Most of the tracks have excellent melody lines which obviously adds to their appeal, and it's not only fun songs on offer, there's examples of Minor Threat style punk aggression in The Hives' 'a.k.a. I-D-I-O-T', metal tendencies on No Fun At All's 'Catch Me Running Round', and hardcore/metal energy on Within Reach's 'Unity Company'; all with the punk base.

I really can't say enough to recommend this album, there are so many highlights, I just think you should buy it. Out of the 23 tracks, I counted 12 as being excellent, 6 as being very good, and 5 as being OK; that has to make it one of the best label compilations available.

Traces Of Death III

Mortician follow with 'Traces of Death', and by now I'm already bored. Bog standard death metal with dodgy production is far from inspiring.

Next up are Kataklysm, with the truly abysmal 'Frozen in Time' which is a mixture of laughable and eye poppingly annoying. Hypocrisy then decide to entertain us with 'Slaughtered' which along with 'God is a Lie', their other cut on the album, help us to remember just why Death Metal died. Purge add samples and electronic tricks to help break up the monotony but one can't help but feel that in any other company that this song would just be bland and dull. Still it's better than Sinister and Brutality's efforts.

Dismember give us a track which would fit nicely on Entombed's Left Hand Path, making it one of the better songs on offer. Deceased's, 'Into The Bizarre', is about as exciting and interesting as their name in a Carcass meets punk way.

Meshuggah prove interesting in a Fear Factory meets Neurosis way. Oh Christ I can't be bothered with this. Will any of you actually buy this? Well here's the deal with these albums, they mostly consist either of tracks you'll already own or of bands who could have made it but at the last minute failed. Some people may say that they're a good indication for what a band is like and as such could be useful in helping you find new musical outlets. What they invariably fail to mention is that the tracks on these compilations are normally the bands best song so you'll go buy the album and find that every other track sucks other than the one you liked.

This is plain rubbish and is purely a labels way to try and sell a few bands that were put back on the shelf long ago. However if shite tinny death metal is your thing then buy this now.

Suggested Rating: **********

[Please note that there's plenty of death metal that Graeme likes, it's just that this is shit.]

Tribes Of Neurot
+
Walking Time Bombs

Static Migration

The album starts with 'Unspoken Path', building in with what sounds like insect noises and then moving into a more ambient sound. Those expecting guitars and shouting, in other words Neurosis, will be disappointed. Indeed the album has very little guitar work and there's hardly a sniff of a vocal line. No, Static Migration is along the lines of the atmospheric music which has been entering metal recently but it's being done Neurosis style. That means its not just music to fuck with your mind, rather it was music to fuck with your mind but then Neurosis fucked it up more to produce, eh I'm not really sure. Track 2, 'Rust', follows the ambient sound of the first and to be truthful you probably wouldn't notice the tracks changing. 'Recurring Birth' throws in some samples that sound like race cars along with other weird noises, Jesus this is difficult to describe. 'March to the Sun' is the first song that gives an indication of the bands day job. Yes there are heavy guitars but by Christ its weird. Strictly speaking this song just shouldn't work. What you've got is one power chord being repeated endlessly with some backwards, often out of tune, guitar solos over the top. However throw in some drums and weird noises and for some unexplicable reason you've got the stand out track on the album.

Oh and it's about 20 minutes long.

Following this is the slightly more conventional, acoustic guitar wise anyway, 'Origin Unknown' which could almost fit on a standard metal album as one of the songs that bands do to suggest that they're progressive. 'Blood and Water', is next and by now I'm having serious trouble remebering anything about these tracks. I know 'Edgewood' has some sampled speach in the background, which is the only indication that this album was made on planet Earth, and 'Head of The Scorpion' has some acoustic guitar and is really long.

That's a brief synopsis which will not enlighten you one bit to how the album sounds, but that's the point isn't it. This is not an album to sing along with, nor would you mosh to it, nor will you remember it. This is about moods and is perfect for those Sunday morning hangovers. To put it in context, if a serial killer kills his victims listening to Slayer, then he's going to slowly dismember them and gloat over his new treasure to Static Migration. If you've got lots of metal albums and lots of money then buy this now. If you only listen to Coal Chamber then I think you're money's better spent elsewhere.

Suggested Rating: **********

Samael
Exodus

I wasn't really impressed much with this, though they surprised me a bit on the later tracks by moving away from the more traditional death metal sound of the first tracks, into a more experimental vibe, a welcome and needed change - the keyboard playing a more important part, with some really cool scary (OK, scary in theory anyway!) keyboard sounds. It reminds me of some of My Dying Bride's early music in parts (eg. their 'As The Flower Withers' album), which can only be a good thing. Unfortunately there's only really one song out of the five which seems to create the desired atmosphere of deathly gloom. The others are not that bad, just very forgettable.

Vision Of Disorder
Imprint

The surprise for me was that it was very much metal based, not the hardcore I was expecting. They have lots of heavy crunching riffs (though not always very exciting), extremely aggressive vocals (while still having a melody when needed). None of the tracks are solid all the way through unfortunately, but most do have their good points. As an album though I have to say it is fairly unmemorable, though it may grow on me. Despite the fact that I never give ratings, if I was to give one for this it would probably be 6/10.

Download
(compilation)

Again I digress. The CD is a good showcase of the label's releases over the past three years or so. There are a few really good tracks on offer, such as 'Love You To Death' (Type O Negative), 'Refuse/Resist' (Sepultura), 'Final Thoughts' (Obituary), and 'Hi-Tech Hate' (Fear Factory). Thankfully, there's not any really bad tracks either. In fact, despite a previous hatred of all things Dog Eat Dog, I quite got into the track offered here, 'Who's The King'. I would say the same about 'What You Are' (Vision Of Disorder) and 'Look My Way' (Madball), though I didn't actively despise them previously. My first introduction to Junkie XL, 'Saturday Teenage Kick', quickly grew on me also; as with all the bands on offer though, I'll not be buying the albums. Shelling out about £4 in this CD however would be a very wise move.

