Protector - A Shedding of Skin (1991)

While it still imports a lot of the ballistic thrash of previous Protector recordings, A Shedding of Skin felt like a matured album risen up to meet the growingly extreme scene surrounding it. While this is still mostly thrash metal (almost all their catalogue is), this could certainly be heard as a more committed blend of that and its death metal offspring. A lot of vocal and guitar queues reminiscent of what Deicide, Cannibal Corpse and Sepultura were spitting out around the same time, and I also hear some parallels to Texans Devastation. The material is easily intense enough to have held the attention of extreme metal fans during that transition from 80s to 90s, and I can only attribute its lack of success to a lack of proper international distribution and the fact that thrash was just about to fall off a cliff outside of its primary practitioners.

Olly Wiebel, who had joined the band only recently for the Leviathan's Desire EP, had pretty much been given the reins here, performing everything other than the drums of Michael Hasse, for whom this would be the last Protector recording (he left afterwards and sadly passed away in 1994). To Wiebel's credit, he did not attempt to completely transform the band into his own image, but took the direction they were already headed with the newer EP material and made it angrier. Stylistically, this is nothing out of the ordinary for 1991, but it definitely feels evolved from its predecessors. The riffs hammering, sinister and have the most slicing distortion yet, with an array of faster, blasting riffs that alternate with your Exodus-style palm muted moshing fare. Wiebel's vocals are ghastly, with a protracted guttural that he can flesh out with more snarled lines or 'hwah' throat-clearings. They are a little blunt at times, and don't offer a lot of interesting syllabic patterns, but he can be forgiven for the amount of effort he's putting into everything else. I think the bass guitar also falls behind a little here, more than any prior offering, but the crunch of those riffs and the volatile, ripping leads compensate.

Lots of good tracks here, from "A Shedding of Skin" which sounds like a German response to something off The Bleeding, or "Doomed to Failure" which has a cool West Coast thrashing foundation reminiscent of Vio-Lence but with guttural vocals. "Whom Gods Destroy" has that cool lead snaking out against the caustic thrashing, and "Tantalus" is a pit crusher which manages to convey the doomed after-existence of its titular character. While consistent, A Shedding of Skin does follow in the band's legacy of providing enough variety that you won't grow bored, so the pacing is evenly distributed throughout, and the acoustic "Intro" and interlude "Necropolis" provide some breathing room, in particular the latter which its cool, synth-driven mystique and guitar effects that sound like scarabs or spiders creeping through a tomb. There is definitely a 'dryness' to the mix which resonates with other stuff by Harris Johns (who produced this with a few engineers), perhaps a similarity could be drawn to the masterwork Mallevs Maleficarvm by Pestilence, thought the composition and clinical feel here is nowhere near that level.

1991 was a strange year where a number of bands won huge success off albums I felt were somewhat lacking, whether for production or musical direction, and something like A Shedding of Skin appealed to me much more than Blessed Are the Sick or Arise. Although I can appreciate and even concur why some fans' hearts would remain back with the earlier Martin Missy era, Misanthropy and Golem having a sense of timelessness about them, this one is actually my favorite full-length of that earlier Protector run. It doesn't build up anything new upon the components which influenced it, but it still feels vile and aggressive even today, and some of the songs just resonate with me the most. Add that it's the unlikely product of just the drummer and the new guy who had to deliver on several instruments, and I think it punched well above its potential.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (Strip away the garments of sin)

https://www.facebook.com/Protector.666not777

Death SS - Heavy Demons (1991)

There is some alternative universe in which Death SS would have found more international success. They fully embraced the shock rock thing from the beginning, with some cool cover images that caught the eyes even when I was younger, always giving me the impression they were some Italian parallel to KISS and King Diamond. But they never really seemed to latch on a particular style, evolving through the years to cover heavy metal, doom, thrash, and even some industrial metal stuff. Now, granted, the living god Alice Cooper explored a lot more territory over his lengthy career, but he had the benefit of massive radio hits early on in his time, where these guys were and are still a virtual unknown. That said, considering how huge the horror fandom is round the world, I think these guys can continue to expand an audience, even one day when it's posthumous, because Steve Sylvester and crew have a cult appeal that has survived since the 70s.

Heavy Demons might have been the record to break them, it's got some of the biggest production and accessible songwriting of their career. Big, fat, simple heavy metal riffs, sometimes with an almost thrash metal intensity. Leads that rip out exactly where they need to, although sometimes they have a lot more flash than feeling. Plenty of keys and sound effects, the creepy atmospheric parts like the intro, acoustic segments that thankfully never herald cheesy power ballads. Some of the tunes like "Peace of Mind", or "Baphomet" give me the impression of earlier Euro power metal with the drums and riffs, certainly you could place these songs alongside Gamma Ray of the time period. Part of "Inquisitor" even sounds like it could have appeared on Painkiller, and "All Souls' Day" has a rhythmic resemblance to King Diamond stuff. They even go back to their roots and mete out the atmospheric doom ("Way to Power"), one of my favorites here, which is almost the antithesis of some of its neighboring tracks, and ironically the closest they actually DO come to a cheesy power ballad in the chorus.

The instruments and production are quite good for its day, but I think the primary deterrent for many is going to be the vocal performance. Steve is a living legend, but he's got a very pinched, nasal edge to his voice which sounds almost like a mistake on some lines. Once you've gotten used to it, then it has a sleaziness about it which might have fit more on a lower tier glam rock cult classic, but I much prefer when he focuses in on some of the more powerful melodic lines where, or some of the shrieking, which does remind me slightly of King Diamond or Lizzy Borden (who were a similar shock rock/metal act), or some of the lower, harsher parts. He clearly has the pipes to do this, but I don't know if it's his accent or a stylistic choice which can tend to make some of the lines sound a little too cheesy in delivery, and I can understand why a lot of folks might have been turned off while listening to this. Otherwise, the stylistic content of the album also feels a little scattershot, not to 'dealbreaker' levels, it's clearly the same group of musicians but it lacks focus and good pacing in the track order.

Ultimately, I do like this album, in fact it's one of those I'm likely to spin first when I'm in the mood for Death SS, but it's clearly flawed, in some cases lovingly so, and probably best enjoyed by shock rock or theatric horror metal fans who want something that sounds slightly familiar but also a little quirky.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10]

https://www.deathss.com/deathssweb2/

Cirith Ungol - Paradise Lost (1991)

Paradise Lost came out a little too late to capitalize on the three albums before it, or at least that's how I felt back at the time, but it was also the first 'new' Cirith Ungol record for me, so I was elated to see the beautiful cover art and logo at the CD shop and made the purchase instantly. For 1991, it felt truly out of place against all the waning thrash metal, emergent death and black scenes, grunge and groove and The Black Album and all that jazz. It's also proven to be one of their more divisive offerings (even the drummer has spoken at length about the various issues with its production and release), but I have to say that Paradise Lost was pretty catchy out of the starting gates, for the most part it's another damn solid example of their style, and I kind of admire how defiantly traditional it felt in its day.

Cirith Ungol had the tendency to include a sillier sounding track or two on numerous of their efforts, the then-most recent example being "100 M.P.H." from the awesome One Foot in Hell. I would say that Paradise Lost has a few examples of this, one being the cover of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's "Fire", which they've heavied up and assimilated to their own style quite well. That said, while the lyrics seem somewhat relevant to their own dark fantasy themes, it does stand out a little, whereas Prophecy's "Go It Alone" is just absolutely cheesy here, not a deal-breaker so much, since the musicians and Baker make it sound slick and atmospheric, but unnecessary for sure. "The Troll", an original which features one of the catchiest verse riff patterns in all of metal history, also comes across a little goofier than probably intended. I love that song, so it doesn't bother me, but pair this up with other tunes that feel a little flightier and more melodic than their prior fare, such as "Heaven Help Us", and you've got a disc that doesn't quite match its kick-ass, crushing predecessor.

