Protector - The Heritage (1993)

If A Shedding of Skin was my favorite of the earlier Protector catalog, The Heritage was directly on its heels, and in fact some days I might actually reverse the decision. This is clearly the best produced of that run, and the most intense and exciting in terms of how so many of its tight, fast, thrashing tunes are executed. By 1993, it might have felt dated against the emergence of more brutal and technical strains of death metal, with grunge and black and nu metal and all that starting to explode, but you can't accuse the Germans of not trying to keep pace, because The Heritage feels like faster Sepultura, Sadist and mid 80s Dark Angel in a three-way slugfest, and even 33 years later you can press Play and it's violent, infectious, and still has the more matured songwriting which embodied its predecessor.

There's some new blood here to help Olly Wiebel will all that heavy lifting, including drummer Marco Pape who would try and keep the band alive through all its later hiatus. He and bassist Matze help add a level of professionalism here, and I don't mean that in a bad way. But what's even more impressive is how Wiebel has managed to balance off the spiked, thrashing attacks with some more moody, atmospheric and melancholic progressions. The slower bridges and leads in songs like "Lost Properties" feel so much more composed, and through the album there's a level of restraint which helps make its explosive cuts like "Scars Bleed Life Long" all the more memorable by contrast. Marco's drums were clearly the caliber that could land him any gig in a death metal act of the day, propulsive kick drums and flawless snares which add loads of pep and energy to Olly's riffs. Bass also sounds pretty fleshed out here compared to A Shedding of Skin, and the production just blows straight out my speakers, especially some of the howled vocal effects on "Protective Unconsciousness" or the escalating acoustic intro to "Palpitation".

The frenzied little instrumentals "Paralizer" and "Outro" might have been better served by expanding them into proper songs, they seem a bit incomplete, but otherwise all the tunes are ragers, and The Heritage is an album I'd easily recommend to fans of early 90s thrash and death metal and all the combinations thereof. Sadist, Defiance, Malevolent Creation, Deicide, or even the stuff some of the band's German peers were up to that that very time, any fans of that would do well to have this record sitting in their collections. As I said, it's right on par with its predecessor with me, but a lot of that is just nostalgia, the personal memories I attach with A Shedding of Skin. In so many ways, The Heritage is better sounding, more refined, and its dynamic range more impactful. The lyrics have gotten a little more socially and environmentally conscious, which isn't what I always demand in thrash since they get a little too obvious and tacky, but it fits the sound here at least. This 1991-1993 era is my favorite of the band, as much as I enjoyed the first two releases, they certainly felt like they upped the ante right before their (debatable) 20-year slumber, and left (but didn't) us on a high note at that time.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (You dare not to speak)

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

Annihilator - Set the World on Fire (1993)

As steep of a dive as Set the World on Fire takes from the first two Annihilator albums, I think it's important to evaluate the world that this was being released into. Thrash metal as we knew it had really dried up, most of its royalty either disbanding or altering their sound to fit into a 90s landscape that was going Grunge, hip hop, Pantera groove metal or ducking off into more extreme territories, and to give the Canadians some credit, they always maintained at least some of the thrash and speed metal of their core sound. For whatever brief flights of adaptation Jeff Waters might take his band on, he's always been the riff-first sort of guy who is an essential anchor for the style, and Set the World on Fire is still foremost a thrash metal effort. But the writing is on the wall here in many ways...

First, the cool artwork from the first two records has been replaced by a photographic eyesore which looks like a failed attempt at mimicking Dark Angel's 3rd and 4th records. Sure, the grown up Alice has some thematic consistency with Alice in Hell and Never, Neverland, but it just doesn't present itself well, and the weird light filtering effect in the background make it look like someone scratched up the cover. This was the last Annihilator album I picked up a physical copy for, and that was only when I found a dirt cheap cassette in Boston for $3, I had already listened to the album at a friend's house and found it wanting, and I doubt I listened to that tape more than once or twice. The band was on its third singer in as many albums, Aaron Randall, and while I can't tell you that his voice is technically bad, and it made some sense after the style of the first two singers, he's got even cheesier emotes when he's barking out a lot of these lyrics, and it almost sounds like some hard rock transplant from a Skid Row or Badlands cover band crossing over into thrash metal. It can get awkward, to say the least.

Worse than either of these things, though, the songwriting had really slacked off here, as for every half decent track full of Waters' thrash riffs, you've got that 90s poisoning, sometimes in small places like the chorus of "Bats in the Belfry", others more blatant like "Snake in the Grass", which starts out like a shitty hair metal ballad and then goes for a groovy hard rock/metal like Jackyl! And then, I shit you not, this is followed up with "Phoenix Rising", a better song perhaps, but another ballad that sounds like they're trying to make a "November Rain". Cuts like "Set the World on Fire", "Knight Jumps Queen", the and the titular "Set the World on Fire" might possess a few dumb groove/thrash riffs, and parts of "Brain Dance" sound like it might have fit on Alice in Hell, but even even then Annihilator manages to cock it all up with Randall's super cheesy vocal lines and lyrics that are arguably even worse.

If I legit took all the better moments from this album, kicked out the vocalist, brought back Randy Rampage and whittled it all down to a 2-3 track EP, Set the World on Fire might have been a worthwhile follow-up to Never, Neverland, but it's just so bloated with goofy ideas and weaksauce attempts to 'fit in'...I mean listen to the end of "Brain Dance" when the vocals turn into a circus with the whole 'frying pan into the fire' cliche, total dumpster fire that ruins the few good ideas in that track. The bottom line, is that whenever Annihilator dips its toes onto the beach of 90s lameness from the security of the thrashing ocean behind it, the band pretty much sucks. And I don't know that Waters got the memo in time, because this album marks a decades-long descent into mediocrity, so deep into the shadow of that awesome potential of the debut that they were no longer visible.

Verdict: Fail [4.25/10]

https://www.annihilatormetal.com/

Rest in Pain - Intense Tremor EP (1993)

If you look at some of the earlier Invasion Records releases, the focus was almost entirely on local death and grind, weighted towards the local German underground, but not entirely. You had EPs from Defleshed of Sweden, Fermenting Innards, Lunatic Invasion, Finland's Infera, and this little band of unknowns, Rest in Pain, who put out only this single EP and a couple of tracks on a split before calling it a day. Right from the get-go, you can tell this is not a band to take itself seriously, with the goofy Crumbsuckers-like cover art that looks like something you'd see from a crossover or grindcore band with a dash of comedy, and I think the band also had a sort of 'dress up' look to them similar to Pungent Stench, only with top hats...at least for promo pics, a notable contrast in aesthetics.

Intense Tremor is definitely death metal, with a quirky weirdness to it not unlike a Jumpin' Jesus or The Lemming Project. It's rough and chunky, with a production level equivalent to a solid studio demo, and lots of simple bass guitar breaks poking through the churning, semi-clinical rhythm guitars. I'll admit that the band seems hard-pressed to evoke memorable riffs, and bounces back and forth before more serious, solemn chords and then peppier moments which reveal a punk or hardcore influence, but they also try to pick up the pace into some faster grooves where they start to lose the plot and sound sloppy. In some tunes like "Organ Donation for a Hungry", they are approaching the chaos of Napalm Death grind, but again the drums, while intense, feel like a mess against the riffs. The vocalist does a guttural similar to Barney Greenway, but they'll use a bit of clean vocal and some more ominous, weird growls elsewhere.

Definitely a curious one, and there are some spots here or there where they seem to be digging their heels into that surgical sort of death metal with dissonant chords and grooves, but they just never perfect it into meaningful riffing, you don't get the evil tremolo riffs you'd love from OSDM. Potential? I can't tell you if they were onto something or not, this was pretty weak. So not all of these earlier works bore much fruit for Invasion...two of their other German acts, Fermenting Innards and Lunatic Invasion would go on to create some pretty damn good material, and the label overall would jump into the more popular emergent styles like melodic death or black metal, but Rest in Pain just had a little fun grinding and moshing and (I'm assuming) dissolved somewhere soon after 1994. 

Verdict: Fail [4/10]

Sentenced - North from Here (1993)

While the band's debut doesn't strike me as one of the more unique offerings from the earlier years of the Finnish death metal scene, it's follow-up was absolutely embarking upon its own sound much like peers Demilich, only with a different sense of melody and not so much of the jazzy grooving, uber guttural other-ness. North from Here was my first exposure to the band, and I was instantly smitten with its choppy take on weird technical, melodic death metal, compelling enough to overcome the few flaws I had with its strangely processed sound. In retrospect, the cover image is rather dull, but I remember being wowed by the idea of this dimly lit, frozen forest beneath the Borealis lights, and wintry death metal that seemed like it was being concocted in a lab beneath one of the local glaciers.

