Roadsaw
Nationwide

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Keep On Sailing, the opening track on this 13-strong release, is amazing. It's fast paced, aggressive, and has a bludgeoning guitar/bass sound which thankfully spans the whole album. Along with the opener on Hangnail's Ten Days Before Summer (Overhang), this is one of the best songs I've heard in a long while. There's something about it which just hooks you immediately, and transfixes you till its end.

Nationwide is the band's second album release (the first with MIA), and they have recorded three EPs including one for Mans Ruin. Style-wise they're kind of hard and heavy old-style rock, which these days probably lumps them in with the growing stoner scene if you're into inappropriate categorisations. They hail from Boston but have been doing extensive US touring with the likes of Nebula, Fu Manchu, and Chrome Locust, so if you live in the US you'll probably have had plenty chances to see them already. If you missed it, then you're a fool!

From start to finish the album is full of energy, and like all (well, most) good albums, nods it's head in the direction of Sabbath occasionally without losing any of it's originality. I don't really know what else to say about it really, but it's great!!!!

Verdict: Best served chilled, with a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale

Anathema
Judgement

The follow-up to last year’s brilliant alternative 4, this album sees the band move further into uncharted musical territory. Although more upbeat than its predecessor, Anathema retain the gloomy, introspective vibe that we have come to expect from them. Every Anathema album has always been a musical progression of the last, and this album continues this trend, with the very successful inclusion of a female singer on Parisienne Moonlight and Don’t Look Too Far. While alternative 4 was quite experimental in parts, in terms of song structure, etc., this album seems more settled, and flows together a lot better. Saying that, Anathema definitely weren’t short on trying new things on this album, as songs like Judgement will show.

Like their past couple of albums, I don’t quite know how to describe this album’s sound, which can only be a good thing – it has elements of doom metal to it, but overall is more like atmospheric music, bringing together elements of many different styles. In particular, Parisienne Moonlight has a fresh, original sound to it (largely due to Lee Douglas adding harmonising female vocals), giving a glimpse into how wide the scope of their musical influences are.

A definite masterpiece of gloomy, thoughtful, atmospheric music, this is Anathema at their best. Judgement is one of the most original albums I’ve heard in recent times, and definitely worthy of your money.

Hangnail
Ten Days Before Summer

More uncomplicated easy-going fun from yet another band taking traditional seventies rock 'n' roll into the Millenium.  Hangnail certainly fit into that category of unpretentious retro music called Stoner Rock.

Hangnail are a Brit band with a sound sometimes reminiscent of Kyuss and sometimes of Orange Goblin, but often tinged with Eastern promise as in Side/Slide (which includes additional sinuous female vocals similar to those in Temple of Love by The Sisters of Mercy) and Keep On.  This is probably due to their professed love of Led Zepellin and certainly adds a little trippiness to the vibe.

The choruses are infectious; Harry Armstrong's vocals are strong with a gravelly edge, the bass/guitar combination makes me want to sway my hefty hips and the drums punctuate the sound with subtle precision, rarely falling into an obvious rhythm.  Hangnail manage to make a very calculated sound seem almost effortless, like some people who get their hair just messy enough to look cool by spending ages in front of the mirror ruffling it about.

Compared to The Atomic Bitchwax (another stoner band I reviewed for this issue), Hangnail have more structured subtler songs and a wider variety of moods. Two songs incorporate female guest vocals which give them an extra softness, and there are many changes of pace even within songs.

Nox Intempesta
Damnanus Dominum

I like this album as it is good black metal - fast and evil. The first few songs are better I would say than the rest but it is a good black metal album worth buying! There are 10 songs on this album.

Mortician

Lacuna Coil
In A Reverie

Well, lots of people heard the track Cold from a recent Metal Hammer CD, and Graeme says that the aforementioned track showcases the style of the whole album (I said that all the songs sounded the same, but that wasn’t eloquent enough 8-) . Incase you don’t know, the main distinguishing feature of Lacuna Coil is that, not only do they have two vocalists, but one of them is a gurl!!! Kerrang described them as being "black gothic" music, but I would describe it as verging towards gothy-doomy-metal-type-stuff. In other words, it’s quite slow, and reasonably heavy, with a bit of an atmospheric thing thrown in for good measure.