Beyond those exceptions, though, this is great stuff, with cuts like "Join the Legion", "Before the Lash" and "Fallen Idols" cut from the same cloth as all their epic heavy/doom greats, and could have been outtakes from One Foot in Hell. The band mixes up the vocals a little more here, with searing clean passages on "Chaos Rising" that work pretty well, and the album overall does feel like an evolution upon the ideas of its predecessors. They blend in some new tempos, some good atmospheric lead guitars (as in the title track finale), and a palette of riffs that ironically make it feel fresh and forward-thinking, despite how dated the band's appeal might have felt next to the more trendy and budding styles of the time. I personally enjoy "The Troll", I know others who don't, but I definitely think the covers could have been scrapped for one more serious original and the album might have gotten a warmer reception. But even then, I still break this one out at least as much as I do Frost and Fire, there are a number of essential tunes and it fits the legacy quite well.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.facebook.com/cirithungolofficial

Armored Saint - Symbol of Salvation (1991)

1991 was a year of peaks and valleys for me musically, as I've no doubt mentioned before in the write-ups for seminal works that everyone other than me seems to worship eternally. This was mostly towards the death metal or extreme spectrum; not to say that I despised albums like Blessed Are the Sick, Rise, or Human, but they all felt transitional or disappointing after such monumental and influential works that inspired me before. At the same time, there were also a few bands that not only hit their stride, but put out their very best material, and Armored Saint was one, borne on the tragedy of losing guitarist Dave Prichard the year before. Thankfully, he got to write a lot of the material that was included here, and even throw a lead on one of the tracks, so as bittersweet as Symbol of Salvation might have felt, it was a more than fitting tribute.

And this is not only the best form this particular stable of Californians, but one of the best American heavy metal albums of all the 90s. It is by far the most varied, balanced and memorable effort they'd released to its day and ever since, mixed and produced by Brian Slagel, Eddy Schreyer along with a host of others, including Joey Vera himself. It manifest what might be the band's biggest single, "Reign of Fire" and also one of the best metal songs of its style that I've ever heard, an epic paean to the sword & sorcery genre which young autothrall equated with the cover of their debut album way back when. Riff after riff of excellence, with these great, rapid fire rhythm guitar licks and some of the best chorus framing and screaming John Bush has ever let part from his lungs. I was instantly smitten with this track and have never fallen off that wagon, but the twist is that the album does not stop there. It's got a very diverse set of skills that also incorporates much of the band's hard rock influences that I've mentioned on the earlier albums. Something like "Dropped Like Flies" or the groovy war anthem "Tribal Dance", complete with namesake percussion at the intro (and better than Sepultura at this, mind you), proggy bass spurts, and more badass urban groove than Extreme or Guns & Roses could shake their collective leather-flattened wee-wees at.

Even "Last Train Home" and "Another Day", a pair of softer tunes that I might normally shirk if delivered by the hands of lesser heshers, are superb songs that instantly catapult into the memory banks, with more complex structures than you might think, especially the former with its proggy set-up and some of Joey Vera's best bass playing in history. Try fucking forgetting THAT chorus, it sends shit by Tesla and Slaughter home on a goddamn stretcher! The latter definitely has more of a ballad structure, but it's got some amazing vocals in the depth and a mysterious feel to the clean guitars, that twist wonderfully into the electric leads. The entire 13 tracks, at nearly an HOUR, remain adventurous and creative without ever repeating themselves, or repeating anything the band had ever recorded before, so Symbol of Salvation easily stands as the group's most ambitious and matured work. It takes a bunch of heavy metal and hard rock tropes, twists them into a poignant and monumental force that you can listen to basically forever, without it ever sounding old or tired. 

John's vocals are flexed to their maximum potential, to the point that every damn Anthrax song he fronted just sounds to me like he's revisiting one part of this album. Even as you delve deep into the record's depths, with tunes like "Warzone" and "Tainted Past", or "Hanging Judge" (which they got to play onscreen in Hellraiser III), you are finding all these amazing little hooks or chorus parts, though there's also a strange vibe of melancholy and mellowness to even some of the harder hitting riffs...perhaps a symptom of the sorrow that lead to this record. Now, I won't say it's always perfection, 2-3 of the tunes might not feel as strong as others, and there are a few production gaffes where some of the percussion might hiss a little, some instruments could have been adjusted for more maximum emotional impact...but overall, this is probably the most involved Armored Saint album. Ironically, a lot of people I've met have compared this one to The Black Album, which came out the same year, but while both have a lot of accessibility and radio potential (which one of the pair did receive to a fault), I feel that Armored Saint were ramping up the musicianship while Metallica was dumbing it down for the arena crowds.

Regardless, this is an album that really stood out to me even more BECAUSE it was surrounded by so many transitional works that didn't light my world on fire. It also seemed gloriously defiant of the trends that were about to burst, from grunge to rap-metal to the rise of 'alternative rock' and so forth, not that I have personal enmity towards those styles at all, I like a lot of it, but it was cool to haver a band like this remain so grounded. Sure, they were changing things up, but not in a way that was trendy or hip by any estimation. Sadly, a year or so after this album, the band went on hiatus, John eventually moved over to Anthrax where he was clearly too good for the material they were writing in the post Belladonna era, Joey played on all sorts of stuff. The Saint scaled their mountain to its summit, and then hung up their boots and just stayed there in a cabin, sipping hot cocoa by the fire. But not forever.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10]

https://www.armoredsaint.com/

Sentenced - Shadows of the Past (1991)

Shadows of the Past was not an album I took to immediately, because this was not my first exposure to Sentenced, and in hindsight, it just seemed a lot less unique or interesting than its follow-up. But the funny thing about death metal, and most metal really, if it's written with pure and genuine intentions, it develops a timeless quality about it, and over the years, I've certainly found myself returning to this debut more than I was compelled back in the early 90s. I do not think this was quite as memorable or potent as Slumber of Sullen Eyes, Nespithe, or World Without God, but in its defense, this was earlier than several of those, the death metal genre as a whole was still in its infancy, and there couldn't have been as much compulsion for these early second wave acts to experiment as much as their Floridian or Swedish forebears.

So the Sentenced debut sounds a hell of a lot like Death and Obituary, with a gruff guttural bark that seemed like a more meatier Chuck, but with similar enunciation, and thicker chords that rang out more like the latter, interspersed with the darker tremolo picked patterns of the former. The songs have a very good balance of riffs, some of which take me straight back to Leprosy and Spiritual Healing, but they aren't always immortally catchy as the first time I listened through something like Nespithe. Still, with the thick, competent production values here, and the commitment to old school evil, and the phenomenal cover artwork, Shadows of the Past earns its place in that second string of cult death metal, because it's just one of those efforts that doesn't sound much older today than it did then, and though the influences might be more glaring than a Winter afternoon in Scandinavia, there weren't really that many for them to draw upon at the time.

The drums are great, the churning guitars arguably even better, and Miika Tenkula's vocals were good and gruesome as a hybrid of the two bands I mentioned above. In addition, Taneli Jarva was doing even deeper growls to accompany them, for a cool effect, before he'd take over the microphone on later recordings. The leads are scathing, the atmosphere unabashedly death metal through and through, no chances are taken here but to be honest with you, I'd rather spin this debut over some of the higher profile death metal releases of 1991 like Arise or Blessed Are the Sick, which I always found kind of disappointing in the grander scheme. Sentenced themselves would grow a little wary of this style and shoot for something far more interesting in shorter order, but if you want meat & potatoes death metal from that original era, which holds up 30 years on, this is the total package.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

Devastation - Idolatry (1991)

Idolatry seems to be the crowd favorite among Devastation's records, and while I think a lot of that stems from the fact that a whole lot of fresh metalheads were discovering death metal and aggressive thrash in 1991, it's a legit great follow-up to Signs of Life, exhibiting a bit more variation and some more measured, clinical thrashing. It can still go off the hinges, but not so much as its predecessor, instead there's a bit of maturity creeping in. I did not warm to this one as instantly as others, though. I've mentioned elsewhere how I actually thought '91 was a fairly average year in metal, that for my ears, there was a personal 'Curse of 91', where I find a lot of the hype albums overrated. In this case, it's not so much that, but because it was one of the Scott Burns production jobs I'm not hugely fond of. In fact, the mix here reminds me a lot of Sepultura's Arise...

I'm of course referring to that very punchy, processed guitar tone that showed up on a number of the records he worked on. It just doesn't sound great to me, in fact it often sounds a little dry. Fortunately, Devastation has the chops here to overcome that, and so it doesn't drag it down for me as much as it did Arise or some of the earlier Deicide stuff. The songs kick their fair share of ass, like Arise but with better riffs on average, and tunes like opener "Deliver the Suffering" or the amazing "Souls of Sacrifice" with those great grooves, stand among the best that the band ever released. Like the previous album, they were now a two guitar attack, and it shows with all the force of the rhythm guitars in lockstep. They were also ramping up the game with double bass and drumming that totally fit the blooming intensity that death metal was bringing to the game. I don't think the bass tone here is all that great, and of course the aforementioned guitar tone is responsible, though you can still hear it somewhat; so it's more points in its favor that it can also overcome that. 

