Dark Funeral - Diabolis Interium

Diabolis Interium is where I think Dark Funeral started getting really good. After two fairly good albums that sounded pretty much the same, it was about time these Swedish black metallers changed things up a bit. The time of this album’s release was when I think the extreme metal genres were at their point of absolute zenith. Unfortunately, I started really getting into metal several years after this point, just barely missing the wave. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy the pre-2007 stuff. There are some people that disagree with me when I say that Dark Funeral really changed their sound on this album; but try to view it from the musicians’ standpoint. The entire band said that there were going to be a lot of changes in their overall sound starting with Diabolis Interium, and that is wasn’t going to stop there.

The biggest change that they made is that they greatly improved the overall quality of the sound production, therefore making the music sound ten times more powerful and epic. The music is also not completely consisted of low, down-tuned guitar chords; they’ve turned up the bass and set their guitars to a higher tuning. On top of that, if you haven’t read my earlier Dark Funeral reviews, I mentioned that the drummer’s blast beats only get faster with each album, and after listening to this record one would think “how could it get any faster than this??” Some of you may know that their vocalist and drummer left the band last year (still on good terms with the band) and that they would only hire a new drummer that could play as fast and as good as their previous. So whether the drummer digitally speeds up his drumming or not will be something that I will find out when I see them live this coming February.

Even though their sound has sped up dramatically, it’s also gone in a more melodic direction. So it’s really fast…but not super heavy. There are also some songs that aren’t super-fast at all, like Goddess of Sodomy. But the song that really got me hooked on this record is Hail Murder. This song has a really atmospheric and sometimes ambient vibe to it. Most of you that are still new to the whole extreme side of metal are still probably only hearing the really fast drumming, highly distorted guitars, and screamed vocals. And don’t worry, after a while of listening to the extreme genres, the fast and distorted instruments won’t stand out as much and you’ll start to hear more qualities of the music like technicality, melodicness, atmosphere, shittiness, etc.

The guitar distortions have a really clean, fuzzy sound that for some people sounds really annoying. I think that it really fits the music better than a more crunchy distortion. As far as lyrics go, I don’t really know anything he’s saying except for in Heart of Ice, which is basically about demons hunting down the mortal. As I was just double-checking the lyrics for that song on Spirit of Metal, I decided to look at the lyrics for the other songs, and to tell you the truth, they’re not all that impressive. This is part of why I typically don’t pay attention to lyrics much, because there are so many uncreative and at times cliché lyrics that are being written that for a lot of people, it completely ruins the music for them (and probably would for me if I really paid attention to them).

For some of you that have only heard this record and the ones before this; be warned that this isn’t their best album. My favorite thing about this album is that it has some of those songs that are headbanging songs, but are still really fast. What I mean is that the kick drums are at full speed, but the guitars are going a lot slower therefore giving you that weird impulse to start headbanging. So overall, this is one of my favorite black metal records and I’d highly recommend that you check this out, unless you can’t handle the really fast music. I would rate this 18/20. 

Breaking Benjamin - Phobia

I’ve been listening to Breaking Benjamin since I was in middle school. It doesn’t take much to realize that I listen to a lot of the metal that the majority of the people on this site hate (i.e. Korn, Godsmack, Breaking Benjamin, Deftones, Staind, etc.) And I know that a lot of you hardcore metalheads started out listening to this stuff. But there’s always the times where we get so into a lot of the more underground and extreme genres of metal (death metal, black metal, grindcore, etc.) that we forget about what initially got us hooked. Something that you probably didn’t know about me is that Opeth hasn’t been my favorite band for that long; my favorite band for over four years was Breaking Benjamin. The Pennsylvania quartet has brought me so much happiness ever since I was introduced to them in 7^th grade. So a couple days ago, I was flipping through all my alternative metal and nu metal bands because I felt like I haven’t been giving them all that much attention for the past year or so. And I know that all of you listen to at least one “mainstream” metal band, even if you claim to be a “true” metalhead that doesn’t listen to all that “poseur shit”. Over the years, the majority of my musical interests have been gradually drifting away from the alternative/nu metal scene, but I feel that these bands still have an effect on me.

