To be honest if you weren’t a fan of the band before then you probably won’t be now. With that out of the way the dudes in Full Blown Chaos have made another awesome and brutal as fuck album. Filled with hate and malevolence, Full Blown Chaos goes for the throat and the merciless beating doesn’t let up until the album runs its course.

Sure the band is unoriginal as far as originality goes I mean with all the slayer-esque thrash riffs and ridiculously heavy breakdowns. But to be honest who fucking cares because what they play they play well.

Now of course there are a few songs on this beast of an album that stand out from the rest. Most notably “Silence Is Golden” with its ridiculous thrash solo mid way through instantly bringing to mind days of the old. Eventually another guitar joins the fold and its mouth watering goodness from their on out. “Villains” keeps it brutal with black metal tremolo and a more death metal tinged sound. “Rise and Conquer” is perhaps their most hardcore song they ever done; complete with an awesome finger pointing, stage diving, pile-on-esque chorus. “Gravedigger” adds a beatdown hardcore edge while adding some melodic riffage and the Crowbar -ish “The Path I Walk” is such a great way to end the album. A more metal based riff fest that closes with a tasty breakdown.

One of the gripes most people would have with an album of this nature is probably the swearing in the lyrics. Believe me when I say this but theirs more swearing here then there is on an Eminem album. But when it comes down to it I’d rather hear these dudes swearing all over the place then some lame fake heavy scene band with wussy looking members.

It’s hardcore and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but if you do however fancy a little hardcore in your life then by all means check these dudes out.

Sitting squarely in the middle of the sludge genre, California’s Armed For Apocalypse, (featuring Cayle Hunter of Will Haven and The Abominable Iron Sloth) cull heavily from Crowbar and the expected gamut of down tempo, earthy, lumbering sludge bands like The Abominable Iron Sloth (duh), Blessing the Hogs, Blutch, Beaten Back to Pure, Black Cobra and such, but rather than a backbone of swampy, whiskey driven stupor, Armed For Apocalypse add a truly menacing sense of dread and almost death/doom metal heft and foreboding to their sound.

No surly, slurring interludes, just sheer punishing heft delivered with cavernous guitars and vocals that range from pained screams to demonic death metal roars and bellows. Alternating between caustic, up tempo riffs and some truly monolithic rumbling segments, Defeat is a merciless, beat-down, landslide of a record. From the cataclysmic climax of opener “We Fell From The Bottom”, monstrous lurch of “The Demon Who Makes Trophies Of Men”, utter rumble fest that opens “Fists of God”, as well as the more obviously Crowbar inspired and southern tinged “Hero Complex” and “A Collapse” to the Defeat is just downright nasty heavy, with the start and finish penultimate track “You Are Alive When they Start to Eat You” being the devastating epoch. The album closes out with a fittingly beefed up cover of Down’s “Temptations Wings” from the seminal NOLA album.

I kept trying to flesh this review out, but the fact is, this is about as a direct, no nonsense assault on your ears as there is, and thusly no real need to try and doctor this review up. Buy it, crank it up, and watch CNN report more earthquakes in your area.

Fast Forward three years and unfortunately The Classic Struggle like With Dead Hands Rising and Embrace the End, simply waited too long for a follow up to an impressive debut, and thusly the record sounds a bit tired and stale in comparison. Not because its bad per say, but because I’ve heard so much of this stuff over the last three years, you have to do better than this to make an impression in a ridiculously crowded genre.

Bring Back the Glory isn’t a bad record, but it hardly performs its namesake, instead re-treading a style done to death with energy and skill, but little else. Also not helping is the fact the band seems to have toned things done since their pretty crushing debut-this album is more thrashy and melodic, now comes across like a standard, predictable, riff for riff Unearth clone (especially the vocals of Tim Zlinsky) as opposed to Unearth with fucking huge breakdowns. Bring Back the Glory simply lacks the clout and heft of the debut.

That being said, there are some decent moments on the album, such as the melodic canter of “You’ve Got To Die Of Something”, controlled somber march of “Wish Me Hell” and fierce “Stat Unionville”, and the closing title track, but it all plays like material I’ve heard a thousand time since 2005, (Through the Eyes of The Dead come to mind doing this style way better) and while enjoyable for the genre, its doesn’t feel as impactful and dynamic as the debut did, both musically and production wise. I’m all for bands forsaking trends, in this case breakdowns, but in the case of The Classic Struggle its left them slightly generic and predictbale despite their energy and talent.

With busy, melodic guitar work and vocal cadence of Shai Hulud, shimmery emotional layers of Misery Signals and Life In Your Way and some delicate strains of cascading post rock/alt rock a la At The Soundawn, Day Without Dawn etc, November 5, 1955 are one of the more varied, enjoyable and fresh metalcore bands I’ve heard this year.