Rodney Dunsmore's vocals have also evolved yet again, not too far from Signs of Life, but here he has a roughness and sustain that remind me a lot of Ron Rinehart of Dark Angel and Jeff Becera of Possessed. But it's the songs that deliver the most here. They might not be unique or terribly nuanced, and certainly you'd already heard a lot of comparable riffs and records in the saturation of thrash that started during the late 80s and helped lead to its temporary extinction around 93-94. But it's rock-solid, mosh-ready songwriting with decent lyrics and an appreciable controlled anger to it that still resonates with me three decades later. In fact, it's just about on par with its predecessor, I think the songs are overall better, but I just like the production, artwork and nostalgia for Signs of Life a fraction more. Both need owning, and there have been a number of reissues, so they shouldn't be too hard for you to track down. Sadly this would be the end for the Texans apart from an extremely brief and fruitless reunion later.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

Helloween - The Best * The Rest * The Rare (1991)

The Best, The Rest, The Rare really walks the line between being a total label-driven bullshit retread compilation and something that was likely invaluable at the time, for fans like myself who weren't able to get our greedy paws on all of its more obscure gems and B-sides. It was not at all difficult to acquire Walls of Jericho or the Keeper of the Seven Keys albums in the early 90s, I had already had the cassette versions for years and would soon pounce on the CDs once I got my first disc player as a High School graduation gift in 1992. So right there, I can tell you that about 50% of the material on here is just lifted from those and ported over so it can offer up a 'greatest hits' for a band that was still rather in its youthful phase despite already being into its second and more popular phase with Kiske singing.

We didn't need another pressing of "I Want Out" or "Future World", or even "Judas", but of course it's in the name of the collection, and I can't fault them at least for their taste because all of these cuts are all time favorites and highly memorable. At least going into it, we knew that the diehards would only be focused on that last third of the title, 'The Rare', and to that there were a few treats included from singles that I didn't own or hadn't even heard the B-sides of. "Save Us" was my favorite, a raging anthem with amazing vocals and guitar melodies that was surely among the harder hitting tunes the band had put out at that time, and that chorus part...simply put, this is one of my fave Helloween tunes to this day, so even if had to suffer the cash grab component of this release it was slightly worthwhile. The similarly titled "Savage" was another highlight, and another really heavy track that was pretty much a thrasher but imbued with those great harmonic vocals, and a catchy chorus. "Livin' Ain't No Crime" is decent enough if you love Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I, and "Dont Run for Cover" is also alright, but for me the weakest of the tracks that were unique to me when I bought this tape.

The one other gem here was the Kiske-sung version of "Victim of Fate", which worked very well, even if I still prefer the more acidic Kai vocals of the original. If you were a Helloween fan around this time, there was no chance you weren't going to pursue this, just to hear that 5-songs, EP length chunk of value, and for that very same reason, you also didn't need the rest of the stuff which you likely already owned. If you were brand new coming to this without any prior knowledge of the band, then you probably would have been attracted to almost all this material, even most of the worthy rarities, so from that angle it's not that bad of a deal. A bucket of vomit has more value to me than a 'greatest hits' comp of any sort, and I am well on the record for that, but again, this one is conflicting because they snuck on the good shit that you wanted with other shit that you already had... These days, The Best, The Rest, The Rare is far less interesting since most of its handful of gems are available on CD or other re-releases of their classic albums, but for 1991 I took the good with the bad, just skipped past the songs I'd rather listen to in their native original album environments, and enjoyed the ones I didn't have.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

https://www.helloween.org/

Helloween - Pink Bubbles Go Ape (1991)

Even with the advance knowledge that Helloween had adopted a silly side with tracks like "Dr. Stein", I saw the cover and title for Pink Bubbles Go Ape and knew something must be wrong. A woman holding a fish in what looks like a hotel hallway? I don't really see any pink bubbles...or any apes, and the logo placement and the title font are butt fucking ugly. And then I saw it was Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis and all that highfalutin jazz, who have about a 50/50 rate of coming up with a very cool cover idea or pretentious rubbish for the rock world; this one falling into that latter category. The album was actually not too easy to get around my area, but I finally landed the cassette and was not happy with what I was seeing, and once I hit play, I wasn't terribly fond of what I was hearing either...

That little acoustic intro ditty title track is absolute nonsense, its boring and doesn't generate excitement whatsoever for what's coming, which is too bad, because at least with "Kids of the Century" you get a proper sounding Helloween track, with a strong and fresh sounding production, even if it lacks the really memorable hooks and chorus of the two Kiske-fronted albums before it. And putting aside the aesthetics of the whole affair, which are terrible, this is my chief complaint with Pink Bubbles Go Ape. The music here, even at its strongest, is simply not fit to lick the boots of Keeper of the Seven Keys, and for a band that was on the precipice of becoming ginormous, this was a colossal letdown and could have proven a career ender on many levels. I understand the group was starting to have some internal problems and the writing was on the wall, but that didn't exactly soften the blow when I was such a fan of that 1985-1988 period when they were among my champions. It doesn't lack for the metal, don't get me wrong, even though there's a little bit more of a hard rock influence coursing through cuts like "Back on the Streets", "Heavy Metal Hamsters" or "Goin' Home",  they still put the pedal to it.

In fact, if we cut off a lot of the chaff on Pink Bubbles Go Ape, we'd have a passable EP. I'd keep "Kids of the Century", and the surprisingly powerful "Someone's Crying" which maintains that anthemic Euro power metal quality we so loved, and then "Mankind" and "The Chance" would round it out, both of which are also fairly catchy and melodic. None of these is top flight Helloween, but it would have tided me over for a year or so. Maybe even combining it with the best from Chameleon, we might a solid but short album. Tunes like "Your Turn", "I'm Doin' Fine, Crazy Man", and "Number One" just don't cut it, even if the band is trying to show that they can spread their wings into even more accessible turf. And as outrageous as it might have been to have a new hit called "Heavy Metal Hamsters", the title of which is the only detail many people even remember about this album, it just doesn't deliver with that chorus, in which Kiske sounds like he's going limp. Kai would later pen "Rick & Famous" for Gamma Ray, which is a lyrically and musically a similar idea only 100x better. In fact, there are some parallels in a lot of the writing here to that first Gamma Ray album, but it's not as good.

This was actually a Chris Tsangarides production, sort of a legend in the hard rock/metal field, and I think he does a decent enough job of coming up with a sound that further modernized where the band was at on the last two. The details are all clear, from the bass lines to the drums and synths, and Kiske sounds pretty comparable to the prior outings. When I was younger, I remember thinking that at least it sounded pleasant coming out of the speakers, but the tunes were largely just a crushing disappointment. Even if you compare it to the reprinted, rarer material on The Best, The Rest, The Rare like "Save Us", which I got the same year, it comes up well short. The Death of Helloween Part I? We'll see...

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

https://www.helloween.org/

Rage - Extended Power EP (1991)

While Rage has never in my estimation ever put out a truly bad album at any point in its career, the Extended Power EP was probably the first sign for me that there would be a few chinks in the band's armor, that the 80s streak of brilliance was about to come to an end. Not because this was ever anything more than leftovers, and most fans have probably experienced its content as bonus tracks on a CD version of Reflections of a Shadow; but in the context of a new EP it just didn't leave me with a lot of memorable material, and hailing from a group that provided me with nothing BUT that, I was understandably let down. Rage is just a band synonymous with my Junior High and High School years, I was one of the only guys who listened to a lot of this stuff despite the raving popularity of arena metal in those times, and a bit of a hipster, and I really thought they deserved to be the next thing until this and Trapped! sort of humbled that idea.

The long and short of it is that the two lead-in tracks and selling points for this one, "Woman" and then "Ashes", just sound like parts of previously released tunes from Perfect Man, Secrets in a Weird World and Reflections patched together into also-rans which weren't really worthy of those albums. Don't get me wrong, "Ashes" in particular has some decent moments to it with the driving triplet guitars or the more atmospheric breaks with the lead and clean guitars. You're getting some vintage Peavy with all the range of the LPs leading up to it, but his lines just fail to hook me. Some of the other content here is a little more exciting..."Bottlefield" being a resurrected Avenger track which is the best novelty on this album, with some great leads, as does the "What's Up" instrumental, which also has some fun rapid bass breaks, but even these aren't top shelf Rage tracks. "Waiting for the Moon" is one of my favorite tunes the band has ever written, but of course it was an album track, and the seven-second clip at the end of the EP is just stupid, the sort of unnecessary padding people used to do because they thought it was somehow funny.

