ARISE FROM THORNS - BEFORE AN AUDIENCE OF STARS (Dark Symphonies Recs. - 2001): An extremely climatic band that now has changed its name to Brave. The main features of this record are: first of all and most important the amazing female vocals of Michelle Loose (that can be compared with great singers as Annekke Van Giesbergen (The Gathering) or Kari Rueslåtten). The second thing that I found really interesting in this recording is the use of acoustic and clean guitars that are fundamental to get the feel of melancholy, sadness, dreamings or what they wnat to transmit through every song. A third feature important is the interaction between theguitars, keyboards and vocals...this is fundamental. I totally recommend this album, I liked it a lot. My favorite tracks are: "Dreaming", "Lure" and "Remember the stars". Email: darksympho@aol.com

AUTUMN TEARS - Promotional Sampler Compilation (Dark Symphonies Recs. - 2001): This is a CD compilation of songs from this great trio extracted from the complete catalog of the band which consists in three CDs and a MCD. The compilation opens with climatic "The Grand Celebration" a song extracted from the "Winter and the broken angel..." that opens the gates to melancholy for the listeners and the beauty that emanates the music will very fast embrace you. The female vocals of Erika Swinnich and Jennifer LeAnna are what dominates the whole work of the band and what gives chill down your spine. Credit must be given also to the third member of the band Ted whose keyboards, piano and whispers help to create this amazingly beautiful atmosphere. It would be really great to listen more music from this great band. My favorite tracks are: the whole compilation is extremely beautiful, musical and the feelings are fantastic. Email: darksympho@aol.com

 

 

AURORA BOREALIS - Northern Lights (Independent. - 2000): This is a band that plays a style of black metal combined with thrash. Let me explained myself better: certain parts that are full of speed can be labeled (I hate putting labels) as black metal, but the vocals are closer to the one in thrash bands like Kreator, the lead guitars also are closer to bands like Destruction or Sodom than to Mayhem or bands from Norway and there are riffs that goes beyond the two styles mentioned above (such as the ones in "". This CD is very raw but it has a really good production (I am surprised about the clarity in the mix). A great record for those who like intense music. My favorite tracks: "Enter the Halls", "Draco", and "Sky Dweller". Email: AURORA4DTH@aol.com

 

 

BACTERY - PRICE TO PAY (Independent - 1999) : This is a hard rock band that comes from France. They sound really good and they got some touches of heavy metal, specially on the guitar riffs and the vocals. Guitarists are really fluent with shades of neoclassical shredders in their playing. Some of the songs are in english and some in french (this gives a strange feeling if you are not accustomed to listen French hard rock....great!). The overall sound is good (I would have made sound the guitars a little bit upper in the mix). This is a band that can be between the biggest names in the scene. The CD includes a piece of Mozart´s Rondo alla Turque played in piano in the beginning and later joined by the whole band (the result is extremely good). My favorite tracks: "I need speed" and "My friend of loneliness" (a dark ballad). Email: Bactery@wanadoo.fr

CANDLELIGHT COLLECTION VOL.4 (Candlelight Recs. - 2001): This is a compilation of songs from the latest works from Candlelight artists Zyklon, Extreme Noise Terror, Failed Humanity, Christian Death, Peccatum, Daeonia and Killing Machine . All of this band are of great quality and are well known to fans of death, black, gothic and heavy metal. The feelings that you get through the record are really different as are the bands featured. You have the death metal sound of Extreme Noise Terror and Failed Humanity, the black metal feeling of Zyklon, the classically arranged with electronic drums Peccatum, the gothic inspired sound of Christian Death or Daeonia or the classic metal of supergroup Killing Machine (formed by Mike Vescera (ex Yngwie Malmsteen, Loudness), guitarist Peter Scheithauer (Belladonna, Stream), bassist Mike Duda (WASP) and drummer Stet Howland (WASP, Impelliteri). My favorite tracks are: "Storm Detonation" (Zyklon), "A game divine"(Peccatum) and "Angel for a better day" (Daeonia). Web site: www.candlelightrecords.co.uk