I was in this play at this time of year in 7^th grade. At that time, most of what I listened to consisted of 60s classic rock and 70s hard rock and heavy metal. My favorite band at the time was Led Zeppelin (who is still one of my favorites). Some of the other bands I was listening to were The Beatles, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Cream, Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, KISS, and Deep Purple. Even then, I listened to a lot of other non-rock/metal music like Blondie, Elton John, ABBA, and Michael Jackson. But I had also been exposed to some death metal by that time. My first death metal experience was when I ran across a Suffocation album in 5^th grade, and almost immediately after that discovering Revealed and Worshipped by Swedish brutal death band Insision. And even though I didn’t hate it, I didn’t take too much of an interest in the heavier side of things, until I heard Phobia.

I am amongst the crowd of fans that are upset over what happened between Mark James, Aaron Fink, and Benjamin Burnley. I will talk about that in my Dear Agony review, because that happened five years after this album came out.

Breaking Benjamin has sold literally millions of albums. Their sophomore release We are not Alone has been certified platinum, I remember the day I heard that Phobia had been giving a gold certification (which is what you get when you sell over 500,000 copies), and over two years later got a platinum certification. Breaking Benjamin owe some of their success to the major record label that they’re signed on to. Hollywood Records is completely consisted of mainstream pop artists, singling out Breaking Benjamin, being the only heavy band on the roster.

Benjamin Burnley writes all of the music and lyrics. I have been completely blown away by literally every single song that they’ve come out with. I read in an interview of their bassist that Ben would write and come up with a bucketload of songs that were literally undeniably amazing, line them all up, and carefully chose the ones that he thought were the best. The thing was, Benjamin was rarely satisfied enough to put any of the songs on an album. So that’s why the writing process of the album took so long, because Benjamin was so damn picky with the songs that would be on the new record, and it paid off.

This is the first album with Chad on drums. After an ugly dispute with their original (and amazing) drummer when he sued the band for a lame reason that made it obvious that he just wanted money, the band fired him and gave Chad the job. Honestly, I think Chad is a million times better than Jimmy. He has more equipment on his drum set that makes the music sound that much more beautiful, and he just has plain talent and skills! Nothing else really needs to be said about him other than he’s amazing and that you have to listen to him play in order to understand what I mean.

The thing that makes Phobia different from its two previous releases is that it’s a lot darker, angrier, and heavier. It has much more of an aggressive sound with the bass turned way up and the guitars having a more powerful distortion compared to their two other albums which had more of a really heavy grunge sound with higher-pitched guitars and less bass. I don’t get why there are so many people out there that don’t think this kind of stuff is metal. Don’t think that I’m saying something isn’t good if it isn’t metal, because I’ll bet that I listen to a hell of a lot more non-metal stuff than you. It’s just that something that has this much of an angry sound and has this much distortion on the guitars and bass can’t really be anything other than metal (little mini rant there).

The intro song is what sets the mood of the whole album. It gently pulls you in so that you can be enclosed and entwined by the opening riffs of The Diary of Jane. This is one of Breaking Benjamin’s heavier singles and it’s also their most famous and most recognized song. I was thrilled when I first heard this on the radio when I was walking through downtown Seattle. Phobia is one of those albums that literally don’t have any low points or disappointments that can be found. I honestly feel somewhat guilty picking out favorites from this album because Phobia should be seen as a whole, not “oh I like the third song”. So I’m not really going to pick out any favorite songs from this album.

Phobia has a really good mix of different sounding tracks with headbanging aggressive songs like Had Enough and Dance with the Devil and softer, more melodic songs like You and Here We Are. I know that everyone has one or more album that they’ve listened to so much that they’ve memorized every word, every note, every guitar riff, and everything else. To be honest, Breaking Benjamin’s entire discography falls into that category for me. I’m not going to even say what score I would give this album because I feel that I’ve made it obvious enough. 

Dark Funeral - Vobiscum Satanas

A band’s sophomore album is in my opinion far more important than their debut. The first album is the band’s demonstration that their music is worth your time. The second album is where the most important things happen. In a band’s sophomore release, they get a lock on their own unique sound, they keep a solid lineup, and they show that they can progress and still sound good. Dark Funeral demonstrated all of those things, except for the ability to progress and further mature their sound from The Secrets of the Black Arts. Because of this, I was very disappointed in them because it sounds pretty much exactly like their first album.

After this album’s release, it wasn’t very well received by the majority of the community. By this time, the black metal scene was skyrocketing with bands like Gorgoroth, Immortal, Darkthrone, Carpathian Forest, Taake, Behemoth, and Belphegor were having huge fan bases and playing sold-out shows in Europe and starting to go on tours in the rest of the world (i.e. America, Asia, etc.) Dark Funeral was among those of Scandinavia (Finland, Sweden, and Norway) that were climbing the food chain. Not only that, the Scandinavian metal scene was exploding with bands like Opeth, Dark Tranquility, Soilwork, Nightwish, Meshuggah, and HammerFall.