I like the cool Soundchaser image on the cover, and again none of the material that was unique to me here was necessarily bad, but half of me thinks that if something isn't really worth releasing than maybe it's best to leave it behind. Rage had put out a LOT of EPs through the 90s, and one wonders if they earned enough to justify them, or it would have been better off just to assemble all of this detritus onto one extended LP of rarities, rehearsals, covers, etc; or as they later would do, include them with the appropriate full-lengths as bonus tracks. I managed to pick up this one when it came out and can't have listened to it more than once or twice before selling it back on the secondhand market. It's not strong enough to follow up that killer 5-album streak before it, or even to signal the direction the band would be taking into its second decade, so it was sorta dead on arrival.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www.rage-official.com/

Prong - Prove You Wrong (1991)

Prove You Wrong is one of those really unique records of that early 90s period which I didn't take to at first, apart from a couple tracks, but later started to grow on me (like Kreator's Renewal), to the extent that now I put it on almost the same level as Beg to Differ, which was an album that a lot more thrashers I know paid attention to. I encountered a nearly unanimous disregard or disappointment towards this one composed to the two albums sandwiching it, probably because the sophomore was their big label debut right, in before the thrash genre started to wane, and Cleansing was carried on the success of "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck". At any rate, this one actually sounds better to me now then when I first heard it, so whatever production choices were made have really stood the test of time, whereas Beg to Differ does seem a little less potent mix-wise than I remembered in my youth, not that it really dulls the music, but Prove You Wrong is louder, bolder, and more organic.

This is also a very transitional record, with feelers to both the band's thrash past, and the industrial, alternative and groove metal that would dominate the remainder of their 90s output. Hell, even the cover here, with its great sculptures of the band's iconography, reminded me a lot of what a lot of alt rock/Lollapalooza types were using back in these days. Troy Gregory of Flotsam & Jetsam stepped in to replace the departing Mike Kirkland, and while it might not be a prevailing opinion, I thought Troy's tone here hit a little harder...the bass lines were always fairly thick, but here they're quite corpulent and it stands out more. In fact, the production on the bass is one of my favorite elements to this one, it's perfect. The drums and some of the rhythm guitar riffing patterns here aren't a far cry from Beg to Differ, with a focus on very simplistic, memorable, mechanical progressions. There is no lacking for energy, with the opening volley of the tribal, pounding "Irrelevant Thoughts" and the more traditional thrashing of the excellent "Unconditional". Victor was continuing to grow more confident in his vocal abilities, so the slightly higher pitched lines from the prior album were growing even more developed and melodic when he'd hit a chorus here, and his presence is pretty seamless whether the trio was thrashing out hard or experimenting more with the title track, which has almost as much in common with a band like Primus as Prong.

As great as "Unconditional" is, most of my favorites on this one come in the middle; "Hell If I Could" with its eerie, dissonant verse riffing and fat bass lines during the choppy chorus; and "Torn Between" with that amazing groove riff. "Brainwave" is another highly, one of the more taut thrashing bits and one that might have fit the most with the material off the first two full-lengths. The later chunk of the album remains solid but it doesn't quite live up to some of the material before it, despite their honest attempt at a cover of The Stranglers' "Get a Grip (On Yourself)". There are no bad tracks, but had it ended with "Brainwave" or the instrumental "Territorial Rites" it would feel more consistent overall, and this is why I hold a fraction below Beg to Differ even though there are aspects of this disc that are much stronger. I have to say I find this underrated, I know I've seen people complain that it was too groovy, almost a proto form of nu-metal in places, or that the album feels rushed, but apart from 7-8 minutes of bloat I just can't agree with that. It's another unique, forward-thinking effort. Prong could have written a grunge album or started crossing over into death metal like a lot of other thrash bands of the era, but instead did something altogether different, and this wasn't at all the last time.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (uninvited with open arms)

https://prongmusic.com/

Blitzspeer - Blitzspeer Saves (1991)

I remember first hearing Blitzspeer when a friend acquired their initial Live cassette out through Epic records, which I thought was unusual at the time for a debut to the public. They were kind of existing on that fringe edge of thrash metal, where they'd be associated in with other acts of that scene but didn't have a lot in common. I wasn't hugely impressed with that tape, but it's only now in exploring their sole studio album that I can really hash out why. These New Yorkers were essentially trapped between two worlds, a dirty hard rock band trapped inside a slightly heavier set of riffs that might occasionally place them within the punk rock or thrash ream. Not as outright cheesy or lame as a glam band, but you can hear just enough of that in the DNA to distract.

There's a lot of groovy hard rock here, and when they break out into some of those licks, as in the "Truck of Love" track, I wonder why they don't just do that exclusively, since it's their strength. The heavier, metallic riffs are a little dull, but when they get on more of a Guns & Roses or Skid Row meets Mind Funk trip they really sound like they're having a lot more fun. The guitar playing is solid, if only rarely exceptional since they have a lot of very dull riffs in their verses. On the other hand, when they do something like "City of Angels", which is more like a hybrid of punk and Sunset Strip rock excess, they are quite passable as a more sleazy alternative to Motorhead or the Ramones. Problem is the majority of the songs here have chord patterns that are quite uninspired, so no amount of glitz and attitude is going to edge that fact out. The drums are definitely poppy and rock-oriented, but the bassist is pretty good and keeps busy giving the lower end of the record a second of back alley boogie that makes you want to sell stolen watches from the inside of your leather jacket.

Vocalist Phil Caivano is an acquired taste, he's got a very grimy edge to his voice which works for some of this particular material, especially the chorus parts, but it's also a little hokey in spots. The leads are almost without exception bluesy and simplistic flourishes of rock & roll excess, but again they fit what Blitzspeer is trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, what they do end up accomplishing is in creating a record that doesn't quite seem to commit to either its heaviness or its sleeze, it never goes far enough over the top in either direction and seems to play it a little safe. I do feel that this sort of material would have gone over reasonably well at an 80s East Coast/NY club gig where you've got an audience mix of hairsprayed hard rockers, punk rejects and a few leather & spikes heshers, and perhaps that's the very reason they were inspired were hybridize their songwriting as such. Saves isn't without some degree of personality, it doesn't exactly suck, but it's more a throwback curiosity of a time when a lot of bands had to feel out where they wanted to travel sonically, and many got left by the roadside.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

Warfare - Hammer Horror (1991)

Warfare's fifth proper full-length was such a bloody good idea at the time, or really, at any time: a British metal band paying tribute to an institute of British horror films. Beyond that, Evo and crew were not about stretching their sound a little, hamming it up with some synthesizers and atmospheres that took their street level thuggery into the funeral parlors, the haunted castles, and sundry other environments in which you'd usually place a Hammer Horror flick. Now, I want to disclose here that I am covering the 1991 reissue of the album, which featured more tracks to it as well as a better production than the original Hammer Horror from the year before. It's likely you've seen that one with its original cover that featured doppelgangers of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing against a moonlit castle backdrop, kind of a cheesy but cool image, but don't be fooled...this newer version sounds superior and has a lot more to offer, the one exception might be if you're a die hard puritan for original versions only and are willing to take the bad with the good.

At any rate, Warfare perform a grimy form of speed metal that builds off a similar momentum to a Venom, Motörhead or Tank, but here on Hammer Horror you can tell they were aiming for a more structured thrash nervous system on which to apply all the bells and whistles of the concept. The riffs in tunes like "Baron Frankenstein" almost have a simplistic S.O.D. or Sacred Reich mosh style to them, interspersed with some darker pure old heavy metal progressions. To contrast against this, they use a lot of lavish intros that feel like they're plucked straight from imaginary cult horror films, the organ tones or the acoustics used briefly to frame up the next track, although they'll also throw you a big curveball like "Phantom of the Opera" which is almost all this spacious, atmospheric, theatrical sounding tune which is only borderline metal, features male/female dual vocals and other things you just wouldn't expect if you'd come at this band from their older albums. Normally, the vox are a dirty style which at times reminds me of Cronos or even Ron's garbled barking in Coroner, but he also uses a lot of straight talking, blander narrative lines or others that sound like someone with a tummy ache being tossed out of the local pub by bouncers. It's charmingly pedestrian in places, but also fairly scatterbrained and inconsistent.