COCK AND BALL TORTURE - OPUS(SY) VI (Shredded Recs. - 2000): I have not listened to something like this since the first records of Carcass or Napalm Death ("Reek of Putrefaction" or "From Enslavement to Obliteration" era) . I would define the style of this geermans as grind-porno. The music is extremely fast combining the speed and blasts of grindcore with death metal guitar riffs and those putrid vocals that could be listened in albums like the above mentioned. The lyrics deal with a lot of items regarding sex in a funny way. Also the booklet shows you a lot of girls in diferent stages of a bondage process. Thos who don´t like this type of music stay away from it, but for those fans looking for grind madness this is totally recommended. My favorite tracks: "Candy Teen Pussy Pleasures", "Fuck me, fill me" and "Vulvurine Cooze Blues". Email: cockandball@gmx.de

 

 

CORBETT - GUSTAFSSON - KAPSALIS - LONBERG-HOLM - Battuto (Random Acoustic Recs. - 2000): This is another demonstration of greatly improvised music. In contraposition with highly educated musicians that can not perform without reading music in paper. This is not the case with John Corbett - guitar, Mats Gustafsson - tenor sax, fluteophone, flute, Terri Kapsalis - violin and Fred Lonberg-Holm - cello. This four musicians are capable of moving the boundaries of music to extrems that one could not have imagined before. This improvisations took place at Air Wave Recording Studios in October 7, 1996. The songs are named after some italian pasta: "Tagliatelle", "Fusilli Bucati Lunghi", and "Trenne Dábruzzo" and they are divided in multiple parts that have each one life in itself. My favorite tracks are: "Enchantment", "Pause- oder was?" and "Stelen". Email: info@randomacoustics.de  

 

 

COURAGOUS - Listen (Independent - 1999): This is metal at its best !! Power/thrash metal riffs such as it was in the middle eighties (Testament, Exodus type) with vocals that brings to me shades of bands like Sepultura or Prong or Chuck Billy´s style since the "Low" album (in fact the good thing is that Chris combines growling vocals with a more thrash metal attack in his voice). The opening track "Listen" is a metal fest...with solos, thrashing beats and strong vocals. And as the first song is the whole album. Really powerful. Is a band that takes the best from eighties, the best from nineties and puts it all together in their own music. My favorite tracks: "Listen", "Immortal" , "Shadows of Disbelief" and "My Inner Voice". Email: couragous2000@hotmail.com

 

 

DENATA - Departed to Hell (Ghoul Recs. - 2000): This is the second effort of this swedish band (the first one was their self titled EP). Their music is thrash metal with vocals that can make you think in death metal. They have a great sense of humor that is manifest in all the recording: titles as "Necro Erection", Mistress of Buffalo Shit" or "Saccharified and Grey" can make you laugh if you know what the lyrics are about. This is a record for fans of raw metal (in fact this is a power trio that makes their music powerful and intense). Totally recomended for thrash metal fans and people who like metal. My favorite tracks: "Mistress of Buffalo Shit", "Necro Erection" and " Heavy Metal Highway". Email: denata@telia.com

 

 

DEREK BAILEY - INGAR ZACH - Llaer (Sofa Recs. - 2000): This CD was recorded in Oslo on October 20^th, 2000 in a great improvisation between Derek Bailey - guitar and Ingar Zach - drums/Percussion. It features great improvisation from this two masters of the style. Bailey´s guitar got some distortion on it sometimes and his use of harmonics and feedback make the pieces a lot more oppressive than could have been with a cleaner guitar. Zach chines through all the recording. This CD is not easy to listen because of the big amount of information that arrives to the mind while listening to it. My favorite tracks: I find amazing all the CD but if I had to choose some tracks on it they would be "Horizontal Rain", "Shiny Crimp" and "Warts´n´ all. Email: sofa@norcd.no  

 

 

DIAMOND - Doctor Lost (Independent - 2000): This is a MCD of this brazilian band that makes great power/thrash metal in the vein of eighties bands but with a more modern sound. The songs contained here have great hooks and are really well constructed (in fact you will find yourself singing some of them after you concluded listening to the CD). The song "Doctor Lost" is a heavy metal hit in the vein of bands like maybe Helloween or Angra but with a much more raw sound.. The overall sound is good and I think that this guys are going to get a better one when they find a record company interested in what they are doing. My favorite tracks: "Alien Escape", "Doctor Lost" and "Crazy Love". Email: diamond_band@uol.com.br

 

 