This thing is just wrought with ideas, that range from clamorous, confusing riffs, to exotic escapes like "Wings" and its Amorphis-like melodies, to incredible walls of melody and leads like you discover in the masterful "Awaiting the Winter Frost". Just a few minutes will capture your imagination, and add to that some of Taneli Jarva's sickest, splattering death metal vocals, which don't really sound much like he did on Amok, but a very interesting takeover from Miika's style on the debut (he also does still contribute). But it's the crazy performance from the instruments that really evokes this album's unforgettable, nervous and intense moods, the most complex and agile guitar work of the band's entire catalogue, wild drumming in a panic to keep up with those riffs, and extremely fluid bass playing to anchor it all to the cold ground below. Fuck, North from Here might even suffer a fraction from just having TOO much happening, as much as I enjoy this one I always felt like it was a little cluttered in its transitions, sections crashing into one another rather than merging as epically as they should.

But I am willing to forgive this due to the band's youthful exuberance and envelope-pushing, which went sadly unnoticed against superior death metal bands spawning duller but more 'brutal' sounds about this same time. It's not my favorite Sentenced album, because the Finns would undergo an even more insane evolution for Amok, to the point that it doesn't even sound like the same band, and I just happen to love the songwriting and style there...but who cares? I can have both, and this is easily one of the most important gems of that early scene, which has proliferated in recent years and become one of the strongest on the planet, even though many of its practitioners edge towards the more cavernous style and not the brilliant progressive tendencies of this record or Nespithe. If you love death metal, you MUST own this one, so if for some reason you're only acquainted with the later Gothic/heavy metal style, and don't like that, fair enough, but back in them early 90s, they was somethin' else, and North From Here still boggles my brain even as I approach the half-century club.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]

Vomiturition - Head Tales EP (1993)

Head Tales was the Finnish band's first signing through Invasion Records, and while it might look just as dumb or dumber than the previous EP, the production here is far more brazen, the riffs better and it's just so much more promising, OSDM to the bone. While I still don't believe Vomiturition had as interesting an approach to their genre as several of their countrymen did, this was at least competent and catchy enough to warrant a little excitement. Considering how fans of this style aggressively comb through the ancient death metal texts to find gems of this nature, I'm almost surprised that Head Tales doesn't get more of a mention, it's exactly what so many of them are looking for, and the cheesy head-creature on the cover is worth a gag for 80s horror buffs.

Some of this is actually pretty catchy, like the tremolo picked rhythm in "Falling", or the dank rhythms and vile harmonies that pop up through the flesh of "One's Belief". Or the bass intro to "Ancient Psychotherapy". They get some thick chords here redolent of Obituary, the drumming is quite busy with a lot of solid double bass rhythms and fills, and the vocals are much more gruesome and memorable than on the release before. They even add in a few lines that are a step below, super-guttural like you might have heard on Symphonies of Sickness. It's not all killer material, but it's certainly not filler, and this was a brief, efficient setup for their sole full length effort a leftover that would follow a few years later. Probably impossible to find in any physical format these days, but worth a download or a stream if you can find one.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

Helloween - Chameleon (1993)

Chameleon is widely considered the nadir of Helloween's career, even more lowly than Pink Bubbles Go Ape, and I can entirely understand and even sympathize with that sentiment...but I don't agree with it. Like its esteemed predecessor, I had to find this one on import, because if the 90s musical trends weren't enough to stick a fork in the trajectory of a European power metal band, Pink Bubbles certainly was. Aesthetically it's another instant facepalm moment, the four splashes of paint and the quaint little logo placement and title font make this look like some sort of 80s prog pop album by someone like Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel or The Police. It does not inspire confidence, and it's not the only weird choice made for this album, but at least when I look at it I don't want to leap off a building like when I saw the prior album artwork. It's just a boring minimalism that only slightly matches up with the qualities of the music.

I have to disclose here that I do have a soft spot for Chameleon because it contains one track which I count among my all-time Helloween favorites, and that is "Giants". Atmospheric, gorgeous, and powerful, it has this more airy feel to it than anything I had heard them do before, but still driven with a great, heavy guitar riff and a similar anthemic melodic nature, just delivered in a more spacious format. That chorus sends an emotional chill right down my spine, the bass playing is great with the fills, it's got a cool orchestrated breakdown in the bridge, and there's just not a second I'd change of it, sheer excellence. And it's this atmosphere which actually extends across a lot of the album, also showing up songs like "First Time". This feels like a Helloween evolved (or devolved), for better or worse, and its offering something its predecessors didn't. It's not exactly experimental, but it definitely dips its toes into a little of the proggier rock that the cover hints at, and the band even tries some non-ironic attempts at pop or soft rock with cuts like "I Don't Wanna Cry No More", "In the Night" and "Windmill", and I'm not so much a fan of those, but the band does a reasonable enough job with them that I can't bring myself to hate it.

Other cuts like "Revolution Now" bring in a bluesy, Zeppelin hard rock influence and mesh that in some some of the spacious, acoustic moments and it's at least catchy the first few times through. It's almost like Chameleon is trying to live up to its namesake, and that is ultimately one of the reasons I still count it among the lower rungs of their studio efforts, because it's all over the place, and other than the general mood created by the production, it's often incoherent. Like with Pink Bubbles, I could put together a good EP's worth of material that I like to revisit, and an even better one here ("First Time", "When the Sinner", "Giants", and "Step Out of Hell"), but it's really not one where I find myself ever wanting to listen straight through. "Giants" will always remain in my Helloween playlist, but I don't think anything else here is quite so vital to me. Certainly I could understand how so much of this was a turnoff for a lot of fans who were probably already dismayed with the fourth album and were digging Helloween a plot that was two feet wide and six feet deep. As history would dictate, though, nobody should've been too quick to lay on that topsoil.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]

https://www.helloween.org/

Rage - The Missing Link (1993)

 The fossilized Soundchasers on the cover, and the very familiar Perfect Man vibe given off by the opening riffs to "Firestorm" had me juiced up that The Missing Link was going to be a loving throwback to the 80s Rage sound. It certainly incorporates that to a degree, although it's very firmly rooted in the more direct nature of their output for the following decade, and a pretty natural successor for the previous year's Trapped! There are plenty of new ideas to be found here; clearly Peavy and Manni Schmidt were far from finished exploring their fretboards, and while it doesn't quite rise to the level of catchy ambition that the band had achieved in the past, its a workmanlike, well-written affair which substantiates the Germans' legacy and keeps a promising window open to its own future.

I know more than one Rage fan who was introduced to the band through this very album, and it remains their favorite to this day, and while I can't hang with that, I think it's an understandable perspective as I have very few criticisms of this one. Most of the tunes here have key hooks carried into good choruses, and there's a thundering positive energy here which isn't to be denied. A track like "Refuge" is nearly as good as anything they'd written before, from its sticky chorus in which Wagner lifts his voice, to the driving bridge & lead. They still can rip out some street-level, fist-pumping tunes like "The Pit and the Pendulum", and yet the speed and finesse are writ large over half the bloody album, there's rarely any need to slow down because they can remain pretty damn consistent and memorable with velocity. Peavy's range is intact here, even if he's not using quite as manically as the past, but I particularly like his more painful sub-shrieking tones that give the songs like "Lost on the Ice" a sense of tension and nervousness. As a trio, the proficiency level here is so high that I'm not sure many other bands on Earth could have compared in 1993...

But...there's something about the mix on this album which rubs me the wrong way...it's hard to pinpoint, because when I dissect the individual vocal lines or guitar tones it all sounds right. However, when it's all flying at my face I feel like some of the higher drums, maybe the crash, drag a little much into the speakers and it's off-putting. The guitars are bright and loud, but there's just some kind of air or hiss to the whole thing that has followed me like a black storm-cloud from my original cassette copy, to the CD, to the mp3s I ripped, to streaming versions I've heard on YouTube. I did check out the Dr. Bones Records remaster and I do think that addresses it to an extent, if you were interested in this one the first time I'd advice you to head straight to that version, but ultimately, despite some really good tunes, that has always clung to my impression of The Missing Link and held it back slightly from reaching the heights it would otherwise attain. The depth, richness, and ambition to create power/speed metal with the distinct Rage personality is present just as it was with a Perfect Man or Secrets in a Weird World, but it falls just a little short of even Trapped! in the presentation. Still, if you were to ask 19 year old Autothrall if he thought the trio were even on the precipice of producing a stinker, the response would have been a resounding 'fuck no', and that stands. This is a legacy band with so much great material in its arsenal that a randomized playlist would prove nigh on endless; The Missing Link is no slouch and it would have numerous worthy representatives on that list.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

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

Konkhra - Sexual Affective Disorder (1993)

Sexual Affective Disorder was not about to transform Konkhra into your new favorite death metal band of the early 90s, but it's clearly a more coherent and effective effort than the Stranded EP before it, transforming the Danes into an outfit slightly more deserving of your respect. The style isn't much changed, as it's still among that class of older death metal which wears its thrash influences on its sleeve, but here even that takes on a more oppressive vibe as it is performed with a concussive, clinical force. While the EP at times felt sloppily or hastily assembled, the songwriting here is more taut and brutal, neither the most technical or nuanced among a broad field of European candidates, but not taking any prisoners. Also, who could forget that strange cover, by noteworthy Danish artist Michael Kvium, with its the twisted knots erupting forth from this creepy's psyche? Simpler than what other bands were using, but quite uncomfortable nonetheless!

