sabato 29 giugno 2013

TORTURE ASCENDANCY 1307 – REVERSING CREATION


Torture Ascendancy is a Death Metal band coming from Pennsylvania. To review an only 2 tracks ep is quite strange because the quantity of the material is scarce and often can not be good to understand the band's style; but I'll try. The first track "Reversing Creation" has influences from bands like Decapitated, especially in the drums due to fast and distinct passages; the guitars perform sharp riffs that -especially in the intro and in the rhythmic changes- perfectly follow the line of the drums; in both songs there is a very good throaty growl with often angry scream in the background. Piece that completes the disc is "And Darkness was cast", a song more extreme than the previous one: the notes that characterize the song compared with "Reversing Creation" are as first the stronger and faster rhythms, harder but speeded up riffs complete the work with influences of bands like Deicide and Cannibal Corpes.
Nothing new or innovative, but still a good product.

RATING: 6/10
-SADIK- (-Mara-)


domenica 23 giugno 2013

SANITY'S RAGE - YOU ARE WHAT YOU SWALLOW


Debut album by the Belgian band from Dibeek and active since 2002. “You Are What You Swallow” is a classic pure thrash metal old school album, where personality and originality are almost always left aside in favor of classic songs but damn smooth and enjoyable. Already the initial "Aberration Mandatory" makes it clear immediately the potential of the quintet, with excellent drums, well cadenced lead rhythm guitars and the wonderful voice of Kenny Molly for seasoning the whole.
The tracks I recommend are absolutely "Once You Cross", really beautiful; the bestial "Taste of Decay" with excruciating solos and the title track in the end, even if finally, if it were not for these details, the songs resemble each other and there isn't any that can really emerge. It remains an album that I recommend to lovers of classic Thrash who want to use 47 minutes of their time in an intelligent and entertaining way. This is one of several groups which shows us that the '80s Thrash is coming back to the fore, though not like the old times.


RATING: 7,5/10
-ULTHAR- (-Mara-)

sabato 22 giugno 2013

FORLORN CHAMBERS – UNBORN AND HOLLOW


Forlorn Chambers is a Finnish Death Metal band. Theoretically founded in 2012, in January 2013 they give birth to their first debut: "Unborn and Hallow," Demo of only three tracks but with good atmosphere. The sound is monotonous and is often prolonged, a Death Metal with Death insights laying on Black structures that can give atmosphere to the songs.
As the first song we have the homonymous "Unborn and Hollow" already precipitous from the begin due to Black/Grind drums parts, it slows down at the end but without losing the initial violence; beautiful idea of the male choirs in "And we hail the ones who fall" that embellish the atmosphere already created by the guitars keeping the line of the previous track. As last song, "Desolate Resolution" is a slower track than the other but with greater technical capacity on the part of the bass. Up to here an excellent performance,but there's something unperfect: unfortunately the vocal part is not at all suitable, we find a guttural growl almost pig squeal that always keeps the same tone throughout the disc, it is not bad in itself, but does not bind with the band. Nothing extremely new, but still a work worthy of note.


RATING: 6,5/10
-SADIK- (-Mara-)

                                           VIDEO                                                

lunedì 17 giugno 2013

ONE SENSE TOO MUCH - HER NEVERLAND


One Sense Too Much are a Progressive metal/Deathcore band with members coming from Germany and from Malesia; their music is undoubtedly heavy and destroying, but has also got many melodic musical passages. The first things you can hear listening to Her Neverland are two main things: the members of the band choosed to use a drum machine, probably programmed in a bad way because it sounds too static and almost fake, but besides this many times it goes out of time. The other main defect is that the exhale growl of the singer is more fit to a Brutal Death Metal band and the scream is not made in a "natural" way, but seems to be forced and false; the exhale can be improved. Despite these defects the guitar riffs are very good and shows a good technique. The vocal tone of the singer adapts itself at the heavy genre that the band plays and the clean singing immerses the listener in the musical purity of the group. Surely there are many things that might be improved: in particular the drum machine, but the composition is very good, I think that the band could do a better work than this one, so I wait new news from this powerful and very good band.

RATING: 6/10
-SADIK- [-Dom-]

giovedì 6 giugno 2013

SLOVENLY WORLD – ALTERNATE ENDING


Slovenly World is a Groove/Death Metal French band. The group mixes the violence of Gojira and the good groove of Machine Head, making out a compact and ferocious product with some Metalcore influences. Since the first two songs you can very well understand the trend of the album: a heavy groove accompanied by rumbling drums with fast and violent pace; a good performance of the bass that perfectly follows the double bass rumbling even more tracks; sincerely for the vocals I would have preferred a softer voice, hoarse and gloomy, but the present voice does not ruin the album. The tracks "Alternate Ending" and "Choose your end" are the only ones with Nu Metal influences into Mudvayne style, through slower riffs with breaks between each other and with double bass and bass more noticeable. A band that has all it takes to emerge fairly well, nothing new, but still a good job.

RATING: 7/10
-SADIK- (-Mara-)

martedì 4 giugno 2013

NOSTALGIA - NEGATIVO


We are facing a real musical evolution by Nostalgia. I remember them due to "512 Devil Music Vol 2", essentially a Punk disc slightly influenced by Depressive and Crust, and now I find them to perform a DBM with Black Metal and Blackgaze elements. The particular and varied sound is almost gone, giving room to more dark and hard sounds; the homemade and low-fi is greatly improved even if the quality of the voice (by choice) has been maintained. The clean vocal part has been replaced by a suffering scream/growl, the drums are extremized and the hardcore riffs are passed to a cross between Black and Blackgaze. Surely the band has matured and changed a lot, but you still have to improve a little bit.

RATING: 6.5 / 10
-SADIK- (-Mara)



domenica 2 giugno 2013

COMMANDO - FUCKAHOLICS


Small premise to begin: what you read in this review has been written without to find and therefore listen to two tracks of the disc. "Fuckaholics" is the second (and released last year) album by the Mexican thrash metal band Commando. At the first glance it may seem superficial and the usual disk "for fun", because of the title of the album, of the songs and the cover nothing short of "tamarra". But carefully listening to it you'll quickly notice their worth. Their proposal is a classic thrash metal inspired by Anthrax with atmosphere and pace, absolutely insane, with fluid and flowing songs that never last more than 6 minutes and that you are generally well laid out, with excellent solos and really pleasant to listen to. The tracks I recommend are absolutely "Rambo The War Machine" (do not consider the ridiculous title)with very good drums and one of the best solos of the disc; the exaggerated "Counter Strike", with some of the famous quotation "Arise" of the old Sepultura and a refrain that you will not forget; "The Corpse Collector", at the limits of technical thrash madein Havok. Finally, there is "Kill The Posers", with José Luis De Paro as drummer who gives the best of himself and with guitars that drive the track into an absolutely hilarious and fast way. But I'm lying if I said that this album has no defects: the biggest one are the vocals of the bass player/singer Cesar Zavala, who in some tracks are a little subdued, almost listless, and ruin a decent song as "Scarface". The second flaw (which technically would not be), is the aforementioned lack of being able to listen to the entire album, because the tracks "Intro" and "Night Stalker" can not be found on Youtube. However, it remains an album that deserves much, at least listen to it to hear how much this fun as great band knows how "to hit hard" in his own way.

RATING: 7,5/10
-ULTHAR- (-Mara-)