Corrosion of Conformity are from the US and this, as the title suggests, is their 9th album and it’s chock full of tasty Southern Metal.
For many though this band need no introduction. This is Southern Metal that combines elements of Heavy Metal, Doom Metal and Punk Rock into the 42 minutes playing time.
The songs exude confidence and walk with a cocky swagger. In some ways you could call this “feelgood Metal”. This is good-time Rock-and-Roll that’s the Metal equivalent of easy listening. Almost.
The album has an organic, earthy feel to it with the sound matching.
There’s a very relaxed vibe to most of these songs, with the band sounding loose, almost like it’s a rehearsal. They sound very much at ease with the material and even the more up tempo songs don’t seem hurried in any way.
The vocals are lazily melodic and have an ease of delivery where it feels like his voice just falls out of the speakers.
Ultimately Corrosion of Conformity have a lot of charisma and the songs are easy to like. IX is a good listen.
Insense are from Norway and play a highly developed form of Modern Metal. They combine elements of multiple genres of heavy music, from Djent to Thrash to Sludge to Progressive Metal and others in between.
Well this is very nice indeed. Heavy, emotive and not afraid of striding boldly into territories avoided by a lot of bands.
The vocals are agonised cries, soft crooning, semi-cleans, powerful melodics, gruff shouting…essentially whatever the song needs; it’s a very personal and distinctive performance that immediately makes apparent the man’s talent. The moment his vocals make an entrance on the first track Part I- Conception I’m hooked straight away. This keeps up for the rest of the album and his vocals bleed charisma and character.
The music doesn’t slack behind either; none of the songs are especially long but every one of them seems committed to ringing out every last drop of emotion and feeling from the guitars. The tracks are all tightly focused balls of energy and in the hands of this clearly talented band there’s no need for longer songs – there’s absolutely no filler here.
Reference points? Wide ranging really; I can hear bits of In Flames, Fear Factory, Devin Townsend, Meshuggah, Mnemic, Slipknot, Darkane, Nevermore…I could go on, but you get the idea; polished, diverse and heavy whilst retaining melodics and soul. A smattering of modern European Power Metal; a bit of Djent in the riffs; wildly energised heavy riffing; stirring and memorable vocals…so much about this recording can be praised.
The sound is suitably huge and massive with everything coming through crystal clear and every sludgy riff sounding crushing and effective.
Quite frankly this album is an absolute revelation. If you were to cut it open it would have the words QUALITY stamped all the way through it in big letters.
Hard Charger are from Canada and play Crossover/Thrash Metal.
Thrash Metal raped by Punk. Or the other way around? Who cares; either way this is raw, underground and Metal.
The songs are short and full of confidence and have an Old-School Hardcore feel to them whilst also having sufficient metal licks to keep the mosh-crowd happy.
This reminds me of a more Hardcore-influenced Brujeria more than anything else actually. There’s something about the vocals; the fact I keep thinking the singer’s going to start shouting La Ley de Plomo at any given point.
Regardless, this is a decent listen and unlike a lot of bands who play this genre it’s slanted more to the Hardcore side than the Thrash side, which, as much as I love Thrash, works in the band’s favour.
Some of the tracks have a more rock and roll feeling to them as well, adding a cocksure swagger to the proceedings which shows that the band know how to have a good time. The solos are a welcome addition also.
A band to watch out for. A couple of refinements here and there, as well as upgrading to a fuller, bigger sound and their next release will be a monster.
Black Emerald are from the UK and play gritty Metal with a Sludge edge.
The band have a Southern Metal/Sludge influence to their sound that adds some extra bite to proceedings. They also give us some solos, which is always welcome.
The sound is rough and raw but allows the spiky riffs to claw their way through. Rather than be held back by the primitive production the band make it work for them; they warp and distort it to their needs until it becomes little more than another sonic weapon in their arsenal.
The vocals are gruffly melodic with some harsher growls thrown into the mix now and again. They are assured and use interesting patterns and melodies. They are also confident enough as a unit to occasionally lay off the vocals for long enough to let the music do the talking and let the guitars lead the way.
There’s three songs here that act as a showcase for the band. Each song is a filthy juggernaut of underground Metal riffs and belligerent anger.
Blood Sport has a strong Sludge influence to the sound and is the audio equivalent of barbed wire.