To me this album most feels like a hybrid of Dutch bands with the first few Cannibal Corpse albums of the Chris Barnes era. Aggressive thrash rhythms intensified with blasting drums and a thick as fuck, saturated tone. Sometimes that is to the album's detriment, as the non-pummeling guitar lines are far too overwhelmed by the central rhythmic battery. The leads, which are nothing special to begin with, just sound like insects buzzing past your ears. However, you won't really have too much time to mourn the loss since the record will keep kicking and slamming you in the chest with its destructive low end. The drum performance here is far tighter, and the riffs flow fairly well into one another, and even though they're not supremely catchy, they at least always feel exciting, like they are right on the edge of being more memorable but just never got that final push in the writing phase. A few brutal death techniques like pinches and squeals are also incorporated, though once again they can be drowned out a little by the bludgeoning impacts of the instruments honed almost entirely in on how this material is going to come across in a mosh pit.

Vocals also sound a little better, still a mix of the visceral snarls and lower growls, but there is better sustain on some of the lines, it just sounds more bloodthirsty and dangerous. I could swear there are even a couple cases where they belch out this really deep guttural and it's hilarious. Though the use of dynamics is far from perfect in the structure of the songs, it's a lot better than the prior release, and there are some really intense moments here like in "Evilution (Exordium Expired)" where they are just firing on all cylinders and those guitars and drums and growls just punch you the fuck out. I mean if this album had...better leads, or a better mix on the leads, and just a few catchier overall riffs, I feel this easily could have been one of the cult death metal albums everyone kept worshiping for so many years later. It's just not quite there...but it aspires to be, and for that reason I'd probably rate this as one of the better albums in their whole catalog. If you're into early Sinister, Gorefest, Cannibal Corpse or Malevolent Creation then this is one you might want to visit if you haven't already heard it. Despite the production failures, its got a crushing confidence about it.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.konkhra.com/

Minotaur - Welcome to... EP (1993)

The cover to this EP reminds me so much of what I loved about thrash and heavy metal back in the 80s...vintage fantastical artwork which summons up all manner of possibilities, with a classic logo style that would just look great in any record bin as you're filing your way through obscurities at a record shop. The labyrinth is of course fitting to Minotaur's brand, and I even the graffiti scrawled about the entrance which is a great thrash aesthetic. The almost muted colors as well give it a dusty, antiquated feel, maybe this is some post-apocalyptic maze set up by a nuclear warlord. At any rate, if you noticed I'm spending a lot of time day dreaming over this cover...it's because it is the only real positive to this limited 12" which arrived far too late to matter...

Not that it would have made a difference had this launched in 1985 or 1986, because it's pretty much just a mess of sloppy, un-memorable riffs and raw production aesthetics that don't do it any service, and I'm guessing not by choice. I mean, I'm a card-carrying disciple of the first two Venom albums, and when something is unwashed, under-produced, but comes packaged with great songwriting, then that rawness can either intentionally or ironically prove beneficial, but here it just falls flat. The EP opens up with a half-decent, almost Maiden-esque style of melody with an appropriate Hellenic feel, but then "Multi-Morbidity" just falls right off the rails, a clusterfuck of boring chug riffs, and messy speed metal riffs peppered with Andreas 'Buschi's' barked vocals which are constantly trying to contrast these little screams and wavering evil lines against the harsher monotony. Props to him for trying to give a little personality to his delivery, and occasionally some of his upper register screams are pretty cool, or the unexpected lower pitched death barks, but with nothing catchy or impactful going on around them it's almost like he wandered into this drunken thrash jam session with the tape recorder on.

Few of the other songs are any more coherent..."State of Catatonia" is mildly superior, and "We Hate You" has a Tankard-like thrust to its verse rhythms circa The Morning After, but still feels very uneven, though the production does often remind of the first two Voivod riffs on this one because of the way the speed metal riffs play out. The B-side is slightly better, with "Wish You Were Dead" the best track on the EP, but even the peppy and cheerful "R.A.T." is too abrasive with the flaring guitar tone to really work. The rhythm section is fairly tight throughout the release, with a few points where the bass lines groove along admirably, but they don't really have the best riff set to work around and the entire affair still comes across like a set of songs that needed more development time, reining in the vocals and assembling the guitars into a more memorable structure rather than just feeling like they just rushed it all along, plugging one in after randomly.

I've certainly heard worse stuff in the genre, and there may be a little sliver of appeal to those that love tracking down rugged Teutonic thrash demos, or just want the music to sound sincerely filthy, but this stuff is inferior to their 1988 full-length Power of Darkness, which is itself not top-shelf, but has a more appreciable, nasty character to it. I'd even throw you a recommendation for their 2009 comeback album over this, which runs average-to-decent and doesn't sound as if much had changed for them in the 20 years between. Maybe if you REALLY love The Morning After and just want other things that give off a similar impression, but then this lacks the funny lyrics and certainly the amazing riffs and choruses on that one.

Verdict: Fail [4/10]

https://www.facebook.com/MINOTAUR-Official-85557527284/

Vio-Lence - Nothing to Gain (1993)

While Vio-Lence largely managed to avoid a number of the 90s pitfalls that many of their thrash peers faced in that decade, their third full-length Nothing to Gain was clearly the portent of a doomed band. A portent that turned out true, once Rob Flynn's other band Machine Head started to take off, with a sound far trendier and more relevant to the times, leaving any real hopes of the Bay Area's wildest second tier thrash band in the dust. And dust there was aplenty as I dug this disappointment out from whatever deep storage it would soon return to. Now, to be clear, this is not an abomination-tier letdown record the likes of which most of the 'Big Four' releases throughout the same decade. It's no Diabolus in Musica, Risk or Load. In fact, it's vaguely recognizable as the sort of thrash metal that Sean Killian and crew erupted with on their demos and debut album. But damn if this isn't one of the most exhausted sounding affairs to ever emerge from a West Coast thrash act of the golden age.

Oppressing the Masses, despite its video rotation for "World in a World" and a high visibility through Atlantic Records, might not have lived up to everyone's expectations of its predecessor, but at least that was still a fun record with a half-dozen quality tracks, and in some instances, the same kinetic intensity I can recall from my first exposure in 1988. This can not be said of Nothing to Gain, an album which all too rarely delivers anything resembling an interesting riff or an exciting vocal line. Killian could still hit some of those higher range, frantic lines that put him in a similar category as legends like Bobby Blitz or Joey Belladonna, and he does so over tracks like "Colour of Life", but there is definitely a more morose side to him, exploring a lower and mid range, attempting to splice in that same edgy feeling he gets in his upper register, but coming up dry, even lazy. The riffs are an assembly of dullards which only seem to electrify when a lead is rifling off over a faster bridge, so there was no real amount of Killian that was going to save anything outside of maybe "Colour". I am more often reminded of mediocre tunes by Exodus and Sacred Reich than Eternal Nightmare, all of which might share similar structures and chord choices, but feel like the differential between a drunk with erectile dysfunction and a Viagra addict with a Bowflex collection.

The mix is deeper, darker and meatier than the previous albums, which compensates slightly for the general lack of virility. The drums sound fine, thunderous and reverberating, and I do like the punch  on the rhythm guitars, especially when they breakaway from the band and churn out into some riff that seems like it might get good...until it just doesn't. The bass also has a good tone, and it's given a few chances to thrum along on its own, but none of this matters when the songs seem so second...strike that, fourth or fifth rate compared to Bay Area classics that were circulating just a few years prior. Nothing to Gain does not sound like a lot of effort was exerted in its creation, maybe more like a wrapping up of a couple lackluster tunes the band still had lying around for a few years after they gave it their go on the first two. We were sort of warned to this, since the 1991 EP before it was forgettable at best, but let's face it...for those of us who were adolescent thrashers through all that brilliance the decade before, it was never a fun thing to watch a band with such potential put out to pasture. This holds itself just above disaster level, but even its few passable tracks aren't even fit as B-sides for an "I Profit" or "Officer Nice", and it's just something I would left in the vault, especially in looking back at what an achievement that debut was.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]

Mercyful Fate - In the Shadows (1993)

In the Shadows could be considered a righteous 'comeback' record long before metal comeback records became a thing, as the majority of 80s acts hit their midlife crises and decided to give it that last college try. King Diamond and crew weren't leaping back into some trending rebirth of aesthetics in 1993...traditional heavy metal, especially here in the States, was a veritable dead zone. Beyond the touring stability of a few dozen acts, grunge and death metal had all but taken over, and groove metal reaching terminal velocity thanks to Pantera's success. That a defunct Danish staple like Mercyful Fate could return with such a fantastic record as this is a testament to how great they were in the first place, but color me unsurprised...

