| Century Media | The Gathering - Nighttime Birds | Band Site | ||
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Dutch six-piece, The Gathering are (at the time of writing)
currently at number 12 in the chart of their homeland. This isn't
really surprising, as their rather lovely blend of soft Goth-style
metal and a strong bass line with the clean, clear vocals of Anneke
Van Giersbergen is very, very accessible. This is the sort of album
you play to your mum to prove that not everything you listen to is a
horrible noise. The Gathering sound very much like a softer, quieter version of The Blood Divine and their ilk, and have similar lead guitar style at times. They also make good use of keyboard to build texture and depth into the music aiding the ebb and flow between quieter and more intense sections. My favourite trach has to be the first one, On Most Surfaces, which displays a gorgeous interweaving of the instrumental parts, whilst still retaining a certain dark moodiness. After hearing the first track, I expected this to be a truly wondrous album. Unfortunately, I was disappointed, as the majority of the songs on it have the same mellow, sorrowful feel to them, and it is difficult to distinguish between them. They are all really nice, but I'd personally quite like a few mood changes to avoid monotony. There was a bit of a change in Third Chance, which wasa rather upbeat little number and I can imagine Goths quite happily bouncing to and fro to it. All in all, this album is the sort ofthing you shouls play at a party as it is quite lovely and unobtrusive. Do not try to listen attentively to it, if you don't want to be climbing the walls with boredom. Oh God, I need some Machine Head right now!
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| Century Media | Tiamat - A Deeper Kind Of Slumber | Band Site | ||||
| Johan Edlund (Vocals) (Rhythm Guitar) | Thomas Peterson (Lead Guitar) | ||
| Anders Iwers (Bass) | Lars Sköld (Drums) | |||
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Band Photo This is Tiamat's fifth album and their maturity shows. This album has an interesting Goth-metal/ambient/industrial sound and a good mixture of moods all of them permeated with darkness. Johan Edlund's eerie vocals certainly lend an evil quality to all the songs. Each track has it's own style. Teonacatl is slow and malevolently moody; Cold Seed has a bouncy up-beat eighties Goth-pop feel; Alteration X10 has a definite Goth-metal a la My Dying Bride style to it; Four Leary Biscuits is a wonderful whirling frenzy of Eastern sounds; and Only In My Tears It Lasts has a slightly ska vibe to it. My only real gripe with this album is that track 12, Mount Marilyn (a pun perhaps?), is far far too long at over ten minutes. It being a rather slow, mellow tune, I found myself dropping off to sleep. To sum up, this is the sort of album I would play if in a quiet, mellow-but-evil mood. Good for smoking pot/having a relaxing drink and leisurely plotting your next wicked deed to.
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| Century Media | Unleashed - Warrior | Band Site | ||||
| Johnny (Vocals) (Bass) | Tomas (Guitars) | ||
| Fredrik (Guitars) | Anders (Drums) | |||
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They say that appearances can be deceptive and this has never been more true when
you see the cover of the new Unleashed album. The band logo is of the style that
most death/black metal bands use. Almost unreadable, spiky, interlaced letters
with cobwebs etc. hanging from various places. The picture is simply a warrior's
helmet from some bygone civilisation. I don't usually judge albums by the cover
simply because that is just the cover artwork. However, with this, I expected the
album to be pure black metal insanity. (As I'm sure most of you would if you saw
their logo!) It was a big surprise then to find that they are NOT! This is a
rather pleasant surprise though, especially when you hear how good this album
is. Simply put, Unleashed ROCK!! They are of that style that great bands such as Carcass and Entombed have pioneered. The Death/Rock hybrid. Strong riffing and quality songwriting with the added flavor of death style vocals. Make no mistake, this album rocks like a bastard!! Opener "Warmachine" is a straight-forward heavy, moshing tune. Second track "In hellfire" impresses with it's pummelling double-bass beats that Slayer would be proud of and lightning fast rhythm guitar. Another surprise hits you when you hear "Mediawhore". This track reminds me of some of the thrash metal bands. Bands like Anthrax, Sacred Reich, M.O.D. etc. that wrote tunes that were really heavy but you could really mosh to!! With it's mid-paced headbanging start and then fast main verses, it puts you in mind of tunes like Anthrax's "Indians" or Sacred Reich's "The American Way". Those tunes that really get you moving! If more people knew this band, this tune would rule on the dancefloor. Unleashed don't just stay with the same style like a lot of mainstream metal bands do. They mix it up a bit with tunes like "Death Metal Victory" and "Born Deranged" that are fast death metal that really kicks ass. Or "My Life For You" that is slow and heavy. Then there's instrumental "Löngt Nid" with it's very Gothic sounding synth intro. which leads into a crunching heavy riff-a-rama. In a day and age where there are even more people who are only into what is trendy or cool at the moment, and where there are even more bands who are only in it for the money, it is refreshing to hear a band that can write decent music that has the potential to attract a wide audience. Unleashed should go far and rightly so. Final rating: 4/5
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| Century Media | Stuck Mojo - Pigwalk | Band Site | |||
| Bonz (Vocals) | Rich Ward (Guitars) (Backing Vocals) | |
| Corey Lowery(Bass) (Backing Vocals) | Bud Fontsere (Drums) | ||
Send hate-mail to Jamie for being a lazy bastard.