DISCERN - REVIVE AND REBUKE (Independent, 1998): This is a weird CD ! This one man band (Bill Fraser is the only member, helped this time by Andrew Albert on lead guitar) is really good. You start listening to it and think that the music in it is death metal in the style of maybe Cannibal Corpse or some band like that ....and then you start listening to all that blues licks played with an extremely distorted sound. When you arrive to song number five you find a beautiful acoustic interlude called "Jasper" that gives way to a death metallish song like "Parallel The Righteousness". The overall result of the record is great. It has lot of energy and it doesn´t become boring when you get to the end of the recording. I am waiting for the next record of this guy to see what is he doing now. Email: discern@flash.net

ENFORCE - CAMPFIRE NIGHT (Sonic Wave Int. - 2000): This wll explain why american people called Australia "The Thunder from down Under ". This is a Thunder of death metal coming from this country who has started recently to develope a fantastic scene of extreme bands. This band comes from the locality of Perth and their style is brutal death metal with fast and great guitars, thundering drums with razorsharp precission, and gutural vocals. Enforce are a band that is worth to check live to see their possibilities extended to the limit. Recommended for lovers of death metal. A good death metal collection can not be complete without it. My favorite tracks: "As death sets in", "Campfire Night" and "Stalker". Email: dominion@iinet.net.au

ETERNAL DEFORMITY - NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (E.D. Records. - 1997): A prelude of what was going to be done in their next album "In the Abyss of dreams..." This band mixes the best from three diferent styles: power, death and black metal. They are really great and precise musicians. What I liked most from this release is the abundance of dark melodies done with great precission in a context of furious riffs. The sound of the recording is good. My favorite tracks: "Two faces of love", "Wasted Happiness" and "Repentance". Email: zawzgal@hotmail.com

ETERNAL DEFORMITY - IN THE ABYSS OF DREAMS...FURIOUS MEMORIES (E.D. Records. - 1999): The concretion of what the band was looking for in their first album. This polish band reaches new highness of power and quality in this release. The sound is much better than in "Nothing Lasts Forever" and the melodies are darker and more original here than in their previous effort. Thumbs up for this great band !! Great musicianship, great compositional leval and great feelings in this release. My favorite tracks: "Survive for eternity", "Temporary sign in your hands" and "Eternal deformities". Email: zawzgal@hotmail.com

FAILED HUMANITY - THE SOUND OF RAZORS THROUGH FLESH (Candlelight Recs. - 2001): This is pure death metal ! Yes, it is death metal the way it used to be in the beginning of the last decade. Obviouly with a much better sound that makes the results and impact of the records much more intense. This album is a great combination of what was known as the "American death metal sound" (bands like Morbid Angel or Cannibal Corpse) and the "Swedish death metal sound " (with bands as Dismember, At the Gates, etc.). I totally recommend this CD to people who love brutality, speed and guttural vocals. My favorite tracs: "Your Blood, My Blood", "The sound of razors through the flesh" and To die a thousand times". Website: www.candlelightrecords.co.uk

FOUR IN ONE - Stelen (Random Acoustic Recs. - 2000): This is completely improvised music done by four great musicians: Johannes Bauer - trombone, Luc Houtkamp - alto and tenor sax, Dieter Manderscheid - double bass and Martin Blume - drums. The music is really intersting and it has totally chaotic passages with counterpoint to some jazzy pieces. It is amazing to see how well can this four musician perform in a totally improvised context. The first composition called "Enchantment" is a demonstration of their skills during almost twenty eight minutes of sonic spontaneity. Lovers of avantgarde music or free jazz will find this recording amazingly good having nothing to envy to the masters of this genre. My favorite tracks are: "Enchantment", "Pause- oder was?" and "Stelen". Email: info@randomacoustics.de  

GIANCARLO SCHIAFINI - TUBA LIBRE (Random Acoustic Recs. - 2000): Trombonist/tuba player Giancarlo Schiafini has created this extremely experimental album where he takes his playing to the limits. He combines his playing with some electronics ( there is one track where it seems that he is playing the tuba through a wah wah or some kind of similar device in other parts he distorts the sound of the instrument) It is amazing how far this man can take the instrument. He has a great personality in his playing and is willing to discover new worlds of music for us listeners . I find that he has a great sense of humor too: the song titles are in spanish, he is italian and his label (Random Acoustics) is from Germany. I would recommend this record to people with an open mind and who are not afraid of experimentation. My favorite tracks are: "Scrap", "El carrosel de Juana la Loca" and "Mi mistico minimo Mi". Email: info@randomacoustics.de