The title track B.O.D features slightly higher vocals for some parts and has a bouncy, Southern feel to it that gives the track a Rocky edge, albeit one haunting the murkiness.
The final track Figure on a Barb Wire Cross is lumbering Rocker that crosses the previous two tracks to create a mutated rager.
Black Emerald have stumbled on a style that fuses Metal with an aspect of Sludge in such a way that it doesn’t sound done to death; it sounds quite fresh in fact. Hopefully this release will be the first of many, and I look forward to what comes next from this promising band.
This is the third album from Spanish Heavy Metal band Kilmara.
Kilmara play Melodic Heavy Metal with good songs and good vocals. The band have elements of Classic Metal and a more modern influence at the same time. On paper this juxtaposition sounds doomed to failure but they manage to pull it off smoothly.
The singer has an accomplished voice that is relatively restrained compared to some in this genre, and is all the better for it. He works with the rest of the song and the music and vocals have a synergy that is unforced.
The strength of any album like this lies predominantly in the songs themselves; if these are weak then there’s not much to fall back on like there is with some other genres. Kilmara obviously take pride in their songs and have lavished considerable attention on them it seems. This has paid off as each song is slick and Rockingly good. The only slight misstep is Alpha which sounds out of place with the rest of the album; more like something you’d find on some substandard Euro-Metal cheese band’s release. It’s not an awful song but its standards are lower than the rest.
The performance of the band can’t be faulted and there are plenty of solos and leads to get your teeth into. The top quality sound allows them to do their thing with impunity; a crisp, punchy production shows the band at their best.
This is a very enjoyable album. The honesty of the songs and some quality songwriting combined with a nice, modern crunch results in a meeting of the Old-School and New- in a way that works well rather than falling flat in one of the countless ways that such a clash could do.
If you’re a fan of Traditional Heavy Metal and like a modern sheen to your music then seek out Kilmara, you won’t be disappointed.
Scars Divide are from Switzerland and play Melodic Metal/Metalcore with Progressive tendencies.
The riffs are melodic and meaty and don’t get reined in for safety purposes when they get a bit randy; rather they’re unleashed like the proverbial dogs of war and let loose to do what they may.
This is a key difference between Scars Divide and some of their more commercial cousins; Scars Divide are less concerned with opening in front of a big stadium, (although I’m sure they’re like to given half the chance), and more interested in creating modern Metal songs that entice, challenge and bludgeon.
It’s clear the band have an intimate relationship with their instruments and know exactly what they’re capable of. This is state-of-the-art Modern Metal that’s a refreshing change from all of the Djent/Lamb of God/At the Gates clones that seem to have been around forever.
The songs are inventive, interesting and above all Metal. Heavy guitars and a pummelling rhythm section keep things flowing nicely as the band get to work doing what they do best.
The vocals are impassioned and emotive without resorting to cleans or gimmicks, reminding of the Darkane singer on occasion.
Call me cynical, jaded, or whatever, but I am surprised at how good this is; I was expecting more Metalcore-by-numbers and I’m very pleased to be wrong. This is a premier league release that should hopefully see the band earning plenty of positive reviews.
Get in on the action while they’re still small, and help support a talented Metal band. This gets my vote.
Electric Hellride have finished their new EP Come Darkness, Come Light. As a band who are very talented relatively individualistic this hopefully promises a bright future and good things to come for them. Time to get a bit more information on this band. Enter Casper…
For those who are unfamiliar with your band – introduce yourself!
Well, we are Electric Hellride, a metal band from Copenhagen, Denmark. We had our first rehearsal back in the summer of 2008 and had some years getting our act together but with our EP “Charged” from November 2010 things began to roll for us. A solid sound of metal with a groovy twist, a lot of fine reviews giving us more shows, all developing our live skills. This led to us winning the Danish leg of the W:O:A Metal Battle in Denmark and thus playing at Wacken Open Air in 2012 (the show can be viewed here: http://youtu.be/xbDEWUs8KdA).
After that we signed with Mighty Music and released “Hate.Control.Manipulate” in late 2012. Since that we played our first tour (in Denmark) in 2013 and developed a little different approach to our songwriting and this is where we are now: presenting some of our new material on an EP called “Come Darkness, Come Light” which will be released the 5th of May.
