Yeah, though that’s the lesser reason. Apparently, the label of one of the other bands with the regular spelling liked to get legal over it, despite the band in question being defunct for near a decade. We tried to combine the words “contagion” and “aeon;” we wanted the name to be evocative and atmospheric of itself, to conjure up images of Dan Seagrave-esq nightmare landscapes. Surreal environments of corruption and madness spreading out forever. It was quite a difficult one to come up with. None of us are really into gore or Satanism, so we had to come up with something that represented in as succinct a way as possible what we are and the feeling we are trying to achieve with the music. Additionally, back in my misspent youth, just when I was getting into death metal, I used to play war games and my army was dedicated to the plague god; one of my favorite models was the contagion siege engine. My friends and family thought I had contracted some kind of communicable madness, listening to this horrid ”’noise” and imagining these fetid machines lumbering over a battle field spewing death and horror, so it’s got a personal connection for me at least.

Please shed some light on the formation of Contaigeon. Had all of the members been in previous UK acts, death metal or otherwise?

Rahab: Well at some point or other we have all been in various no-name demo bands, but myself and Ein (from W.O.E.) had a project called Mordiggian years ago that did a demo and then kind of dissipated due to us not having the writing or studio skill create what we heard in our heads. That was probably the initial seed of what would become Contaigeon. Pretty much two years ago today, myself, Ein and Archeon [Gutteral Incantations and Six String Sickness] were in the local rock pub checking out some bands, one of which was that bland, vanilla death metal that seems so prevalent today. It got us to discussing what it was that was missing from this band’s music and what it was that we originally found so exciting about death metal when we first encountered it and we realized that’s what we had been trying to do with Mordiggian. So we got together with Verminnion [Four String Funerary Dirge] and Carrious [Keeper of Rhythmic Rituals] and spent 2009 jamming stuff out and eventually had an album’s worth of tracks that we were pretty pleased with.

Tell us about Works of Ein and why you chose to go with a digital-only, free-download record label? Had you given any serious consideration to more traditional labels?

Rahab: You know it never even crossed our minds to demo stuff and canvas the traditional labels. We had a body of songs that we were happy with and were content to play in the rehearsal room. There just didn’t seem to be any point in us going the traditional route. We don’t want to play live, we don’t want to make any money or have musical careers or any of that sort of thing. We just want to make this music for our own enjoyment. We definitely wanted to have something recorded for ourselves to listen at home that was better quality than the rough rehearsals we had taped and we just figured we would have to save up some cash and do it in a local studio.

W.O.E was already being set up to release Eins, Halo of the Sun and Kult of Eihort stuff and we never thought to ask them, figuring they were just going to do that weird end of black metal but they offered for us to be the first release and we thought why not? We know the people involved and didn’t really have anything to lose, so we went with them. They helped us to record the album and sorted out the artwork and so forth, so they got a first release to test the waters and we got something to listen to at home for free. We knew they were planning to do their other releases as ‘pay what you like’ or free downloads so we just went along with that. We would only end up doing the same any way.

Are there any plans to release Death at the Gates of Delirium on CD, vinyl, and/or cassette?

Rahab: All of those formats would be great, but the costs are prohibitive, especially for the vinyl. W.O.E are looking at a print-on-demand type service for a basic jewel case CD, but there is not enough demand to justify even a limited pressing of a physical media. We are happy to make do with our CDRs and hand-drawn art for the time being; after all, we got an album for nothing.

Have many people downloaded the album and has anyone paid anything?

Rahab: We have had a couple of hundred downloads from the official site but, oddly, most people seem to be getting it from p2p networks and MP3 blogs, so its impossible to keep track of, so I guess it’s doing pretty badly by normal label standards.

Brooke Johnson [Works of Ein]: It’s actually a free download with the cost being a valid email address and permission to add you to our mailing list so there has been nothing to pay. It’s been a real struggle to get any press for it at all, especially in the printed media. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only print review it’s had has been in Decibel. It’s a bit of a pain, but we understand that a willfully obscure band like Contaigeon, who don’t play live are not really going to draw readers and shift mages. Another problem we have come across is that of promos. Even in this age of iPools and digital promos, some people will not even consider a review unless there is a physical copy or at least a “proper” CD promo. We are super grateful to the webzines and people spreading word of mouth that have been supporting both the WOE releases. There still seems to be a stigma to free download-only releases, especially with the growing glut of “Myspace” projects vying for limited attention. It’s going to be a tough  slog to get over that and to get the attention of people who would be receptive to what a band like Contaigeon are doing.

Musically, to these ears anyway, with Death at the Gates of Delirium the bands that come to mind are Morbid Angel in a significant way, as well as early Immolation. Realizing that Contaigeon has its own identity, would you say that those comparisons are accurate? Have you gotten any comparisons to bands that you find puzzling?

Rahab: The Morbid Angel reference is spot on, one of our all time favorite DM bands. I love that subtle perturbing nausea and frenzied rabidity that their earlier works have. We wanted to incorporate that into our sound without aping mindlessly. A lot of bands are influenced by Morbid Angel, but will only take one or two elements from their music without realizing that it’s the way they combined and manipulated those elements in relation to each other that made the music so primal and exhilarating. The Immolation reference is a bit odd and a few people have mentioned it. I had never actually (knowingly) heard any until very recently so there is no conscious influence on there. Musically other than Morbid Angel, I would say that Autopsy (Mental Funeral) was a big influence and a few of Incantation’s records.

