Miss May I - At Heart

If you’ve read my review on Miss May I’s second album, Monument, you know that it’s one of my favorite metalcore albums ever. So knowing that, it should be pretty obvious how excited I was when I heard the news of a new Miss May I record. Here’s what I was hoping for: Monument part 2. But, knowing the band and their strong dedication to making every album new and unique from all the others, I knew that I wasn’t going to get exactly what I was asking for. But I knew that Miss May I wasn’t going to abandon their signature sound altogether, they were going to add something new onto the sound that Monument brought to the table; and that’s exactly what they did.

I don’t know why, but ever since I started listening to all of these bands that have official logos that are used on every single album (i.e. Suffocation, Deicide, Nightwish, etc.) it bothers me when bands change their “logo” which each album. I’m not saying that changes my opinion on the album, but for some stupid reason, it really bothers me; sometimes to the point where I will take the original album artwork and put the old or better logo on the cover myself with Photoshop. It also bothers me when bands have super cool logos and choose not to use it at all on the album cover; pretty much leaving the album cover blank with just the artwork and no band name/logo or album title. Ok, now that I’m done bitching about that, I NEED to tell you about this record!

The guitar distortion and the sound of everything doesn’t really sound much different from Monument...which is good because it sounds awesome. This is the first Miss May I album to have an intro track. And to be honest, it really isn’t anything special other than a VERY, VERY gradual buildup that leads into the first track, Hey Mister. I’m going to spend a minute to talk about this song because it really speaks the whole album in one song. One thing that I’ve always loved about Miss May I is the amount of enraging emotion and anger that they cram into their songs. Hey Mister has more anger in it than any other Miss May I song I’ve EVER heard. If you can’t see where I’m going with this, I’m saying that this album is a hell of a lot heavier than both Monument and Apologies are for the Weak COMBINED.

Their bassist is the guy that does all of the singing, and he’s always stuck out to me. He has a singing voice that’s EXTREMELY crisp and razor-sharp that pierces the air with laser precision. As far as musicianship and skill goes, I have to give credit to the drummer for being one of the best metalcore drummers besides the drummer for Mnemic. That’s not an exaggeration, the only reason I call him ONE of the best drummers is because there’s always the possibility of me uncovering a metalcore band with a better drummer, but besides the Mnemic drummer and the Threat Signal drummer, this guy is the top dog from what I’ve heard.

This album is nothing short of being flawless. Other than the increased use of head-crushing breakdowns, there’s nothing at all about this album that fails to amaze me. I would give this record 19/20. Miss May I is one of the best metalcore bands in existence and I cannot stress this enough other than to just say “LISTEN TO THESE GUYS!”

Overkill - The Electric Age

After being completely blown away by Ironbound, Overkill has continued to blow me away with their other albums, some of my other favorites being Killbox 13, Taking Over, Feel the Fire, and Under the Influence. When I heard that Overkill was releasing a new album, I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited for the release of a thrash metal album in my entire life. When the album came out and my pre-order arrived on my doorstep, I dropped what I was doing and listened to it on full-blast. I still remember that exactly 1 minute 16 seconds into the first track, absolute chaos was unleashed and blew me off my feet. The buildup couldn’t have been more perfect, 1 minute 5 seconds into the song speaks for itself, and I don’t even need words to describe the ultimate power of that part. The chaos never stopped and dragged me through the entire record from start to finish until I just couldn’t take it anymore; it was just too good to be true.

I could spend this entire review just going on and on about the first track, but I think you’re more eager to hear about the entire album as a whole. Well, the guitar distortion is much less metallic than Ironbound and previous albums. Instead, it has a much thicker sound with more body and less crunch (which isn’t a bad thing or a good thing). The guitars really haven’t improved in very many ways. But then again, the guitars aren’t the main focus in this album like they were in most of their previous albums.

