FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
Sinister wrote guitar riffs that were choppy and contained that classic old school death metal sound, but the band also could inject the speed to up their attack to an almost grindcore style. Mike Van Mastrigt’s vocals were very low and guttural for that time and I’m sure influenced a lot of the bands soon to follow.
The blasting, ferocious drumming, growling vocals and classic old school death metal riffs pierced by the occasional tormented lead breaks, all of the sheer violence with thrashing power and a good dose of chaotic melody where needed makes this an essential album.
Russia’s Forest Stream have released their second full-length album after their almost fifteen years of existence, and the end result is a collection of songs that really work in all their multiple elements and many potential influences.
This is a good example of ‘meat and potatoes’ death metal that does not venture very far.
For the uninitiated, OSI is a prog rock/metal side project band featuring Jim Matheos of Fates Warning and Kevin Moore (ex-Dream Theater). Their latest release Blood sees this project going forwards into a very modern prog rock/metal sound. It is a very compact sound that relies on the constant simple riffing of Matheos, underscored by Moore’s trippy keyboards.
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.
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!