Though you excel at writing memorable songs, rather than mere exercises in bludgeon, one thing that really makes this album stand out is the absolutely morbid atmosphere just pours out of it.

Rahab: Cool thanks, it’s something we really worked on and wanted to push. We wanted the music to sound and feel morbid and obscure, like if the lights went out it would start writhing from the speakers in fetid ropey coils. Atmosphere and feeling are two things that modern death metal is really lacking. Not that having a clear sound necessarily means a lifeless and soulless record or is bad thing when used in the correct context; it’s just not for us and not what we want in our music. We want it to sound horribly alive and organic like some seething otherworldly beast pushing its face against the fabric of reality. It took a lot of experimenting to get right; you can’t just whack a load of reverb on it or play  sloppy  and expect it to sound good. To get the right balance of festering ambience and clarity and power takes as much work as a super clean triggered to the nines mix.

Along those same lines, I’m intrigued by the names of the places at which you recorded and mixed/mastered the album, respectively. Sanctum of Disease and Alchemellia Hospital (by Brooke Johnson). Do tell.

Rahab: The Sanctum is our rehearsal space where all the tracking was done and the Hospital is Brooke’s studio where it was mixed and mastered. The Sanctum earned its name partially by being in the middle of decaying industrial estate, surrounded by dead and slowly dying businesses and partially because the building should have been condemned years ago. It’s not particularly exciting as far as urban decay goes, but it does have a certain air or hopelessness and an inordinate amount of bedraggled plants growing through cracks and mulch dwellers scuttling about.

You’ve dedicated the album to H.P. Lovecraft and Sladislav Beksinsk. How direct these influences in the lyrics you’ve written and what are is it about both that you find particularly compelling?

Rahab: Both are artists whose work had an immediate, visceral and profound impact on us. Both depict not just moments in time, but windows into entire functioning worlds that compel you to explore beyond the boundaries of their respective media. It’s something that’s intrinsically connected to the music for me because it’s a feeling I got from early DM covers, especially those by Dan Seagrave. They made me want to buy the album in the hope that the music would tell the story of what was happening on the cover. There is a union of media that seems to be sadly missing these days, where album art and music combine to create something beyond the whole and that’s something that is vitally important for the kind of area we inhabit. I guess that comes in part from the decline of the physical format, but still very little thought seems to go into the packaging of the physical product. There seems to be no attempt to move outside of tired cliché and downright bad “that’ll do” Photoshop abominations. Not that PS it inherently bad, it’s just a tool and therefore only as good or bad as the person using it, just like digital sound recording while I’m about the subject.

Though I suspect you don’t give much of a shit, what is your opinion about the bands that are now considered the “leaders” (at least in an industry sense) of the UKDM scene, such as Trigger the Bloodshed and Annotations of an Autopsy? My question is not intended to paint a bad picture of either act, but more to highlight the vast differences in styles between the new school and the “old” school, as led (past and present) by veteran giants like Bolt Thrower, Benediction, Carcass, and Cancer, as well as bands like Fleshrot.

Rahab: I’ve caught Trigger live a few times and they always put on an impressive performance, technically they run rings round Contaigeon, but I can never remember a whole song; just a blur of shredding and blast beats. I had never heard Annotations until I had a peep on You Tube just now and it’s not the sort of thing we are really into, just going off the couple of tracks I saw. You can certainly hear the influence of the old guard in the new bands; it’s just that, as I said earlier, the technical aspects, both in the playing and production have been pushed much further at the expense of a lot of the atmosphere and identity. I guess that’s the tradeoff; if you want mechanical precision then you’re going to lose a lot of the humanity from it. I’m not against it; it’s just not what I want from my death metal. There are a few interesting artifacts moldering under the British soil though. I can highly recommend Cruciamentum for example.

Then again, a truer, more organic, and decidedly song-based style of death metal has gained in popularity these last couple of years. To what do you attribute this phenomenon?

Rahab: I honestly don’t know, but I could speculate that as the last few years have seen an oversaturation of the super clean, super tight death metal bands so maybe people are just getting tired of the sound. It is after all, a trend like any other. Then there are people like us who grew up with a certain fondness, call it nostalgia if you like, for a certain sound and that’s what we want to make and listen to and because there is now a generation of metal heads who were too young or not even born when these sounds first emerged. It’s all new to them and something different and even a little alien to what they consider the norm and therefore quite exciting.

What of future plans for Contaigeon in the way of releases, touring, and or gigs?

Rahab: Well we are writing more material as always and would like to have a new album out sometime next year. We are always up for split releases and the like so if anyone is interested get in touch. We are also considering playing a few shows, but getting other people to play the instruments. Like I said we have no interest touring, but I would like to see how the songs work live and we have had a number of volunteers for the idea.

www.myspace.com/contaigeon

Culling heavily from the backwards, discordant throes of Morbid Angel, Immolation and Incantation, as well appealing to fans of more recent acts like Portal, Vaesaleth and Mitochondrion, the aptly named Death at the Gates of Delirium is at times a swirling vortex of discordant, filthy death metal, punctuated by slabs of festering, crawling dirges.