...because for about 15 years, Kim Bendix Petersen never once let me down on a single full-length. In fact, beginning with Melissa and Don't Break the Oath, up until the time someone lost their marbles and decided to release that riffless, idealess, uninspired creative nadir The Graveyard, King Diamond/Mercyful Fate probably laid claim to the greatest streak in all metal music. Ten full-lengths of quality in that '83-95 era, ranging from just 'great' to utter perfection, and yes I'm including Time and The Spider's Lullabye in that total. So when the King decided to take a short respite from the constant touring and brilliance of his solo group and reunite with his alma mater, with less than a decade since Don't Break the Oath, I had little to no trepidation about the ability of these men to deliver, and not only were my expectations met, but in some departments exceeded. Don't Breath the Oath is, and will likely remain my favorite of the Mercyful Fate records, but without question, I find In the Shadows to be their most creative. The sophomore is the first I'll turn to when nostalgia summons, but this felt far more unique to me in 1993 than Oath did in 1984.

A statement that would likely generate some dissent among various acquaintances who have argued with me that this simply sounds like another King Diamond solo record, but I have to disagree. Apart from the fact the two groups are inexorably linked due to Kim's falsetto shrieking and thematic similarities, I have long found the playing of the Shermann/Denner configuration quite different than Andy LaRocque. These guys had a more workmanlike unity to their playing, where Andy's more like a one man exhibition falling somewhere between Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen, regardless of whoever is backing him up. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy all three of these legends (and Mike Wead to boot), and they could easily cover for one another if the need arose; but while there was obviously some influence from the old Fate carried forth into the King Diamond legacy and then back again, it's definitely the rhythm guitars that make all the difference discerning between the two...that and the fact that this particular disc reached a new benchmark in production quality that even renders masterworks like Abigail and The Eye somewhat unwashed (though I wouldn't trade the atmosphere inherent to those recordings for the world).

But In the Shadows has an atmosphere of its own. The record is loaded with these incredibly interesting, eerie and slower lurching riff progressions that are remarkably well-conceived, the sort of planning you're just too rarely going to find in a younger or 'throwback' band more concerned with copying pre-existing patterns of chords and mutes and then juggling them around like lottery balls. Granted, these unique twists did exist on the first two Fate outings, but to a lesser extent, not as fully fleshed out. Fear not: there are still numerous bursts of intense, melodic speed/heavy metal here as found in "Egypt", the spiritual stepchild to "Curse of the Pharaohs". Hank and Michael can certainly eviscerate a fretboard, but without exception, it's the moodier and measured picking patterns on this album that truly excel and stand to memory. By 1993, when many groups had dissembled or were stylistically shifting towards the status quo, Mercyful Fate was polishing and innovating its own brand into crystalline clarity and ear-carving catchiness. And it's not simply limited to the rhythms...the leads and melodies here are spectral, pristine, and just as important as their surroundings, and you also feel a tasteful amount of blues and 70s hard rock inspiration over the entire album.

What's more, the musical decisions here really seem to fit the individual tales of specters, seasons, shadows and other introspective gloom that dominate the lyrics. Unlike King Diamond records, which are more or less metallic-orchestrated novellas following an internal narrative, these read like short stories, though often also from the first-person perspective. Petersen shines throughout, engaging in quite a lot of his mid range to balance off against the shrieks and grooves in cuts like "The Bell Witch" and "The Old Oak", with a few of those blissful, ghostly lower falsettos emphasized with an additional whisper track. By this point, the King might be considered a master composer by any standard, so it's not unexpected that he can so carefully lay down each line, an author aware of every phrase before he dips his pen in the inkwell. The synths strewn across the songs are generally tasteful and supportive, occasionally reminding me of their use on The Eye, especially in the instrumental "Room of Golden Air" which honestly is the one tune that sounds like a leftover from that period. Acoustics are likewise sparse, used only in brief segments (like the intro to "Egypt"), it's ultimately those uncanny and morbid mid-paced rhythm guitars that drive so much of this experience.

Morten Nielsen's beats, while simplistic and rock-oriented rather than intense, have this great mix with just the right amount of resonant to the snares and kicks. No idea why they were credited to Snowy Shaw, but I'd just assume that was an error on the part of the label/graphics team. The one component lacking for me here is the bass playing, which seems really subdued, and not one of Timi Hansen's finer performances alongside the King. I mean, this is a very airy, eloquent mix, like a cold moonlit night with only a few clouds; so a booming or buzzy bass tone might prove distracting, but the volume is such that it only hovers below the rhythm guitar and I don't pick out a lot of interesting or inspired grooves and fills, with a few exceptions like "A Gruesome Time" where the instrument shines a little more than usual. Otherwise, In the Shadows just sounds so timeless and tremendous that I would hardly change a bloody note. Even the 1993 rendition of "Return of the Vampire" sounds dramatically improved thanks to its production...would've been better as a pure bonus track, since it seems mildly redundant, yet in keeping with the various 'sequels' on the album like "Is That You, Melissa" or "Egypt", it makes some sense and is thankfully tacked on as the finale.

Mercyful Fate had such a classy comeback here that it's hard to imagine any long time fans not enjoying it, beyond those easily marginalized louts who seem to joy in clinging to some proscribed period of a band's work and then automatically rejecting everything exterior to that phase. In the Shadows is intelligent, it's intricate, and it's thoroughly innovative despite such a strict adherence to the band's lyrical aesthetics and traditional 80s style. With the exception of "Room of Golden Air" and "Return of the Vampire", it's quite coherent without any of the tunes sounding quite the same, and it's even got that captivating cover image which broaches a number of the album's subjects. Perhaps most impressive, at least to me personally, is that this is one of those rarities which seems to improve with age, despite its minor flaws. I enjoyed this more in 2003 than 1993, and now in 2013 that trend continues, to be reflected in my rating. I simply can't imagine spending a Halloween without throwing this on the deck at least once. I know, the same could be said for anything King put out in the 80s with either vehicle, most of which is mandatory, but In the Shadows is absolutely one of those uncommon gems of that earlier 90s period not to involve death or black metal. If I find myself in the mood for hellfire, leather and burning witch-skin, Don't Break the Oath would still be the defacto Fate disc due to its ferocity and importance, but this is such a great record to kick back to on an autumn New England night with a seasonal brew, to just watch the leaves drift or wallow in the slowly encroaching cold.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10] (clearer than daylight)

http://www.kingdiamondcoven.com/site/

Mourning - Greetings from Hell (1993)

I can only imagine that a lack of availability through the years has crippled Greetings from Hell in terms of its underground popularity, because it thrives at that classic death/doom style whose audience readily devours just about anything retro they can get their soggy paws on. Hell, these people have even made a cult classic out of Winter's Into Darkness, an album upon which the only praise words I could heap are 'crushing' and 'seminal', because otherwise it's so void of interesting riffs and ideas that I might rather listen to a radiator buzz if given the choice. No, Mourning has a sound here that ought to fit right in with the contemporary worship of atmospheric extreme metal, so as I sit drowning in detestable, 95° F summery 'bliss', why the fuck not dust this beast off and have at it?

The Dutch actually had quite a number of gems in this mold, and some of you might be familiar with records like Delirium's Zzooouhh or Sempiternal Deathreign's The Spooky Gloom, both of which were quite impressive and influential upon a lot of European death/doom cults to follow, and both better and more eerily atmospheric than Greetings from Hell. However, Mourning could very much be lumped into that same company, because if nothing else, this is some truly bleak shit, the endless field of skulls and bones on the cover fairly indicative of the 46 minutes of audio. These aren't friendly sounds, and you wouldn't use them to stimulate growth in that garden you've been tending. Dreary, apocryphal, and nearly droning in some of the sparser riffing sequences where the percussion largely cuts out ("Demon's Dance"), it's best defined as a gray waste of steady rhythmic suffering from which there is no salvation until the panned snarls that close out the optimistic finale "Get AIDs and Die".

