By Kevi Metal
Ok, so it’s been a while since I did one of these, but I’ve been busy with that whole trying to make a living while remaining true to one’s ideals nonsense. Anyone got wind of a good job I can sell-out for? Know how I can win the lottery despite the odds? Fuck, I’ll even head down to that fucked up bingo parlour on Main Street near Jackson Square here in Hamilton if I knew I could leave with my pockets a bit heavier. In the meantime, here’s some fun I’ve been having at other people’s expense.
AELTER – DUSK-DAWN/FOLLOW YOU BELOVED
(CRUCIAL BLAST)
Crazy that Crucial Blast would shell out for this amount of elaborate packaging for a double-disc of what essentially amounts to field recordings done at a conservation area at two in the morning. It’s like the musical equivalent of dudes who rent out $1000 a night “escorts” and end up spending the whole night talking to them about their shitty marriages.
5/10
ARTIFICIAL WISH – SUBCONSCIOUS
(BUIL2KILL)
Hey, Artificial Wish: The New England Metal and Hardcore Fest called, they want their cheesy metalcore back. Dudes in Killswitch basketball jerseys are waiting for you to headline the side stage, like fucking pronto.
4/10
BEHOLD! THE MONOLOITH – DEFENDER, REDEEMIST
(ARCTIC FOREST COLLECTIVE)
Not only did I never think I’d love the sound of a Mastodon – the prehistoric fuzzball and the fuzzball metal band – raping a grizzly bear while huffing on a bong that’s curved like Bill Clinton’s Peyronie’s Disease-addled dork, I never thought I’d ever write a sentence like that.
8/10
DIE HARD – EVIL ALWAYS RETURN
(ABYSS)
Venom couldn’t play in time to save their lives. Slaughter didn’t use more than three-and-a-half chords. These Swedes have atrocious grammar. It’s metal; who gives a fuck about any or all of the above.
7/10
DEGRADATION – JUGGERNAUT
(SELF-RELEASED)
You could listen to this in a castle made of gold, in a room decorated with shellacked caviar, while lounging in a canopy bed made out of the bones of your mortal enemies, surrounded by room full of submissive, ovulating nymphomaniacs serving you perfectly prepared baby-back ribs with the cracks of their asses and you’d still turn to your house guests, Gary Holt, Mille Petrozza and the dude from Tankard, and say in between yawns, “Yep, it’s thrash.” 6/10
THE GARDENERZ – THE SYSTEM OF NATURE
(ABYSS)
Soon to be featured as direct support on the Monsters of Domesticated Doom World Tour with The Cat Litter Cleanerz, Emptying the Dishwasher and Rusty Toilet Snake.
6/10
LEGIONS OF CROWS – STAB ME
(FUNERAL RAIN)
This is what happens when people try to be all aristocratic, conceptual, romantic and hoity-toity about their metal and can’t even find a find a drum machine that doesn’t sound like the one Godflesh threw out after the Streetcleaner demos. Stab me in the ears. Hmm, that joke was about as original, and painful, as the material on Stab Me.
3/10
MARTYR LUCIFER – FAREWELL TO GRAVELAND
(BUIL2KILL)
Until goth metal does something to have its male vocalists expand their range beyond the realm of “crinkly-forehead-baritone” even good bands like these Italians will give us reason to point and laugh at them.
6/10
RITUAL – THE RESURRECTION
(FUNERAL RAIN)
Ritual is a prime example of a one-man band that suffers from the worst thing a one-man could possibly suffer from: sounding like a one-man band. Also, given the preponderance of tired Satanic symbols strewn throughout the booklet, it looks like they/he/it is trying way too hard to convince you/me/them how many of the dark lord’s nutbag hairs are tickling his chin.
4/10
THOUSAND YEAR WAR – TYRANTS AND MEN
(ABYSS)
A thousand years from now, once Amon Amarth finally calls it a day and hangs their swords, beards and alehorns on Valhalla’s coathook in the sky, someone will discover this band and think exactly what we’re thinking now: that they’re little more than Amon Amarth copyists.
5/10
TRIBUNE – ELDER LORE/THE DARK ARTS
(SELF-RELEASED)
“Dudes, I read online that being in a band today is easier than ever. All you need are a bunch of songs recorded using whatever presets come with that damn computer I bought that keeps crashing and freezing up. Then if we send it to a label, we’ll be signed and on tour in a matter of weeks!” God, how I wish were a fictional tale.
4/10
VORE – GRAVEHAMMER
(VORE/FROZEN SOLID/AFM)
Classic “kill your dog, rape your mother” death metal. However, given the pacing of the material, Gravehammer it’s more like “Chinese water torturing your dog and raping your mother in slo-mo Cinemax” death metal Get it?
6/10
WRATH AND RUIN – MOUTH OF OBLIVION
(SELF-RELEASED)
Judgement for the defendant and his synth-loving friends and bandmates!
6/10
