Five albums and three singers into their career, Darkane are still slipping melodies into their thrash-infested death metal. Demonic Art doesn't try anything new, but it captures Darkane filling their Swedish death metal niche as soundly as anyone could hope. (more…)

Darkane, "Leaving Existence" [3:59m]

 

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Darkane, "Demonic Art" [4:45m]

 

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A few summers ago, the Giraffes' self-titled breakthrough established them as one of the best new hard rock bands since Queens of the Stone Age debuted. This year's Prime Motivator is The Giraffes x 1.5–longer, stronger, wronger and song-er than their ear-catching previous LP.

Roaring out of the gate instantly with the dizzying title track, the disoriented-sounding band somehow organize themselves ten seconds in and unleash a pile-driving riff-fest that's over before you wonder why your eardrums exploded. But the album really takes off on the second track, “Done,” with an entrancing, Zeppelin-esque lick that stays in your brain for hours. When singer Aaron Lazar boasts, "That's how we do it, and we do it so good!” in the final rejoinder, he may be delivering the year’s most understated chorus in a rock song. Elsewhere, the dance-punk "Discowarts" could win over a hipster crowd, and “(This is) Sickness” gets raised in octaves and ferociousness from its previous EP version, packing a two-and-half-minute punch without as much as a hint of the irony that befalls most modern hard rock acts. Like President Bush, these guys are shameless.

Riff architect Damian Paris has a knack for turning circus music and waltzing progressions into arena-worthy rock hooks, spilling out of his time signatures while drummer Andrew Totolos threatens to trounce him with increasingly complicated fills. Their foil is in Lazar, the composed eye of the hurricane amidst choatic numbers like “Smoke Machine.” Even when raising his voice, Lazar is more Vincent Price than Vincent Furnier, an articulate, commanding lounge-metal presence with vocal chops to boot. The less frenetic tracks, including the climactic “Clever Boy” and especially the nighthawk adventure “Louis Guthrie Wants to Kill Me,” seamlessly change the album's mood by staying imposing enough to not sound out of place. When it all ends with the primal, skull-crushing wordless jam “E.S.F.,” arguably Prime Motivator’s highlight, one imagines that these guys would be as adept at scoring a noir or a spaghetti western as they would be roughing up a roomful of Niedermeyers.

Prime Motivator has so many plot twists that you might want to paint the city red and have a beer alone at 4AM, often during the same song. It's possible that Prime Motivator will drive you nuts, but then again some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live.

Buy it/burn it/chuck it scale: Buy

Giraffes, "Done"

 

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Giraffes, "E.S.F."

 

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15 years after their last studio release, a famously elusive metal metal band with an enormously influential debut has followed up. That's right, boys and girls, it's the rabidly anticipated comeback album from…Cynic.

On 1993's Focus, some Florida-based musicians (including guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinart, both formerly of Death) demolished four or five musical boundaries to pioneer a metal/jazz/progressive/electronic sound that the rest of the world is still catching up to. After splitting up to form Gordian Knot, Æon Spoke and various other projects, Cynic are now one of the only bands in history to release a reunion album that captures the band at the top of its game. (more…)

Cynic, "Evolutionary Sleeper"

 

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Cynic, "Integral Birth"

 

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I love death metal. Like, LOVE it. Without the glorious, blood-drenched cacophonies of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower, Obituary, and Deicide, my tender high school years would have been even lamer, and I’m sure I’d have turned out quite differently as a music fan, and as a person in general. There’s just something about the raw, feral energy and unrelenting brutality of a good death metal album that really speaks to you when you’re fifteen and stuck living in the middle of nowhere, as one particular horde of intrepid Swedish kids figured out a couple decades ago. Were it not for their intense energy, motivation, and de(ad)ication, the world would have never seen the likes of Carcass, At the Gates, Grave, Dismember, or Nihilist, and I’d probably be rocking a Fall Out Boy babydoll instead of a Coffins longsleeve right now. Thanks to Daniel Ekeroth’s mighty guide to Swedish Death Metal, we now know who to thank, and just how much of our extreme metal world they’ve painted with their bloody fingerprints.

(more…)

Axl Rosenberg over at MetalSucks posted an awesome review of GOJIRA's new release, The Way Of All Flesh. I could write about my feelings on the album and how awesome I think it is, but really, Axl said it all so I'll just plagirize. Here is an excerpt:

Gojira refuse to succumb to clichés; at the same time, they’re not pissing on tradition. They never give the listener exactly what’s expected, but it all still feels kind of familiar, like a warm blanket, only instead of a warm blanket, it’s an awesome, awesome metal album. They don’t reinvent the wheel, but they do make the old tricks seem new again. Role playing, baby - that’s how Gojira keeps their marriage fresh. Maybe that doesn’t put them in the company of bands like Sabbath or Metallica - bands that seemed to conjure something new from thin air - but it does put them in the company of bands like Sepultura and Lamb of God. Which is pretty fuckin’ good company to keep.