Most of the focus has gone into groove and rhythm, especially in the realms of brutality and catchy riffs and headbanging parts. Obviously, the drummer is the one responsible for keeping this as the pinnacle for the duration of the record. The drums are considerably louder than the other instruments, but instead of sticking out like a big block, it sticks out farther in all the empty spaces and simply backs up everything else. If you ask me, I think that The Electric Age is the Overkill album with the best drumming, and I think most of you out there can agree with me.

Let’s talk about some of the awesome new grooves that Overkill has let into their music. This is relevant in some parts of the first track, but mainly in songs like Electric Rattlesnake. Electric Rattlesnake has some hard rock grooves weaved into the energetic thrash metal monster it creates, taking a lot of influence from Pantera and Motorhead. This sort of reminds me a little bit of The Gathering by Testament, but not quite as heavy and much, much faster. In other words, it is so fucking fun to listen to it makes me smile just writing about it (although I have it playing right now too).

The bassist also holds a huge spotlight in this album. You can hear him in every second of the album, and even holds a very important part during the second half of Electric Rattlesnake by driving the music along with some awesome rock riffs that have a classic 80s sound with modern influence. Everything he plays is overflowing with color and creativity, being a bassist myself, this is something I LOVE, I repeat LOVE to hear in any kind of music. It seems that as you keep listening to the record, every song is either just as good or better than the last; there aren’t any hiccups or bland spots anywhere!

Bobby is so good that he doesn’t need an introduction; he’s better than ever and acts as a rope pulling the rest of the music to otherwise unreachable heights. He paralyzes the listener with his scream at the beginning of Wish you were Dead and beautifies the music with his rough singing voice. Folks, this dude is flawless and deserves more credit than he’s gotten, especially for what he’s done in The Electric Age.

I’m not going to begin to pick favorites. Just as long as you listen to “Come and Get It” before anything else, you’re good to go. Electric Rattlesnake gives the headbangers and moshers a chance to rock out a bit while being bombarded with musical talent and creativity. Wish you were Dead pummels you with brutality and speed which is then followed by the PERFECT HEADBANGING TRACK, Black Daze to give the moshers some time to catch their breath with rock grooves and epic guitar solos. And it goes on and on. Perfect score, nothing less. 

Vomit the Soul - Apostles of Inexpression

I don’t know why I’ve procrastinated writing this review for so long because this is one of my favorite brutal death bands. Anyway, Italy’s Vomit the Soul (that’s right, ITALY!) has been one of the dominants of the European brutal death scene, with several labels eager to get the band on their roster. Vomit the Soul eventually released my favorite album of theirs, Apostles of Inexpression through an extremely well-known label called Unique Leader Records. They hardly need an introduction considering they’ve had/have bands such as Rings of Saturn, Decrepit Birth, Mortal Decay, Gorod, Fallujah, Psycroptic, Spawn of Possession, Vile, and Hour of Penance. Although Vomit the Soul ceased to exist last year, this album still deserves to be known because, well, it’s awesome!

I’m going to start with my favorite member, the vocalist. This guy can do some of the best pig squeals and inhaled vocals the brutal death genre has to offer. Just listen to any of the songs off the album and you will know what I’m talking about. Although he’s not screaming (like the Slaughterbox vocalist does), his vocals are fairly high-pitched and meaty. I will be one of the first supporters of the next band this guy either joins or starts. Also, the EXTREMELY razor-sharp sound of the guitars back up the vocals perfectly and without flaw. But, the bass isn’t going to stick out much unless you have a good set of speakers (not amazing, just better than average). This is true, but I also want to trick you into turning up your subs so you can be sure to hear the bomb-like bass booms that are let off at the start of some of the breakdowns.

I don’t even know where to start with this drummer. He’s amazing and is perfect for the style of music, that’s for sure. But I feel that there’s something (positive) about him that sets him apart from the majority of brutal death drummers….something that makes him one of the best. It could be his energetic style, his amazing footwork, his efficiency, I don’t know. He has a great talent for not overdoing the chaos in places where most other drummer wouldn’t be able to control themselves. By that I mean randomly hitting the toms and cymbals to create an excess burst of energy. The drummer has tons of technicality in what he plays, but he never makes unnecessary fills or blast beats.  