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| Century Media | Skinlab - Bound, Gagged and Blindfolded | Band Site | ||||
| Steev Esquivel (Vocals) (Bass) | Mike Roberts (Guitars) | ||
| Gary Wendt (Guitars) | Paul Hopkins (Drums) | |||
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After everything I'm sure you've heard of Skinlab you'll probably want to
know if they're actually any good, right? Well that depends on how your mind
works. Do you like Machine Head? Entombed? Sepultura? Pantera? For most of us
the answer is probably yes, but is someone was to make a rip-off of those bands
you'd hate it out of principle, yes? As far as I'm concerned that's what Skinlab
have done, it's difficult to find anything in their music which doesn't remind
you of one of the bands I've mentioned. Normally I'd think they were a bunch of
untalented bastards trying to make money from other peoples fame, however
despite the apparent lack of originality, this is a great album. They have
managed to blent together their influences very well, so I don't hate them like
I probably should. I liked vocalist/bassist Steev's former band, Defiance, which has probably biased me towards them (they did an excellent cover of Maiden's Killers). There aren't really any stand out tracks on the album, at least not that I can remember (that says it all really) but I did enjoy it, it is good music and any fan of the bands I mentioned should like it. Don't believe the hype though, it's not a 'killer' album but it's interesting, enjoyable and I get the feeling it's going to grow on me.
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| Century Media | Rotting Christ - A Dead Poem | Band Site | |||||
| Sakis (Vocals) (Vocals) | Jim (Bass) | Themis (Drums) | ||
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Band Photo I can hear it now: "Who are they?" when any of you look at this page. Quite understandable I suppose since I hadn't heard of them until recently. Well, to give you a bit of info., Rotting Christ are one of those underground bands that do actually make it. This is not always a good thing. All too often when an underground band moves to a major label this can lead to a deterioration in the quality of the music, especially with the major labels. However, Rotting Christ signed with Century Media Records (Strapping Young Lad, Stuck Mojo etc.), one of the bigger independent labels. This can only be a good thing at least, from the viewpoint that more people will get to hear their music. Indeed they should too, because Rotting Christ are rather good. Formed several years ago by three guys in Greece who wanted to play Black Metal, their latest release, "A Dead Poem" is quite an interesting affair. When you think of Black Metal, for me anyway, the images that come to mind are of strange looking people in all-black clothing who sometimes wear make-up and use lots of stage blood. Bands such as Cradle Of Filth, Burzum, Emperor and Bal-Sagoth come to mind. However, Rotting Christ are not like any of these. Unlike most Black Metal bands, they don't use that almost trademark blast drum beat that pummels your brain against the side of your head at unthinkable speeds. When you hear this, images of doom bands such as My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost or The Blood Divine seem better fitting. Yet they are like this but not in a way. They certainly have the death/black style vocals and these are occasionally mixed with more conventional singing. Opening track "Sorrowfull Farewell" is a great way to start even though the opening riff reminds you of "Enter Sandman". Don't be put off, this is definitely not a rip-off song. It flows along nicely after this with a rather nice guitar sound and atmospheric overlaying of synthesisers. TThe good thing is that the guitar is not smothered by the synths and these are used very subtly and effectively. [PS: ace album! - Kevin]
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| Century Media | Out Of The Dark - Live Compilation | |||||
| I`ve lost the case for the CD so I can't scan the cover, sorry. | Featuring: | ||||
| Moonspell | The Gathering | Samael | |||
| Sentenced | Rotting Christ | Crematory | |||
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My first reaction was that this album sucked like a 20 whore, but of course
not actually having sampled the pleasures(?) of one of those I thought
perhaps it was an unfair comparison. The sound quality is quite good, but none of the songs seem to stick out as being good. Even the excellent Rotting Christ failed to impress me. If I'd been at one of the concerts where this was recorded I think I'd probably have spent most of the night at the bar getting as drunk as possible to make up for the cheezy Euro-metal overload. Track 1 presents painfully crap keyboards on top of a guitar riff heard many times before, though normally, thankfully, not throughout the whole song. Some nice pounding double-bass bits though (spoiled by a short crap early maiden style lead riff. Track 7 sounds slightly reminiscent of Helloween, a band which I quite like (I've only got KOTSK 1+2) but noone else seems to. (you can't tell I've lost the case, can you?). The second The Gathering come on you know it's them, noone else makes music like that, at least not that I've heard. Not bad tunes, infact perfectly listenable if you're in the mood. They all sound very similar though and their real talent rarely shows through. The more I listen the more I like the album, but it's never going to be good I don't think.
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