Though not quite as utterly unfettered as Portal and their ilk, the strains of otherworldly chaos run rife through the cleaner Morbid Angel swirls and echoes and the layered, cavernous vocals do indeed imbue slithering giant tentacled beasts lurking in the mists. Throw in a few ambient/industrial soundscapes and the result is a slow controlled spiral into sonic insanity rather than a violent instant skullfuck by Cthulu.

As with most of this genre, the album isn’t so much about memorable riffs or structure, but a musical gateway to…well delirium and other unspeakable horrors. The songs blast, screech, rumble and lope with atonal and lethal but loose precision (notably icky standouts “The Following Darkness”, “Devoured by the Swarm” “Those in the Soil” and appropriately titled “Slithering Sickness”) and emanate that tangible sense of dread that you simply know when you hear. That all being said, Contaigeon have just a little more structure than their peers, especially when it comes to the albums numerous much slower, crawls like that litter the above tracks as well as the likes of pure ooze of “The Day the Earth Stood Dead” and slightly out of place “Curruption”.

But the band occasionally strings together,  dare I say ‘catchy’ numbers such as the chug of “Misery”, “Plague Lord” and “They Who Gnaw the Bones”, showing a little more than sheer noise dipping into a more controlled classic and groovy death metal prose, maybe signaling a transitional period in the bands direction during the writing recording process.

The fact this album is being given away for the mere price of a valid email address blows my mind, and any fans of death metal should grab this release and support truly underground (thematically and figuratively) acts.

A half-assed description of the sound brought to life by Dawnbringer would be one portraying a pissed-off Manilla Road with Lemmy on vocals.  At least it’s a starting point.  Black and his cohorts have torn into the pattern that weaves heavy metal, hacked it up a bit, and come out with something sounding unique yet essentially timeless.  A thick, galloping, NWOBHM-esque backbone is the (pardon the pun) nucleus of Nucleus, with rhythms and riffs branching out from the core, all creating a heavy, moody, purely metal masterpiece, the likes of which resonate indefinitely in the brains and bones of listeners.

For good examples of the power and subtle bipolarity of Nucleus, listen to “So Much for Sleep,” a steadily building heavy metal head-shaker; “The Devil,” an intense near-thrashing assault on the ears; “Swing Hard,” complete with Maiden gallop and smoky-lunged verses; “Like an Earthquake,” slow paced yet malevolent; or “Old Wizard,” an excellent exercise in trad-doom.  While some may say the album begins to wind down toward its second half, it’s more as though Dawnbringer shifted focus, moving from a more energetic, riff-oriented sound (the driving “So Much for Sleep”) to one that’s more ethereal and atmospheric (the hypnotic “Pendulum”); it’s somewhat like falling asleep (though the album won’t have that effect on you).  The gradual change in dynamic is welcomed.

Those who dug Züül earlier this year (released on Black’s own Planet Metal, not surprisingly) should also enjoy this latest offering from Dawnbringer.  It’s intelligent, gritty, and heavy with the weight of reality.  Can’t wait to hear what comes next―and what I’ve missed―from this group.

When they’re on though, they’re really on. This is usually when they go for a more straight forward melodic death approach without all the genre hopping (“The Denial of Man’s Regression”, “Wider We Open Our Eyes”, “Pull the Plug On Modern Civilization”), or the one occasion where the fusion works really well, “Humanity’s Last Hope”. It’s on these tracks you hear the tightest performances, great lead work and solid songwriting.

When they’re not on, we get the heavily core influenced and breakdown happy numbers with out of place sounding tech flourishes like album opener “MediAssassNation”, “Shade of Corruption”, “Destroy, Rebuild, Repeat”, and the title track, complete with out of nowhere “breee bree bree” pig squeals. Closer “Generalized Cyberphobia” gets off to a great start as a tech death monster, then suddenly becomes a core-riffic over-extended breakdown the second half of the song.

Global Enslavement is not a bad debut, but Massive Slavery have much more talent than is shown here. They’re a band that needs to find their sound and capitalize on that skill, or find a better way to marry all those influences.

In the decade since, and with only three albums and a handful of EPs, Agalloch has now become a common reference point themselves, showing up in reviews of Finland’s October Falls, Russia’s The Morningside and the UK’s Fen and Wodensthrone, among others. Most impressive of all, Agalloch has done this while subtly shifting and evolving their sound with each release, from the proto-black/folk of the debut to the monochrome, crystalline clarity of The Mantle to the warm and burnished hues of Ashes Against the Grain. All undoubtedly Agalloch, but all unique in their own right. And now, with the fourth release, Marrow of the Spirit, Agalloch changes yet again. This time, it’s less of a evolution than a return to their core, cutting into the bones and scraping at their marrow.

After the ambient, cello-backed opener “They Escaped the Weight of Darkness,” (featuring Grayceon cellist Jackie Perez Gratz), the sky opens up and erupts with “Into the Painted Grey” – the kind of raw and rangy black metal that made us all take notice of Pale Folklore in the first place. Yet Agalloch has never sounded this aggressive or furious, from Haughm’s craggy snarl to the scrambling, violent tremolo of the guitars to new drummer Aesop Dekker’s (Ludicra, and the excellent Cosmic Hearse music blog) muscular and frenzied percussion. Wolves in the Throne Room take note, there’s a rival beast patrolling the damp forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Follow-up “The Watcher’s Monolith” sounds like more recent Agalloch, with a fuller-bodied tone and a more languid pace. It too cranks to a full gallop at times, surefootedly navigating through flickering patches of shadow and light. Haughm’s chant-like clean vocals make a triumphant return here, though they’ve been submerged beneath the music – an artful effect. Later in the album, “Ghosts of the Midwinter Fires” adopts the same warmer tones and smoother, more loping pace, seemingly inspired by the elastic thrum of Disintegration-era Cure.

