Night of Pain - Bloodmace and Demon Scourge Beneath Sekran, Crossover, Motorhead, and Your Fucking Head On A Spike!!!!!!

Metal Night rolls along like a freight train, like an avalanche of knives, like your mother after the orgy. Nothing stops this beast. Not even the worst of hangovers. Let's get to the music.

A stop at Castle Thrashstone resulted in relatively few homicides. That night Hellmaster pulled out deathcore and metalcore albums to purview. First we heard The Red Shore's 2010 opus The Avarice Of Man. Deathcore is not really genre that I'm all that fond of, but I really couldn't pin down what made this deathcore as opposed to death metal. This is a technical riff attack with no interest in lulling you to sleep with heroic melodies or boring breakdowns. This is more in line with old school Cryptopsy than Whitechapel (or even new school Cryptopsy). Riffs, riffs and more riffs, lots of insane, technical drumming, and garrulous death metal vocals make this a good listen and the winner of the night.
some choice Australian

Next, we heard the unfortunately monikered Parkway Drive, whose 2010 album, Deep Blue, surprised me with a solid slab of metalcore. Hardcore style vocals over solidly structured metal riffs are what is served up here. The breakdowns are pleasing enough for the more traditional metal minded head, as they veer off into dissonant and sometime doomy directions. Metalcore is not exactly my cup of tea, but it did not annoy me at all. This takes elements of bands like Integrity and Earth Crisis, shreds it up, and spits it back in a way enjoyably catchy and always metal as fuck.

Thy Art Is Murder's 2012 album, Hate, is a deathcore dirge with an intriguing atmosphere, but unfortunately, the riffs do not hold, showing the kind of repetition that I find to be the annoying factor about deathcore. Not enough meat on those bones. And where is the sickness and rot? Death metal lite.

Into the Necro Lands Part 12.1 - Gates of Misery

The passage beneath Castle Sekran had been walled up for ages. Indeed, even the aged necromancers who sit on the council of elders, cannot point out their location. These damp and profane caverns predate the castle and city by untold millennia, stretching out under sand and rock for great distances and in modern times are used by Necro Baby and her elite force of beast warriors to carry out raids and assassinations in remote areas of Centon. Bloodmace and I found ourselves here by way of a map given to us by Sauntra, scrollkeeper of Narn. Sent here to Meet us by Chanthoth, last of the T'Chah Karnac, she instructed us to proceed this direction to place the sigil Chanthoth gave to us within the castle so as to affect the magical defeat of Necrobaby when the moment came. Entering by way of a hidden passage in a closed sewer, we made our way through the darkened stone tunnel with a dim lantern of halo bugs illuminating our surroundings. On through the slick passages we traveled, weaving our way

between a forest of stalagmites. Eventually, we came to the shore of an underground lake. The weak light from our lamp was inadequate, but I could tell we had entered a huge chamber. We walked along the shore in silence, listening to the splashes and weird croaks emitted by hidden dwellers in this world of endless night. After a time, we reach the castle wall. We search for an area where flaming red beetles creep about and after much scouring, the iridescent creatures lead us to a certain rock. When I overturn the unremarkable stone over to see if there is some sort of clue to where this door we were searching for was located, a startling creaking sound puts us on our guard. There is a loud crack and a concealed door opens nearby. Cold air rushes out from the small aperture before us. Turning to Bloodmace, I say, "Well, this is it. Us and all of Castle Sekran." My brother replies quickly, "Destiny calls." A smile spreads across his grim face as he brandishes his mace and sips quietly through the open door.

The following week, at Jenkabala, Crossover Thrash was the drug of choice.  Wehrmatch's 1988 beer drenched punk drunk skater opus, Biermacht, bowled us over with it's frenetic energy, satisfyingly thrashy riffs, and over all aura of fun and games. This album thrashes, keeps thrashing, speeds up, thrashes some more, then thrashes. Throw in some novelty songs, hardcore punk style staccato vocals(which always gets me, when done properly), and of course, more thrashing. No time for subtlety. This was the clear winner of the night.

Agnostic Front's Debut album, Victims In Pain, was the last album we heard. I enjoyed this album, but let's face it....it's not a metal album. It's pure New York City tough guy hardcore. It's fast as fuck, aggressive, defiant, and raw, but, to make this a metal album, the riff must be the first concern. This simply uses the same 3-4 chords over and over. Their later work in the 80's and 90's would go in a more of a metal direction, but Agnostic Front will always belong to the NYHC movement they led like tribal potentates.

 Into the Necro Lands Part 12.2 - Shake the World!

