Miellnir - Incineration Astern (CD Review)

01.Incineration Overture (Intro)
02.Prey
03.Legends Of The Fallen
04.Stand Against
05.Journey Through The Nine Worlds
06.Ugar-buhlo
07.Embraced By Ire
08.Jörð
09.The Gallows Tree
10.Valhalla Awaits

Frozensoul (Vocals/Bass)
Gjallarhorn (Guitar)
Yarek Ovich (Guitar)
Daimonos (Drums)

Hailing from Ukraine, this pagan viking band formed in 2005, but only now have released an album, i have found no demos or other recordings or come to think of it any information about them either.
Delving a little deeper i discovered that 'Embraced By Ire' was first released in 2011, and so i assume that the other 3 tracks that follow were also from that same time as they are listed as bonus on the info i was supplied, but not it seems on the actual cd, get the feeling that the record company couldnt give a shit? I do !

Another pointless intro to start with and guess what? It goes straight into the next song, so why have it as a seperate first track???
'Prey' when it gets going is a good mix of styles, mainly symphonic black metal and with vocal style to match, in fact this is more like Dimmu Borgir than Turisas.

Now with 'Legends Of The Fallen' we get two very distinct styles from extreme metal to quite traditional pagan/folk metal.This one has a Thrash metal tempo in places and the timing changes match said genre, nice to hear some normal vocals blended with the growling ones.

'Stand Against' again this reminds me of Dimmu Borgir, not much in the way of viking/pagan coming across here in this mid placed almost doomy/symphonic piece.

What spolis 'Journey...." is the vocals, the music is a beautiful piano driven almost ballad melody, but the softly sung gruff vocal just kills it.

First real appearence of pagan/viking/folk on 'Ugar-buhlo', thanks to some great accordian playing, this mixes it up with full on blasts of metal, but works very well.

'Embraced By Ire', clearly an earlier track by the fact that the music is slightly rawer, yet musically there seems to be more instrumentation going on with various keyboard sounds utilised and a very nice guitar solo.

'Joro' is a bit of a bland track, does little to enhance the bands overall sound, but 'The Gallows Tree' returns to some quality symphonic metal and finally 'Valhalla' is borderline power metal with a hint of thrash.

Overall a really good and varied album, hpefully the record company will do more to promote it and the band.

Rating 9/10
For fans of: Dimmu Borgir, Amon Amarth, Turisas

Kings Destroy - Kings Destroy (CD Review)

01.Smokey Robinson
02.Mr.O
03.W2
04.Mythomania
05.Embers
06.Green Diamonds
07.Time For War


Carl Porcaro (Guitar)
Chris Skowronski (Guitar)
Steve Murphy (Vocals)
Rob Sefcik (Drums)
Aaron Bumpus (Bass)

Formed in 2010, they take their name from an infamous graffiti gang from the Bronx circa late ‘70s/early ‘80s. The band members met in this vicinity and were heavily involved in the New York Hardcore scene of the late ‘80s that merged hardcore music, metal, graffiti and hip hop...all distinct forms united in the underground. The band unites musicians from many of the genres’ most prolific bands.
Hailing from the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, the band features guitarists Carl Porcaro and Chris Skowronski from the legendary "Killing Time", vocalist Steve Murphy from "Uppercut", drummer Rob Sefcik formerly of "The Begotten, Uppercut, Fur and Electric Frankenstein" and bassist Aaron Bumpus.

The brilliantly named 'Smokey Robinson' starts with a classic 70's sounding stop/start drum and guitar beat, very laid back until the tempo increases which moves into classic stoner rock territory, a great opener.

A much more raw sound for 'Mr.O', this one harkens back to the glory days of second generation american stoner rock, full of swagger and attitude and right towards the end throws in a touch of doom and a great little guitar solo.The song flows straight into 'W2' keeping that doom laden chord structure and some higher pitched vocals.

'Mythomania' could be straight out of 1969, this is slow, bluesy, epic and psychedelic, but really nails the stoner rock sound with some stunning guitar work.