Dark Funeral did pick up the pace as far as tempo goes, but there really isn’t much that they did that one could call “new”. This is what one of my buds known as “Miniradman” would call “generic”. This is black metal in its purest form, but I mean, I love the traditional black metal sound, but two albums in a row of just pure, generic black metal? After listening to Dark Funeral’s first two albums for a couple of years, I’ve kind of grown tired of them because I’ve found soooooo many other black metal bands that sound so much like them (except for the speed part, Dark Funeral is one of the fastest metal bands out there).

Now for those of you that have only heard Dark Funeral’s first two albums, check out all of the material they released after that, because you’ll find that their musicianship, organization, and creativity go out of sight. The vocalist also ends up drastically changing the whole sound of his vocals in the following albums which I will talk about later this week. But don’t let the general negativity of this review completely turn you away from this band, because they’re purely amazing and have one of the most epic sounds of any black metal band in existence. It’s just that a metal band at their status shouldn’t be playing generic stuff (although I shouldn’t be saying that because they weren’t huge at the time of this album).

The vocalist improved his screams quite a bit, I’ll give him that. But other than that, due to the fact of this album being so generic, there isn’t really much I can say about this album other than that it’s just plain ol’ Swedish black metal. But don’t get me wrong, it’s a great album, but if you’re looking for something new and interesting, this isn’t for you. I would give this album a 14/20. 

Dark Funeral - The Secrets of the Black Arts

A mediocre debut isn’t something you see very often. A band’s first album is usually either amazing, or dreadful. First impressions are important, and if your band doesn’t make a really good first impression, it can be a lot harder to win their support than it would be if you released a high-class first album. Dark Funeral’s 1996 debut The Secrets of the Black Arts is a great example of a debut album that is not only really good, but also shows room for improvement to get the fans to wait for their next album. Sometimes, when I get stuff by a band, I’ll go in chronological order; Dark Funeral was one of those bands where I did that. Although this wasn’t my first Swedish black metal band, it certainly opened up my eyes to the Swedish black metal scene.

When I first hear this album, black metal certainly wasn’t anywhere near being my favorite genre of music (even though now it is my favorite), and I feel that it was Dark Funeral that sparked my greater interest in the genre. Although their career and music have many ups and downs, I’ve still come to greatly support this band. In fact, I’m going to see them in Seattle in February.

Dark Funeral is one of the most open and explicitly satanic bands in the world. 94% of their songs have satanic themes and messages. I just thought that I would point this out if you didn’t take a look at their logo, album covers, song names, and/or lyrics. The satanic imagery has pretty much taken over the black metal genre (although it was used by most of the original black metal bands, so maybe it’s just more apparent now than it was then). And because of that, there are a lot of black metal bands that are what we Satanists call “wannabes”, “fakes”, “poseurs”, or “stereotypical Satanists”. Some examples of metal musicians that are Stereotypical Satanists would be Glen Benton, Satanic Warmaster, and most of Behexen. Now quite a few of people in the music industry that dress in these crazy costumes (corpsepaint, lots of spikes, leather, etc.) and have a lot of satanic imagery in their music aren’t really Satanists, and they tell people that they aren’t. They’re doing all of that for the “shock factor” (an example of the shock factor was when the first heavy metal bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath rose out in the early 70s).

The trait that everyone knows about Dark Funeral is the pure insanity and speed that their drummer possesses. I’m not joking, their drummer has one of the fastest blast beasts I’ve ever heard, and they only get faster each album. Although he is currently no longer with the band, he is definitely comparable to the drummer for Fleshgod Apocalypse, The Faceless, and Rings of Saturn. And since they have a fast drummer, the rest of the members have to keep up as well; and they do so with excellence. Their vocalist wasn’t as good in this album as he was in their most recent albums (which were one of the places that could use improvement that I mentioned before).

The songs are a bit shorter that what I would prefer, so it makes the album seem shorter and I don’t feel as satisfied as I would if I were to listen to Diabolis Interium. The intro track is somewhat pointless because the only thing you can hear is a very soft wind, which makes me think that it was done on purpose to make the listener instinctively turn up the volume so that they can be unexpectedly blasted away by the first full song that is on full-throttle. I don’t really have a particular favorite song off of the album because the majority of the songs have the same general mood, atmosphere, and tone. That’s another thing that they needed to show improvement on, the majority of the songs sound pretty much the same. Despite that, the album is a very enriching and interesting listen and I would recommend it to the metalheads that are more familiar with the black metal genre…unless of course if you think you can handle it. 16/20. 