But, shockingly, Greetings from Hell is not boring in the slightest, since it earnestly augments the brooding doom stretches with intermittent spurts of fuzzed out Floridian antiquity, loose tremolo picked guitars that attempt to recapture the morbid feel of Scream Bloody Gore, Slowly We Rot, The Spooky Gloom and so forth. There's also a massive Hellhammer influence here, not only through the murky, obvious guitar tone but also in how they put together chord patterns to create that same cryptic stench the Swiss invented on their demos; and the occasional, gruff 'hwah' dished out by bassist/vocalist Marc van Amelsfoort. There's also a pretty cut 'n' dry foundation of slow or mid-paced thrash metal here, as if someone took a few riffs from that period and then just slathered them with oozing distortion and despair and turned on the tape reel to witness their translation into a more sluggish, disgusting mutation.

Speaking of van Amelsfoot, he's normally delivering a blunt bark that churns against the rhythm guitar with a fraction of reverb and resonance, very fitting to the aesthetic pessimism of the music. As with many records of this type, placement of lyric lines isn't exactly rocket science: you choke out a syllable or two here or there, and let it cut into the meat of the riffing like an axe felling a tree. The result is that, apart from their inherent sense of enmity and depression, the vocals aren't really all that compelling beyond their base functionality. Fortunately, he's got a nice, saucy, distorted bass tone here that helps flood the basement of the trio's sound, appropriately slimy when everything else cuts out in a song like "Territorial" or the intro to "Deranged or Dead", and fully audible even where it closely follows the guitar progression. Drums are actually the clearest component on the record, standing out even where everything else blends together in the distance. Loud fills, and stock but measured rock beats during the slower material, but not exactly utopia of you're seeking lots of double bass or anything faster than a half-blast tempo.

The tremolo riffs here in tunes like "Sweet Dreams" actually accounted for most of my favorite moments, reeking of genuine negativity and filth even across the span of two decades, but even by 1993 I can't cite them as having a lot of novelty. Clearly Greetings from Hell was second generational in most of its ideas, but what it does well is balance the two parent genres, never overly committing to one or the other. They also keep most of the tracks down to a reasonable length..."Arma Satani" and "Only War and Hell" are voluptuous at 7 and 8 minutes, but both have similar contrasts in pacing that the listener can easily survive them. At no point does Mourning fall back on endlessly repetitive funeral doom riffing cycles, and they toss in enough vibrant if sloppy leads that the album doesn't lose a sense of kinetic energy despite the topical negativity. It's about as 'well rounded' as you could hope for considering its thematic choices, but you will definitely feel doomed. Humanity is fucked, and Mourning was doing its part to usher us along.

Not a great debut by any means, but solid and engaging enough to have built a more interesting future upon. Instead, the band changed its name to Rouwen and dropped an EP in 1997 that I haven't heard, presumably with a minor shift in style. So Greetings from Hell must stand alone, if not 'standing out' among the relatively crowded death/doom scene at the front half of the 90s, where English bands were making large strides past everyone else in recognition. Apart from the solemn pacing and soul-sucking negativity, though, I feel like this is not entirely comparable to old Paradise Lost, Anathema, or My Dying Bride. Definitely more for the Hellhammer crowd, or followers of the seminal US groups Winter and Grief. I'm not into the Japanese band Gallhammer whatsoever, but if you're down with that sound you'd also find some common ground with Mourning. Track it down, pass it around; it might even be time for a fancy limited repressing on vinyl (assuming it hasn't happened already), since these authentic 90s obscurities are all the rage right now, at least among a small population in the metal underground. I know that Vic Records reissued their 1992 split with another Dutch doom/death unknown, Eternal Solstice, and that's pretty good, so who knows!?

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mourning/480200688659807

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies EP (1993)

Alice in Chain's second EP, Jar of Flies, is an enigma in my personal hierarchy of the band's discography, in that while it is far from their heaviest work, it is unquestionably my favourite. There are a myriad of personal reasons that inform this declaration (young-adult angst, mostly); but its an impeccable album in its own regard, with brilliant songwriting (almost) all the way through. There's something remarkably pure about this album, possibly thanks to the circumstances of its recordings (the band supposedly wrote and recorded the entire EP in a week, while living in the studio after being evicted from their shared apartment after the Dirt tour). 

Much like Sap, the songs feel more personal here; less about the wallowing in the mud and more about wondering where you are, and where life's taking you. To a young nineteen-year-old who was going through the aforementioned angst (not looking for sympathy, honest), a lot of this album rang true on a few levels. The stripped-down arrangements, dominated by acoustic guitars, evoke a more reflective side of a band that seemed to have a lot to reflect on, not the least of which being newfound critical acclaim after the release of Dirt. 

The band isn't afraid to experiment beyond the acoustic arrangements here, either. "Rotten Apple" showcases one of guitarist Jerry Cantrell's best solos, played through a talk-box; "I Stay Away" and "Whale & Wasp" both feature strings, with the latter having the honour of being the band's only instrumental piece. All the songs here are unique and manage to differentiate themselves in bold ways, which is all the more remarkable with the EP being - for all intents and purposes - an impromptu jam session. The level of craft on display here is incredible, and its made even more so when considering it was done such a short time. The fact that something so beautiful and completely integral to a band's ouevre as a song like "Nutshell" appears here is astounding. 

"No Excuses" is arguably the centrepiece of the EP's concentrated genius. All four members are at their A-game here, with an incredible rhythm section consisting of Sean Kinney and Mike Inez (replacing the late Mike Starr on bass) supporting Cantrell and late vocalist's Layne Staley's impeccable harmonies. Once again, the guitar is nothing to scoff at, with Cantrell's playing absolutely shimmering during the verse, all building to an incredibly memorable solo. The song is more upbeat than AiC has ever sounded before and since then, a stark contrast with the remainder of the disc yet never feeling out of place.

The same can't be said about my only real slight against the album, that being the final track, "Swing On This". A bluesy track ushered in with a walking bass line, there's nothing inherently bad about it. In fact, its just the kind of off-kilter track, with a chorus that reminds me a bit of Dirt's "Hate to Feel", that really characterized some of AiC's deeper cuts. That said, I feel like it doesn't flow very organically from the rest of the album. The first six songs form such a cohesive picture that "Swing On This" comes off as jarring. Some will certainly disagree, but for myself, its the only reason why I would refrain from calling Jar of Flies perfect. 

Last song woes aside, however, Jar of Flies remains an introspective, honest, and unpretentious work from a band that had worldwide acclaim at its fingertips. To take the time away from superstardom and and bare it all on a work so genuine is nothing short of remarkable, and I recommend everyone give it a listen. No excuses.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.5/10] (Take me home)

http://aliceinchains.com

Butcher - Astral Karma (1993)

A band so obscure that I'm sure its own members have difficulties trying to recall it, Brazil's Butcher was nonetheless an interesting commodity in that it was performing a far more classically tinted, progressive brand of thrash metal amidst a scene rife with dirtier, black and death-fused acts or others clinging desperately to the coattails of the national heroes and pioneers Sepultura, who were by that time blowing up across the world to the point that labels were interested in headhunting a few other South American acts who might compare. Astral Karma was the quartet's sole full-length effort, released through Cogumelo after years of demos, but my own first encounter with them was the Warfare Noise III split (same label) that featured several other equally-unknown groups who had themselves only ever gotten to the demo level. Props to Butcher for cranking up its career a notch, however futile or fleeting the end result, and also for taking such a unique approach to the medium, which is simply unlike anything else of its time in its geographical region.

The writing here is characterized by a heavy use of technical, often indulgent riffing that walks a fine line between pure neoclassical shred, fusion jazz influences and a surgical depth redolent of the German bands Mekong Delta and especially Deception Ignored-era Deathrow, which is naturally what drew me into Astral Karma, being an incurable whore for that style. In fact I would not be surprised to find that album, The Music of Erich Zahn, Voivod's Dimension Hatross, Watchtower's Control and Resistance, DBC's Universe, or early Coroner and Psychotic Waltz in the guitar player's collection, because he manages to put his own spin on comparable picking techniques that are easily the dominant factor on this album. The bass playing is likewise intelligent, fluid and busy, far more than you'd expect of peers like Sepultura or even The Mist, though it suffers from being a little lower in the mix than the rhythm guitars and vocals, so you can't exactly bask in the man's skill even when you want to (but it's audible enough to brand the guy a South American Ron Royce). Solos are heavily technique driven and not all that compelling on their own merits, but then again, most of the rhythm progressions could be considered 'leads' for other bands, so you're getting plenty of fretboard exploration at any given moment.