(Speaking of Lamb of God, Randy Blythe makes an appearance here, on a song called “All the Tears,” which has a very Lamb of God-y feel to it. But if it owes a debt to Lamb of God - and, I s’pose, all the bands to whom Lamb of God owe a debt - then it really is the most awesome Lamb of God song that Lamb of God never wrote. And I say that with all due respect to A Life Once Lost.)

I couldn't have said it better myself! Read the whole review here

Whenever they feel like it, the editors of The Apparatus webzine will present a new tech album that you should do yourself a favor and grab to have your mind completely blown…

Madrid's own technical metal band, Hybrid, is one part hardcore, one part death, one part groove, one part sludge, and one part jazz. Hybrid have come a long way since their 2006 EP, Beyond Undeniable Entropy and have made a full-length album that is very, very exciting. It's rare to find a band that has a lot of power present in the studio recording sessions, and Hybrid have carefully balanced all those aforementioned musical genres into a style that is completely theirs. The album is highly ambitious and provides a very diverse, controlled experience. Do you like Meshuggah? How about Despised Icon? Do Lye By Mistake do anything at all for you? If you answered any kind positivity toward those three bands, it's a must to check out the MP3 below for two new tracks up on their debut, The 8th Plague out on Eyes of Sound Records.

[ Hybrid on MySpace ]

HYBRID - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [ 4:16m]

 

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Last night, the METAL Injection crew got together, smoked an took in the new album from Metallica, Death Magnetic.

The first few tracks were not bad at all; quite tolerable. Hearing these new songs felt like the last 3 albums were a bit of a detour and this was actually their natural progression post-Black album. It was almost shocking to hear solos again. Sure some songs sounded a little long but it was decent enough to forgive (at the time).

When track 5, "All Nightmare Long" hit, we were blown away. It sounded as though they invited Kerry King into the studio to help produce the track. This is bar none the best track on the album. Real fast, real heavy. What the entire album should be. Just a really awesome old-school thrash jam. It was all downhill from there… (more…)

Pitchfork Media tends to be frowned upon by much of the metal community as the spawning ground of many of the hipster trends that eventually make their way into our culture. However, the truth is that they have earned their title as music snobs because they generally know what the fuck they are talking about when it comes to the art. Between the cheap beer drinking, good food, partying with friends and other such things like amazing underground experimental music, it's hard to not want to go see what's playing at Pitchfork (the veritable SXSW of the upper midwest) each year. To be honest, knowing that Japan's metal visionaries in BORIS were invited to perform at Pitchfork 2008 in front of over 15,000 fans was the only justification that I needed to make the 8 hour drive. When I also took into account that they scheduled a post-festival show at the Empty Room in Chicago with the likes of TORCHE and NACHTMYSTIUM for the same night, there was no option for me not to attend.

BORIS put on an amazing show at Union Park in Chicago. Despite the fact the BORIS was the only band worthy of the description of metal on the bill that day, they accomplished the unlikely and quickly won over the hard-to-impress crowd at Pitchfork Festival. Those who are familiar with BORIS's long and storied career know that you can never know what to expect from them, and the same can be said of them on this day. Performing with their friend and longtime collaborator Michio Kurihara, they launched into a compacty yet stellar set that drew from every aspect of their repertoire, focusing heavily on their recent heavy metal fuzz rock epics from their new album Smile. Because BORIS is well known to be one of the most influential drone and doom metal bands in recent years and many of their collaborations with Michio are extremely experimental, I was really hoping to see them space-out in front of the festival crowd, but it didn't matter. They only briefly segued into some brief doom metal psychedelic mindfucks, but no matter what BORIS played, they had they unlikely audience moshing, headbanging, thrashing, and throwing up the metal horns and claw to every entrancing note. It was unfortuante, but BORIS had to cut their energy inducing set short that afternoon. The explanation? As drummer Atsuo said in straight-faced broken English before jumping into the crowd and ending the show, "not enough electric power". Nothing could be closer to the truth. It was clear that BORIS had accomplished the job with their psychedelic metal anthems - the entire crowd gave the ultimate respect and kept their fists raised and the BORIS chant going until the next band was ready to take the stage.

At the Empty Room show that night with NACHTMYSTIUM and TORCHE, we were treated to a more equal dosage of fuzz metal and the extended experimental jams with Michio that I was anticipating. That day in Chicago BORIS proved to be a veteran band that could please a crowd no matter where they play. If you want to catch a thought provoking metal show this year, I strongly suggest catching them on tour this year if they're coming near you.