Cannibal Corpse - Butchered at Birth

Butchered at Birth was Cannibal Corpse’s breakthrough album. After a mediocre debut release that had minimal success and caught the ears of very few people outside the Tampa Bay area, it was time for Cannibal Corpse to prove themselves worthy. Before this album came out, the only other death metal bands that had already professionally released at least one full-length album were Possessed, Death, Bolt Thrower, Autopsy, Carcass, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Atheist. I personally think that 1991 was the year where the popularity of death metal and the amount of bands exploded. Just a few of the bands that released their debuts in 1991 are Malevolent Creation, Suffocation, Dismember, Grave, and Immolation. And yes, I know that at this same time, grindcore and black metal were also rising out of the crypts, but we’re here to talk about good ol’ death metal.

When this album came out, it was considered the most brutal album ever created, and for some reason it still is. Many say that Cannibal Corpse may owe their elongated success to a writer for some metal magazine. I read in this book that talked about the history of death metal where this magazine “journalist” was interviewed. When he was asked about where he first heard about Cannibal Corpse, he said “I was sitting at my desk in my apartment where I lived with two of my friends. One of my friends burst through the door, ran over to my desk and slammed down a CD with a bloody album cover and said ‘you wanna hear somethin’ new? Here’s something better than that Bolt Thrower of yours.’ I listened to the album and was paralyzed.”

I don’t know if the rumor that the band owes their success to that guy is true or not (I don’t think anyone will know), but he did spread the word about Cannibal Corpse outside of Florida and eventually out to Europe. It was then, when countries started taking a look at Barnes’ lyrics. Starting in 1992, countries started banning the sales of Cannibal Corpse CDs and banning Cannibal Corpse to perform in their country. Although it was only five years until the amount of countries banning Cannibal Corpse started dropping, it was being talked about far and wide.

Now that we’ve talked about the background and what was going on beyond this album, let’s talk about Butchered at Birth shall we? Of course when you look at the majority of old school death metal records, Butchered at Birth is undoubtedly one of the most brutal out of the bunch. I suggest you to first just look at the repulsive song names such as “Meat Hook Sodomy”, “Vomit the Soul”, and “Innards Decay”. Then, I want you to look at the lyrics on this album and think “how the hell can someone come up with this??” That’s certainly what I thought when I took a peek at the lyrics to Meat Hook Sodomy (for those of you that don’t know what sodomy is, it’s a fancy word for anal sex). And although I’ve talked a lot about the lyrics and put a lot of emphasis on them, I’m one that tends to naturally focus more on the music and the sound of the vocals than what’s being said.

I will admit that I find the sound of the guitar distortion kind of annoying. It’s very crunchy and high-pitched. This is fine, but not if it doesn’t have a bunch of bass to back it up (which this album doesn’t). And the crappy guitar distortion is somewhat understandable because this was about five years or so after the creation of the “indie” record label, where there were a lot more crappy sounding recordings due to the bands/labels having little money to pay for adequate recording/producing equipment. On top of that, the guitars pretty much drown everything else out; I really wish I could hear Chris Barnes’ orgasmic growls, but they get drowned out by the guitars for most of the record.

The songwriting is pristine. There is a much greater demonstration of organization amongst the band compared to their debut. The best example of this amazing songwriting would be one of the best-known headbanging songs, Covered with Sores. The re-released edition has a bonus track of the band performing this live, except Corpsegrinder is on vocals, which makes the song not sound as good. And don’t get me wrong, Corpsegrinder is fucking amazing; I just think that Barnes fits the old school Cannibal Corpse sound perfectly. That’s why I was quite disappointed when I saw Cannibal Corpse live in 2009 and they played some older tracks like Hammer Smashed Face, Vomit the Soul, I Cum Blood, and The Bleeding because Corpsegrinder’s gutturals don’t sound good with those songs. I was though very happy when Six Feet Under played Hammer Smashed Face when I saw them at the 2011 Summer Slaughter tour.

Overall, this album is an obvious classic that everyone should have in their collection. Kicking off with the pure sound of the guitar distortion in Meat Hook Sodomy and concluding with a breakdown at the end of Innards Decay, Butchered at Birth has proved itself to be one of the best death metal albums in the genre. If you haven’t heard any old school Cannibal Corpse, look up Tomb of the Mutilated first, then Butchered at Birth. I would rate this album 18/20. 