HAGALAZ RUNEDANCE - ON WINGS OF RAPTURE (Hammerheart Recs. - 2000): This is a single from the greatest band of Andrea Nebel Haugen featuring a song from the "Volven" album called "On Wings of Rapture" and a remix of it. In this recording yopu can fully appreciate what makes Hagalaz Runedance a band so intimate and unique: the fantastic melodies that come from the mind of Andrea, the great instrumentation that takes you to another time and dimension and the deep amazing lyrics of Andrea singing about differnt worlds. The remix called "On wings of Rapture (Vision of Skuld)" features the same song but with parts in which the vocals are different, with some distorted guitars and a drum and bass pattern. The final effect is hypnotic. I love this band. Email: hhr@hammerheart.com

INDEX - Index (Displacer Beast Records - 2000): I liked a lot this record. I would describe the music of the band as death metal with rythmic riffs substiuting blast beats, with vocals that are closer maybe to the shrieking ones used by black metal bands (in fact they are in a point between the generic vocals of death metal and this more high pitched vocals). Also I can find influences of bands like Machine Head or Sepultura in certain parts of the songs. The sound of this release is really good, specially those fat guitars that make the songs totally heavy and full of power and the drumming (whose double bass is omnipresent) My favorite tracks: "Natural Law", "Corrosion of Instinct" and "Race Traitor" . Email: displacerbeast@angelfire.com

INGAR ZACH - IVAR GRYDELAND - Visiting Ants (Sofa Recs. - 2000): This is an experimental duet of guitar and percussion recorded on June 29^th, 2000. This release is a combination of sonic experimentation and musical pieces. You can find total abstraction and some emlodic parts that are put together by Grydeland and Zach. What I think takes this music away from what is commonly known are two things: Grydelands sounds that are far from one could call "traditional guitar" and Zach´s percussion style that is not an easy listening one (he does not create rythms that can be followed easily, in fact he creates more like phrases or structures). Great album, it opens your mind to a new kind of music that one could not have realized before. My favorite tracks: "First Visit", "Sofasticated Lady" and "...But still sofanatic". Email: sofa@norcd.no  

INHUMATE - Growing (Independent - 2001): This is grindcore/death music that brings to my mind bands like Agathocles or Terrorizer. Except because the sound in this release is much better. What sets this band apart from the others in this genre is the use of different styles of vocals, not only the growling one. What I want to remark is the good quality of the sound specially concerning drums and guitars (that in other bands are almost inintelligible because they are buried in the mix). So, if you want to listen some professionally done grind / death I would totally recommend this record from this mature band. My favorite tracks: "Underground", "Clock", "Grind God" Email: INHUMATE@ifrance.com

KULT OV AZAZEL - TRIUMPH OF FIRE (Arctic Music Group - 2001): This is bestial black metal, full of hate !! The eleven tracks that compose this album gives you no mercy ! Hyperfast guitars, blast beats, screeches and screams of anguish. All this features can be found here. This guys have nothing to envy to bands like Immortal ("Battles in the North" and "Pure Holocaust" era) or Marduk. The sound of the record is great and you can distinguish all the instruments even in the fastests parts. The overall layout of the CD is great....with a great booklet and a foto of the band wearing corpse paint. My favorite tracks: "Destruction to the Throne of God", "In the Plagued Realm" and "To the Cold Beyond". Email: KultOvAzazel@aol.com ; LordXul@adelphia.net

 

MITHRAS - DREAMING IN SPLENDOUR (Independent - 2001): This is a band from the United Kingdom and this three track MCD is really good. In fact the only con I can find here is the mix. I believe that the mix buries the guitar ideas that are great in the second track. But beside this this people are making good music, sort of death-thrash metal but not the type that is based in speed. In fact what I liked a lot in the record are the guitar ideas that I find original and interesting. The drummer has great timing and use of the double bass (omniprescent through the whole MCD). It would be really good if this guys can find a good recording contract and record in a better studio. So their ideas will be better translated (specially Steve Crompton whom I find a killer guitarist). This CD is really promisory. Email: MITHRAS@mithras.freeserve.co.uk