I kinda liked the two-singer thing, but I don’t know if they used it as well as they could have; it might have been nice to hear each of the singers alone, instead of always having them in a duet-style situation, but hey, what do I know?!? Don’t get me wrong, I do quite like the album, but I think it’s more for one of those days where things aren’t going so well, and all you want to do is mope about and wallow in self-pity, but isn’t that the deal with most gothy music?!? If you like their style, you’ll love this album, but it’s not exactly recommended for the party animals out there 8-)

Rating: 8/10 on a bad day, 6/10 on a good day.

The Atomic Bitchwax
The Atomic Bitchwax

Unmistakeably Stoner Rock from the first fuzzy leaden riff, this band has a bluesy robust jam-based style.  Other Stoner elements include the psychedelic colours and  nude female (a recurring theme in stoner album artwork) on the packaging, lyrics that are difficult to make sense of (apart from "Oh, yeah."), Chris Kosnik's loose I-don't-give-a-shit-whether-anyone's-listening vocals, and of course, the bizarre name.

Bitchwax rock, man!  The songs are mostly fast-paced (for Stoner), have catchy riffs and excellent drums, and occassionally have weird noises (guess who got an effects pedal for Christmas) injected into them just to stir things up a little.  The whole album just melts into one long groovy jam.  I especially like Hope You Die with its silly insulting lyrics.  The final track The Formula is a great long jam lasting ten and a half minutes just to round off an album that seems to last forever somewhere in Stoner land.

Verdict: Pretty groovy stuff, baby.

Delayed Action Bomb
Best Of The Blood Angels 1992-1997

Aaaaaarrrghhhhhh, a greatest hits package by a band I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of. Hand in hand with this we have songtitles such as Slaughter, or Praise The Undead and of course Incest (ok that one is kinda cool).

Anyway when I first cranked the album on it reminded me of Morbid Visions. Kind of Thrash mixed in with some Death vocals. I don’t have much information on the band but I assume the album is in chronological order. And here lies the problem. While the music itself is above average for the Death Metal scene the album showcases an extreme case of non-progression over the five years. This puts me in a predicament. Do I review this as a standard album or view it with a more critical eye, surely a best of… should be more closely scrutinised.

Basically what I can say is that there is 14 tracks which vary little in style and leave no space for melody or subtlety. Aggression is the name of the game and DAB have that in abundance. There is also competent muscianship backing up the standard growly vocals. Best of the Blood Angels is a good album but somehow I don’t think bands like this should be putting out compilations. Perhaps a live album may have been a better idea (although the majority of the time they suck too!).

If you’ve heard of Delayed Action Bomb and want to check them out then buy this. If you’re looking for good quality Death Metal then you could do worse. If you’re a reviewer who’s listened to enough extreme metal for one issue, go check out Led Zeppelin. Ah it makes me wonder.

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

This album is one of my favourites and everyone has heard of Mayhem. If you like black metal you should love this. The songs are all over four minutes long and they are mixed paced, but most are classics. Even though its a live, album the quality is good and well worth buying.

Verdict: A classic black metal album

Gods Tower
The Eerie

Well, I had just finished my lovely big review, but Graeme went and wiped it, NICE ONE GRAEME!!!! And now Kevin’s playing the big heavy-handed editor, so I’ll have to make this a quick review:

God’s Tower play sort of “epic battle metal”, to use Graeme’s words. It’s difficult to describe it any more, but if you see the inlay, you’ll know what we mean. Let’s just say that the artwork is very Braveheart (and one of the men that’s still alive looks like Graeme 8-).

As for the music, well, the intros are far too long for my liking, and the songs do drag a little. A lot of the songs have medieval or tudor sounding bits, with a wee bit of Maiden thrown in. Oh yeah, they do have some nice riffs here and there. Their overall sound is definitely different to anything else I’ve ever heard 8-) It’s probably more for the older, slightly crustier metal fan, but hey, that ’s just my opinion 8-)

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