The songs do differ from each other, but it would be hard to tell them apart if you’re not familiar with the brutal death genre and haven’t listened to it profusely. This is one of those albums where every song has the same juicy, brutal sound (which takes up the majority of the skeleton of each song) but also with its own unique trait that makes it easy to recognize. Other than that, awesome brutality for all!!

This is one of my favorite brutal death albums and I highly recommend that you pick it up at Unique Leader’s online store because I don’t know if this record has very many reprints left in its lifetime. I would give this album 19/20 for being amazing and…amazing. Pick up this shit before it disappears! 

Job for a Cowboy - Demonocracy

If you want a more detailed version of Job for a Cowboy’s history, read the reviews I wrote on their first two albums. Here’s the short version: Job for a Cowboy released Doom [EP] in 2005. The album can only be described as generic deathcore and (for some reason still) Job for a Cowboy’s most famous and bestselling release to date. After withstanding constant harassment and put-downs from millions of metalheads and metal bands, Job for a Cowboy couldn’t take it anymore and have since then released two mediocre death metal albums. Neither of them are horrible in any way other than that their guitarists and bassist sucked, they’re just completely void of any attention-grabbing qualities. Then comes Demonocracy, which thanks to their reputation, I didn’t really bother listening to until last week.

The first track opens up and wait……what the hell was that? This is the first time I have ever been surprised by Job for a Cowboy! Simply because of that intro where the guitars and bass simultaneously move up and down in pitch to then release an explosion of technical chaos, I knew that these guys have finally tightened all loose ends and created something legit. Although they have made millions of HUGE improvements, they do have one problem that bothers me; probably just because I’m a reviewer and a music nerd, I don’t know.

Job for a Cowboy doesn’t really have a signature sound that I can hear. The reason why is because they keep making so many drastic changes in style that there isn’t really much of a thing that they’re known for. The one thing that I guess they’ve always had in their music is in the vocals. The vocalist isn’t one of the BEST growlers, but he sure has a talent for being really fast and laying down his growls in really odd (but cool) rhythmic patterns. Other than that, everything about their music seems to change with every album. They did keep a fairly consistent sound with their first two full-lengths though. But by the time a band releases their third album, they need to have a solidified unique characteristic that can only be found in Job for a Cowboy’s music to use as a blueprint for future records.

But other than that annoying fact, Demonocracy needs to be in the collection of ALL death metal fans. There isn’t much that I have to say about the guitar distortion other than that it’s not overpowering and it’s not overpowered. I can hear the bass A LOT better than ever before, which is probably because they replaced that dude with the huge gauges with a real bassist. Once they had someone that could actually play bass, they turned it up.

The drums are tuned a certain way so that they sound extremely technical. I know that their drummer isn’t good enough to be as technical as he sounds (although he’s improved a fuckton since Ruination, especially with speed), but he electrifies the music by shooting energy through every frequency of the sound with his pummeling speed.

Now that I’ve listened to this album a couple of times, I’m starting have a problem that I’ve had with every other Job for a Cowboy album; monotony. What I mean by that is that all the songs sound the same. Yes, I know that people who aren’t very familiar with death metal say the same thing about Grave, Deicide, Malevolent Creation, and Immolation, but seriously, the only way I can tell the difference between all of Job for a Cowboy’s songs is by recognizing certain opening riffs or “awesome moments” like in Summon the Hounds (the intro) and Constitutional Masturbation (“I….MASTURBATE!!”). Yes, this is less true in Demonocracy, but seriously, they’re not even TRYING to make every song unique! I can’t tell the difference between ANY of the tracks, other than knowing that some of them have epic guitar solos (I might have forgotten to mention that before).

Demonocracy is by far Job for a Cowboy’s best album and deserves a 16/20 for being a technical death highlight of 2012. Currently the only tech death record the band has released, Demonocracy stands alone in the tech death section of my music library, awaiting (hopefully) another Job for a Cowboy album like it. I would highly recommend picking this up, and also catching their set on this year’s Summer Slaughter Tour which features Cannibal Corpse, Between the Buried and Me, Exhumed, Cerebral Bore, The Faceless, and many more. 