Give us a bit of history to Electric Hellride
We have known each other for several years. Some of us even went to the same public school and later to the same high school. We actually had a no-name band back in the years 1996-1998. When we decided to play together again in 2008 it was not to reform that old band of ours but to make something new as we knew that we would get along in a very fine way – being friends already.
What are your influences?
We all started listening to metal a few years before the teen years. This means that we are of course to some degree raised on Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and such. But since that we have all developed our taste in metal into something wider, so it’s not easy to narrow our influences down to just a band or two.
Maybe Brian (drums) has a distinct taste for groove through his early fondness of Pantera, Anders (lead guitars) brings us something more “classic metal”, Nicklas (rhythm guitar) puts in something dirty rocking via his interest in acts such as Down and Black Label Society. And me (Casper, bass/vocals), I’m very much into good old Swedish death metal, which might be heard to some point in our music – but I don’t really growl – except for a few words here and there.
But we all like a lot of different metal so it’s really a bit too simple to just put it down as I just did. Oh well, I tried anyway, haha!
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
But on a more recent plan, I believe at least 75 % of the band enjoys the new Behemoth. And I personally really enjoy the new Triptykon.
Tell us about your EP
We were on a good path towards the second full length but we wanted to put out a teaser – or maybe a test – to see how our followers would like our new material as we felt we had changed our sound a bit. So on one hand we wanted to present some new stuff to get some feedback before we would write the last songs for the next full length. On the other hand we felt it was time to show the world that we are still alive and well and writing killer music.
This will of course require for us to write even more songs for the next album, but it is really worth it, as the feedback regarding the EP already is great and some great concert opportunities are being offered to us now.
It’s a four track EP, and as I mentioned earlier: it’s called “Come Darkness, Come Light”.
Are you happy with how it turned out?
Absolutely! We have worked with Jacob Bredahl earlier, but decided to try something that also was more local to us so we wouldn’t have to travel. So we picked Emil Sauer to produce, mix and master. He has worked with Helhorse and Cerekloth among others and the recording session to place in his Grizzly Sauer Studio in Copenhagen.
The sound is not as dirty on the bass this time but it has given more room for guitars to really breathe. It sounds “more metal” but still very organic and clearly played by human beings and not edited to death in ProTools.
What can you tell us about the lyrics?
“Higher Profanity” is about the clash between religion and science. I tried to make it open for interpretation but I think it’s obvious that I’m into the science part. What can you do – I’m a civil engineer, I’m educated to believe in science!
“Grey Mass Depression” is about living in a sad, boring, depressing environment of concrete buildings that really need refurbishment and how it in some places slow down the mind to something zombie-like.
Evil lives in us all. That it basically the conclusion of “Phosphorus”. Phosphorus relates to Venus which relates to Lucifer. And phosphorus also relates to DNA. So we can’t avoid the evil one. It’s in our DNA, simple as that. No need to try to be good, haha.
“Master Inferno” is about power. Power used to control others who are being (way too) submissive.
Give us a bit of information on the songwriting process.
As already stated we are working hard on the song writing for the next album and it is going really well and it will be more in the style of the EP than our first album. Usually one of us comes with a riff or two and we work around that and we are all taking part of the songwriting and thus we are all very important for how a song will turn out.
You have quite an individual sound – was this intentional or a more natural development?
I think it’s natural. We don’t aim to land within a specific genre such as jumping on the retro thrash metal wave. We just like metal, but we are very critical to ourselves in the rehearsal room regarding what we feel works and what we don’t feel will make the cut. And over the years we have learned a lot about what we do well and which elements we should leave to others to pursue. It has taken some time to get here, but we do agree that we actually have found something a bit of our own now.
Working with producer Emil Sauer this time also has a lot to say. We really listened to his views on our music and together with him we landed on the sound that can be heard on the EP.
In my review I say that you’re almost a kind of Stoner/Thrash hybrid, almost as if someone has appropriated the singer of a more contemporary band, (Clutch?/Godhunter?), and forced him to front Kreator. What are your thoughts on this?
That is just how I sing, haha! I like the way you tried to describe to vocals as a mixture of two different genres, as my singing is something that really is hard for a lot people to describe. As the producer said during the recordings “You don’t really sound like anyone else. Well, I remember one from Belgium but he doesn’t sing anymore. So…”.