Burzum - Filosofem

I was over at my friend Tristen’s house last year and noticed he had a bunch of metal CDs that I didn’t have in my collection. Some of them included Scum by Napalm Death, Agent Orange by Sodom, Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods by Carpathian Forest, Stop at Nothing by Dying Fetus, Symbolic by Death, and Filosofem by Burzum. I already knew who Burzum was, I already loved his music. Before Filosofem, I had his 1994 album, Aske [EP], and his self-titled album. Honestly, I think that Filosofem is a one-of-a-kind black metal album. It has many sides, which makes it so that you never get tired of listening to it.

I personally think that Burzum was responsible for influencing other artists to start what is now known as ambient black (or depressive black metal). Obviously, one of the first of these ambient black artists is one of my all-time favorites, Xasthur. And ever since I heard Xasthur, I’ve been absolutely hooked to ambient black metal to the point where it’s become one of my favorite genres of music. For those of you that already know of Xasthur but want to know about more ambient black bands/artists, there is also Woods of Desolation, Blutklinge, Gris, Lamentations of the Ashen, Saol, and Lost Inside. I also have many other ambient black artists on my favorite bands list. But we’re not here to discuss ambient black metal; we’re here to talk about the masterpiece known as Filosofem!

For those of you that already know about Varg Vikerness’ history, you can just skip this paragraph. But for those of you that aren’t very familiar about Varg, this is something that you should definitely read. Varg was originally the bassist for the Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem (whom I’m not particularly fond of) for two years. He was kicked out of the band for murdering lead guitarist Euronymous. At this time, he had just released his Aske [EP] under the name Burzum, which on the cover is a photo of a church that he allegedly burned down. Because of that, he ended up getting a 10+ year prison sentence. No one except for Varg himself knows the reasons behind these actions, or if Varg even did them. In a video capturing the judge happily giving Varg his sentence, the camera zooms in on Vikerness as he produces a smile as if saying “oh what an interesting fate”. He was then released from his Norwegian prison cell in 2010, since then, he has released two amazing albums, but Filosofem was before the prison sentence.

Burzum is considered to be part of the original set of the first black metal bands. Some of those bands include Mayhem, Darkthrone, and Immortal. Burzum is also one of the most respected black metal acts in history, gaining more respect and fans than Mayhem, Gorgoroth, and Carpathian Forest. Although it may seem rare for a one-member act to have live performances, Burzum has actually played a couple of live shows throughout Europe.  

Now I’m going to be honest and say I don’t know how to pronounce any of this stuff (i.e. the song names). I can speak Finnish fluently, but I can’t understand Norwegian. So you can just pretend that I’m pronouncing the names right as you read them in this review. My absolute favorite thing about this album is the sound of the guitar distortion; it’s probably the coolest sounding distortion I’ve ever heard. It sounds really wide and almost metallic, with a bit of a crunch to it. The overall sound is very ambient and mystical with some songs having more of a heavier black metal sound with faster tempos and trembolo picking on the guitars.

The best song on this album is definitely the third song. This is definitely one of my favorite songs of all time, mainly because it has a lot of an ambient black sound. It has a much slower tempo, but with a really solid beat making it the perfect headbanging song. The lyrics of this song mainly revolve around winter and depression, probably from stress from some of the things he did in the past. This is a song that always makes me smile and one that I will never get tired of listening to. If you haven’t heard this song, definitely look it up and listen to it at least twice or so, satisfaction is guaranteed.

Jesus Dod translates to “Jesus’s Death”. I don’t know any of the further lyrics because they are all in Norwegian. This song has more of what we know today as a “traditional” black metal sound; with trembolo guitar picking and double kick drumming creating fast tempos. Even though it has all of this, it still has the same ambient and atmospheric sound that the rest of the album represents. The rest of the songs off of the record are more in between. I chose to mention these two songs because they are the opposite extremes of the mood of Filosofem.

Burzum has expressed a true masterpiece that has won my full support. I know that some of you chose not to support him because of the things he has done in the past, but I will say that you can think what you want and that I’m not going to take part in that argument because it doesn’t change the fact that he did what he did and he created the music that he did and that he has no plans on stopping the production of his music. I could go on and on about this album, but I don’t like spoiling things for people, I like to encourage people to look things up and hear it for themselves. But obviously you’re reading this to hear my opinion, and my opinion is: this album is one of the best representations of perfection. 

