Soundisciples
Undefined

A lot has been said about this new Peaceville signing. They’re so hard to pin down musically that their album is called Undefined. They’ve got a glittering cast of guest musicians including members of Portishead. They’re the future of British Metal. However hype is hype but the truth is somewhat different. The Soundisciples do have a range of sound all within the dnace/metal crossover section. The influences are there, Pitchshifter, Misery Loves Company and a host of goth acts to add that slightly darker feel.

The music is competent if not totally amazing. Tracks such as 'Jesus Biting Nails' and 'Withdraw From Life' highlight the bands obvious talent. However what lets this album down is surprisingly a lack of variety. Although encompassing a wide range of styles, they all tend to mass into a collection of drum machine noises, samples, and guitar which could do with being a touch more brutal. This coupled with a slightly one dimensional vocal delivery leads to tedium over the album's 12 tracks. The Soundisciples are a band who have the skills to join the metal elite, however as a new band they are still learning their trade. The potential is here in abundance, it just needs some refinement. You could call the album Unrefined (ha ha oh god I’m going insane).

Rating: **********

Napalm Death
Words From The Exit Wound

Discography

Those loveable brummies are back with a new album, and I guess I don’t have to say that it’s a ballad free zone. After their slightly more commercial efforts of the last few years (Diatribes and Inside The Torn Apart) the guys have decided to return to the sound of Fear, Emptiness, Despair. It’s heavy with no obvious stand out track, but it has that inherent Napalm catchiness which takes a few listens to take hold but nonetheless is relentless in its grip. The surprise on this album is that Barney actually sings (and I don’t mean he has spoken word passages), but as this only lasts for about 10 seconds it’s not that remarkable.

The songs are once more political in nature and are fast, tight and modern in their delivery. You know what Napalm Death sound like and this is nothing different. Admittedly progression is a nice thing as the previous two efforts proved but at the same time it’s nice that a band can feel free to return to an earlier sound and pull it off without sounding dated (Be honest everyone wants Metallica to try and do Master Of Puppets Revisited). Anyway the album kicks in with 'The Infiltrator', a finer slab of grindcore you won’t find anywhere else. 'Repression Out of Uniform' finds Barney singing for his supper (Bless him) and 'Next of Kin to Chaos' proves that Napalm can slow it down without losing any of their aggression.

However despite once again coming up with the goods, it’s uncertain how long Napalm can tread these waters without becoming tired. Fear Emptiness… was an important stepping stone for the band taking them to the cleaner sounds of their previous efforts. This album recaptures the feel of that album and loses nothing in the delivery, however I fear that the band may no longer strive to push their sound forward having found a safe niche. But as long as the albums are this good, who cares right? Still I am a worrier.

Rating: **********

The Gathering
stuff on 'how to measure a planet'

Liberty Bell (single):

Well this is certainly a very different track for The Gathering. 'Liberty Bell' is an upbeat song with a singalonagable chorus, filtered vocals, and fuzzy, distorted guitar and keyboards. The music is still textured and complex, as is typical of The Gathering, but this song makes a refreshing change from the normal quietly melancholy mood.

Maybe more critics than my humble self  have voiced the opinion that the last album seemed like one great long rather pleasant, but ultimately dull song. The Gathering seem to be going for a bit more variety in their repertoire. Thank God.

The other songs included on this single, however, are not as catchy. 'Shrink' is a rather beautiful acoustic piece which rather suits Anneke van Giersbergen's impressive voice. 'Frail' is similar to songs from the last album Night-time Birds.

Certainly Liberty Bell could easily be played in rock clubs, but the other songs would send the crowd to sleep.

How to Measure a Planet (sampler):

Well, here I am reviewing the sampler when the album's already out. Story of my life, really. Anyway, there are four "rough mixes" of tracks from the album here.  They certainly don't sound that rough to me; the production's pretty good.

The standout track is definitely 'Liberty Bell' which has been wisely released as a single (see above review).  The first track 'The Rescue' is quite a traditional song from The Gathering -- pretty, but goes on a bit.  'Great Ocean Road' also suffers from this fault and includes a slightly ham-fisted attempt at "moving with the times" by adding some samples. The final track 'Marooned' is rather ambient through the use of a drum machine and subtle samples, but is really just another Laura Ashley pair of curtains of a song.

If this sampler is anything to go by, the majority of the tracks are pleasant background listening, but nothing to give your full attention to. 