There's not a lot of 'boom' to the kick drums, but the snares are dominant and powerful enough to allow the listener's mind to access the contours and momentum of each rhythm guitar sequence, while laying in a number of great fills and grooves to the shifting landscape of technicality. Vocals are a gritty, grainy style that actually reminded me of Snake (Voivod) in the later 80s or when he was punking it up on the reunion discs. Obviously this is a lot more monotonous and exhibits less range than the guitars, but with just the right level of reverb on them I enjoy how they crash against the instruments and 'center' the recording, keeping it firmly rooted into the thrash perspective rather than letting the guitars fly off the hook. Which it could very easily do, because while Butcher was not as manic or dense as Florida's Cynic or Russia's Аспид (Aspid), Astral Karma was clearly focused on an audience of musicians rather than your garden variety hi-top sporting Anthrax and Nuclear Assault 'banger. 'Dressed to impress', despite the budget restrictions on the production, but unfortunately the 90s had become a dead zone for this style...why else would an album like Deception Ignored, arriving later in the previous decade, not continue to make ripples? Fuckin' gangster rap and grunge!

Now, Astral Karma is not without a few flaws. The lyrics read like pseudo-science prose, and contain a lot of cool imagery, but can seem a little hard to follow being that English was likely not the members' primary tongue. The pure prog/fusion rock pieces like "Spiritual Space" or "Analytical Soldier" are hardly mandatory, even if they open up the listener to the band's more eclectic than usual influences. Both are performed smoothly and help to break up the raging neighbors, but they don't serve much other purpose other to confirm the band's jazzier experimentation just shy of Pestilence's Spheres or Cynic's Focus. Inaugurating the song "UFOs" with a morsel of the Close Encounters theme is a little cheesy, but at the very least they compensate with a pretty incredible track that sounds like what might occur if Yngwie Malmsteen had guested on a Voivod record and made Piggy's eyes roll up in consternation. I also had mentioned that the leads are quite formulaic and predictable if you're a heavy fan of the scale based classical style, and this occasionally extends into the rhythm guitars of tunes like "Inside" or "Quest" which feel like pretty familiar patterns even for the 80s/90s. Astral Karma also cycles through so much material in attempts to flood its audience with content that it doesn't dwell on its more memorable riffs quite long enough...

That said, if you can track this down (and let's be honest, that will likely have to be in digital form), it's well worth the time for any fan of this small, limited niche of the thrash or power metal market. I wouldn't go so far to dub it 'brilliant', since it hasn't exactly molded or changed my life like No More Color, Deception Ignored or Control and Resistance, but for an 'out of nowhere' recording, Butcher's talents were substantial, and they packed a lot of effort into this that, in a just world, would have panned out into them securing further releases and building up a following. As it stands, Astral Karma is all we've really got to remember them by, but its well worth listening to, especially in today's environment where Vektor has (deservedly) become such a player in proving that intelligent thrash still has some life to it. You could 100% imagine Butcher as a proto-Vektor, just a bit rougher around the edges, so if that comparison lights up your groin, please check this out and revel in the might-have-been.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (in the story of a closed book)

Believer - Dimensions (1993)

Though their first two records revealed obvious hints of experimentation, it wasn't until Dimensions that Believer would fully embrace their inner nature as progressive metal pundits with what is undoubtedly their most interesting, if not highest quality effort. Making better use of anything from samples to acoustic guitars, operatic vocals to deranged sound effects, and perhaps most centrally, a truly varied palette of thrash riffing dynamics that draws heavily upon jazz/fusion and classical sources. Like a number of other acts in the thrash and death metal fields (Pestilence, Cynic, Atheist, etc), it was evident that the Pennsylvanians were not merely content to repeat themselves, and desired a metamorphosis of their chosen medium into a vaster aural tableau. That they do this without sacrificing the thrashers within them, is to their great credit, even if Dimensions does lack some of the punch and power of its predecessor Sanity Obscure.

You wouldn't know the band had changed itself all that much judging by the first half of this disc alone, which is a natural extension of the first two, laden with thrash riffs that culminate in some scorchers like "Singularity" or the clinical "No Apology", but by that point the band have already slipped us a bunch of those random, neurotic effects that always seem to cast us back into the madhouse whenever we've settled into some pure, palm-muted, frenzied goodness. There are some uncanny sounds on this thing, like that quivering, unnerving ambient intro to "What Is But Cannot Be" or the introspective narration above the acoustics in "Dimentia". Bachman's vocals themselves are just as suffused with anxiety as they were on Sanity Obscure, with the caveat that they feel cleaner, as if recorded in a more sterile environment. The same could be said for the guitars, which is why they feel a fraction more piecemeal and far less forceful than the prior albums. Granted this is music that requires some degree of polish, professionalism and refinement, that the listener is able to pick out the nuances and the vast swaths of notation delivered through the guitars, but I admit that I've long felt this was a bit too surgically sterile in terms of its weight.

That aside, one distinct area of improvement is that the thinner guitars permit the bass to step out and slink along independently of their crushing weight, which was an issue on Extraction from Mortality and to a lesser extent Sanity Obscure. The level of variation in the writing lends itself to a more natural dichotomy in the percussion, which might share the lack of hard hitting resonance of the guitars, but grants a lot more space to mess around with fills, rides, hi-hats, etc. But probably the brightest selling point for this record, at the time, was the "Trilogy of Knowledge" suite which occupies Dimension's latter half. Collaborator Scott Baird and his sister Julianne once again contributed their classically honed talents to create an honest to God symphonic proponent that meshed quite well with Believer's thrashing matrix, and while it's not in of itself highly memorable, there was a certain novelty to the effort which had to be appreciated. Today, symphonic metal (or at least use of certain components) is quite commonplace, but the early through mid 90s was an age of brutes and the emergence of shit-tastic groove metal, so Dimensions was quite a gem in the rough, especially the contrast of Julianne and Kurt's voices.

Lyrically, the album still deals heavily with the topic of the band's faith, but also more heavily serves as a psychological profile on sanity, a discussion of man's place in the universe. It's not quite so in your face as a lot of similar minded Christian thrash acts, like the hilarious Vengeance Rising. At worst you get a bit of theistic defensiveness in "No Apology", or the "Trilogy of Knowledge" tracks which in parts feel like a sermon. As with the first two records, I've never really felt this was a major obstacle towards my enjoyment of the music as a whole (but I can say the same for most Odinist, Muslim, Satanic, Judaic, Mythos, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian metal I encounter, your own mileage may vary). Unfortunately, despite its polish and progression, Dimensions came a bit late in the Golden Age cycle of thrash to make much of a splash, and its inquisitive and experimental nature ran in direct opposition to the 'dumbing down' of the nu-metal, groove metal and metalcore onslaughts that were nearly underway. Makes sense that this would be the 'writing on the wall' for Believer, at least until their 21st century rebirth. I've never much been in love with this record, preferring the more belligerent psychosis of Sanity Obscure, but it's nonetheless interesting, and fans of records like Focus, Spheres, Deception Ignored, Elements, and 90s Mekong Delta should give it a whirl.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (a chance reshuffling of matter)

https://www.facebook.com/believerband

Voivod - The Outer Limits (1993)

Leave it to Voivod to come up with the gimmick to include 3D glasses with a CD, but that is indeed what happened for the limited edition of the 7th full-length album, the last for MCA records and the first without longtime bassist Blacky. To be honest though, I'd risk being mauled by Martians to get a glimpse of Michael Langevin's artwork, and was not disappointed with the great concept behind the booklet, and lucky to buy that version day one. Like Angel Rat, the songs here each have their own, individual sci-fi concept, many with a more nostalgic tendency than previous albums. So the various 3D graphic panels and the comic book kitsch match up well with their themes, and with the possible exception of deciphering Nothingface, I doubt I've had so much fun with the superficial aspects of a Voivod album.

Of course, they'd be pretty hollow without some damn good music, and The Outer Limits provides plenty of it. God, I remember these days, when I could head out to the store on a release date and pretty much count on my favorite bands to release quality albums, evolution or none. For the Canadians, this would be the last of these, for not only was this Snake's intended swan song with the band, but they'd also lose their major label status. Most people in the 90s were far too busy with alternative rock, hip hop, grunge and hardcore music to really give a fuck about the creative side of the metal spectrum, and Voivod were clearly a casualty of this trend, especially when you consider the buzz they had been generating through the latter half of the prior decade. At the very least, though, The Outer Limits sounds like a lot more push was put behind it than Angel Rat, at least in terms of studio work. This sounds like the last album's more muscular brother, with brighter, mightier guitar tones, and a less psychedelic mix fit for the Saturday Night at the Drive In aesthetic that permeates much of the songwriting.