This also goes for the riffs...it's a little difficult to really get involved with the better, harder hitting guitars when they're rubbing elbows with super cheesy, slower punk picking parts as in the verses to the "Scream of the Vampire" tracks here, which are strangely divvied up. The album seems to be split into three chunks: the large amount of intros and interludes, the harder headbanging cuts and then the broad epics like "Hammer Horror" itself which actually do a good job at capturing a guitar-driven sort of soundscape to a perceived film from that time and scene. There are a number of good tunes throughout, like "Plague of the Zombies" which is just some mid-paced, ballsy metal; or the title track I mentioned, or the brief "Ballad of the Dead", but others like the woozy slow dance number "A Solo of Shadows" are almost entirely laughable, though I get the feeling the band was right there laughing along with us when they were laying them out in the studio. As far as its pure metal content, I think the stuff is pretty good, some of their best in fact, with strong licks and cool atmosphere.

The issue is just that it feels a little bit TOO corny and inconsistent to really squeak out more than a barely passing grade. You have to think, at this time we already had an act like King Diamond or his Mercyful Fate putting out one masterful record after another, with more coherent narratives, more complex and interesting and memorable music, so Warfare's approach felt a little too blue collar or primitive; nor is it even as interesting or unusual as something like The Exploited's Horror Epics, and its weird punk industrial metal death rock fusion. That aside, this is a delightfully goofy romp with some genuine good metal moments...just not enough to terrorize its way into greatness. And at the very least, we know Warfare had some ace taste in movies.

Horror-meter: Six sexy Sarumans out of ten.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

Energy Vampires - Energy Vampires (1991)

Energy Vampires are an interesting little obscurity from the Midwest who published an album-length demo back in 1991, to little or no fanfare. But knowing what vultures we have all become for such antiquities, Shadow Kingdom snapped this up for an 2008 reissue on CD and vinyl, and I think it's one that might have limited appeal to fans of classic US heavy metal or USPM of the variety you'd hear in the mid-80s from the Metal Blade roster. The band's frontman, John Stewart, who also fronted the heavier, comparable act Slauter Xstroyes, sadly passed away this summer, so I thought it was a good time to shine a little sunlight on these blood sucking hairspray addicts that might have damn well made bigger ripples than they did had the market not been so oversaturated by the time they arrived in it.

I'm assuming the band drew its name from the LaVeyan concept of a 'psychic' or 'energy' vampire, or perhaps the film Lifeforce or some other source I'm forgetting, but regardless, they played the sort of heavy/power metal with excessive vocals characteristic of the 80s US scene, which makes a lot of sense as a followup to Stewart's alma mater. From the 'official' pics of the band, they definitely had a glam look to them, and there's also a bit of a nasty hard rock feel coursing through the music, most reminding me of Mötley Crüe if they'd stuck to their guns and gone more pure heavy metal through the remainder of their career. However, this is largely the sort of driving, anthemic riffing you'd equate with other bands of that region like Shok Paris, Breaker or Destructor, predictable in terms of the chord patterns, but always just messy and unhinged enough due to the way Stewart threw his vocals up over the metal. This s/t can be a bit of a clamor, especially where it gets the most ambitious in a track like "Pull the Stake Out" where they slather in some organs and unruly leads while John is just pouring it on. I mean, if 'overacting' were a musical concept then I feel he'd a clear candidate, but that's not to take away that he has some angry damn pipes, shrieking howls and would have been an enormous star if he just had a great set of tunes to use them over.

You could also compare this to Lizzy Borden, not quite as shrill or consistent, in the vocals, but the music is far less eloquent, technical or effective. Energy Vampires throw you for a few loops, like the Meatloaf-ish opera "Rock 'N' Roll", over which Stewart STILL throws up some of those insane screams, creating an outlandish but amusing contrast, but I get the feeling that even for a demo, this stuff was in good need of a proper edit or a producer who knew how to take these ideas and ground them into phenomenal songs. The riffs are alright, but a little too standard for their style, and I don't know that I heard a catchy lead throughout, even though they are competent and atmospheric. The production is airy and era-appropriate, giving John a lot of space amid its vaunted ceilings to go ballistic, but every time I feel I get into a particular riff section it just sort of teeters out, almost like there's a drunken sheen to the whole affair, the undead authors tapping a few inebriated veins before heading into the studio. Tracks like "Different from the Rest" and the wailing bonus "On the Run" come pretty close to the quality I'd want, but overall it feels like it's all a VERY NEAR miss.

That said, I think if you want another example of what a potential weapon this guy was, Energy Vampires is no less of an exhibition than either of the Slauter XStroyes outings. I'm not saying in a world of Halfords, Udos, Dickinsons, Bordens, Danes, Dios or other screamers that Stewart brought a lot of novelty to the field, since there are a number of others with very similar characteristics to him, but this was a guy feeling around that upper air raid atmosphere, a caged animal that just isn't done service enough by the music, choruses, or lyrical line choices. With further development, meatier riffs, and hooks that got into the skin rather than deflected off of it, this could have been formidable.

Horror-meter: Four crouching banshees out of ten.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

Skull - No Bones About It (1991)

No Bones About It suffered as a misplaced artifact for around when it came out, largely because the hard music landscape was in such a state of transformation. Death metal bursting forth angrily from the belly of thrash, grunge taking over the airwaves from hard rock, glam struggling to hang onto to its largely miserable and laughable existence. Things were in such a state of transition that signing on a band like Skull must have been a risk, despite the pedigree of its seasoned roster. Granted, there were a lot of similar groups who straddled the line between traditional heavy metal and the more radio friendly hard rock of Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Quiet Riot and the like, so this could hardly be considered an anomaly, but it's a stretch to imagine any record executive with his/her hands on a magic 8-ball would have risked rolling these particular bones. And I could not have blamed them.

The main selling point here is that Skull was as a vehicle for ex-Kiss guitarist Bob Kulick, who had played uncredited on a number of tracks on a number of their albums, and also alongside acts like Meat Loaf, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and Michael fucking Bolton to name a few. The other bigger name in this lineup was drummer Bobby Rock of Alcatrazz, Nitro and Lita Ford fame. Had this very same album drummed a few years prior, maybe 1987-1988, I can see it having had the potential for some limited rotation on channels like MTV or you local hard rock broadcaster. It's not as sickly sweet at sucky bands like the US Warrant, Poison or Slaughter, but the band has a lot of flair, hits hard enough for their genre that even metal purists might find something to like, and singer Dennis St. James had an expressive enough presence somewhere in the midst of David Coverdale, Ian Gillan, David Lee Roth and Don Dokken. Lots of rock & roll oohs and aahs that you'd expect from someone likely willing to grab his crotch and ricochet his hips around as much as it takes to put on a memorable show. That the lyrics here are so lame, trivial and cliche-ridden is rather moot, this was not a niche within rock music with a ton of thought or depth behind it, but rather a feel good sedative for the every man who just wanted to rock out with his lady or buds. I mean there's literally a lyrical line 'so we'll meet a few girls, drink a few beers' to which the backup vocals respond 'who's buyin'?'

Pedestrian party rock for bars and strip joints looking for something else when they'd spun all their Mötley Crüe and Britney Fox albums until the grooves wore down. I admit I wanted to tear this record apart when I was first listening through it, such insipid tripe as it is, but as I grow older myself I've gained a sort of strange, masochistic fondness for some cheesy metal which I would have thrown my devil horns at as a teenage and then hissed at is if I was some vampire struck by a bulb of garlic from a Stryper fan's slingshot. No Bones About It is entirely harmless and formulaic, with a slight divide between the more groovy, bluesy boogie metal cuts like "Little Black Book" and "Eyes of a Stranger", power ballad lameness like "This Side of Paradise", and then a series of mildly more serious, moody, engine burners like "Breaking the Chains" and "Loser's Game". And if the titles of some of these tracks look identical to other song or album titles that were popular at the time, just move right along. As redundant as the album really was for its day, I do admit to nodding my head along to some of the riffs and vocal lines, appreciating the strong guitar tone, and the lead work of a guy who was only passed over for Ace Frehley (and, eventually, ironically, his own little brother). The drums are pounding and effective, really the band had the 'whole package' that was just cut off by being beaten to the punch many times, and lacking a promotional push and touring itinerary that would have taken them to the next level.