Here's some fan-filmed footage from the show. If Pitchfork posts pro-shot foot at pitchfork.tv later this week, I'll embed it here and update this post.

BORIS tour dates with TORCHE and LAIR OF THE MINOTAUR:

July 25 at the Marquis Theater in Denver, CO
July 26 at the Urban Lounge in Salt Lake City, UT
July 29 at Neumo's Crystal Ball Reading Room in Seattle, WA
JUly 30 at Richards on Richards in Vancouver, BC, Canada
July 31 at the Hawthorne Theatre in Portland, OR
August 2 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA
August 3 at Echoplex in Los Angeles, CA

Every week Whenever they feel like it, the editors of The Apparatus webzine will present a new tech album that you should do yourself a favor and grab to have your mind completely blown…

What happens when you get four musicians who are fans of Steely Dan, Weather Report, Parliament, Machinist, Spiral Architect, and Spawn of Possession get in a room to make a few songs?

Spiketrain was formed in Tallahassee, FL, in 2005. They wrote four songs, played a handful of live shows, and recorded two tracks. Playing an extremely dissonant, chaotic, frenzied grind/jazz/hardcore concoction, Spiketrain wrote about five seconds of music every two hours. That's dedication and precision to the max.

Their songs were short, full of energy, and contained an unrelenting smattering of notes. They were excited to be part of a then-burgeoning metal scene with some exciting writing and playing styles. Unfortunately, for reasons not completely clear, the band was put on indefinite hiatus. Reports have been circulating that the band has started re-recording their older two songs as well as recording their other two as well. The only release by this bright, exciting band still might be in the future. Until then, check out their MySpace page at: http://www.myspace.com/spiketrain

Spiketrain - Ryerson

 

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Cary Gordon, a.k.a. Evil C, co-Host of Metal Injection Radio's MSRCast sent in this review…

With the brand new Guitar Hero game out on the shelves, Activision has another hit on their hands, no matter how good the game is. Pure money they are printing on these game disks. The new installment is the first in the entire series to spotlight one particular band, and the lucky winner to be chosen first is Aerosmith. Is Aerosmith still relevant in this day and age? Of course, they still play some balls to the walls hard rocking fun tunes, albeit with a few pit stops in their career. Does anyone remember "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing", or whatever Celine Dion leftover they sang for that Armageddon movie? Praise be to the metal gods that this song is NOT included in this game…one of the high points for me. (more…)

Testament's The Formation of Damnation has been hotly anticipated for two reasons.  First, it marks the return of lead guitarist Alex Skolnick.  This resets the lineup to its original members but for drummer Paul Bostaph.  Second, it's taken quite a while.  Since 1999's The Gathering, the band members have been busy elsewhere.  Rhythm guitarist Eric Peterson has his black metal band Dragonlord, Skolnick has his jazz trio, and the drummer's throne is a perpetually revolving door.  Add in reunion touring and record labels folding like cheap lawn chairs, and the result has been a brand in search of a soul.

That soul is back on Formation.  It's a Testament record, no more and no less.  Despite Skolnick's return, it's in line with Testament's output after his departure in the '90s.  Thus, thrash riffs bulge with death metal heft, but leavened by the band's trademark melodic sense.  Skolnick's fluid shredding is welcome and familiar, but it sometimes feels airdropped into material mostly written by Peterson.  Still, this division of labor works best.  Skolnick joins the songwriting credits for "Dangers of the Faithless," and adds the unnecessary complexity that bogged down The Ritual, which he dominated.  Peterson is quite capable of running the show himself.  His "The Persecuted Won't Forget" is some of Testament's most dynamic work in years; when Skolnick swoops in with a jaw-dropping solo, it's merely an added bonus.

The biggest bonus is Chuck Billy, who is seemingly ageless.  His vocals are just as ferocious as they were on Low, when the band dropped its balls to try out death metal.  As always, his lyrics are slightly awkward (e.g., "Election day spitting bullshit to the enslaved / Make them believe compromised insanity").  This time, though, they're at least directed, protesting the war in Iraq.  Anyway, Billy's vocals have always been about their sound.  For having a limited range, he's quite expressive.  When he howls "Fear is only what you feel" in "F.E.A.R.," one can't help but fear him a little.

Formation bursts with energy, yet it's muzzled by overly hot production and mastering that renders it uniformly loud.  The record is one long peak, which makes it a tiring listen.  Andy Sneap contributes his usual clear, heavy mix, but the mastering destroys all separation and smears everything together.  Drums smack futilely against digital zero, and songs never come up for air.  The material is good, the sound is bad, and this comeback leaves the listener wanting more.