Similar to "Panorama" or "The Prow", you've got some uplifting, energetic tracks here with a few of the most catchy and accessible choruses the band has ever written, namely the opener "Fix My Heart" and closer "We Are Not Alone", such proud exclamations of joy for the band's lyrical niche that I practically had to restrain myself from crying out in happiness. Piggy's got a lot of flare on this record, almost like he's at long last taking his place as an 80s guitar god, so expect some craziness in both the rhythms and blaring leads, often with a bluesy hue. The Outer Limits is indeed more 'metal' than the two previous albums, but that qualification takes the place of a lot of driving, positive melodies and not so much the murk and groove of a Dimension Hatröss. That said, there are still plenty of creepy moments, or vivid atmospheric tweaks to his performance that it feels like a Voivod, just a Voivod that was cheery to head out the studio and lay these tracks down.

Though he was only a session musician, Pierre St. Jean keeps the bass busy enough that we can forget and forgive the lack of Blacky. The tones are cleaner all around, with less distortion but plenty of low end presence thanks to the higher pitch of the guitars. Drums are very polished here, but more powerfully driven than on Angel Rat, and Snake brings some of that due aggression back from, say, Nothingface. The best moments on this album are admittedly the atmospheric guitar passages reigning cuts like "Moonbeam Rider" and "Jack Luminous", but for 54 minutes, there are few moments worth complaining about. Voivod return to the Pink Floyd cover well with a brazen rendition of "The Nile Song", and while it lacks that hypnotic splendor of "Astronomy Domine", it's nonetheless quite excellent.

The crowning gem, for myself, was the 17 minute epic "Jack Luminous", the tale of a TV-faced invader from beyond the stars who is coming for Earth, and the disenfranchised alien who comes to warn us. First time the band ever attempting such a swollen concept within just one track, and it truly pays off without ever growing dull. Otherwise, you've got plenty of cuts about kitschy, out of this world themes like rocket ships, time travel and, perhaps more ominously, a near abandoned space hulk soaring through the void. This might just stand as one of the band's most professional sounding records, but it's brighter, carefree aspects and looser concepts haven't stood the ages with me like some of its predecessors. That said, it's a Voivod album. A great one. Not much else there sounds like it, and well worth owning, 3D glasses or not.

Verdict: Epic Win [9/10] (give me a reason to stay)

http://www.voivod.net/

Savatage - Edge of Thorns (1993)

Being that Edge of Thorns marked an enormous transition for the band, Jon Oliva departing from his frontal duties to serve more as a 'creative' consultant, I might somewhat forgive it for some degree of shakiness. After all, Jon's voice is approximately 50% of why I listened to the group, the other half provided by Criss' guitar techniques. However, my early reaction to the Streets followup was one of utter revulsion, and at no point in the ensuing 20 years have I ever gone back to this and been able to reverse my judgement. Each exposure to Edge of Thorns is like another smack to the gob, a kick to the knickers, and ultimately this has proven one of my least favorite efforts of their career, and I was even more disappointed than on the overly dramatic Streets.

The first (and not the only) problem I have with this album is in the choice of vocalist Zak Stevens, who, through no real fault of his own, manages to soil the entire experience of what might otherwise be a mediocre selection of mid-paced, generally boring riffs that completely fail to evoke the same marvels as the band created during their peak (1983-1989, excepting Fight for the Rock). Gone are Jon Oliva's feral ravings and fragile undercurrents. Stevens sounds like an early round reject for American Idol, or someone who escaped a Skid Row cover band (though even Sebastian Bach has more acid in his inflection). Don't get me wrong, he's far from the shittiest singer I've heard step into a major metal outlet. Everything I've read or heard of Zak seems like a standup, enthusiastic fellow. He has the technical proficiency required to sing in key, and he doesn't shy away from attempting to implement a bit of Oliva's hard fought aggression. He can do delicate, and when he hits his swarthy lower range he reminds me of Daphne Zuniga (as Princess Vespa) in Spaceballs, singing the old spiritual "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen".

It's not so much a case of 'Ripper' Owens, where you've guy singing in a comparable style and range to his predecessor that somehow always feels forced or fake. No, Zak just sounds fake all the time here. His voice has always seemed to feel 'separate' from the music here, even after decades of getting used to him on this and the later records. Take "Degrees of Sanity", for instance, which might have been a decent atmospheric crawler of a track if not for Stevens' brooding timbre sounding anti-climactic and, frankly, awful, especially when he tosses a bit of 'edge' or grit to his tone. But the lows are not low enough. The hardness does not bite enough. All of that manic anger and passion that once defined this band has been leeched away, supplanted by somnolent, predictable and overbearing smoothness that gimps all of the tormented emotions that attracted me to Savatage. He makes about half the songs on this album, including the title track, sound like Survivor wrote them. Lots of needless rock refrains and dated, insincere chutzpah. I won't even get into how laughable the guy sounds in the ballads like "All That I Bleed", which makes even the wussiest Streets material seem like titanium alloy by comparison...

Which leads me to my next issue with Edge of Thorns: it's more or less a rehash of the two albums before it. Perhaps mildly more 'metal' in overall content than Streets, but just as privy to failed mainstreaming rock ballads and hammy theatrics. In attempting to build the same mood and drama as Gutter Ballet or Streets, we end up with a bevy of dried out, antiquated middle of the road riffing sequences. Criss still shines in his lead expositions, wailing and shredding up to his reputation within the verse/chorus confinements he himself helped create, but much of the record lacks balls, it's like cheap radio AOR branded with the Savatage logo. The Floridians were never strangers to groovy hard rock dynamics, but fuck, "Lights Out" might have well just been on a Skid Row or Dangerous Toys record. All it's missing are the star-starved, fishnet-stocking skanks. "Skraggy's Tomb" sounds like something Jackyl would write.Vapid, escalating Zippo waving pap like "Miles Away" or the Floyd-ish "Follow Me" is just as uninspired and pathetic as anything you'd find off Fight for the Rock...

Once again, there are TOO MANY ballads, and we're not talking anything with "Silent Lucidity" potential here, but a handful of safely coifed album fillers like the all-too-aptly-titled finale "Sleep". Stripped down, boring acoustic guitars, no real atmosphere to speak of, and vocal lines that might has well been written by any Top 40 surrogate. Though the bass has a decent, loud tone, and the rhythm guitar a bit of processed punch that rendered it more modern than the prior albums, these instruments and the drums might as well have been phoned in by session musicians. There is no distinction. No personality to the performances. Apart from the gracious glaze of lead in "Labyrinths", the two instrumentals on this album are dry of ideas and useless; compare them to "Silk and Steel" or "Temptation Revelation" or "Prelude to Madness" and feel just how lazy and needless they are. Even where Savatage tries to build a decent emotional climax to a track, like in "Conversation Piece" the payoff is puked upon by garbage lyrics:

Like pieces of myself/cut off in desperation
As offerings to thee/I keep them on a shelf
They're good for conversation/Over a cup of tea, yeah, cup of tea

Really? Ooooh yeah. Pure me a Tetley, and then fuck off!

Perhaps the greatest tragedy, though, is that this was not only Criss Oliva's studio swan song with the band, but the end of his musical career, taken in a fateful car accident the October of the same year. I've explained in other Savatage reviews what an influence this guy had on my own development as a teen learning the instrument, and thus its doubly bittersweet that he would leave us on such a stagnant note. To tally up the number of interesting guitar licks on this album, I would have to cut off all the fingers on my left hand, and two from the right. It is truly that empty and uninspired, poppy and production-nullified metal with a selection of cheap choruses and bland rock & roll hooks that fucking Foreigner would have left on the cutting room floor. Normally, if the music was decent, and the vocals were something I could remember 5 minutes after listening, I wouldn't mind this approach. There have been commercial hard rock and wimp-metal albums I've enjoyed, but Edge of Thorns is just an overpolished, overhyped, rose scented toilet bowl ready for a good dump to remind it of its true purpose.

Verdict: Fail [3.5/10] (I don't think about you)

http://www.savatage.com/

Testament - Return to the Apocalyptic City EP (1993)

A number of West Coast thrash acts in the late 80s/early 90s decided to test the waters of a live recording through an EP rather than a full blown album release, and Return to the Apocalyptic City was Testament's second entry into this club (the first the obscure Live at Eindhoven EP from '87); a half hour of material put out through Atlantic Records to turn a few dimes and keep the fans' blood thirst quenched between The Ritual (1992) and its follow-up, Low (1994). Sadly, though this EP attempts to provide the fans a variety of content to enjoy during their downtime, it falls well short of an essential purchase, and those seeking a more substantial live offering from Chuck Billy and crew should skip directly to the following Live at the Fillmore.

