FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
England-based Xerath have released their first full-length album on Candlelight Records, and its an interesting wedding of groove metal with orchestral bombast. Right from the get-go I invokes the kind of Hollywood film scores reserved for bloated big budget science-fiction and post-apocalyptic films, as if a metal band had been asked to score a film by Roland Emmerich or Steven Spielberg.
Delving even further into the apocalyptic fury of mid-’80s thrash coupled with DRI-esque hardcore, Massive Aggressive finds Municipal Waste’s raw power becoming even stronger and more refined.
A tasty little 7″ slab o’ wax hot off the presses over at Chez Relapse, this split release features (what I assume to be) three new songs from Virginia grinders Agoraphobic Nosebleed and a handful of tracks from Toronto’s The Endless Blockade (perhaps that city’s best kept secret this side of Moe Panzer’s Deli up at Bathurst and Wilson – nah, actually way better than that).
The Great Cessation is well-deserving of the focus and effort it asks of its listeners.
German power metal band Edguy returns with their second live album. Recorded live in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2006 in front of 5,000 Edguy maniacs on the Rocket Ride tour, this fourteen track two cd set displays the full impact of this band.
Fitting eleven tracks into 52 minutes, Leeches of Lore is quite the mixed bag. It goes from fast-paced neo-thrash/NWOBHM riffing to heavy rock a la Big Business to mellow proggy noodling and Johnny Cash-era country
music—and that’s just within the first three songs!
While previous efforts have been mired in attempts at being grandiose, Endgame strips away pretense…for the most-part. Omitting a few questionable moments, it still rages closer to the band’s early-’90s output than they have in years. No, it’s not an outright thrash metal masterpiece but Endgame still assures us that the important aspects of Megadeth’s personality remain intact, acting as a Jack Of All Trades by referencing high points in the band’s career.
Endless echo contains a brand of energetic, melodic thrash that is just a complete aggressive metal listen; tracks like “No exit,” “My Haven” and “Spiritual shift” are both very fast and very intense. Rage is the best word to describe the reaction I had after listening to this CD. It got me all fired up.
It takes just a few seconds for In the Constellation of the Black Widow to erupt into a blistering frenzy, and the bombastic chaos drives through to the end with few interruptions. The U.K. duo has produced a hurricane of sound, with a whole spectrum of throat-wrenching vocal eviscerations, thundering blasts, grinding riffs, and lightning-speed leads.
In The Constellation of the Black Widow begins with a head-first charge into the listener’s gut. England-based Anaal Nathrakh’s latest album is just over half an hour of black metal-tinged grindcore that barely stops to take a breather, and it ends just as chaotically as it begins.