Is this sole Skull album a curiosity for anyone outside a diminished audience of omni-rockers who like their hard rock as much as their heavier metal? Not really, so I'd advise checking out a band like Fifth Angel or Banshee who were exponentially superior at straddling that divide, but if you've a penchant for cheesy rarities and failed dreams, or a passion for big arena cock rock, then this Skull might be in session. Bob Kulick once lent Jimi Hendrix a guitar string, so the least you can do is lend this justifiable obscurity an ear for a few minutes.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

Vio-Lence - Torture Tactics EP (1991)

If the Torture Tactics EP had just stopped with the first track, then it would have sufficed, since the titular lead-in is a brash, energetic piece that feels like it was swept up off the floor of the Eternal Nightmare sessions. Everything from the riffs to the inevitable bridge and leads is exciting, the gang shouts complement the ballistic energy, and it belongs entirely within the positive canon I hold for Vio-Lence. Had it been a 8th track on the 1988 debut then it would by no means have dragged down that work overall. Once this first five minutes has passed, however, there is little left but a series of diminishing returns that disappointed me even when I was a teenager and first picked it up on cassette. Perhaps I was just too lazy then to want to pop in and rewind a tape for just the one tune, but I very swiftly relegated this one to that pile of musical acquisitions that you own because you're a completionist for a band, even if you know in your heart it's just taking up space.

So, as I've established, "Torture Tactics" is a good time, keeping in line with the band's excellent output to that point, but what lies beyond? You get a 'live' offering of "Officer Nice" off Oppressing the Masses, and by 'live' I mean probably not, but a song intro from a gig, followed up by some wishy washy live mix of the track in which the vocals are more cavernous and echoing, and the guitars just a little less clear than the proper version off the sophomore album. This is followed by what two of the stupidest Vio-Lence songs in history, not because the music is terrible or unfit to bear the brand, but because the lyrics are so utterly fucking awful that even a sexually repressed 17 year old was embarrassed by them. "Gutterslut" is a lewd testament to some imaginary 'loose woman', or in other words just some degenerate, wishful thinking; "Dicks of Death" provides even more fantasy as they ruminate over having some gigantic schlong. There is a line in that last song, 'And if my dick gets stuck we'll just call Roto Rooter'. Charming, guys! Let's wave those flags of misogyny from our cocks a little higher and mightier as they stiffen.

Now, I GET it...I do. I was there. This was the wake of the 80s, people weren't so easily offended, and for a crime and murder inspired, testosterone-driven thrash band, these topics might even have seemed lighter by comparison to what you'd read on Eternal Nightmare. They probably weren't being remotely serious. But they just seemed so trite and juvenile, even then, and the fact they were wedged on the back half of an EP release seems to support the reasoning that nobody else felt very confident about their inclusion either, just Oppressing the Masses outtakes which were too awkward to include on the sophomore's initial release. "Gutterslut" is only half-bad, because the music is clinical, violent, frantic precision similar to "Torture Tactics", but "Dicks of Death" sounds like they were trying to write a tune for GWAR circa Scumdogs of the Universe, only without the gimmick and without the catchy song...it's pedestrian, useless, and even if were in the most meathead, drunken mentality possibility I wouldn't find it just a trace funny. The vocals are delivered with a more brutish tone, and it simply doesn't not fit, even with its neighbors here. Even Machine Head sounds good next to this tune...okay, maybe I won't go that far. In the end, the Torture Tactics EP has one good tune and half another one, so it's not entirely trash-worthy, but don't waste a dime on it...if you haven't yet picked up a copy of Oppressing the Masses, the 2005 Megaforce reissue has these as a bonus.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10] (open nerves deliver)

Haunted Garage - Possession Park (1991)

Possession Park is a record I remember more for the place in which I didn't initially purchase it than for any of its musical ingredients, a small shop in a neighboring town which only hung about for a few years but had a wonderful owner who maintained a small specialty metal sections. Largely cassettes, since CDs hadn't fully exploded by that point in my neck of the woods, they were all over the racks, but for whatever idiotic reason I stuck up my nose at them, defiant of their inevitability in replacing the medium I had already blown so much of my paper route money and allowance on. But there was the Haunted Garage full-length debut, possibly one of the few tapes I didn't actually liberate from those shelves, constantly staring at me week in, week out. This was a time in which I had honestly started to lose some faith in Metal Blade, not only for the swing of metal trends at large but because they had begun to populate their roster with utter mediocrity like Skrew and Junk Monkeys and simply couldn't be relied upon as often as Slagel and company had been throughout the 80s.

Listening back on this lost and forgotten record now, I feel like my decision was the right one, but not because Possession Park is an utter shitshow. This was essentially a crossover thrashing punk vehicle which was helmed by Dukey Flyswatter (aka Michael Sonye), an actor for some low budget horror and exploitation flicks like Nazi Surf Punks Must Die whose own infamy has long outlived this musical project. The cover promises EXPLICIT LYRICS and some Satanic Amusement Park fun, possibly with zombies and clowns and all manner of colorful 80s horror kitsch, and staring at the artwork kind of arouses nostalgia for Halloween parties with stuff like green punch, bobbing for apples, ghost decorations made out of bunched up tissues and really bad Dracula costumes. So at the very best I figured I'd be in for a metallic "Monster Mash" with some more controversial fare, and yet it doesn't really deliver on any of the promises that its outward aesthetics might hint at. The lyrics do delve into campy horror flicks and possesses a little inappropriate edge to the lyrics, but it's hardly like they're just uttering 'fuck' and 'shit' in endless succession throughout every single track, at least not where I can make out the lyrics. It's actually a little more of a timid experience than you think you're getting into, but not one crafted without a modicum of competence.

Musically this is a mash-up of party punk rock and the sort of harder crossover that West Coast bands like Cryptic Slaughter and Suicidal Tendencies popularized. A closer comparison could be drawn to the GWAR debut Hell-O, before they adopted a more thrashing edge to most of their material on the sophomore. Airy, distorted riffs involving just a few chords here or there, no more than you're like to hear on your average Offspring joint, but brought down to street level by the plunking bass lines and the urban edge to what patterns those chords are fashioning. There are a lot of lead guitars which were very similar to Rocky George's approach, bluesy and wailing and elevating the songwriting from the graffiti-smeared ghettos into a more fanciful 'metal' territory, but rarely memorable and in some cases just plain excessive and unnecessary to the detriment of the tracks in which they were placed. As a general rule with this record, the more filthy, shorter and 'punk' the tunes get, the more respectable they seem, with stuff like "She-Freak" even coming across like a bastard stepchild of the Misfits and antique Voivod. But even though there is some coherence to the style throughout, there is a sense here that Haunted Garage wasn't 100% sure what they really wanted to accomplish, a flaw that is forgivable on a debut album but doesn't exactly endear it to me either.

Bands like this often lived or died on the distinction of their front men, but while Mike Muir and Glen Danzig and even Excel's Dan Clemets put their own individual stamps on their bands that happened to be supported by great music, Dukey Flyswatter often gets lost in it. Personally I find that he sounds like a raucous blend of GWAR's Oderus Urungus and Blaine Cook of The Accüsed, with a lot of Rob Zombie's splattered rock & roll waaahs and yeaahhhs thrown in there, but the lines he spits out just feel sloppy and goofy and not to the music's benefit. Probably more entertaining in a live setting where he's got other antics to sate the crowd, but on the disc here it just never feels nasty or catchy enough to care, especially when the material he's shouting over is just paint-by-numbers boring rock with a slightly punk frill to it. Tunes like "Torture Dungeon" are all right because of the mean turns taken by the guitars, and his tone is effective, but even then there's just nothing special on Possession Park that will keep you engaged beyond just a handful of spins through some of the better numbers, and the rest are vaguely tolerable for just a single play.

The production does tend to hold this together. Drums are lively and tight enough to flirt with both the standard rock momentum and hints at a faster, hardcore lethality, while the bass lines are fat enough to support themselves even if they're just following the guitar. Leads are always apparent and take charge, but the gain on the rhythm guitar can feel a little too grainy next to the vocals and rhythm section. Still, it's often bright enough to forgive this, and the album sounds more professional than I would have expected, and probably more than it even needs to be, since fans of this niche often value the smattered, violent and lower fidelity mixes which enhance the vitriol and aggression of the bands. If you like how Scumdogs of the Universe or America Must Be Destroyed sound, though, then you're not going to have much of a problem here, and when the band stretches itself a little with acoustic guitars or weirdo guitar sci-fi effects ("Little Green Men"), it's handled pretty well.