Loculus - Sinew [EP]

Those of you that attend metal shows know that there’s almost always one or two local opening acts. Most of the opening acts at the Seattle shows I go to are shitty deathcore bands. But there have been some gems that have gotten their name out, bands such as Blood and Thunder (melodic death), Six Days of Darkness (deathcore), Phalgeron (death metal), Super Happy Story Time Land, (melodic death), The Accused (thrash metal), and a few others. Loculus was one of the local openings for a show I saw just last month with Origin, Aborted, Decrepit Birth, Rings of Saturn, Cattle Decapitation, and Battlecross. I came to that show to see technicality, but most of all, brutality. I’ll tell you this, Loculus got things started on the right note by bringing nothing but brutality. Having a pure brutal death sound with some great breakdowns, I had to pick up this EP at their merch table. When I looked them up on Spirit of Metal the next day, to my surprise, Loculus isn’t from Washington, they’re from fucking Virginia! What the hell was an east coast band doing all the way over here being the local opener for a show?? That aside, I’ve been super eager to tell all of you about this monstrous EP.

When I listened to the CD for the first time, I instantly recognized all of the songs from the show (I even remembered the song titles). But before we get into each individual song, let’s discuss the album and band as a whole. After seeing them live and listening to this EP that was released two years ago, there’s an obvious amount of improvement that had been made. The biggest improvement that was made was in the drums. The drummer at the show was fucking barbaric with his kick drumming and his blast beats. But in this EP, the kick drums aren’t that fast and the drummer falls in-and-out of time in some places. But in this recording, the drummer plays a very generic, but modernized brutal death style. He does show a lot of creativity and a strong ability to keep things interesting by not just doing “blast beat…..breakdown….fill….blast beat….fill…breakdown..etc.”

The guitars have a really thick and crunchy distortion; just what I like to hear! They’re not like many brutal death records where the distortion is so high that the chords they’re playing are less than obvious; you can hear everything the guitarists are playing loud and clear. The bass is nice and meaty which gives a fat lower end to increase the brutality level. The vocals are very deep inhaled growls that have a strong and clean sound. I can’t think of any other way to describe them.

Ok, now I’m going to do what I do with every EP I review, to a track-by-track analysis.

The first song on the EP is Chainsaw Disfigurement (which is apparently their most popular track). Although this track has plenty of awesome grooves, the drumming is very loose and the band doesn’t seem to be very tight at all. The kick drumming seems to be out of time, the guitarists are obviously having some trouble playing some of the technical riffs, and the song is unorganized. The breakdowns also seem randomly placed and unpredictable (the bad kind of unpredictable). On the upside, the song isn’t a complete disaster and the vocals are AMAZING!

Hacked Apart is definitely my favorite track. When they came on with that explosive intro, I couldn’t contain myself at all in the pit; I went fucking crazy. The guitars and drums still don’t quite match up, but they’re not nearly as bad as in Chainsaw Disfigurement. The vocalist has one of the coolest inhaled growls, I can’t stress that enough, they sound AWESOME!! This song is much more interesting than the previous one in terms of structure and composition. It has a much more complex song structure and does a great job of not repeating the shitty riffs and repeating the catchy ones. The breakdown in the second half is brutal as fuck, and the song even includes a shredding guitar solo! How often do you hear a guitar solo in a brutal death song that hasn’t been done by Nile, Suffocation, Hate Eternal, or Aborted??

Ocular Extirpation has the same basic sound as Chainsaw Disfigurement, so I’m not going to spend time repeating myself. The Mutilator is a headbanging song. The track kicks off with a show chugging guitar riff that is guaranteed to at least get your head nodding. This is the brutal track that the crowd loved and drooled over when I saw them. Overall, this EP is a fucking monster and I highly recommend that you pick it up if you’re a fan of slamming brutal death. I would give this record a score of 14/20 for being great for a debut release. 