Next 2 songs are just a pure joy to listen too, perfectly executed in every way, then we come to 'Time For War' this one has a strange sound lurking in the background almost like a synth, the song builds layer upon a layer of sound, getting louder and werider almost like a heavy Hawkwind song from late 70's or something that Monster Magnet might do, great shouting backing vocals and plenty of distortion, just a shame this one was longer, could listen to this all day!


Rating 10/10
For Fans Of: Queens Of The Stone Age, Kyuss, Melvins, Masters Of Reality, Monster Magnet

Tharaphita - Ulestous (CD Review)

01.Ülestõus (Uprising)
02.Viimsepäeva koidik (The Dawn of Armageddon)
03.Luupainaja (The Nightmare)
04.Tuhandeaastase orjaöö tuhast (From the Ashes of a Thousand Years of Slavery)
05.Sõnad sõlmedesse (Knotting the Words)
06.Surma-arbujad (Sorcerers of Death)
07.Tuuled rändavad ringi (Winds Wander)
08.Terasest taotud teel (On a Road Made of Steel)

Ank (vocals/Guitar)
Benton (Guitar)
Draconic (Guitar/Synthersiser)
Brutalis (Bass)
Melu (Drums)

Created as a solo project of the vocalist-guitarist Ank, Tharaphita soon became one of the most influential and unique Estonian pagan metal bands. The idea of Tharaphita was created in 1993, the band was planned to carry the name Ancestral Damnation, and the music to be raw black-metal.
For different reasons, the idea somewhat changed and developed further until the first rehearsals with the initial line-up of Tharaphita in March 1995. During August and September of the same year, the first rehearsal demo Must Viirastus was recorded.

The first gig of Tharaphita took place in 18.05.1996. For now, there have been more than 100 gigs, also in other Baltic states, Finland and Norway, besides the homeland Estonia.
During the time, black-metal core of the music became complemented by pagan thinking, some epic elements and influences of heavy and thrash metal. The new album’s music is a mix of black, heavy and thrash metal. The lyrics are mainly in Estonian and are mostly inspired by Estonian history.

The cover of the latest album “Ülestõus” depicts the main crater of lake Kaali, which was formed by a meteorite thousands of years ago.

'Uprising' sounds like an intresting mix of Satyricon and Amon Amarth, blending various elements of extreme metal with near thrash structures, not much in the way of those symphonic style viking bands, this is less subtle and sticks with the aggression.

Each of the following songs just does the same, an epic and refined mixture of genre influences, all the time you almost forget it's not sung in English, somehow it doesn't matter the vocals carry the songs perfectly.

My fave track is the last one, its a mainly instrumental piece with some quite outstanding bass and drum work.

Rating 9/10

For fans of: Bathory, Skyforger, Satyricon, Amon Amarth

Neverendinghate - Demo EP (Cassette Review)

01.Intro
02.Silenciando La Memoria
03.No Hay Perdón Para El Cobarde
04.Esclavos
05.Outro


Enserune (Vocals/Bass)
Erun Dagoth (Guitar/Drums)

Spanish duo formed band in 2013, released first demo last year and now getting a re-issue to reach a wider audience.
This is a limited edition cassette only release.

Strange and pointless 'Intro' into a strange and noise laden first song, chaotic and all over the place, one wonders what the fuck is going on, were they in the same room when they recorded this or even the same planet?
Drums are out of time, vocal screams have nothing to add, on occasion however it does briefly come together with a good bit of guitar playing, but then it goes off in different directions again.

'No Hay...' slightly more together, some quite clever timing changes blending the brutality with some doom elements, but again terrible vocals and that drumming keeps going out of time with the rest of the noise, a brief guitar solo cannot save this one either.

Next up is 'Esclavos' and is the only song here that has some real structure, that said its just another pointless noise, this is followed by some stunning but simple guitar strumming as the 'Outro'.

Yes okay it's a demo, but i fail to see what they are trying to achieve or where they intent to head next.The blurb claims this to be "visceral old school Thrash/Black/Death Metal, in the vein of the old masters with a faster approach", not sure which old masters they mean, obviously one i've never heard of.