As always, the music is rich with texture and nuance, with the band’s three guitarists employing a variety of stringed instruments to weave an intricate tapestry. This time out, the band also recorded entirely in analog on vintage instruments. The sound has an organic warmth to it, but it’s also weathered and warped, as if left out in the elements to splinter and crack. Many black metal bands have gone for a cold, dry sound, but this sounds brittle. You can almost imagine these guys crammed into a rickety shack somewhere on a lonely mountain, plugging in and then wailing away as the winds howl outside and the rain weeps down through the trees. (The album was actually recorded at Audible Alchemy Studios in Portland, Oregon).

However, much as I enjoy the return to Pale Folklore’s bleak and rustic tones, the band also brought back that album’s sometimes-meandering guitar solos (go back and revisit “She Painted Fire Across the Skyline Part II” to see what I mean). Both “Into the Painted Grey” and “Watcher’s Monolith” feature high-pitched solos twisting and ringing out above the thunder, and while this duality has always been a part of Agalloch’s sound, at times the tone is simply too keening and shrill to really mesh with the whole.

Luckily, all of that is forgotten by the time you’re swallowed in “Black Lake Nidstång” – a doom-sodden, 17-minute monster that’s the most epic and sorrowful thing that Agalloch has ever done. It’s also one of the metal must-hears of the year, although I suggest a quiet place or frame of mind to properly be carried away.

After a droning dirge of an opening, the song breaks into a careful stride, as if slowly picking its way around the stony shores of a isolated mountain lake. Haughm employs an eerie whisper instead of his usual rasp, which he’s done before, but never like this. I predict it won’t be the last whispered passage we hear in black metal for awhile, because it’s incredibly effective, especially with his tales of the spirits trapped beneath the ripples of the water. Tortured spirits, it would appear, as Haughm’s vocals break and shatter – not unlike early Burzum or …In the Woods. It’s a completely naked, genuine performance, and combined with the tragic howl of the music, terrifying as well.

As if that weren’t enough of an emotional crescendo, after that the song blooms skyward into a phantasmagoria of funereal synths and jewel-like vibraphone tones. Mind officially blown. Those who feared the band’s flirtations with electronics and ambiance on The White EP might take them further from black metal may bristle, but fear not. It may indeed be the least black metal moment the band has ever created, yet it forms the very core of the entire album, and comes off more like an hypnotic epiphany than anything else.

And that’s a good word for Agalloch – epiphany – for it’s that sense of secret truth, of gradual revelation and hushed reverence that has infused everyone of their albums, no matter what their palette may be. Just when you think you have a handle on this band, its ethic and approach, they reinvent themselves again, yet never lose sight of what made them unique in the first place. Marrow of the Spirit is an epiphany you will want to experience over and over, marveling at its exquisite craftsmanship while bracing yourself against its mad and beautiful chill.

Musically this is derivative, 100% unoriginal, paint by numbers, generic, all of which bothers me not one iota, so here is my plan, instead of spending 15 bucks buying this disc, send the money straight to the band as a gift. Think of it like putting all of your money toward programming instead of getting the free mug with membership.

It’s not like the extreme metal market is over-saturated with mediocre copy cat bands or anything, I don’t see albums flying off the Mallwort shelves like cabbage patch dolls, and unoriginality never offended me anyway.

I hear some good ideas swarming around in the mush, cool riffs poorly placed. Discord for the sake of discord can get you far in war metal, but getting all your riffs in a row can do wonders.

The only reason this interview is appearing is because vocalist Danilo “Dača” Trbojević hit me up on Facebook and kept following up until I finally listened to Drzavni Neprijatelj Brojkeci. I ended up digging the band’s frenzied ‘n fun crossover thrashing madness, did a little research, and found the band’s history intriguing. Danilo is not only a dedicated and determined warrior of metal, but an affable fellow as well. So much respect to the guy for wearing me down and getting an interview for his band out of the deal. I hope you enjoy it.

Where does the story of NadimaČ begin? Had the members been in other metal bands in Serbia prior to the band’s formation?

NadimaČ was formed in the beginning of 2003 by a crew of school friends. Marko “Zec” Pavlović (bass) and Dragan “Draganče” Ristić (Drums) are original members since then, and me and Stefan “Cora” Ćorović (guitar) joined the band in 2008. Both Zec and Dragan were and are only in NadimaČ since they have learned to play their instruments in this band. Cora played in a thrash metal band called Metal Slug. I used to play drums (really badly) in thrash/heavy/speed band Witchunt in 2002/2003 and after that I started singing in a grindcore band called Necrorectumonomicon in 2004/2005. Before joining NadimaČ I was the vocalist in brutal technical death metal band DaggerSpawn from 2004 to 2009.

What is the English translation of NadimaČ?