Pathology - Surgically Hacked

A little while back, I decided to write a review series covering Pathology’s complete discography. That is, except their debut, which I couldn’t find until two weeks ago. But now that I’ve listened to this landmark that’s the first album of one of the most famous bands that have always had the super underground brutal death sound, I think it’s fair to say that it’s nothing like I was expecting. Released through one of my favorite record labels, Amputated Vein, Surgically Hacked now has a place in my collection which makes my Pathology section complete! Honestly, I was expecting something a lot like my favorite Pathology album, Incisions of Perverse Debauchery. But instead, I was met with a much more underground and premature sound (which answers the question why there’s only three or so critics that have reviewed this album besides myself).

I’m going to be honest; this album is going to be pretty hard to enjoy if you’re not already an experienced brutal death listener that has had bands like Guttural Secrete and Devourment desensitize you with their unmatched brutality. Surgically Hacked isn’t Pathology’s most brutal album, but it certainly has the most traces of grindcore. The grindcore part of it is relevant in the song lengths and the seemingly random speed blasts that make the songs flyby like lightning, making the album sound like it’s over in seconds. Either that’s the case, or I have weird perception issues with this album, because it feels really short every time I listen to it. Let’s look into the technical part of it.

When you listen to the album as a whole, the drums sound exactly how they should. But when you mentally strip the other elements away and leave the drums by themselves (in other words focus on the drums and block everything else out), the different drum patters seem randomly generated and out of place. But that’s the case in a lot of metal albums, where each part individually sounds horrible yet they fit perfectly when put together. There really isn’t anything special about the guitars other than that it’s completely generic brutal death styles and riffs being played. The problem I’m having with this record is the amount of treble the overall band has; it’s overpowering. I have to listen to this album on my fancy headphones that have tons of bass in order to play this at higher volumes without hurting my ears.

I’m glad the vocals are buried by the rest of the band because they kind of suck. After hearing the really moist guttural growls from Incisions of Perverse Debauchery and the growls from the song Code Injection, these inhaled growls are fucking shitty compared to that. But when you compare this album to the majority of albums with this style, they come off as being plain and generic. They don’t suck, but there isn’t anything too special about them. It seems like there’s a lot of negativity in this review considering that I gave this a 15/20 score. The reason why I like this album is because the band lays out the grindcore influence perfectly. The pure chaos and brutality of this grincore-influenced brutal death album gets me really energized after a couple of listens. Like I said before, this album is for pure fans of brutality and people curious to hear what underground brutality sounds like.

I can’t hear any bass at all, and that’s the big reason why I don’t like this album as much as Incisions of Perverse Debauchery. If there were at least SIGNS of a lower end, I would be much happier; because brutal death is nothing without tons of crushing bass. Overall, this album isn’t bad at all. Despite its flaws in several sections, when you look at this piece of chaos as a whole, it’s one hell of a record that is a must-have for all fans of slamming brutality. I would rate this album 15/20 (75%).  

Aborted - Global Flatline

For some reason, Aborted is one of the most popular death metal bands in Washington. So when the release date for this album was released, it seemed that almost every metalhead in my area was eager to get their hands on it. I had already gotten my ticket to go see them with Origin, Decrepit Birth, Rings of Saturn, Cattle Decapitation, Battlecross, and Loculus. Since the album was released before the show, I was one of the many brutality-hungry metalheads to jump on it that morning. The majority opinion of the previous release, Strychnine.213, wasn’t too bright. But oddly enough, besides Goremageddeon, that album was always a favorite of mine. This was probably because it was the first Aborted album I heard, and I first listened to it around the time of its release in 2008, which was when I was still in the “early metalhead stages” where anything with growling/screaming and highly-distorted guitars made me happy. But even now, four years later, I still thoroughly enjoy listening to that record! But this review isn’t about Strychnine; it’s about the overdue follow-up record, Global Flatline.