When we finally reach the end of the long corridor, I kneel down and open a trap door in the floor. At the bottom of a steel staircase, lit by a dim incandescent bulb, an iron door is set into the wall. We both try to open it, but it's stuck. Finally, by using all our might, we force the heavy portal inward. A great clattering disturbs the quiet and looking around, we appear to be in some sort of supply closet. We freeze and listen for footsteps, moving only after many moments of unbroken silence. Bloodmace peers out into the corridor and motions for me to move ahead. I sprint quietly down the drab cement hallway, ducking into a doorway and motioning Bloodmace past me. I am starting to worry about how easy this all is when my brother begins gesturing wildly. "This is the place,' He whispers excitedly, "right through this doo..." His words are cut off as we both detect someone on the other side of the door. We dive into a darkened room just in time. The door bursts open and two high ranking necromancers in their dress uniforms stride out, speaking boisterously in their language. I can't make out everything, but they seem to be discussing an attack on some sort of sea fort. My adrenaline is running high as we sneak through the empty dressing room and into the inner sanctum of Necro Baby. Plush carpets

muffled our steps as we moved cautiously down the thin wallpapered hall behind the throne where, even now, Necro Baby slumbers. At the center point in the hallway, directly behind the titanic child of evil, I cut a discreet slit in the thick carpet and slide the coin under as far as I could. We hastened towards the dressing room again, but surprised two nobles changing their shoes. Blood spattered the walls as Bloodmace silenced them. I sought to hide the bodies to at least give us some time but a strangled cry from behind us sent us running into the hall. I could already hear footfalls in the hallway as we turned into the closet and made for the safety of the underground passages. The door sealed shut and we started on our way along the shore of the underground lake. Just then lights came on from everywhere

and from the water, Necro Baby rose, hissing and screeching. Running at full bore, we head for the exit, undead in hot pursuit. "Get those Jenkabala bassssstards!" The terrifying infant shrieks. Bloodmace tosses a shock ball behind us, witch splatters a couple of our foes, but fails to collapse the tunnel. "Hope they didn't have any plans to keep this way secret!" Bloodmace shouts as we smash down the delicate wood that blocks the entrance to the passage inside an unused sewer. We rush up to street level and make a mad dash for the docks where we are to meet our contacts. Getting closer, we can tell clearly that something is wrong. Several boats are on fire, flames licking up masts and sailors in dinghies heading for shore, but in the flickering light of the blaze, I could see a massive warship, cannons blazing. Necromancers streamed out of the castle on their fearsome black steeds and fought the strange, amphibious men who were attacking their town. My brother and I ducked out of the

chaos but were immediately accosted by a human with gray hair and a close cropped beard. His flamboyant sequined jacket sparkled with the flames of battle, eyes glowing with madness. Through his laughter, the dashing pirate barks out orders to his amphibious mates, "Those are the ones, seize them! I'll fortify the sanctum on the price of their heads!" The bug eyed henchmen quickly throw a large slimy membrane over us. Through the strange bag that sweeps us down the hill I can see the outline of Necro Baby approaching. just as the jumbering shape is upon us however, there is a dull crash and a high pitched scream. "That should hold her off for a bit boys, now to the boat with these scurvy dogs! These undead scum will look back with shame on the day they decided to fuck with us!" Looking down at us with eyes like hot coals, he chortles, "Bildorf the mad owns all of the ocean, including this shitty town. You'll see, fools, you'll see."

In the lair of Iron Dan..............Motorhead! Mid period Motorhead, to be precise, what we wanted to geek out to. 1986's Orgasmatron is in many ways a forgotten classic. It doesn't get the attention the early classics do, but in many ways surpasses those albums with a slightly more sophisticated approach. But it's still down and dirty Motorhead. The title track is a two chord dirge that is hypnotic and heavy.  Deaf Forever opens it in classic form;  dirty meaty riff, some gang vocals, and Lemmy extolling the brigands to arms. This album is full of sharp riffs,  loose rhythms and good times. A classic and the winner of the night.

1991's 1916 has Lemmy and the boys shining the beast up real nice, making it MTV ready. Gone is a The One To Sings The Blues, sports a powerful, if deceptively simple riff. I'm So Bad, Baby I Don't Care is classic Motorhead hyper boogie. A few songs, like Going to Brazil, are almost Dad rock in their bluesy affectations, but Lemmy's gargulous snarl keeps it metal. Some experiments here and there round out Motorhead's best album of the 90's.
bit of the grunge and there is more of a sheen to the production, courtesy of their new major fucking label. But the sharp riffs and the variety make this an enjoyable listen. First song,

1996's Overnight Sensation is the second best Motorhead album of the 90's. Having ossified into formula by now, the songs all do tend to sound the same, but if the songs are good, then you have a good Motorhead album. If the songs are not so good, well, then you've got roughly half of what Motorhead has been putting out since this album. This is one of the better ones, though not a world beater. Most significantly, this album has "Don't Believe A Word" which just may be my favorite Motorhead song. It's a melancholy little number, not quite a ballad, but Lemmy sings cleanly hear, adding a poignance to the unusually serious lyrics. The rest of the album is a series of head thumping rockers, though the last song, Listen To Your Heart, with it's acoustic overtones, would not sound out of place on an Urge Overkill album.

Words of the Elders

Takra Sea, home to Varan and Ixtar! Tarka Sea, bleak and icy waves concealing a forest of sorrow in its bosom! The Jenkabala boys have been swept into yet another conflict, tossed about on the tides of fortune. Kings, yet vagrants, unwilling sorcerers. Varan! May the sky go black in your forbidden kingdom, you are a rascal! The sky gods will not abide your treachery! 

Until next time, ghoulish grimlocks, 

Horns