Eluveitie - Everything Remains as it Never Was

When you first hear about it, you think “melodic death metal mixed with European folk? That can’t possibly work!” The genre commonly known as “folk metal” has been around for about ten or so years. During that time, a handful of bands have risen from that area to become very successful, such as Korpiklaani, Ensiferum, Finntroll, Turisas, and Eluveitie. Most of these bands are from Finland (all of the bands I just listed are Finnish except for Eluveitie). I never really thought that a mix of those two genres could work out very well, that is, until I heard Inis Mona by Eluveitie. When I heard that song, I was instantly hooked…but the rest of that album wasn’t as impressive as I was expecting; it was actually a bit disappointing. But that didn’t mean I gave up on them, I got their other stuff, but none of their other albums gave me that buzzy feel that Inis Mona gave me, so I still listened to their other albums and discovered other folk metal bands while I waited for the new Eluveitie record.

Honestly, all you have to do is listen to their music to be able to tell why they’re on Nuclear Blast. Pretty much only the amazing bands get on Nuclear Blast, and (most the time) the best out of those that get enlisted end up staying on the roster. 2010 was a great year for the Nuclear Blast label, with amazing records such as Mnemic’s Sons of the System, Soilwork’s The Panic Broadcast, Exodus’ Exhibit B, Sabaton’s Coat of Arms, Death Angel’s Relentless Retribution, Keep of Kalessin’s Reptilian, and MANY more, Everything Remains as it Never Was got added to the list.

Eluveitie made a big change that made their music a lot better. They turned up the volume on their guitars, but they turned up the volume on their folk instruments even louder. So basically, they’ve put a lot more emphasis on their folk sound to give their music a really mystical, old European feeling. There are even some songs at the end of the album that are just bagpipes, my favorite being The Otherworld Set. You can actually hear that chick’s hurdy gurdy in this album! I never even knew that they had one until I saw the Inis Mona music video (yes people, I know what a hurdy gurdy is). But if you listen to songs like Thousandfold and Setlon, the hurdy gurdy stands out.

On top of having more folk in their music, the metal part is even more metal. When I say that, I mean that it’s faster, heavier, and louder. There is a lot more fast drumming (I bet their drummer had a lot of fun recording this). For those of you that want to hear the heavier side of this album, listen to the song Kingdom Come Undone. I saw a video of them playing this song live and the moshpit was pretty damn huge. But even though there’s a lot more of a metal sound, the folk instruments balance it out perfectly so that it still has the traditional Eluveitie vibe. I also think that the vocals are a lot better in this album.

I think that their vocalist has really taken some time to work on the sound of his mid-range growls and his high-pitched screams. They sound a lot cleaner and it’s easy to tell that he’s not straining himself on any of the parts. I also think that all of the changes in the music have made the music match and sound better along with his growls. Because before, his vocals didn’t really fit the music as well as it does now. Of course, sticking to European fantasy and folk tales is what the vocalist puts in his lyrics, but he also tells stories of death, darkness, and depression.

The most unique song off of this album is Quoth the Raven. This song is an extremely enjoyable listen mainly because of the chorus, where the mid-range growls are backed up by one of the female members’ singing. This song is also one of those slower songs, but still with a thick and heavy beat, if you don’t see what I’m getting at, I’m talking about headbanging. I also love the very powerful and emotional sound of Thousandfold. Although it may not appear that way in the music video, but the entire band has claimed that this song stirs more emotions within them than any other song has. And I sort of know what they mean, because I get that powerful stir of emotions whenever I listen to this song (as well as the urge to

This is an album that I certainly don’t listen to as much as I should. Maybe it’s because the whole folk metal thing isn’t one of the genres that sticks out to me the most. But I’ll tell you, when I do listen to this album, I love it. I actually bought the CD when I was down in southern Florida last summer, so I can say that I’ve thrown in some money to support the band and the label. Another thing that I would like to add is that there is this guy that goes to a lot of the metal shows that I go to, although I never see him outside of the venues, we’ve gotten to know each other a bit. He only owns one metal band shirt, and it’s an Eluveitie shirt. And I was thinking of getting it because it’s their 2010 world tour shirt, and the list of dates on the back is so big that the font size is so small that it’s barely readable! This album gets a solid 19/20. Look this up if you haven’t yet, it’s worth it. 

Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutiliated

Cannibal Corpse is the bestselling death metal band of all time. And when I say death metal, I mean covering all of its subgenres (melodic death, technical death, deathcore, black death, etc.). And yet even though the sale of their CDs has been banned in several countries (it used to be more though) and in several major record stores, they’ve still managed to become one of the top dogs in death metal with The Black Dahlia Murder, Death, Arch Enemy, Opeth, Suffocation, and Morbid Angel. Cannibal Corpse’s most appreciated and well-known albums are Butchered at Birth, Kill, and Tomb of the Mutilated (which is my favorite album by them).

Now ever since the release of Vile, there has been the constant ongoing battle of whether Cannibal Corpse was better with Chris Barnes or with Corpsegrinder. I personally hate to get involved with that argument because I don’t really care. Chris Barnes is one of my favorite death metal vocalists, and so is Corpsegrinder. Cannibal Corpse is pretty damn lucky that all of their vocalists have been top-notch growlers. I personally have a soft-spot for the more guttural, deep growls like that of Demon Carcass, Mikael Akerfeldt, Frank Mullen, and Chris Barnes. I also enjoy listening to the pre-1995 Cannibal Corpse albums more than the post-Vile ones simply because I think that the songwriting is better quality and that there was more teamwork as a band. And yes, I know that the band hates Chris Barnes and will never take him back and may say different; that the band wasn’t as focused as they are now (which is true since 2004).

The guitarists on this album are actually quite a bit more creative than on their most recent albums. There are more off-beats and abstract timing going on in this album than in The Wretched Spawn (for example). In The Wretched Spawn, the guitar work tends to primarily stick to the low “chugging” chords; which sounds awesome, but gets old quickly (a common mistake made by most death metal bands). An improvement that could be made would be having more guitar solos (because when they played stuff live, they would throw in guitar solos that sounded awesome that I wish they would have done in the recording).

I think I should mention that Cannibal Corpse has been growing up with Deicide. They both went to school together, they’ve even shared several members along the way. The bond between these two bands is like Opeth and Katatonia, Korn and Limp Bizkit, Epica and After Forever, and Metallica and Megadeth (inside joke). It makes a lot of sense why they were friends in the old days (a couple of years before I was born) because they were all complete assholes. But Cannibal Corpse has really matured and become less assholish while Deicide still is pretty fucked up (Glen Benton, duh). But regardless, they’ve still been sticking together as friends for some reason.

The best song off of this album is definitely Hammer Smashed Face. I don’t think I would even want to know what Barnes is saying in this song, so I’ll leave that up to you. The intro is a one-of-a-kind intro that will get you hooked instantly only to lead into a complicated bass solo mainly played on the lower strings. The length of the song is perfect, being almost exactly four minutes. The drummer is at the top of his game during this song, constantly changing the tempos to keep the listener interested; creating parts to headbang to and parts to go absolutely nuts to. This has actually gone down as one of my favorite songs of all time because it’s one of those songs that puts a big smile on my face no matter when I listen to it.

Being one of the bands that defined pure death metal back in the early 90s along with Deicide, Suffocation, Death, and Morbid Angel, there is a lot of respect that these guys deserve, sometimes even getting more than what they have earned. A lot of people have considered Cannibal Corpse to be the most brutal band of all time. This was probably true back in the early 90s (until Suffocation turned up the bass on their recordings), but nowadays, this isn’t any more brutal than the next death metal band. But regardless of that, everyone has acknowledged this album as a true classic that will never be forgotten.

From having some of the most disturbing and disgusting lyrics to having some of the most organized and best death metal ever to reach the ears of a human being. Tomb of the Mutilated has always been one of my favorite traditional death metal albums. So far, I’ve seen Cannibal Corpse once at the 2009 Mayhem Festival (more than two years ago) so I’m really hoping they take a trip to the west coast sometime soon. I would definitely give this album a perfect score. 

The Black Dahlia Murder - Ritual

The Black Dahlia Murder has been pretty dependable with generally the same amount of time between each release. I like it when a band is fairly dependable on that part; although I am understanding if they take an extra year if they experience a brain fart when songwriting. It’s usually not the best idea for a band to make drastic changes each album because it can sometimes be kind of overwhelming for the listener. It’s best to make serious changes to your sound every other album; making two albums (in this case, Nocturnal and Deflorate) have the same general sound, but still displaying progression and maturing. So after releasing Nocturnal and Deflorate; both having generally the same high-pitched, fast, sound, it’s time they came up with something new.