Judgement Day

Well, well, well, more Death Metal. Judgement Day provide us with Death mixed with Goth which although reasonably well done is hardly anything to write home about. I don’t know much about the band but with such unimaginative titles as 'Horror Pain', 'The Old Tree' or 'Sexual Intercourse' (Yikes!) one would assume, in an admittedly racist manner, that the band would not count English as their mother tongue (not that that matters, I can’t speak Portuguese for toffee, but come on "Sexual Intercourse" for Christ’s sake!). However to make up for this the band do have a song called 'The Pathology of Crowding' which is cool.

The album actually sounds a little like Sepultura’s Morbid Visions mixed with some doom tinges. It’s actually not too bad, however it is slightly let down by production problems particularly in the vocal department. 'Horror Pain' has to be the stand out track that suggests that the band may have a future in the small realms of Death Metal, but the album does begin to drag after a while. There is the compulsory inclusion of female vocals, God will one Doom/Goth band please refrain from this, and the standard slow down and go all acoustic sections. Again if you’re into this stuff and are really looking to get into the underground then I guess you might as well check out Judgement Day (there’s a lot worse out there), but I reckon most of you should put on Turn Loose The Swans [My Dying Bride - Ed] and save your money for the pub.

Rating: **********

Unfortunately I have no background for this band, perhaps the ED does. This album started with alot of promise as the intro was a bit diiferent with sort of swamp noises and a helicopter type noise and it then broke into the first song on the album, '6000 years'. This song I felt is one of the bands best as all the different parts of the band can be heard (yes even the bassist) and are all in perfect balance with each other. The only thing I felt about all of their songs is that they tend to plod along and never really reach there full potential.(This review is about to turn into a review by a friend where they try not to hurt your feelings but this is the only way I can describe this band as I feel that have a lot more to give than this album shows). The band are very good musicians and are obviously comfortable in what they are doing but I just feel that they need to mix it up a bit as most of the songs seem to plod along.

Lets try and describe them.They have a sort of Metallica type guitar riffs (slowed down) and basic rock drumming that works well. The vocals fit perfectly with the rest of the band and nothing apears to be out of place or held back to accomidate something else. They also have some parts which could almost be Queen and other rock bands of that style. Back to the songs. The second song is a bit of a non event so I'll move onto the third, 'Mr. Rightman'. this song has a lot of promise as it has everything working together with a very funky bass and laid back drumming this is my favourite song on this album. It is closely followed by the fourth song 'f.l.s.' which speeds it up a little but not enough to cause the listener to perk up and pay attention. It has a sort of Pist.on feel to it (I think so anyway). The rest of the album is pretty much the same and could do with being mixed up with some faster or slower songs just something to break the monotony.

There is a song which I think could have been played faster to go along with the intro to the song. The song is called 'Joyride' and has the sounds of someone breaking into a stealing a car presumebly for the purpose of joyriding. The intro builds up to the expectation of a fast hard hitting song at which point the listener is disappointed as a very similar song to the rest of the songs on the album is what actually follows.In conclusion I think this band have some very good ideas and just require to fiddle with what they have to make the whole album more enjoyable to the listener.

Haemorrhage
Grume

Another issue of Attitude, another band that want to be Carcass. Yes you guessed it, Haemorrhage have seething guitars interbedded with a high throat scraping vocalist and a low deep throated second singer (?). To couple this we have titles along the lines of 'Dissect, Exhume, Devour' (Exhume to Consume anyone?) and 'Cartilageous Pulped Offals'. I’m sure that the medical dictionary has been well scoured by the Haemorrhage guys.

To be fair this album is done well. It is in keeping with the Carcass sound and put alongside albums such as Symphonies of Sickness it would probably be difficult to tell which is which. Plus the band have added a few other influences such as some noticeable Machine Head style riffing. However, dare I say it, just like the early Carcass releases the album does begin to become a little one dimensional after a while. One thing that I often worry about is that while Carcass had a dark stream of humour running through their songs I’m not certain if their offspring, such as Haemorrhage, get the joke. If they do then like many comedians before them they have fallen in the deadly trap of repetition. Grume just goes to show that 10 years after the event, early Carcass stuff is still inspiring a large section of the Death Metal market which emphasises just how innovative the Scousers really where. If you’re an avid Carcass fan then this may bring back some fond memories. For the specialist market only I’m afraid.

Rating: **********