If you are still reading, you need to grab this. It’s a perfect amalgamation of all the above bands and elements delivering a forcefully, yet elegantly crafted sense of prose and dramatics without entering emo territory. Vocalist Jason Maas (who also produced) has an adequately emotional shout and never veers into clean vocals or whining. His and Gus Pesce’s guitars deliver a continual sea of fluid, choppy yet harmonic, intricate riffs that weave and shimmer with grace, yet purposeful heft (“We are (Rainbow Bridge)”, “Once a Victim, Twice a Volunteer”, “Functionaries”). When the band do shift gears and enter more ambient and introspective realms as heard on “Canada is For Liars”, “Precursor” and closer “A Farewell Waltz” it’s an artful and still urgent shift, but rendered with a more restrained and paced sense of straining emotion.

Overall, and very nice release from a relatively out of nowhere band that should appeal to any of the acts I’ve mentioned above and certainly an band I’ll be watching out for as they develop and mature.

If the fact this band features former Becoming The Archetype guitarist Alex Kenis (who left BTA to focus on Aletheian full time) and the presence of the Cynic cover does not clue you in to Aletheian’s sound as (as well as the original label), I’ll clue you in; Technical, progressive, yet melodic death metal with a Christian lean.

Formerly known as Crutch, Aletheian’s sound is firmly rooted in the likes of Cynic, Death, Atheist, Believer and such, but with a more grace filled and positive tone rendered with some subtle synths and clean vocals here and there. The remastered sound (a weak point of the original release) now allows the intricate, stammering structures to breathe and the bands more progressive, introspective injections to have a deeper, fuller impact.

Vocalist Joel Thorpe is still the weak link in the music with a generic mid range rasp and some unconvincing clean vocals (i.e. “Open Grave”), but thankfully the clean vocals are not used much and frankly the highlight of the music is the guitar work of Kenis and Donny Swigart who deftly weave Schuldiner-esque moments of sublime skill in their riffs and solos. Tracks like standout opener “Paragon”, “Shepard’s Fold”, “Divine Line” and noodle-riffic “Call To Arms” not only highlight the guitarist’s individual abilities, but also show a knack for penning sprawling, progressive structures, that are ambitious but not pretentious wankery.

A definite darkhorse in the US metal scene, and while most may think it metal heresy for a Christian band to ape Chuck and other tech metal luminaries, Aletheian are actually one of the more competent homage’s I’ve heard

Basically Sons of Azrael ply a form of modern sort of At The Gates based, death//black core that has a heavy and overly obvious The Black Dahlia Murder influence (circa Unhallowed), but also has some of the death metal brutality and lyrical approach of Through the Eyes of the Dead or The Absence without being too core-ish or breakdown reliant. Sure, the formula is pretty redundant, but to their credit, Sons of Azrael pull this debut off with a ferocity and tenacity that’s pretty impressive.

The 10 (except for “The Conjuration of Destruction”) no nonsense tracks blaze by with little care for any sort of fluff, but do manage to include a few impressive, almost Stockholm styled slowdowns such as “Scent of a Dead Whore”, “Sweet Blasphemy” and the huge track “5.5.97”, but pretty much tracks like “The Wrath”, “Mortal Human Form”, “End of the Rope” and blistering “Turn that Crown Upside Down”, blow by in a pretty vicious ball of seething tightness that’s hard to ignore despite the saturation of the genre. Also, the band’s tightness from having released four actual demos rather than 3 myspace tracks shows and while the black metal rasp mixed with the deeper ( though reee-less) growls of Jospeh Siracuse have been done to death as well as the fact there are what some could construe as ‘breakdowns’ involved, but on the whole the fierce delivery takes the front seat.

The fact the band was recently not allowed to perform at a recent show due to the bands offense songs and merchandise, will garner the band some notoriety with the kids, but Sons of Azrael at least have the musical shops to back up that notoriety, with a little more creativity this lot could be an outfit to look out for, eschewing the usual niceness and friendly vibe of their peers prefer.

Although that’s not to say though that the chosen artists aren’t completely far removed though, especially in Ironclad’s case as the majority of the artists on the roster have a strong thrashy base coursing through their musical palettes. But then again, why would you want to release something on a label called Ironclad if it wasn’t inherently metallic and thrashy? One of Phipp’s newest endeavours, The Destro fit perfectly into his slowly growing roster, and has produced a crushingly heavy debut here that has a lot of potential and has given them very strong foundations to move forward from.

After a superfluous intro, ‘River’s bottom,’ bursts forth, and as mentioned of Phipp’s other acts, that thrash is so prevalent. Although this isn’t so much classic thrash, but more so the mid 90s incarnation, where those crushing breakneck riffs were melded with double bass blasts and harsh, seething vocals, all of which The Destro possess and play so affectively that the exhilarating spirit of that mid 90s watershed lingers prominently. Given their demographic origin (Dallas) and with that strong modern thrash influence pulsing throughout, the first band that are going to be popping into the listener’s mind when hearing The Destro is of course Pantera, a fair, justified and to be honest obvious influence and which is furthermore the biggest one that runs through As The Coil unwinds.