I think it’s a rather difficult question [laughs]. NadimaČ is unusual name for a band here in Serbia too [laughs], so the translation is even more weird in any other language. It is the feeling when you are about to burst from within…or something like that [laughs]. Like when you are full of energy or anger, or you just had a lot of bean stew and drank a lot of beer.

What bands have influenced the sound of NadimaČ? Certainly there are thrash metal bands, but are there influences that each member brings to the sound of NadimaČ?

Yeah, all four of us are. Four of a kind [laughs]. I have been influenced by a lot of music, everything I like from Scott Walker, The Kinks, Black Sabbath, The Exploited, One Way System, Guttermouth, etc to Minor Threat, D.R.I. or Agnostic Front. Most of my style is influenced by thrash metal and grindcore bands like Assassin, Razor, SOD, Anthrax, Kreator, Sabbat (UK), Seventh Angel, Fastkill, Sodom, Terrorizer, Pig Destroyer, Vomitory, Insanity. Acroholia, Cannibal Corpse, Cripple Bastards, Fleshless, etc. Zec and Dragan are influenced mostly by the German and U.S. thrash metal schools, and some heavy metal such as Grave Digger, Running Wild, or Manowar. They also like some of old school punk and hardcore punk. Cora, like most of the guitarists, was influenced by thrash metal bands, but also by some progressive metal bands.

The music of Drzavni Neprijatelj Brojkec has more of a crossover sound, rather than traditional thrash metal and D.R.I. is one of the bands that often comes to mind.

On Drzavni Neprijatel there are some songs that are five or six years old when the main influence was solid German thrash metal school as well as some D.R.I. and SOD influences. On some newer songs used on this album there are more hardcore, and maybe punk influences, but a lot more thrash influences as well; meaning we got many thrash and other metal, hardcore, and punk albums over the years and we let them influence us a little. NadimaČ never tried to be a D.R.I. clone band, but people compare us with them probably because they were also influenced by punk and early hardcore punk in their time too.

You’ve released quite a few splits with other acts. Are many of these acts from your region of the world?

Some of them, yes. For example, we released split CD with Macedonian thrash/hardcore band Nihilist. We also released two split CDs with two Greek thrash bands; we like Greek bands because Greeks are friends of the Serbian people. But the idea with split CDs in general was to do splits with bands from distant parts of the world and get underground promotion in those parts. So we did some splits with bands from Malaysia or Columbia. We also like doing split CDs with bands who try to be different in their style of playing thrash, which is cool.

What can you tell us about the Serbian Thrash Metal Fist Unleashed split? I love the title!

[Laughs] Me too! It sounds very Eastern Block. Well, it’s a compilation with NadimaČ and three more younger Serbian thrash metal bands. It was released by a Serbian underground metal magazine/fanzine by this friend who is diehard fanatic for metal and grind since the 80s.

You’ve chosen to write your lyrics in your native language. Do you feel that this limits the international appeal of the group, considering that English tends to be the worldwide language of metal?

Of course it limits us, but we don’t care. If we were singing in English we would probably have a lot more “fans” (I hate this word), but we have our energy and style of music, and if you like us, cool; if not, ok, fuck off. For example I love songs by Cripple Bastards, which are in Italian. I love some Sodom and Tankard songs in their native language. I love Sarjan Hassan songs in whatever language they use.

Your record label, ADP (Area Death Productions), is based in China! How does a Serbian band end up on a Chinese label? Does this present any challenges as far as getting NadimaČ noticed on the international scene?

[Laughs] well, when we were looking for a label to release our first album, it was difficult because labels didn’t like us singing in our native language, so it was a problem for them. We were approached by Wang from ADP, and he offered us great conditions for a first release, a lot of CDs were printed, patches and t-shirts and we were really satisfied with his label. About his effort to get us on the international scene, well every underground or other kind of metal label or shop specializing in thrash has a copy of our album and a lot of labels all over the world trade and sell our album, so we are satisfied on this field as well. Most of the bands think that the label’s job is to promote the band, but it is not just the label which is obligated to push forward a band; if you don’t do it for yourself, no one else would. D.I.Y!

You’ll also be releasing some NadimaČ albums on vinyl on a Korean label.

Shush [laughs], that was supposed to be a surprise [laughs]. And yeah, we will release both our albums on vinyl for Infernal Kaos Productions, a very good underground label from Korea. At the moment there is some sort of nuclear conflict or something like that, but I hope that everything will work out fine, not just because of our vinyl, but for the people living there too.  Vinyl is for us the ultimate media for transmitting music and spirit of our style, so we are honored to add this dimension to our release collection.

You’ve got a new album and DVD coming out on ADP in 2011. How does the new album compare to your previous works and what is included on the DVD?

The DVD was first dedicated and recorded by our money for a sound technician, and with help from two friends with cameras who helped us. The idea was to do a free download DVD for all thrash maniacs out there who haven`t had chance to see us or our friends in mosh pits. But soon it became clear that for the DVD promotion it is best that we release it by a label because it’s gonna have much better promotion. At this moment the DVD is in China on post production and stuff and it will be out in the same time as album I reckon.

Social media sites like Myspace and Facebook have helped NadimaČ get wider recognition. How important are these sites to the exposure of your band?