7/10

Testament on MySpace
Nuclear Blast Records

Every up-and-coming metal band should watch Born in the Basement.  The DVD, by original Overkill drummer Lee Kundrat (aka Rat Skates), is a metal version of your grandpa's "when I was your age, I had to walk five miles to school" story.  When you're young, the story seems like elder posturing.  Eventually, though, you learn what grandpa meant.

That's the hope, anyway.  Technology and times have changed so much since the '80s that most bands now won't go through half of what Overkill endured.  Imagine a time without computers, MP3's, CD's, Photoshop, and the Internet - basically everything bands use today to promote themselves.  When Overkill formed in 1980, they did everything by hand.

More specifically, Rat Skates did everything by hand.  What he lacked in resources he made up for with resourcefulness.  He hand-drew Overkill's logo, screenprinted t-shirts himself, and used an ink stamper to make stickers and custom guitar picks.  He made cassette tape inserts with copy machines, and shrinkwrapped the tapes by hand.  Those big banners that hang behind bands?  He made a 20-foot one for Overkill using magic markers.  Most impressively, he constructed a huge, bad-ass stage set for Overkill using milk crates.  No doubt he'd be in shock at a band like Job for a Cowboy, who've gotten where they are through the hard work of…making MySpace friends.

Born in the Basement isn't a documentary about Overkill.  However, it includes plenty of material from the band's salad days, including riotous photos featuring KISS-like makeup.  There are pictures of a very young Don Kaye, Alex Perialas, and Jon Zazula (look 'em up).  Radio and video interviews with the band reveal a bunch of snotty, confident kids.  Overkill are thrash's dinosaurs now, so it's a trip seeing them like how we see, say, Animosity or Black Tide today.

True to its subject matter, the DVD feels home-made.  The interviews with Skates feel canned, and the editing works in horribly cheesy American flag-type visuals.  But Skates' passion is so infectious that you'll be on the edge of your seat wondering what crazy DIY solution he'll whip up next.  Once Overkill "made it," Skates only stayed on for two albums.  He left disillusioned that his hard work had yielded so little in an unforgiving music industry.  In the short term, he was right.  In the long term, though, he was wrong.  From the foundation he literally built with milk crates, Overkill is still going strong.  Hopefully now with this DVD, Skates will get his due, too.

Rat Skates on MySpace
Kundrat Productions

I'm conflicted about retro thrash.  As trends go, there's far worse, like metalcore, deathcore, and symphonic Hot Topic-core with token sex object keyboardists.  It gives exposure to old-school thrash, which is never a bad thing.  And unlike other metal trends, at least retro thrash is upfront about the fact that it does absolutely nothing new.

But while respecting the past is admirable, recycling it isn't.  The earth does not need more plastic discs that sound just like plastic discs 20 years ago.  In that case, I'll take the 20 year-old discs, thank you very much.  Let's see, what came out 20 years ago?  1988 yielded Testament's The New Order, Slayer's South of Heaven, Megadeth's So Far, So Good…So What?, and Metallica's …And Justice for All.  Not bad.  None of today's retro thrash even comes close.

What puzzles me is how labels are lining up to sign bands that are copying second-tier thrash - the kind they so gladly dropped in the '90s when grunge came along.  Seemingly every big label has a retro thrash band.  Century Media has Warbringer, Metal Blade has Fueled by Fire, Candlelight has Blood Tsunami, Prosthetic has Skeletonwitch, and Earache has invested heavily in retro thrash with three bands - Evile, Short Sharp Shock, and Municipal Waste.  What are the odds these bands will get dropped in three years, after the trend has passed?

Warbringer are probably the best of this bunch.  Like their peers, they're ripping off the '80s - the upward-modulating riffs in "Instruments of Torture" are pure Slayer - but they're more skilled at it.  Instead of the usual polka beat-fests masquerading as songs, Warbringer have hooky solos, catchy choruses, and fluid transitions.  They also bring the requisite hasty abandon, recalling the intensity of their avowed influences Sacrifice and Demolition Hammer.

Their songs are strong and sometimes memorable.  "Born of the Ruins" has one of the most unforgettable riffs this year from any band.  The old-school production from old-school producer Bill Metoyer is eerily authentic (if there's anything retro thrashers do well, it's studio mimicry).  Yet this record is ultimately unfulfilling.  It thrashes, it rocks, it goes through all the right motions.  But it's no more than the latter.  That's the difference between a brand name cereal and the store brand knockoff.

7/10

Warbringer on MySpace
Century Media Records