New band Both Worlds have a very solid and heavy guitar sound, but unfortunately have an annoyingly 80s style vocalist to hinder them; surely this is not the best Roadrunner can come up with? The bands I liked before I already have the albums of, and the other bands whose songs I liked aren't worth paying £5 for, nevermind £15.

Click for Photo

Anyway, the songs on offer here are hard to find faults in - the crunching, heavy guitars are great, and the vocals are strong. The thing that lets the songs down, on the most part, is that they're a touch on the dull side - nothing really stands out. Saying that, 'Back On Board' stood out - I liked it more than the others. It's probably bue to the better and more catchy melodies compared to the other tracks. Overall this is enjoyable hardcore, though I would tend to use it more for background music, rather than for something to sit down and listen to.

The album is black-metal-mungus, full of heavy, varied, mostly fast-ish rhythms and smattered with some good riffs. It tends to suddenly get a little unadventurous at times, then always picks up again. The death vocals are fairly Carcass-like but slightly less aggressive. You'd think that with Satan in there he'd manage it a bit deeper though. There's a powerful gothic, orchestral feel in many of the songs courtesy of some great keyboard meistering, which does a brilliant job of enhancing the rest of the music.

They do suffer from cheesy lyrics from time to time (of those that I could make out, at least), like "I believe the devil and I will burn in hell" but I'll let them off given that English is not their native language. (And I don't think Satan is exactly famed for his poetry anyway).

Some of the songs are nothing short of excellent, such as 'God of Impiety' which contains some top guitar work and 'The Dream Ghost' which has brilliant keyboarding and rhythm. So despite some small periods of relative dullness this is a highly impressive album, and one which is guaranteed a place next to the rotting pizza on the floor next to my stereo for a while yet.

Its very easy listening, with a strong sense of melody and much varied rhythm. Nothing particularly fast paced. The vocals are clear, a change of style from their previous releases, and there's a modest amount of keyboarding to top it off. All to the general theme of Norse mythology and Viking escapades.

You cant help thinking that youre listening to Helloween, as for much of the album the similarities are striking in both vocals and style.

There's a lot of hearty group shouting/singing of choruses etc throughout the album. Track 2's shouting can only be described as sounding like a group of drunken sailors in some mincing school play. You can almost imagine them in a long row at the front of the stage, arms folded, and dancing from side to side kicking their legs. And I'd swear to it that you can hear them morris-dancing later in the album.

Not quite my cup of tea (or goblet of mead - ha ha ha), and not for those who like their music dark and moody, but a decent album nonetheless... and if you like Helloween then you're sorted.

However from riff 1 of Virtual XI things are looking up. 'Futureal' is reminiscent of what Maiden do best. All galloping riffs and great melodies. Its nice also that the song is kept to 3 minutes especially with the rest of the album all clocking in at epic length. Following this is the first single 'The Angel and the Gambler'. The use of the Hammond organ and some older UFO type riffing brings a new side to Maiden which if kept to 5 minutes as opposed to 9 would possibly have been more effective. So an impressive start to the album. Following this is one of the two black marks on Virtual XI. 'Lightening Strikes Twice' has its moments but is far from classic Maiden. Like all poor modern Maiden the song is too long, too cheesy and seems to just lack the spark that made songs like 'The Trooper' and '2 Minutes to Midnight' so memorable. However things vastly improve on 'The Clansman'. Ok so it may be extremely cheesy but this is an epic along the same lines as 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Alexander The Great'. Janick and Dave's guitar work is back to it's best and it's probably Blaze's best performance for Maiden. Following this is unfortunately another mediocre modern day Maiden track in the form of 'When Two Worlds Collide'.

After this low point the album does close well. 'The Educated Fool' again works well with Blaze's voice (which if to be truthful lacks the spark of Bruce's) and is full of classic Harris melodies. 'Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger' is a Killers part two and although possibly too long does have some elements of older Maiden particularly in the closing section. The album finishes with 'Como Estais Amigos' which is a slower ballad style song which again seems to fit Blaze's vocal style well. So after all that, is Maiden's 11th album any good? Certainly it's a vast improvement on The X-Factor, particularly vocal wise. There does seem to be evidence for Steve and the boys realising that something good was required this time around and at least four tracks on the album are good enough to grace any of the bands previous output. However there is still the collective few songs that are dragging the band down. Maiden should be looking to cutting the song length for their next album and speeding things up a touch. 'Futureal' shows Maiden have still got it when they want it and 'Como Estais Amigos' and 'The Angel and the Gambler' proves they're not scared to try new ideas. Although unlikely to attract new fans, Virtual XI is good enough to keep the faithful interested and will go a long way to cementing Blaze's position in the band.

Suggeted Rating: **********

'Inner Silence' is a brilliantly crafted love song with lyrics that My Dying Bride would kill for, while 'Alternative 4' takes Anathema back to a more metallic stance which was lost on Eternity.

Following this, the album slips into familiar territory in the fact that it tends to drift as opposed to standing out. In fact I'm hard pushed to tell you what the last three tracks sound like.

Anathema are a band who have still to reach their peak, but are none the less picking up momentum, and you should get into them now so that in a few years time you can be smug about being a long term fan as opposed to a band wagon jumper. Anathema have thrown the gauntlet down to Paradise Lost, Type O, My Dying Bride et al and you have no alternative (hee hee aren't I clever) but to check them out.

Suggested Rating: **********