As you know before in the 80s and 90s the trick was to spread bands’ demos and promos (cassettes mostly) to wide underground crews so you could get a chance to present your work to people. Today the music industry is changed, and relationships between listeners, music, releases and bands are a lot different than before. For older and more commercial bands and labels it sucks, but for us it’s easier because we aim to spread our name and music and not to get money from it. We sell our CDs at our gigs and by postal orders. Our label and a number of other labels sell our releases, and they do promotion of that segment of the band. But thanks to social networks like YouTube, Myspace, and Facebook we can now spread our music to a greater number of people. They spread it to their friends and so on, so it’s a good thing. I think that aspect of promoting the band’s music this way is better than before, but parallel with the good aspects of social networks came bad things too. Fewer people come out of their homes, to parks to drink beer, to gigs or music trade markets, or just for no reason at all. We aren’t use to this so it sucks really.

Tell the readers about life in Belgrade. Is this a city that has suffered from the effects of the war?

We were born in 1985 (Danilo, Dragan and Zec) and 1990 (Cora) and since we were born we had a lot of wars in the 90s with Croatia, Bosnia, NATO, Albanian terrorists etc, so you must be more specific with which one you had in mind. I guess you were thinking of the last official one in 1999 (one against NATO).Well, Belgrade was never ruined after the WW II, till 1999, but three months of intense bombing was a crazy experience for all here and even if the city didn’t suffer too much people were under stress. I don`t know if you can imagine, but bombing itself is not that scary, especially when you’re playing the whole day with your friends and crew, mostly because we in Serbia have the attitude/mentality “Fuck them all we will go on existing no matter what.” The most stressing thing about bombing was the Western media. We were all watching things near our buildings and in our country and we know many eye witnesses that have experienced a lot of shitty events and when we see it on western media it’s just two totally different stories. We were “used” to this “democratic” treatment back in the 90s, but this was too much; just shows you how every political system lies and manipulates for its own goals. It really sucks living here is Belgrade [laughs]. It’s a pretty nice; big city, beautiful people, good beer, concerts, and mosh pits, but a lot safer than living than in London, Paris or New York, which is nice [laughs].  This is gonna sound weird, but personally, I think that we were happier in the end of the 90s and beginning of the 2000s when we knew that we were screwed and we had a low life standard, etc, than now when we have all kinds of shops, trademarks, foreign factories, shopping malls, etc around us, but no jobs, and we see all these “nice” things and don’t have money for most of it. Also, people used to live a lot more before the Internet and computers became a way of living, meeting people, or learning life experiences.

It seems that the Serbian metal scene has gotten more attention worldwide these last couple of years, as well as the Slavic scene in general. Space Eater is one band that comes to mind, as well as Negligence in Slovakia. Has metal always been strongly supported in the region and why do you think there has been more recognition for these acts nowadays?

Serbia (then part of Yugoslavia) always had a good metal scene since the 80s. Try Bloodbath, Acroholia, Bombarder (then Bosnian, now Serbian band), Heller, Scaffold, Annathema, Pergament, Dead Joker, The Stone, Patareni (Croatian band, maybe the first grindcore band ever, then part of the Yugoslavian scene); try them all. I don`t know about other eastern countries, but Serbian people and bands weren’t allowed to leave the country, or more specific to enter other European countries or the USA. To leave the country you were supposed to have a passport and a visa, but you had to give some papers and money to get the visa, and for most of the countries you couldn`t get it. Because of that bands couldn`t leave Serbian territories and tour or promote its music. Serbia has a lot quality bands to offer; try Azazel, Kramp, Acroholia, Pollution, Infest, DaggerSpawn, Scared, Deadly Mosh, Scafold, Sacramental blood, Kuga, etc

Where does NadimaČ go from here? Any plans to tour outside of Serbia?

Well, we are often called to play in other countries and we played in some former Yugoslav Republics. We will play in Greece on some two-day thrash metal festival in January 2011.  About touring Europe, we had some offers for eastern and western Europe, but we really don`t want to go and play in other countries in front of 20-30 people, just so we could say “wow we toured Europe.” We will wait to see responses to our new album, DVD, etc, and in 2011 we will see if there is a need to tour or we need to give even more effort and ideas. There is a time for playing outside of Serbia; we just need proper feedback to plan it.

Closing thoughts?

Thanks for your support, brother. Keep doing whatever you think is gonna matter. Keep fighting for your right to be a metalhead, punk, or whatever; no matter how old, serious or fucked up you are; if it’s your style, then it’s your life. [Goddamn right! – Scott].

Metal je rat

Metal is war

Thrash on!

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http://www.myspace.com/nadimacbend

A rather noticeable trait on Dynasty is that of a more brutal approach then their last self released album Blacken The Sun. Getting rid of the streamlined clean vocals that plagued the last release and evolving more into a melodic death metal band.

“Oracle Of The Dead” starts offs with a blasting death metal-ish beginning and introduces a foray of melodic riffing that instantly recalls the Gothenburg-style from the days of old. It is nice to see some bands sticking to a familiar formula but that is also the bands downfall. As most of the tracks on this album sound a bit samey and the album does have the tendency to drag on.

It isn’t until the fifth track “The Darkest Ages” where something of interest really transpires, which is a short but sweet solo. The sixth track “Ritual” is an awesome instrumental that finds the band adding a cinematic touch with a heart wrenching solo. Bringing to mind those old karate movies with Van Damme and Segal, at a part where their studying the martial arts or after defeating a hardened foe. The band decides to play it safe again for the last half and only in two of the tracks do we get a little more substance; that substance being the wicked solo in “Attila” and the epic “Poseidon.”