Haunted Garage trends a little weakly for me, and doesn't manage to attain the levels of fun and engagement that many of its peers achieved years before it arrived. It also commits the crime of naming a subpar song "Welcome to Hell" when there's already a perfect song called "Welcome to Hell". BUT...it's not completely awful, and the band themselves must have felt some spark of nostalgia since they've recently reformed. If you're a huge splatter rock/crossover fan or you really enjoy all those GWAR-related gimmick bands like Green Jelly and the X-Cops, then this is a curiosity you might wish to at least sample, but Possession Park is not some absolute failure that I can entirely write off without acknowledging some of the corny care that was obviously put into it. But man, I miss that little record shop. I'd have gladly blown the $7.99 on this tape if it could have helped keep the place in business.

Verdict: Fail [4.75/10] (my horns grow, they swell)

Root - Hell Symphony (1991)

Hell Symphony was not only my first Root album, but one of the earlier exposures I had to Czech extremity, around the same time I was discovering Master's Hammer and Krabathor. Of the three, this was by far the most compelling band, though The Jilemnice Occultist gave them a run for their money. But what I was truly fascinated by then, and no less now, is how they've chiseled out their place within the black metal medium with such a distinct sound that derives from influences other than the expected. I do realize a lot of 'first wave' black metal acts, and several in the second don't bear that traditional Scandinavian structure, or even the filthier production of old Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer, but along with the 'Greek style' pioneered by Rotting Christ and Varathron, Root has proven one of the most curious and compelling examples of a sub-genres parallel regional evolution, hinted upon with the debut Zjevení but fully fleshed out for this iconic sophomore.

The sound here is one of a clash between Floridian death metal riffing motifs with bursts of old Teutonic thrash intensity, with individual riffing progressions redolent of 'tidier' Death picking patterns and the angry, antique Kreator material which is oft considered just as important to the legacies of black and death metal as to its more commonly recognized form (thrash). I heard singular licks reminiscent of the clinical Pestilence debut, or even Voivod's cosmic wandering. You can occasionally hear fits of Celtic Frost or Venom adulation among the songs here, but what's so bizarre is how the Czechs took such a polished, cleaner approach to the production of the guitars, which you would more equate with American thrash/speed or even traditional heavy metal around the late 80s. Or you could try to envision a parallel, European Acheron, with a similar physical threat level, but far more personality, and infinitely superior songwriting. This was several years before the proper release of the sweltering, suffocating atmosphere of an album like In the Nightside Eclipse, and happening right alongside the raw ferocity and chilling vibes of Darkthrone during their transition away from death metal, yet Hell Symphony and its predecessor were untouched by those ideas. Slick rhythm guitars, leads that never shied away from a melodic hard rock flair, and drumming so tight that it almost seemed sterile compared to the rabid blasting and double bass which characterizes so much of the successful extreme metal of its era.

There is also a portion of this disc devoted to experimentation, conceptual and aural. Each of the cuts is devoted to a particular diabolic entity from religious or mythical history...and yet the lyrics are more heartfelt and interesting than the sheer antiChristian emissions of a band like Deicide. The tune "Satan" is essentially a percussion piece accompanied by Jirí Walter's maniacal raving narrative and a few little guitar sounds, while "The Prayer" is a lush, memorable acoustic piece with weird, faint high wailing voices occasionally popping in; foreshadowing a lot of the more atmospheric ballads they'd incorporate on future records. The choice to have an opener ("Belzebub") which is almost entirely instrumental also seemed bizarre, since it's comprised of a gamut of speed and thrash metal licks which would absolutely have benefited from lyrics. Yet, Hell Symphony is entirely engaging from front to back, without a dud among the bunch. I could point out again that I found the drums to be a little bit weak and even mechanical, and the bass is also not a huge factor here, but Root compensate with an enormous plethora of riffing and ideas which are always drawing the ear off in this or that direction, and they're anchored by one of the most inventive and unique front men the genre has ever shat forth from the fiery gates...

Yes, 'Big Boss' is a character, but one you're unlikely to forget once hearing his blend of decrepit hag raunchy harshness, manly baritone, and even more mesmerizing, the harmonization of the two! As if Lucifer's odd and estranged uncle showed up at the family reunion one year and did some drunken renditions of hellish hymnals, the guy did not and STILL doesn't sound like any dime-a-dozen rasper you are like to encounter in this end of the metal canon. And that fact, along with the eloquence and attention to detail within the guitar riffing, are why this group shall forever stand among the greats for me. There are a few production guffaws with the rhythm section I've outlined, and even by 1991 standards some licks you'd already heard, paraphrased from a Death or Slayer, Possessed or Venom, but the complete package here is just too good to pass up, and as many good records as they've put out since this time, I'd still consider this one of their greatest moments, eclipsed only by offerings like The Temple in the Underworld where they took these components and ramped up on both the emotional impact, the note selection, the contrast between snarling menace and unusual accessibility. Anyone searching the back stacks of the black or death metal archives owes him or herself a favor in checking this out, especially one of the versions with the live bonus tracks, which sound even more magnificent in some cases than their studio counterparts. Root. Ever poignant, rarely faltering.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (filling barrels with brimstone)

http://rootan.net/

Samael - Worship Him (1991)

Worship Him is aesthetically the full-length expansion to the style of the Medieval Prophecy EP, but the intervening years had been put to good use in prepping that and newer material for a higher production value that would, in my estimation, render it far more effective and resonant. We're still hearing what ranks among the crudest of Samael's content, but it's refined to the point that it doesn't sound like a suffocated soundboard demo from a rather mediocre rehearsal room session. This is also the most distinctly 'black metal' of their records, obvious with the daemonic cover art and occult/horror lyrical content, but I should qualify that a little further, for these Swiss did not exactly walk the same left hand path as so many of their European counterparts...

Whereas might find, in the evolution of Greek black metal, a huge influence of melodic heavy metal riffs on the older recordings of Rotting Christ, meshed in with the darker lyrical themes and harsh vocals, so too do they appear here, only they feel more strictly chord-based, like the dirtier early 80s stuff by Manowar, Witchfinder General or other legends who weren't always known for having the best of production. Burly, driving chord progressions that teeter on the predictable, but where these guys deviate is in their huge Hellhammer influence. We might argue that if anyone had a right to ape Tom G. Warrior's seminal extremity, it was his own countrymen, though by this time Darkthrone had already been shifting in this direction. That said, where Fenriz and N. Culto took those primal grooves, distorted and froze them beneath a winter moon, Vorphalack plays a lot more cleanly, with some fairly obvious riff choices even for their day (even for the late 80s). So, to an extent, I have to say I always found the guitars on this record to be among the least compelling of Samael's career, but Worship Him compensates with its slight sense of novelty...for 1991, this was pretty fucking fresh and diabolic sounding even if you couldn't get past the 50/50 hit/miss ratio of the guitars.

But definitely some heavy metal here, some of that Hellhammer/Celtic Frost primordial doom and drudge-thrash with some occasional forays into a mid-to-fast pace more reflective of what most other trailblazing black metal acts were producing (i.e. "The Black Face"). The drums were rarely 'extreme', more of a steady barrage of simple beats or double-kick batteries that supported the obsidian bluntness of the chords, with a handful of warlike cadences that I found eerily reminiscent of material from Bathory's classics Under the Sign of the Black Mark and Blood Fire Death (like those breaks in "Knowledge of the Iron Kingdom" which remind me of the title track to the latter). Masmiseîm's bass lines here are largely unimpressive, following along dully to the rhythm guitar cards with an occasional, but at least the tone helps to fatten up the slower, doomed riffing sequences. The rhythm guitar tone is not too saturated, almost at times like early Candlemass with a little more flange or reverb, some snail paced chugging, but despite the baseness of the composition they still manage to sound quite evil more often than not, because it just has no sense of foundation of melody, warmth or friendliness anywhere. Just a steady, damned march into the abyssal pits...the most peppy this gets is the vile thrashiness of a tune like "Morbid Metal".

Vorphalack really ties this all together with his snarl, and the guy has always surprised me, because in reality he has one of the least pronounced, occasionally garbled sounding harsh vocals in all that old wave of black metal. He doesn't have a ton of sustain to his rasp, nor is he the most wretched or sinister, but there's this sort of messy, 'no-fucks-given' inflection in his reverbed barks which almost makes Samael feel like some sort of snotty, highbrow black metal ritual, and I do not at all mean that as anything other than a compliment. The album speaks to me as if it's 'better than me' without the band ever even giving a fuck or trying too hard, especially as half the lyrics are depressingly simple (like the title track itself with its repetitious lines of "He is.../he is..."). Not sure if that will make much sense to anyone, but it ultimately contributes a charming, sadistic personality to what is often a fairly barebones and commonplace set of riffs exploring the more layman hybridization of black and doom, a natural extension of Hellhammer's morbidity after Celtic Frost had already more or less folded post glam-phase.

