Hypocrisy: A Taste Of Extreme Divinity
Well, isn’t this a surprise. A Taste of Extreme Divinity could well be the best offering from Mr Tägtgren’s Hypocrisy in years.
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Bastard Child Death Cult: Year Zero
Year Zero really does live up to its name; it plays like a brand new band insofar as not playing it even a little bit safe at any point during the album – everyone just goes for broke.
Altar Of Plagues: White Tomb
With the band’s notable lack of corpse paint and the absence of beloved horror show theatrics in its sound, White Tomb emerges as a debut that contributes to a growing subset within the wider black metal sub-genre.
STAFF PLAYLISTS: November 2009
Find out what HELLBOUND’s contributors are listening to going into the month of November. Each writer has submitted their Top 5 list and have an option to list a book and a film they are into right now too.
Thin Lizzy: Are You Ready? DVD
Are You Ready? is an interesting visual document of Thin Lizzy during what is one of the lowest periods of their original run. While the band was still a good live act and a decent draw, by the time they released their Chinatown album in 1981 there were many cracks in the machine that spurred the band on. Filmed live in Loreley, Germany by WDR for their Rockpalast program, one of the coolest live music programs on the planet, this nineteen song set is good but not great.
Converge: Axe To Fall
It took nineteen years but, in the opening guitar slashes of “Dark Horse,” listeners can almost hear the bandmembers collectively growl and then proceed to smash everyone listening over the head with thirteen of the strongest tracks this band has ever recorded; none of which fall into easy classification because Converge plays them all their own way, by their own rules.
Alestorm Meets Their Biggest 7 Year Old Fan
So, when he learned his totally awesome dad was going to take him to see Alestorm, Sam took the initiative to make a sign saluting one of his favourite bands. Said sign read: “Alestorm is fucking awesome!” Honestly, I had nothing to do with its creation.
Kevin Stewart-Panko reviews the recent Toronto performance on this year’s traveling Heathenfest 2009 tour, which included Eluveitie, Belphegor, Vreid and, his son Sam’s favourite band, Alestorm. Sam was so excited he joined the Hellbound crew for the show, all of which is chronicled within.
While Heaven Wept: Vast Oceans Lachrymose
If you want to hear passionate music played by dedicated musicians that have been reworked and reworked again and again into perfection (some of the tracks go back as far as 95), the final results are proof that this will be one of my absolute faves of 09 and possibly one of the greatest melodic doom metal albums of our time.
The Melvins: Chicken Switch
For this album, thirteen musicians weren’t just handed a single song and asked to artfully adorn it with electronics, they were handed as much source material from The Melvins’ songbook as they wanted and asked to get as creative as they wanted in creating something new from their source material selections; essentially being asked to create a series of sound collages from any and as much Melvins material as they liked.
Merauder: God Is I
Brooklyn, NY’s Merauder bring forth God Is I, a hardcore album that is not too extravagant or chaotic. With strong musicianship and relevant lyrics, the band still manages to produce something solid.