Granted, the four live cuts that represent 66% of this release give an adequately pummeling, with a lot of punch to the guitars, brute vocals, audible drums, bumping bass, and that threatening, oblique atmosphere the band had mastered through the first few studio albums manifest at the Los Angeles Palladium. Really can't say I'm disappointed with the performances at all, especially "Over the Wall" and a personal favorite, "Disciples of the Watch", but when all is said and done, there are just too few to effectively boil the blood over to satisfaction. It's important to note that this was not performed with the entire original lineup; Chuck Billy, Eric Peterson and Greg Christian were joined by their Forbidden friends Paul Bostaph and Glen Alvelais to round this out, and both do a solid job of filling out the estimable shoes of Clemente and Skolnick. Overall, the performances are effective and strong sounding on a stereo, I just wish there were about a dozen more here..

Return to the Apocalyptic City also includes a useless radio edit of "Return to Serenity" (I like the song, but trying to compact an already accessible piece for radio reeks of major label bullshit). The most exciting track here, though, is very likely "Reign of Terror", a track they had back on their demo that they'd continued to perform through the years, winding up on the Trial by Fire single. It's a decent, forceful piece with some great, hoarse assertions and screaming from Billy, but I'd say it often sounds a bit too much like a pastiche of other tunes off The Legacy and The New Order and I can understand why it was never represented  officially on one of the studio albums. Does it warrant a purchase of the entire EP? Not so much, and the fact that there are no other rarities here speaks once again to the very 'meekness' of this release. Most likely those who acquired this did so at little personal cost, I can remember it wading through the cut-out bargain bins back in the 90s, and if you find it dirt cheap and love Testament, have at it. Otherwise, there's not enough of anything on offer here to really bother with it.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]

http://www.testamentlegions.com/

Overkill - I Hear Black (1993)

There seems to be a fairly overt consensus among thrashers on I Hear Black as the official shark jumping of New Yorkers Overkill, but I have to admit I had a slightly differing perspective, already feeling diminishing returns from their music since about 1988. True, there were a few tracks here or there that kept my blood boiled in anticipation for whatever they'd issue next, but Horrorscope ground me to a dead stop, and naturally, with so much of my beloved sub-genre disintegrating through the 90s, I had little expectations for Overkill's future. I Hear Black, the sixth full-length, was one I acquired as part of one of those mail order music club deals, a dozen CDs for a penny or something like that, so I hardly felt burned by its lack of much redeeming, but this is one case where I must defer to the majority: Overkill really dropped the ball this time, and even if I found its next eldest sibling a disappointment, this was worse by several orders of magnitude.

The production is partly to blame. Though they were reuniting with Alex Perialas, who handled some of the band's best albums, I Hear Black comes off dry, dull and lifeless, similar to some of Flotsam & Jetsam's output in the 90s; as if there were some earnest attempt to deliver the band in some sort of stable cubicle/studio sterility to ramp up their chances with the masses that had already fled thrash metal to grunge, alternative and gangsta rap. The guitars, while clean and surgical in their execution, have little staying power, and while Verni's bass flutters along with its ritual, ear rupturing celerity, it seems to follow along with the guitar lines too closely. The band's next drummer, Tim Mallare had joined the fold here, and while he does a respectable job with some decent crashing and thumping, he does not have all that much to work with as far as the songwriting. As for the vocals, Blitz is still quite himself, though they experiment more with multi-tracking, panning effects and other techniques to layer complexity into the music (as in "Just Like You" or "Dreaming in Columbian"), where they should have been working more on making the riffs and choruses stick.

This catches a lot of flak for its 'groove' elements, but let's be clear: there is nothing wrong with a band going down this route if the music is well-written. A lot of great metal albums of any decade include 'grooves' to them, so the fact that this trait has in retrospect become such a pariah of the scene is perplexing to me. In I Hear Black, most of these aspects take on the form of post-Hendrix/Zeppelin rock and roll redolent of what you'd heard from Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity or Black Label Society in this decade. With songs like "Undying", this sort of pacing provides a skeletal structure to which they attempt to add atmosphere by screaming the chorus, and it just doesn't work because the riffing sequences are banal and uninspired. Where a band like Sabbath or Trouble crushed you with its colossal curvature, Overkill has always come across as wimpy when exploring this territory, from the dull earlier "Skullkrusher" to the misfires here like "Spiritual Void" or "Ignorance and Innocence". This album needed speed and excitement, but what manifests is sluggish or mid-paced disinterest...

There are a few points where they attempt to concoct a more clinical, creative and progressive brand of thrash as in "World of Hurt" or "Dreaming in Columbian", but even these are infested with weak arsed riffs that one must struggle to retain in the brain 5-10 minutes after one experiences them. "Shades of Grey" is a trivial power ballad which mutates from cleaner guitars to vapid grooves, and no amount of layered vocal harmonizing is going to save it. The flanged, bass-driven instrumental "Ghost Dance" with its sparse chords and backing drum thump is completely ineffective, and ultimately there is not a single song on the whole of the record that can stand toe to toe with anything on the band's list of staple/classics. I don't think Verni and Blitz were completely compromising the band here, since it was a pretty direct line from its predecessors, but any notion of the album's 'expansiveness' is fully counteracted by its flaws, and while this is not so colossal a misstep as something like Diabolus in Musica or Load, both of which came later, I have no problem identifying I Hear Black as the nadir in Overkill's career. The 'orange and black' attack just wasn't working out for anyone.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10] (it has no mercy)

http://wreckingcrew.com/Ironbound/

Nuclear Assault - Something Wicked (1993)

My first recollection of Something Wicked was that John Connelly had joined Megadeth in the 90s, because certain songs here reminded me of Mustaine's writing for tracks like "Symphony of Destruction" off of Countdown to Extinction, or perhaps something from Youthanasia. A painfully simplistic, chugging riff leads into an escalating lattice of melody, primed for easy radio accessibility, and somehow lacking that dystopic nuclear fervor that made me such a fan of their first three albums. As one progresses through this record, the motif seems to hold up, and it feels about as different an experience from Nuclear Assault as John's side project John Connelly Theory which put out an album in 1991. Sure, his vocal inflection binds the groups together, but if not for his presence, and the logo on the awful cover to this record, I wouldn't have even known it was a Nukes release.

Ironically, it's his vocals that prove one of the saving graces for this album, keeping it from plunging fully over the precipice to utter suck. He adds a little more rock and roll spice to his formula, while keeping that raw, urban harshness that defined the earlier works. Almost like an East Coast Chuck Billy, with a few traces of former Whiplash singer Glenn Hansen (in fact, Something Wicked does occasionally remind me of their 1989 LP Insult to Injury). He even pulls off the moodier pieces like "The Forge", with dire, bluesy acoustic guitars, or "No Time", the sorta power ballad in which he pulls off some of his most refined melodies ever. In fact, this album has more clean guitars than any other in their catalog, a sign they were striving for that added mainstream penetration, that late breakthrough they never quite reached in the prior decade. Unfortunately, the brighter points to Something Wicked are counterbalanced by one of the most mundane riffing selections you'd find anywhere: nothing offensive or lacking in variation, but pitifully average at a time when the genre had been largely reduced to just its most ardent supporters, and the dustbin.

I realize there's a more horror spin to the lyrics here, what with the Ray Bradbury inspiration to the title/title track and the Twilight Zone-themed cut "To Serve Man" (both cool topics in my estimation). The Cold War had receded, the street fighting mutant clobbering Damnation Alley aesthetics of the past records probably seemed moot. There were also two new members in the fold: David DiPietro of Jersey might-have-beens TT Quick replaces Bramante, and bassist Scott Metaxas has some huge shoes to fill with Dan Lilker having gone off to focus on grind superstars Brutal Truth. The former's flashier guitars are certainly felt through the album with the added licks and leads that burst out through pieces like "Another Violent End", while the latter just doesn't have those same, pulverizing rhythmic chops that his predecessor brought to the band. Neither is incompetent, but certainly their performance here contributes to the album's clear separation from their prior outings, and when they've only got such generally simplistic, chugging post S.O.D./M.O.D. riffs to work through, what could we really expect?

Reinvention I can handle, but not at the cost of that vital, youthful energy the band thrived upon through the 80s. Tunes like "Something Wicked", "Madness Descends" and "Chaos" are capable of getting the head banging for a few seconds, until one realized that nothing surprising or memorable is coming down the pipe. So many of the guitar progressions and lead sequences remind me of something Dave Mustaine would have written around this time that it's almost a distraction. They've also brought back a few of the useless ditties that plagued older albums, with the 9 second "Art" and a 40 second acoustic variation of "Another Violent End" called "The Other End". Only a few tunes like "Poetic Justice" (pre-profanity bridge) are ultimately able to conjure up that violent momentum of a Game Over or Survive, and while Connelly and Evans each deliver a decent performance, I found the album a sliver less impressive than Out of Order, which was already a letdown for many of the band's fans.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10] (draw the lightning out of my mind)

http://www.facebook.com/NuclearAssaultOfficial