After the release of Global Flatline, I listened to it constantly for about a day or so, and then I got distracted with other bands and albums I was discovering (like Sinister, Enthroned, and Inquisition). And, of course, I didn’t really listen to it too much when the Occupation Domination tour drew close…I was too busy masturbating to the sexiness of the new Cattle Decapitation record. The main question that everyone has about every new release is “how has their sound changed?” Well, I’ve been doing some research on what the majority of Aborted’s fans are into, even though it was already somewhat obvious. The majority of Aborted’s fans are primarily into the EXTREME slamming brutality created by bands like Dying Fetus, Guttural Secrete, Devourment, Pathology, Putrid Pile, and Skinless. As well as that (also not surprising to me) there are a lot of people that are fans of the EXTREMELY brutal deathcore stuff that are Aborted fans (stuff like Whitechapel, Suicide Silence, Carnifex, Fit for an Autopsy, Oceano, The Red Chord, etc.) Here’s the interesting thing about Global Flatline, it’s the first Aborted record that’s brutal enough to make the brutal metallers happy and contains breakdowns deep enough to satisfy deathcore fans. No, Goremageddeon doesn’t count because its brutality has proved to be too much for most deathcore fans (not to put them down for anything). In other words, this album is a cacophony of different sounds Aborted has used throughout their career.

Once the intro track was finished, I was expecting to have an explosion of chaos go off right in my face. But Aborted made sure to keep things fresh and unexpected and started with a much slower groove with blasting double kicks. And then, when a randomly recorded voice says “I’m gonna fucking rape your soul!” I know that Aborted still has a core made out of 100% slamming brutality. Aborted has always had a weird habit of having A LOT of something and a fair amount of everything else. The Purity of Perversion has A LOT of bass, Goremageddeon has A LOT of guitar crunch, Strychnine.213 has A LOT of blastbeats and A LOT of growling and screaming at the same time. Well, the thing with Global Flatline is that it has A LOT of…..wait…there isn’t really anything that stands out to me other than that it has more screaming than any other Aborted album. So Global Flatline seems much more balanced out than previous records.

The drums are bombarding as always, the riffs that the guitarists are playing are slightly more complex than before, which is a good thing. Although it’s obvious that he’s there, I can’t really hear the bassist as much as I’d like to. Probably the parts where he’s heard easiest is when he’s doing a slide right before a breakdown. Probably my favorite thing about Aborted is how their vocalist puts his screaming on top of his guttural inhaled growls in the studio; it just sounds so cool! I love it! Although there’s plenty of that in this album, the screams have taken over in terms of volume and frequency. Overall, this album is fantastic and a great follow-up to Strychnine. Having more material than any other Aborted album, Global Flatline earns my score of 18/20 with my favorite song being The Origin of Disease. 

Upcoming Reviews

That's right, MORE REVIEWS ON THE WAY!!! Here are the one's I've been eager to write about:

Pathology (brutal death)
Job for a Cowboy (death metal)
The Agonist (melodic death)
Loculus (brutal death)
Vomit the Soul (brutal death)
Putridity (brutal death)
Marduk (black metal)
Aborted (brutal death)
Abominable Putridity (brutal death)
Forgive Me (depressive black metal)
Chelsea Grin (deathcore)
Kings of the City (rap/rock)
Overkill (thrash metal)

New Band Wallpapers!!

Here are some new band wallpapers I have put up!! Click the images to see the full-sized versions....

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Band Wallpaper Regular Updates

Hi, if you've been a follower of my site, you know that at the beginning of each week and/or weekend, I do an "Upcoming Reviews" post. Now, I will post periodic updates on the best and most recent band wallpapers that I've made. I've started to have bands come to me and ask me to "make" artwork for them, so I'm going to start making this band wallpaper hobby more of a thing. Of course, since I RARELY actually MAKE the artwork and the logos, I always do it for free (so that means ANYONE can request that I make a wallpaper for ANY BAND!)....p.s: THE REVIEW WRITING WILL NOT CEASE TO EXIST! THE INSTANT SCHOOL ENDS, I WILL START WRITING AGAIN!