But honestly, back in the day – long before Electric Hellride – I tried to sing clean, but although I wasn’t singing out of tune it did sound a bit flat and boring, so eventually I tried to yell instead. I like growls but the music I’ve played never really fit to that so to “yell” was the right way to go. It’s been a long walk but since our EP “Charged” I’ve been more or less satisfied with my vocals, and luckily my vocal skills are still getting better and better. Some part is better technique, something is just the natural ageing of the voice (well, I’m 35 – is that old?!). And a lot is the gained experience and just all of us in the band being critical towards the vocals.
How do you see your songs/direction developing in the future?
At the moment we feel that “Come Darkness, Come Light” is our sound of the future. It is a bit different to our earlier material and the clues to what makes it different is variation: we try vary the tempos of the songs more to each other, making heavier and slower songs as well as making faster and more aggressive songs. And we are also challenging ourselves to make riffs that doesn’t sound as it was picked from our usual “comfort zone”.
And then we are a solid live act and this will get even better in the future as we are getting a lot of interesting gigs at the moment.
What’s next for Electric Hellride?
We really want to play more outside Denmark. So that is a focus point – we are trying to land a tour in Europe in the fall of 2014. We hope it works out!
Hailing form the Netherlands, this is the new album by Countess, their 14th in fact, I believe.
This is the follow up to last year’s Sermons of the Infidel, where I was introduced to their individualistic, dare I say it, chirpy, brand of Black Metal. I have been looking forward to seeing what they serve up this time.
Within a few scant seconds of pressing play Countess confirm that they haven’t changed and they are, in fact, just as unique and special as they’ve always been. Hurrah!
The same distinctive vocals layer the music, and the same NWOBHM-influenced Black Metal underpins everything nicely.
There are two main differences between this and Sermons of the Infidel. The first is that Ancient Lies and Battle Cries has a few longer songs on it, and these have a bit of a nice Progressive feel to them in addition to the NWOBHM feeling. The second is the sound the band have on this recording – they sound absolutely huge! A really massive production rounds off the release and the songs sound positively buzzing due to it.
The songs remain absurdly catchy and the tracks have an astounding amount of depth and longevity in them for relatively simple compositions. This is the joy and the gift of Metal in the hands of masters.
I don’t have any of the older Countess material, sadly, but they have made a life-long fan of me nonetheless just with these last two releases alone. I won’t even pretend to be objective about this – Countess are just brilliant.
Wicked Inquisition are from the US and play Traditional Heavy Metal.
Here we have some good old-fashioned worship of all things 70’s style Doom, with Black Sabbath, Trouble and Saint Vitus all being good reference points.
This is a short EP, with 4 songs in just under 16 minutes, one of which is an interlude-style track.
This kind of music is instantly familiar as soon as you press play; within the first couple of seconds they’ve already established what they’re all about and what you should expect.
The songs are good and the production warm. The singer fits with the vibe of the band and everything gels nicely into place.
They do what they do well and make for a perfectly enjoyable 16 minutes. You know what to expect with this style, and Wicked Inquisition do it as well as any.
This is the latest EP from Danish Metallers Electric Hellride.
The EP boasts a strong, crisp sound that gives the band the space and presence to make their mark.
Electric Hellride play a combination of older Thrash and Modern Metal; sort of a modern Thrash Metal but without being infected with the American template of Metalcore/breakdowns/At The Gates-isms/etc.
Instead this treads its own path; paying fealty to the Thrash Metal pantheon with some catchy choruses, (no clean vocals), while stamping their own identity on the more modern aspects of their sound.
The vocals are very interesting. Initally seemingly buried under the Thrash onslaught of the first song Master Inferno, it’s on second track Higher Profanity that they come into their own. They’re almost a kind of Stoner/Thrash hybrid, almost as if someone has appropriated the singer of a more contemporary band, (Clutch?/Godhunter?), and forced him to front Kreator. This is merely an extension of the music however, where you have elements of older and newer bands rubbing shoulders, without any form of detriment to either.
This melding of styles into a seamless whole lends a timeless element to the whole thing. I could imagine listening to this if it had come out in the 90s or the 00’s, never mind 2014.
Come Darkness, Come Light is an exceptional EP from a very talented and relatively individualistic band. I suggest listening to this and giving them your wholehearted support.
Corrosion of Conformity are from the US and this, as the title suggests, is their 9th album and it’s chock full of tasty Southern Metal.
What are you listening to at the moment that you would like to recommend?
What can you tell us about the lyrics?
Wonderbox Metal 