Reviews written by: Colin McNamara

Reviews

Nasum - A Tribute To Nasum

<em>A Tribute To Nasum</em> (aka the Tribute with the long tracklist EVER) is fifty two tracks of grindcore, deathcore, and death metal bands performing numerous songs by the band Nasum. Nasum originally was formed out of Sweden in 1998 before splitting in 2004. The band's politically charged grindcore must have left quite an impression on the meta...

17/04/2010

Avenging Angels - Shrouded In Mystery

Avenging Angels are a melodic death/thrash band from Austria. With two albums now under their belt, both independently released, they have shown an interesting craft to their self produced methods. With Shrouded in Mystery, the band goes forth to continue in their melodic death style in the sense of vocals, intensity of the guitars, and use of subt...

17/04/2010

Epidemic Scorn - Psycho Gourmet

Epidemic Scorn peform some brutal death metal, and their demo is no different or a letdown from the past albums. Mostly people expect demos to be raw, gritty, and underproduced versions of the tracks that would later show up on a full length album. Epidemic Scorn deliver six clean, wicked tracks that would make bands like Suffocation or Cryptopsy p...

17/04/2010

Urudium - Moonlit Sorrow

Who would have thought that Japan would produce something along the lines of what's considered 'heavy metal?'  While Japan is known for producing black metal like Sigh, not many could be sure if something like heavy metal that was originally so American and European could have sprung out there.  According to Urudium, who hail from Sendai City, they...

17/04/2010

Bloodthirst - Sanctity Denied

Hailing from Poland, Bloodthirst are a thrash metal trio intent on bringing the best of Slayer back into the world. Expect a lot of familiar riffs from "Reign In Blood" all the way up to "Divine Intervention". There's lots of groove and while the vocals bridge on black metal with their throaty rasp, they still rip with the intensity of the music. H...

15/04/2010

Evil Wrath - Chaotical Invasion

Imagine yourself back into the nineties black metal scene. Two guys in corpsepaint doing all the music in this band. Dirty, raw production was the name of the game with blastbeats and just enough punk groove to keep fans interested. Bring anything to mind? If anyone reading this said "Darkthrone," then you're right! To listen to Evil Wrath's "Chaot...

15/04/2010

Posithrone - Necropoles

Posithrone is a gothic dark metal band from Austria delivering their debut, "Necropoles". From the sci-fi titled tracks such as "Cybernetic Unions" and "Gen-Errator," many listeners may pass the group off as another cheesy cyber metal band. However, while the album is dense with keyboards and science fiction ideas, the musical structure of the albu...

15/04/2010

Thrudvangar - Durch Blut Und Eis

Thrudvangar hail from Germany and have been brandishing the Viking metal flag for almost ten years now. Four albums later and fans are finally greeted with "Durch Blut Und Eis", which translates as "Through Blood And Ice." All the songs are done in German, so expect a lot of translating if you want to understand the lyrics, but its important you do...

15/04/2010

Crematory- Infinity

Germany's Crematory have been around for some time, debuting in 1992 with their album "Transmigration" and then releasing about eight other studio albums until reaching 2010 with "Infinity". Comparing the two, "Transmigration" was a lot rawer where "Infinity" is more modern, thanks to cleaner production and a better range of electronic sound. With...

13/04/2010

De Profundis - A Bleak Reflection

De Profundis (not to be confused with the milestone album done by Vader) perform a progressive sort of funeral doom metal. Heralding from the UK the group's job with their second album, "A Bleak Reflection", is to make the listener feel depressed while still trying to put interesting spins on their music while being slowly extreme. The opening trac...

13/04/2010

Kubla Khan - Six Sex Six

Kubla Khan is one of those bands that start off great but then take a pitdive near the end. Hailing from Spain, the band performs middle eastern tinged death thrash that actually sits well with listeners. At least for the short while they last. Their debut "Six Sex Six" opens with "Agrodeath" which has a great middle eastern guitar melody which giv...

13/04/2010

Ver Sacrum - Tyrrenika

Ver Sacrum are an interesting lot from Italy in the sense they are more focused on delivering a bit of a history lesson, be it based on real or fictitious events. Instead of embracing the usual themes of death and satanism that blackened death metal can hold, the band's debut, "Tyrrenika", is "a concept album that tells the story of the Etruscan pe...

13/04/2010