War All The Time And Some Of The Time: New Directions in Chaos!!

Bloodmace here. In order to keep this blog more active, I am going to start posting more reviews of random shit, whether it happens at Metal Night or not. I will try and cover all the albums that play at Metal Night, that's if I have anything interesting to write about them. The big posts, with the story, the video, and the pictures, are going to come out about once a month. We will not be covering every Metal Night with every post. That is simply too much fucking work. But we want to keep posting regularly because we have built quite a following over the last few years and we don't want to lose that because...well....just because. We don't intend on turning this blog into anything other than what it is....the chronicle of a couple doods and some friends who get together once a week and listen to some fucking metal.

So, Demon Scourge and I got to together and listened to the new Mayhem album. Yes, that Mayhem. Not the 70 other bands on Metallum that go by that name. Esoteric Warfare is very much a "stadium black metal" album, not a murky lo-fi necro fest. The guitar tones are massive and clear, the bass is audible and the drums are crisp and powerful. The riffs and rhythms are twisty and twisted, the songs are exploratory and tinged with prog, but always return to fuck you in the face with Satan's dark power. The influence of Watain is written all over this and one could criticize them for straying to far from their evil roots, but you might risk pissing off Hellhammer, who has killed before. Better shut your fucking mouth.


We also took in the latest slice of violence from New Zeeland war metal purveyors Diocletian. Gesundrian is what Blasphemy might sound like if recorded by Bob Rock. It is surprisingly well recorded and rendered in a digital clearness, but unrelenting wall of aural fucking death, punctuated by great riffs and inhuman drumming. No surrender, no mercy, nothing subtle, and few dynamics, other than the slow grinding crawl of the first track and a few sparse moments scattered throughout the album. But these are not exactly gentle interludes. These Kiwis give you the punishment you crave, the ass kicking you deserve.


To round out the filth, I am adding this deathly panzerfuck from Swedish band Omnizide. Their new album, Death Metal Holocaust, is a splendid jerkfest of blackened indecency and old school death metal sickness. A dash of Immolation and Incantation, a hint of the classic Swedish Death sound, some gargle, screechy necro vocals, and even some D-beat here and there make this an entertaining grab sac of maggoty delights. The song Crystals of Death, with its catchy old school Swedish riffery, is the best track. I could stab many a face to it.


 And that's all from now. Now off to frolick in the Necrolands. Horns!!!!!

Ketch-up Night Part Duex - Mosh Down Babylon

 

Once again, Demon Scourge and myself found ourselves on the vodka train to Hammersmith with Atomic Stief, we we really didn't have much time to bother writing the blog. So here is another catch up post; a reminisce through alcoholic haze of Metal Night's past. Demon Scourge takes some time out from his chronicle to review the last three albums, since I was way too drunk that night to even remember what they sounded like. 

Swedish Death Metal night
Dismember- Indecent and Obscene-This album is one of the classics of Swedish Death, if not one of the founding documents of the scene, then one of the quintessential. Brutal riffery, many twists and turns, but not without a bit of melody. Fucking classic. Winner

Amon Amarth - Versus the World - Workmanlike melodic death. Actually, the only thing about this band that is death metal are the vocals, otherwise, this is pretty traditional. Not to say that it doesn't have its moments. This band has a set formula, and when it works, it's crushing. When it doesn't, it's boring.

Hypocrisy - Abducted - Another Swede death classic; an expansive, rather experimental album, space rock meets death metal. They throw some clean but psychedelic vocals on some of the more subdued, experimental songs at the end of the album, finishing on a darkly trippy vibe. One of my favorites, but the Dismember album wins by one single charred ember.

 Mayhem Related Band Night

Mayhem-Wolf Lair Abyss-This Ep was the first release of new material by Mayhem after the famous stabbing that made the Norwegian black metal scene infamous around the world. The band is as dark and evil as ever, but sounding not so different than 1000 other black metal bands from the time. This is a band coasting on their reputation.

Merciless-The Awakening-The winner of the evening is this little blackened thrash ditty from Sweden. It's pretty uncomplicated but very unrelenting. It just kicks into high gear and blazes a trail of glory through the hinterlands. This album was the first release by Deathlike Silence Records, which was the label owned by Euronymous, and was very influential on the Scandinavian scene in general. Ok, no one in this band was ever actually in Mayhem, so maybe they are only spuriously related to that band, but blazing riffs and furious speed win the night!

Tormentor-The Seventh Day of Doom-Attila Csihar's first band is one of the most influential thrash bands to influence Mayhem. You can definitely hear the black metal riffs, but this is thrash, first and foremost, with lots of trad metal influence. It's just that the band was possessed by Satan, and listening to this demo will send you straight to hell. 

European Trad Metal Obscurities 
Aria - Meglomania - The first album by the long lived Russian metal stalwarts, Aria was most defiantly in the NWOBHM tradition, almost hard rock in parts. By 1985, when Meglomania came out, this kind of music was already being supplanted by the more extreme forms of metal  that were beginning to dominate tape decks everywhere (Slayer, Sodom, Bathory, Etc.) Everything you would expect is here, the galloping, maidenesque bass lines, harmonized twin guitars, crowd whoring sing-along choruses and of course the shitty Scorpions-style power ballad. They are, by all reports, revered in Russia and with good reason. These guys are pro, real pro. They play with conviction and though it’s easy to see this as an album that offers less to the average metal fan than their ’87 LP “Hero of Asphalt,” (I definitely prefer that one), This had to be the greatest Halloween gift ever to Russian Metalheads who never had a band to call their own.

Cobra-Warriors of the Dead-Again we encounter a band playing a more traditional style of metal in the mid eighties. Some of Warriors of the Dead is awesome, the title track, the cleverly named “Cobra” and the nuke-obsessed “China Syndrome” all display the band as an ass-kicking riff machine. The balance of this graveyard, however, is filled with stiffs that can barely open the coffin lid, much less go into battle and almost all of the songs have lyrics that fly like a ten pound brick. Vocalist Paul Edmonson doesn’t help the case with his Alice Cooper worship, but hell, you could do much worse. Defiantly a third-tier act, they still manage to eke out a few good neck snappers before the bonehead who wrote the lyrics drags the whole proceeding through the mud. I got some laughs out of their erotic jam, “Wildest Dreams” where Paul asserts that he will “make you feel”, again and again during the fadeout.

Axe Witch-Visions of the Past-Well, here’s our requisite Swedish band. Why the crap do the Swedes get all the good metal bands? Seriously though, even though this album has its flaws, it dominated the night (well what I can remember of it anyways.) As we have already seen, in the mid 80’s Maiden and Priest worship was the order of the day and Axe Witch oblige their audience with gusto, serving up riff after riff. Like the other albums we listened to these guys seem a little too eager to please, like they saw the success of the big acts of the day and were trying to ride the gravy train. This strategy worked out for Aria but not so much for Cobra and Axewitch. So even though Aria was more successful and Cobra was funnier, Axe Witch were winners simply for being harder than the competition.