Drawn out and generic yet I was still head banging throughout the whole listening experience. Sadly there isn’t much to grab onto as I can’t see myself going back to this album again.

Luckily Korihor and his project At Dusk are a little more than sanguine bribes and gimmicks, as his take on spooky, depressive ambient black metal is adequately written and performed comparing favorably to the obvious fellow Californian peers Wrest (Leviathan) and Malefic (Xasthur) and of course Burzum. Though, not quite as brilliant not prolific as either just yet.

At Dusk‘s six songs are brittle, distant, haunting and hazy and come with an expectedly bad, lo-fi production, but it all comes together into a surprisingly effective little affair. Korihor whispers, rasps, moans and wails with disturbed aplomb while the music is a mix of rangy mid-paced blackened doom and drugged out, middle of the woods paranoia. Yet, it all has a sense of melancholic woe that glistens with a tangible sense of actual despondency. I get the impression Korihor is a truly unhappy and unstable person. With titles like “Colder Than the Merciless Snow”, “End of Being”, and “Forsaken, Betrayed” cementing my suspicions, the music carries a certain emotional weight, despite the production issues, that make you take note. Especially the standout, “My Flesh, A Pittance”, which delivers a still morose but surprisingly well crafted melodic and more fierce black take on self-loathing.

Much like his peers, At Dusk is certainly a niche sound for anguished black metal purists, but promising stuff for a completely DIY one man affair (Fear of Eternity and Striborg please take note). Let’s just hope Korihor is around long enough to continue the promise of this debut!

Also a one man project, Idolater, already has a album called Black Sexual Blasphemy under his belt (mask?) and two of those tracks (“Lex Et Luxuria” and “The Passion In My Heart”) are available on the tail end of this release ― making the whole affair feel a bit more like a tacked on teaser than a real split.

Idolater’s sound is a more traditional atonal, feral form of black metal full of shrill, tremolo picked riffs and stern marches. It’s evil, raw and grim, but the programmed drums stand out a bit too much and the overall song writing is especially gripping, though full of Christ (and marriage?) hating conviction. That being said I’ve heard way worse, label released one man black metal projects and Idolater seems to fully embrace the evil purity of the genre’s original tenets.

The album opens with “23rd Circle Bree” and it’s a short little intro song with a nice breakdown coupled with some blackened blast beats and screams that sound like a women version of the dude from Caliban. This is the only song worth listening to on the album. The breakdown on this track is the same breakdown that is used in all ten of the songs. To be honest all of the songs sound exactly alike. There’s no substance and the album is dull and generic.

“The Rise Of Noah” starts with awful clean vocals and it mixes the blackened blast beats but really it just sounds like some shitty goth band with a semi hot vocalist. Put the blasting at different parts, use same exact breakdown as song before, throw in some sparkly weird keyboard part over that said breakdown and the song is complete.

A few spoken word parts are also thrown in and I’m glad they were used sparingly. The lyrics are of the lets get to heaven, mother nature variety and at times she sounds like she doesn’t understand what she’s even saying. I even heard a little adolescent profanity in some of the lyrics that will please the parental advisory sticker loving youth. Pretty badass am I right?

This is the soundtrack for our troubled youth. For people that have Paramore and Slipknot as their favorite bands on their Facebook. This is music for people that cut themselves and dance around playgrounds with their fellow juggalos. If that is your crowd then let me be the one to introduce you to your new favorite band.

Played with precision and chops, the tunes here hit like a police battering room through a crack house door. Familiarly Polish in its death metal approach and reminding in some ways of Decapitated, there is also a strong USDM presence, including a vocal approach from Szczepan that recalls Ross Dolan’s (Immolation) later years’ work, albeit crossed with typical Polish guttural oomph, and delivered with some intelligibility. You can even hear shades of Nile at various points, as is the case during the galloping pestilence of “Lost in the Sands” Technical, yes, whether the bursts of arpeggio sweeping or the tightly angular transitions and cadences, but Sacrilege of Humanity never loses the forest for the trees; not by a long shot. Songs like “Messerschmitt” (the alternating vocals on the chorus are perfect) and the downright infectious “We are the Universe,” which grabs my attention each and every time, are built for memory retention. Calm Hatchery has taken care to make the accent and changeups as impacting as possible too, as demonstrated by the use of gang shouts on “Them.” Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference.

I recall a time some years back when it seemed like every other death metal album that came out of Poland reached the gold standard. That’s not to imply that Poland isn’t still a hotbed of death; only that Sacrilege of Humanity brought back those memories with a vengeance. Solid through and through, Calm Hatchery has made a death metal fan’s death metal album. Are you with me out there?

An industrial chopping effect opens the song “The Casket You Sleep In” and once the music kicks in they are off to la-la land with down-syndrome inducing sweeps and blasts galore. The constant pounding double bass drums at the end are accompanied by a riff with a fantastic sounding sweep that closes out the song. The next track “Black Tide” continues with the sweeps against humanity and has a sick little part around a minute and a half where a sweeping arpeggio sounds as if it’s climbing a ladder yet stumbling trying to reach the top. Its moments like this where a technical death metal album amazes me. Though with guitar noodling abound, sometimes I wish their songs didn’t blur together.