Now, this wasn't my first Samael full-length, instead one step in reverse, and it did take me some time to develop any appreciation, because in the early 90s I was still so heavily focused on the brilliance and intricacy of well-written thrash, death and power metal riffing that a lot of these slower, atmospheric-dependent records were not showpieces in my personal wheelhouse. Amazingly, this one seems to only grow more effective with age, not that it's amongst my favorite or even my half dozen favorites in this band's canon, but there's just something supremely pure and puerile about it that I can still lose myself in after so many years. The weird little touches like the ambient interlude "Last Benediction" or the pure doom instrumental "Rite of Cthulhu" only add to the gloomy, black magic aesthetic pulsing through the songwriting of the longer metal tracks. In the end, this is just one of those flawed, beloved black & white cult classics of its style...not nearly the masterpiece some stingy genre purists would paint, but an unassailable transition between the 'first wave' of European black metal (which wasn't really black metal as we know it) and the acts that would evolve that diversified darkness into its own established medium.

Verdict: Win [8/10] (he is the hangman's rope)

http://www.samael.info/Above/index.html

Asphyx - The Rack (1991)

Most New Englanders get their rectums sore when one of their favorite athletes gets traded away to a rival team, but for myself, the hemorrhoids begin to flare up when an idolized metal musician is sent off to another 'franchise'. When that icon is my favorite death metal vocalist of all time, Martin van Drunen, then the situation goes critical, and there is no amount of Preparation H that can balm it. As you can imagine, that means I was not a very fair chap to Asphyx's full-length debut when it first arrived. Oh, I bought it immediately...it was a death metal tape after all and there was a time when I had to have ALL of THOSE, and could actually afford them, since they were scarce. I'm not even sure I was aware that van Drunen was on this until I popped it into my deck, only to gasp in revulsion that his filthy and menacing presence was being paired up with a set of riffs that simply did not deserve it! Comparing Testimony of the Ancients to this album...well...we all know who got the best of that deal. So, shortly after, The Rack got 'racked' with all the other middling material of 1991 that I wasn't feeling, and for a long time I got on fine ignoring it.

Of course, I was being a bit of a cunt, and the Asphyx debut is not all that bad...it's really a decent death metal outing with a large wake of influence we're still hearing today, but not so worthy of its cult status as others in its class. It's neither as gruesome as Autopsy's Severed Survival or impenetrably subterranean and evil as Incantation's Onward to Golgotha, two records that, along with this one, created a sort of unholy trilogy of sediment upon which much of today's retro cavern core rests. Nor is it quite so impressive as first offerings of other Dutch bands like Gorefest or Sinister, both more brutal and entertaining...certainly The Rack is not within reach of Malleus Maleficarum or Consuming Impulse, two of my favorite albums of all time in any genre. While they were unquestionably inspired by the Florida stuff, Asphyx lacked the capacity for sinister, infectious riffing you'd find on Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy, Altars of Madness or Cause of Death. Lastly, though Asphyx cultivated a bit of a death/doom reputation here (not nearly so much as on some of their later efforts), there is an almost unanimous lack of effective, brooding atmosphere and sadness beyond a few of the sparse leads and melodies, for it to be placed in the company of Lost Paradise, As the Flower Withers, or the raw and influential Into Darkness by New York's Winter. Not that I myself love all the gloom cookies in that last batch equally, but The Rack is just not as emphatically depressing.

No, best to think of this as a decidedly average set of death metal riffs, benefiting from an ace vokillist, that happened to be released in the right place and time that those future generations on the internet would worship it by chronological proximity to the birth of the genre. It was one of the earlier Century Media offerings, along with Tiamat's sophomore The Astral Sleep (which is also a better record), released in a period when that label had yet to become a household name among the metal crowd, but still managed to get it out in stores here in the States; they might not have been heavily promoted, but Asphyx was 'available' to purchase, or to check out, and I think that generated some momentum other death metal antiquities were unable to partake in. These days, it seems almost as if this was one of those records that you 'automatically' have to fiend for if you're a Legit Death Metal Person of Taste, a sentiment that is rubbish and not even hinging on truth, but one that is unfortunately commonplace for a lot of these 1990-1993 releases that almost no one gave a shit about when they first dropped, including yours truly who bought them all like a kid in a candy store. That's not to say its historically insignificant...for example, it's one of the first cases of a death metal musician finding success with a second band (along with Chris Reifert's transition from Scream Bloody Gore to Autopsy); the logo and H.R. Giger-like artwork by Axel Hermann are undoubtedly iconic.

The Rack is produced with a raw and grating guitar tone against a relatively spiffy drum mix that doesn't confer much power to the experience as a whole, and even van Drunen seems complacent to the crunch of the riffing, where in Pestilence he was helming some of the most brilliant, frightening and creative guitar progressions that either thrash or death metal ever produced (to this day). The pacing on the album ranges from slower, 'doom' chord constructions to rabid triplet chugging, and I found some of the most aggressively flooded passages to remind me quite a lot of Obituary's faster material, or the dense tone of the guitar in general; though John Tardy's ghastly voice seems a better fit for this than Martin. Asphyx also turns out a number of more musically involved grooves at a 'happier' pace, but what all of the rhythm guitars have in common is that they're not terribly memorable... often reduced to just grinding white noise during some of the vocal lines. Think Severed Survival or Mental Funeral if they were a little less catchy and grotesque, with a few of Death's old tremolo picked patterns modified to seem more boring, and you are in the ballpark of how this sounds. The one caveat to the middling of the songwriting is that the atmospheric leads really stand out so much by default...the listener's becomes so accustomed to not hearing anything interesting, just a lot of abusive and crunching riffs that even your cat could play with minimal instruction.

'But it's so heavy, maaaaan.' Yeah, yeah, I get it, but no, when Black Sabbath did these doomier, simplistic riffs it was heavy (and revolutionary). When Autopsy did this it was carnal. When Obituary did it, I kept checking my closet at night, and a close eye on the manhole cover outside. When Asphyx does it, the notes just do not fall into patterns that are in any way remarkable or creative ("Pages in Blood" has what I believe to be the most entertaining chord placement on the disc). Not unlike Cancer's debut To the Gory End: passable, but all around unimpressive. I might dub The Rack an 'idealess' example of old death metal, and I would not be incorrect, but I think the record is saved by its dispassionate ugliness and the few spires of melodic grace which erupt from the growling turmoil of van Drunen and Eric Daniels in tandem, in tunes like "Evocation". I unfortunately cannot say much for the bass playing...it was never the focal point of Pestilence either, but at least it's present enough that it balances out Martin's contributions against the other instruments. A subtle pump easily subdued by the sustained fuzz in the rhythm guitar, but audible. As for the drums, one might say they suffer from the same ills on a lot of other, older death metal recordings...this was not a point at which everyone had jumped onto the Slayer/Dark Angel extreme drumming train, so this is primarily simplistic, rock based grooves that fit the slower moments but don't necessarily pick up much in intensity during faster sections. The kicks, toms and cymbals all sound really dry.

My appreciation for The Rack has admittedly waxed in time, from bland disregard to general acceptance, and I can occasionally break this out and listen through the whole thing without falling asleep. Largely because you grow an appreciation for the simplicity and authenticity of these times. That said, the production is simply not all that interesting, most of the tunes sound better on stage these days. In a pivotal period in which death metal was still being refined, experimented on, and ramped further towards the inevitable brutality and instrumental mastery, the Asphyx debut is simply not comparative or competitive with much else. The lyrics, which deal with optimistic topics like disease, torture and religion (yes, I know they're all the same thing) are very often stronger than the music. The Rack seems to be bookended by its better material: the 80s sci-fi/ambient intro "The Quest of Absurdity" is a fantastic setup for which there is no real payoff when "Vermin" arrives, and the closing duo of "Pages in Blood" and the sprawling, nine minute title track are the most effective in terms of sounding monstrous and brooding. Otherwise, it's just not that compelling a listen...you get some sparks of atmosphere through the leads, but they're too few and far between. Ultimately, it's 'good', but just barely...a cafeteria steak & cheese as opposed to a rib eye at a four star establishment, and I have to try to force myself to 'forget' where van Drunen had previously appeared. But, hey, it's honest early 90s death metal, from a band that would shortly improve, and if that's enough to salve your bum, you probably don't have one, which makes the prospect of assless chaps that much more...awkward.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (the sentence is death)

http://www.asphyx.nl/