That though is no bad thing and to be honest, The Destro don’t just pillage the remnants of that Texan legend’s output for the duration of the record or worse, they don’t water it down into a syrupy metal lite hoe down (Throwdown, I am referring to you). Rather, they do as Pantera did, play bone crunching metal that doesn’t resort to comfortable listening (but then again, its not a white noise sonic terror washout i.e. Merzbow).

Anyway, I digress. Clearly The Destro knew they couldn’t just rely on inspiration from Pantera, so together with those scorched thrash riffs there are some heavy syncopated staccato riffs in ‘Beast Burden,’ that echo another metal great, Meshuggah. ‘Knife in the hand,’ sees The Destro ease up for five minutes, relaxing into a swinging omnipotent groove that resonates like prime Crowbar.

Despite being a recurring element of the metal paradigm, I am never sick of being welcomed by the lengthy closer and although I thought that ‘Forever Embedded,’ would be a 10 minute sludge dirge of the heaviest proportions I was greatly surprised. Rather it’s a slithering, smoky instrumental that has gleaming guitars that glint and glisten throughout. There are moments of sporadic increase in volume but not heaviness (although the threat of your brain being reduced to puree remains an uncertainty throughout the track’s duration), but once this lapses the track continues to slide along warmly before warmly ebbing to its end.

This is a good debut from a young band that have lots of potential, plenty of heart and most importantly passion. What’s more its heart warming to finally hear a band that (and yes, I am aware of how much Lamb Of God moved their sound towards that of the great Texans on ‘Sacrament,’) that is doing the legacy of Pantera justice (you could learn a thing or too Throwdown), that being bone crunching, no holds barred, metal.

Though named after a bee farm, not a very metal moniker I’ll admit, Apiary deliver the type of angular but burlier Meshuggah-isms similar to the likes of A Life Once Lost, By Night, Brutal Fight and The Minor Times; that’s to say heaving, heavy and staggering metal that’s hard to bang your head to.

Music like this isn’t about songs, as to be truthful, Lost in Focus tends to blend into one long angular, jagged assault with Jason Ingram’s deep roar in accompaniment, but when taken as a whole, Lost in Focus is a bludgeoning jackhammer of counter rhythms and precise percussion that’s one of the better, and heavier examples of the genre I’ve heard. 

A few of the tracks manage to stand out due to the sheer heaviness on display though; ‘Descent’ (the last two minutes is just fucking brutal), the steam rolling ‘Omnipresence’, and the gargantuan yet restrained ‘Finding a Way Back’ were worth a revisit. Still though, the other tracks are no slouches as far as this form of technical beat down is concerned; ‘Pain is the Reason’, ‘Extract’, ‘Intervention’ and ‘Lustrum’ all deliver plenty of teeth gnashing, squeal heavy, lumbering throes.

Another solid offering from Ironclad that shows originality can be a tad overrated.

Armed with a bruising Jamie King (Prayer For Cleansing, Between the Buried and Me, Swift) production, The Classic Struggle do everything that will make most ardent metal heads roll their eyes worse than a grounded teenage girl, but for fans of metalcore-this is as good as it gets. With some obvious and expected Unearth influence but coupled with the punishing heaviness of Through the Eyes of The Dead, The Classic struggle are by the numbers (Maiden meets Gothenburg dual harmonies, dual screamed vocals, introspective acoustics, rumbling breakdowns, etc), but they do it with major clout and their breakdowns are incredibly pummeling.

The melodic side of The Classic Struggle, while no Unearth or Heartscarved is solid if inconsistent, and to be honest gets drowned out by King’s bass heavy production. In fact, some of the melodies get downright muted by the overbearing drums and bass (i.e. “From Their Eyes”, “Amen to Artillery”). But those drums and bass are devastating during the extended and satisfying breakdowns, of which there are plenty, starting with the now scene common introductory rumble of “Death March”. After the rather impressive opener, The Classic Struggle stomp and stride their way through some competent if familiar sounding tracks, that while culling from every metalcore standard , still deliver an intensity and heaviness (especially “The Forgotten End”) that’s free of the usual metalcore emotional drawbacks-The Classic Struggle pretty much go for your throat.

Around the Unearth-ish “Unsacred”, The Classic Struggle begins to unleash a few more identifiable, melodic and structured moments amid the sheer weight of the breakdowns, and while they aren’t anything new to the genre, they serve to breakup the albums pummeling pace. Still, a lot of the tracks follow the same formula, especially with 12 tracks in all; thrashing riffage/huge breakdown/more thrashing. But that being said it’s very well done as tracks like “Storm of Swords”, “Sworn Alliance”, the nicely titled “It’s not About Breaking Hearts, it’s About Breaking Faces” and “Claim Your Own” all deliver strong, neck snapping moments wrapped in some tight thrashing.

Despite its overdrawn length (54 minutes) and scene paradigm reliance, I’d actually venture to say Feel Like Hell is better than The Oncoming Storm and Shadows Are Security, but unlike Unearth and As I Lay Dying, The Classic Struggle had no burden of expectations with this album. I’d like to see if they can keep the intensity up for their next effort.