“Drill Baby Drill” is a forty three second instrumental that sounds exactly like the closing of the first song with a sample of some government speech. The EP could have done without this track because their really is no point in having a filler forty three second instrumental track that sounds like the closing of a song before.

The second last track “Designed to Strangle” continues on with the same pattern as the first two tracks. Yet it goes for a more streamlined technical death metal approach and actually contains a lot of sick head bobbing riffs that come in around the one minute mark. The breakdown half way through the song is also meaty and undeniably heavy, but it only lasts for a few seconds. The last track “Anomic” is a nice little ditty that sounds exactly like the any other Beneath The Massacre tune until the industrial effect from the album opener comes in and is played over a sweet breakdown that eventually draws the EP to a close.

Marée Noire is a good EP from a good band but Beneath The Massacre is just playing the same thing over and over again without branching into new concepts and different ideas. Sometimes it’s okay to keep the same thing but when all of your albums sound exactly the same, one would tend to think its time to try something new.

Experimentally wandering well past the wrong side of the universe’s tracks, Death Dub is psychedelic in a way that the flower children could never imagine…and from which they would never recover even if they could. The Chicago quartet drenches its twisted crawls through the killing fields with lots of buzz, loads of crack (interpret as appropriate), and whirring, spiral madness to not only make for an experience akin to catching a delirium tremens wave, but one that is quite engaging, even hypnotic. The distorted vocals – along with everything else drip with venom and hatefulness– and the crush is a mighty one. The big upside is that none of it is boring, maybe even for those folks that might not otherwise be enamored with the musical trips of the doomed and the damned. In the way of pleasant surprises, you are treated to a fitting cover of Pigface’s “Burundi (Reconstruct), as well as a live rendition of “China Black (Pt. 2)” that proves just how well this stuff translates to the stage. Even Paul “Honkey Head” Gillis’ (vocals/ synths/samples) song introduction is creepy as hell and leaves you feeling dirty and a little ashamed for reasons that cannot be explained with the written word. Chilling stuff, I’m telling you.

Chemically-enhanced, heavily demented, and in all likelihood a little too appealing to the crackhead sociopath next door (it’s difficult to explain), Death Dub weighs a ton and will leave you with a case of the dry-heaves to go with those miserable cold-sweats. That is, if you “get” it. And why wouldn’t anyone want to live see/hear life through the eyes/ears of a Drug Honkey? It’s the experience that counts, right? Provided you survive it.

Invasion – Orchestrated Kill Maneuver

Ezurate – Eve of Desecration

Heretic Soul – Born into this Plague

What do you have to do for a chance at these three slabs of awesome death metal? No stockings, no being good, no breaking into your neighbors house. All you have to do to have a chance at this free treat from your non-demoninational, mythical seasonal character is to fill out and submit the form below. Oh, and do it before January 1st, 2011 too.

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CONTEST HAS NOW ENDED. THANK YOU COME AGAIN!

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DISCLAIMER: Three winners will be picked randomly. The winners will be notified personally via email. Your personal details will only be used to deliver the CDs to you and will not be shared with 3rd parties. Teeth of the Divine, nor Rotting Corpse Records take any responsibility over packages lost or stolen in the mail. Teeth of the Divine staff members are not eligible.

Contest ends when there’s no form to fill or submit. The form will be removed at some point during January 1st, 2011

Dead Neon, released on cassette by Ecophagy Records, aurally paints a scorched landscape, where the earth’s remaining inhabitants roam in search of refuge from the dried-out husks of walking corpses and the sun’s unrelenting rays. The concept lies somewhere between Mad Max and The Omega Man (or The Last Man on Earth, depending on your preference), with a twist of zombies and classic sci-fi thrown in for good measure. The music behind the concept comes in the form of menacing doom (“primitive nuclear doom”) overlaid by gravelly, narration-like vocals. And though Dead Neon have got the workings of an excellent idea within this album, the pieces don’t quite fit together.

“Advisory (Go to the Boneyard)” gives listeners backstory about Dead Neon‘s world in the fashion of a survivor directing others through a megaphone, giving a feel for the environment about to be entered. “Downwinder” then sets the album’s pace for a downtuned, distorted sort of primitive chaos. It’s not expertly executed, but then, it’s not really supposed to be, and it fits. “Cratered” follows along the same path, plodding, with a simplistic drum beat/pattern. This one relies heavily on vocals, the novelty of which eventually wears off, and they become semi-annoying. They work a little more effectively in “Irradiated Heart,” which gives off more of a sci-fi vibe, though it feels immature musically. This is the impression that many of Dead Neon’s tracks give, to be honest, which is to be expected somewhat with this type of doom, but they also smell of inexperience. And don’t get me started on “Ride the Light,” which was undoubtedly meant to be a joke version of a ballad (though that fact doesn’t make the tune any less cringe-worthy). To be fair, “Cancer Eater” and “100 Suns” are right where Dead Neon should be musically, dirty and heavy and radiating an evil vibe.

Maybe the supreme primitivity of the album is lost on this reviewer, lover of riffs and excess. But more likely is the theory that Dead Neon is a work in process, and like many first albums, Dead Neon is not without its flaws, some more unforgivable than others. There are numerous good ideas thrown around within the album, and perhaps Dead Neon’s next effort will be a more cohesive, mature beast, one that will come back to bite me in the ass. That’s what I hope, at least.