Rating 4/10
For fans of: Korgull The Destroyer

SFD - The Complete Works (CD Review)

Daryl Taveira (Bass)
Grant McKinnon (Drums)
Paul Giltrow (Guitar)
Jax Murray (Guitar)
Chris Robson (Vocals)

S.F.D. were an Australian Thrash Metal band active from 1991-1993.
This is a 2-CD set bringing together all their demos and releases, being hailed as something of a "legend" creaing music in the classic thrash of Bay Area in parts, old Teutonic thrash, as well as the more technical kind such as CORONER's style of thrash.
Did a bit of research on them, well attempted to, couldnt find anything apart from a few pics of the demos and a you tube video, not even a picture of the band and the record company didnt have one either, also they were unsigned, not quite sure that the term "Legend" is going to very relevant for a band who i'm guessing did little outside their local area.

So hitting play on disc one and the first couple of songs are pretty rough, when track 3 'The Saviour' starts though we get some intresting music, starting with some keyboards which then moves into some nice well played melodic thrash that builds layer upon layer until bursting into life and a full on assault.

As the disc moves on we get a mixture of old school thrash, some silly and pointless instrumentals and some rough sounding songs, seems there is two styles here, on the one hand we have well thought out songs with melody and agression and some plain noisey ones with rough vocals.

As for Disc 2, you can hear the progression in the bands sound as they try new ideas in an attempt to move forward, more technical playing and some very impressive bass playing at times, the vocals continued more on the harsh side.

So an intresting collection, one for fans of the genre and it's history, but hardly "legendary".

Rating 7/10
For fans of: Exodus, Testament, Dark Angel, Metallica, Slayer

Morass Of Molasses - So Flows Our Fate EP (CD Review)

01.Rotten Teeth
02.Ashtabula
03.Fear To Tread
04.Bear River


Bones The Beard (Vocals/Bass)
Phil The Mountain (Guitar)
Chris The Beast (Drums)

Stoner band formed in march 2013, like a half submerged man slowing crawling onto dry land; Not yet completely visible. Dragging behind him all that he has experienced. Thick with mud, drenched with sweat. Feral, but subdued, waiting for the moment to drag you down.
This three piece from Reading blend all your favourite sins into a rich odious syrup... they will rot your teeth.

'Rotten Teeth' starts with a huge wall of sound and just as it gets going, goes all melodic and quiet, almost reminding me of that early grunge style.
With each of the four tracks you get this amazing blend of classic neo 70's sounds and modern influence, somehow it manages to sound retro and up to date and for some reason I can't help but feel it sounds a bit American.
Now that's not a bad thing at all in fact i would go so far to say it's very clever to be able to create this music at this level for a debut and give the estabilished American movement something to think about.

So if you like pure power, epic guitar playing, soulfull vocals, agression and melody, then this is one to add to the collection.

Rating 9/10
For fans of: Dusteroid, Blood Island Raiders, Kyuss, Trippy Wicked, The Quill

Mindflair - Scourge Of Mankind (CD Review)

01.Black Frost
02.Sunprotectionfactor 13
03.Greed
04.Unconditional
05.Flow
06.Unkrautbekämpfung
07.Ideal Of Stupidity
08.Unlearned
09.Exploitation
10.Quite The Opposite
11.Conspiracy Of Shit
12.Deadlocked
13.Theatre Of The Absurd


Arthur (Drums)
Boris (Guitar)
Chris (Bass)
Moshfred (Vocals)

Guests
Seb Bxe (Vocals on 'Unkrautbekämpfung')

German grindcore band with an impressive back catalogue dating back to 1996, famously contributed to the repulsion tribute cd in 2009.
This latest album features a guest appearence from Seb from Bitterness Exhumed.

Well I am 9 tracks in so far and its just a relentless wall of noise, some of the fastest drumming I have heard for ages, the most tortured screams replacing vocals and just endless distortion.

Yet in here are some clever almost sludgelike breakdowns, very slight but somehow manages to get some structure into the mayhem, in the song 'Conspiracy Of Shit' there is some actual "nice" guitar playing as well.

This does what you would expect from 'Grindcore' but its not the usual case of each song sounding exactly the same.

Rating 8/10
For Fans of: Repulsion, aAnd?, The Locust, SOB