NOVEMBER´S DOOM - THE KNOWING (Dark Symphonies Recs. - 2000): I am not ashamed of saying that this is my favorite style of music. This kind of melancholic and oppressing music that My Dying Bride or Paradise Lost helped to create . November´s Doom is one of the best exponents of this type of music. Dreaming lead guitar melodies combined with clean and distorted guitars, guttural vocals (in the style of Paradise Lost´s "Shades of Gods") and recitations, gothic choruses and acoustic guitars (the instrumental "Intervene" is really great and beautiful). All this and more can be found in this album from this band that has been dooming our ears with their darkest melodies since 1992. This is undoubtedly their best effort up to date. I recommend this for all those fans of doom and gothic and those who love the dark. My favorite tracks: "Shadows of light", "Silent Tomorrow" and "In Faith". Email: novdoom@aol.com

 

SOLID STATE - VOLUME 2 (Solid State Recs. - 2001): An extremely powerful compilation with artists from the catalog of Solid State Recs. In fact, as in all compilations, there coexist good band with some that are really over the top (I found that Extol is the band that surprised me most because of their power, technique, experimentation). In this record most of the bands have a taste for good melodies combined with powerful guitars and some strong vocals performances. In my own opinion, the bands that I found better in this recording and that I would like to hear much more from them are: Extol (the part with a violin is amazing), Lengsel (climatic and chaotic black metal), Living Sacrifice ( powerful as it is all their last recording "The Hammering Process"). In fact all the bands in the compilation seem very powerful. My favorite tracks are: "Ember" (Extol), "Coat of Arms" (Lengsel), "Conditional" (Living Sacrifice) and "Council of perfection" (Strongarm). Web site: www.solidstaterecords.com

 

 

SONUS UMBRA - SNAPSHOTS FROM LIMBO (Moonchild Recs., 2000): This is a fantastic album ! The music is what I would called progressive metal...it is progressive for because of the experimentation and sounds that you can hear on it and it is metal because of the sound of guitars and drums that are really powerful. This is one of the best combinations of melody, originality and power that I have listened to. The songs in this CD are carefully created to reflect what the musicians had in mind at the time of the recording and they have succeeded in doing this. There is also a strange seventies feeling in there...it brought to my mind shades of King Crimson ("Red" or "Starless and Bible black" era), Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer but with a more actual twist. I totally recommend this band. Fans of progressive music will not be dissapointed. Email: nasser@wam.umd.edu

THOMAS LEHN - Feldstärken (Random Acoustic Recs. - 2000): This is another great record from Random Acoustic label featuring great improviser Thomas Lehn. This CD shows different experimentations done in seven different ocassions between 1997 and 1999 by Lehn with his synthesizer. Some of the pieces are closer to the normal notion of noise, while others have a more definite structure. This is a record only for people that are not afraid of listening to experimentation that can be against their notion of what is musical and what is not. A really boundaries stretcher. My favorite tracks: "Feldstärke1" , "Feldstärke 2" and "Tableaux 3" Email: info@randomacoustics.de  

TONY OXLEY PROJECT 1 - Triangular screen (Sofa Recs. - 2000): This is a CD from Sofa records, a great label totally dedicated to improvised music. This time the improvisation is done by three great musicians: Tony Oxley - percussion and pre-recorded tape, Ivar Grydeland - guitar and Tonny Kluften - double bass. What amazed me most of this record is how the three interact to create this pieces and how Ivar makes all this sounds with his guitar. The foundation of the music is the double bass that acts as a support for the dynamics by Oxley and Grydeland. The experimentation here takes the trio to new levels of improvisation extracting sounds from their instruments that are fully innovative. My favorite tracks: The whole CD is greatly improvised. I can not point out any piece. There are a couple of segments in "Second Scan" that I find amazing. Email: sofa@norcd.no  

ZYKLON - WORLD OV WORMS (Candlelight Recs. - 2001): This is the project of Samoth and Trym guitarist and drummer from Emperor. The music obviously bears some resemblance to their original band but the guitar riffs are somewhat different as the vocals are. There are some really fast parts but where the band gets their best is in the slowest or more rythmic complex parts and in the experimental parts (for example where the vocals follow certain rythm guitar patterns. Lead guitarist Destructhor has worked a lot on the solos that are not merely speed chaos over a black metal drum beat part but small pieces on their own. What surprised me and that I can not identify why is a feeling of mechanical thing that makes the music of the band more powerful and opressing (I think is the combination of the guitar sound as long as the cymbals and double bass of the drums). My favorite tracks are: "Storm Detonation", "Hammer Revelation" and "Transcendental War - Battle Between Gods". Web site: www.candlelightrecords.co.uk