I’m just going to be honest right off the bat; their new sound doesn’t impress me as much. All of you reviewers that are reading this know that one of the most frustrating things about reviewing albums is that your opinion on the album often changes a while after you write the review. Like for example, my review on Design the Skyline’s Neveah, I gave it a 16/20 or something like that. And now that I’ve actually taken the time to listen to it and explore the record in greater depths, the damn thing makes me feel like throwing up! So I have a feeling that sometime in the future, this album is going to either grow on me or turn me away (it’ll most likely grow on me). There is also going to most likely be a horde of people throwing the classic statements that a lot of us reviewers get such as “you need to be less narrow-minded!” and “you can’t expect a band to always stay the same!”. I got a lot of statements like that with my review of Bring me the Horizon’s 2010 album. Before you throw statements at me like that, read my other reviews!

The sound that The Black Dahlia Murder pulled off in Nocturnal and Deflorate was a really high-tuned, tight, fast sound with excruciatingly high-pitched screamed vocals (I mean that in a good way). Ritual’s sound is slower, down-tuned way lower than their previous albums, and there is a lot more growling being done. I think the growling is a cool idea because it balances out Trevor’s screams very well. I haven’t really figured out yet what the general theme of this album is. One would automatically think that since the album is called Ritual that it has satanic elements in it. But I’m not one that would think that this band would write songs about those sorts of things (although I don’t know any of the members’ religions or even if they’re religious/spiritual at all).

Even though this album obviously has the trademark Black Dahlia sound, the guitars have lost a disappointingly amount of technicality in most of the album. The breakdowns on this album are more pronounced and longer than on their previous records, which makes me think if touring with primarily deathcore bands has begun to have an influence on their music. But even though the guitars and bass have lost technicality, the drums haven’t. There is quite a bit more blast beats that can be heard all throughout the album (which is probably another deathcore influence).

I honestly wouldn’t give this as high of a score as Miniradman did because although this is still an impressive album that I bought soon after I saw them at the 2011 Summer Slaughter Tour, it’s shown somewhat of a lack of focus which is most likely due to constant touring (something that has caused numerous bands to start to lose focus and go downhill). There are several bands that have been affected by constant touring like Carnifex, Suicide Silence, Asking Alexandria, As I Lay Dying, and Children of Bodom. The Black Dahlia Murder has shown an excellent display of having the ability to still write good music while on the road. After two consecutive perfect scores on Nocturnal and Deflorate, Ritual gets 17/20. 

The Black Dahlia Murder - Deflorate

I pre-ordered this album after reading an article written by the producer/mixer of this album that said that this was The Black Dahlia Murder’s best album yet. By this time, I had been listening to this band for almost two years and had become quite familiar with their music and their history. When the CD appeared in my mailbox, I instantly opened it and saw that it had one of the weirdest album covers I had ever seen at the time. I left everything else in the mailbox, ran inside, put the disc in the CD player in my room, and locked the door. I was in my room for about two and a half hours because I re-played the CD maybe 2 or 3 times.

Two years later, it’s time I told you people about my experience listening to this album. So after changing into a new pair of pants, I decided to listen to the album again, but with more of a critical point of view. A lot of people that got an early listen like I did said that this is The Black Dahlia Murder’s best album. Although I don’t particularly agree with that statement, I do think that it deserves a perfect score in my book.

The band decided to turn up the tempo a bit with this album; with more blast beat drumming, faster trembolo picking, and more complex bass lines. It also seems that they got a new guitarist a little bit before they started writing the songs of this album, which is what I think had an influence in the more aggressive and faster musical style. I think that this is a great direction for TBDM to go, but it isn’t something that they should stick to for too long because it’ll get old pretty fast.

I’m not sure what song is the most well-known song off this album, but I do know that this is the first TBDM album to reach the Billboard 200 charts, which is actually very rare for a death metal album. But my favorite songs off of the album are “Black Valor”, “Necropolis”, and “Christ Deformed”; all of which they played when I saw them for the second time at the 2011 Summer Slaughter Tour. At that show, the crowd was huge and absolutely uncontrollably wild; there was constant crowd surfing, stage diving, moshing, tit flashing, and headbanging.

The lyrics in this album step away from the horror/murder themed stories to more of an abstract science fiction realm. I like how Trevor is experimenting with different lyrical themes because it shows that he gets bored easily with screaming the same type of stories and it also keeps it interesting for the listener.

Deflorate will always go down as one of my favorite tech death albums (although not quite as good as Nocturnal). This is a record that will not be forgotten easily. If you haven’t heard this album yet, I would recommend listening to the first two songs before hearing anything else because I feel that those are the songs that have the best description of the album. Even though this isn’t as good as Nocturnal, I still give it 20/20.