Makrothumia - The Rit of Individuation (1997)

Romania? What a shithole! Musically speaking, what did we ever provide to the world? What did our musicians ever add to the metal genre? With the exception of Negura Bunget, most of our bands are third-rate Pantera or Hatebreed worship.
Well, lucky for us that Makrothumia contains Ed and Negru, the founding members of NB!
If you look beyond the engrish, you'll find that this obscure gem contains a sort of atmospheric keyboard-laden doom/death with quite a few interesting compositions. The closest bands I can compare them to are Depression (Rus), diSEMBOWELMENT and maaaaaaybe a bit in mood to Traumatic Voyage.
Also, you know that "signature NB" main part in Cunoasterea Tacuta from Om? The clean-ish psych-ish bit that practically makes the song? Yeah, it's here on track 4 or 5. Nearly 10 years earlier.

Drew, I guess it would have been a safe bet for you. It's not metal in the "AUTOPSYYYEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" type of way, but its not polluted by bluegrass, post-rock, industrial, shoegaze and whatever flavor of the month "attached-subgenre" is hip right now either.

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-Radu

Convulse - Reflections (1994)

Alright, I'm sure most of you old school elitists are considering Convulse's first effort, "World Without God", a nut-crushingly heavy misanthropic beast of an album, one that's pretty much finnish death metal canon by now. But what about their second one? Well, "Reflections" is one catchy motherfucker; they've cleaned up the production and opted for a less iconoclastic lyrical theme, and spawned some goddamned awesome death/thrash - some might even say death'n'roll. The album's not that agressive, but what it lacks in balls, it makes up for in riffs.
I'm almost tempted to label this as "technical", but it's not really on the extremely progressive side of things, they're just a band with fresh riffing wanting to make a fun record, and succeeding in spades. Enjoy.

-Radu

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Negative Plane - Et In Saecula Saeculorum (2006)

Let us take a look at metal categorization, or "sub-genres" today. We've got death metal, black metal, thrash metal, doom metal, heavy metal, power metal, plastic metal, mental metal etc. These sub-genres also branch out, giving us things like technical death metal, symphonic black metal and postneowhalecore. In my opinion, too many bands try to play a certain musical style, instead of just bringing their ideas to life, thus shoe-horning themselves into a bland, faceless oblivion. Sure, there's nothing wrong with a band trying to play "DEATH FUCKING METAL" if they bring the riffs and get with the bludgeoning, but how many "innovative" or "fresh takes" on death metal do we see nowadays? Tributing the bands of old seems to have remained the only worthwhile solution for many artists, but few manage to recapture that ancient feeling, instead focusing more on aesthetical mimesis.

Enter Negative Plane. An American band signed on to the oh-so-entertaining Ajna Offensive which, after a couple of demos, released their first LP, "Et In Saecula Saeculorum" in 2006. These guys seem to like the '80s, that period in time "when music was good!" (Shamaatae), for they do a great job of capturing the spirit in which extreme metal was born. Just like Bathory or Mercyful Fate, they want to honor Satan, and rock out with their cocks out in the process. Instead of being a Venom copycat band, they take influences from a broad spectrum of Satan's musical penis. Let me use the first song as an example:

Religious chanting opens up this beast's tomb, followed by some chimes. You'd think you're in for a long ambient intro, when all of a sudden POW! The music explodes in your face, leaving your corpse on the church's floor, awaiting necromantical ressurection into the army of the Evil One. These guys sure want to tribute their childhood gods, Nameless Void (the vocalist) letting out a few Tom G. Warrior-esque "ughs" and "auuughs". After the introductory brutal riff tornado (a clear hail to Necrovore), the pace slows a bit down (but it's not doom-ish yet, it's more of a steady metal beat) to make way for a tributary Possessed section. A bit of reverb-heavy lead guitar section follows, the pace slows down even more (the riff weaving here reminds me of trad doom), and then the song ends with the same to-riff-nado it started with.

The album abounds in oldschool-ness, and there are more than a few Possessed worship moments. It's somewhat bugs me to hear people say that Negative Plane play "black metal", for it is much more than that. If they're talking about the proto-extreme metal of the early-to-mid '80s, then I guess they may be closer to the truth, though not spot-on. Their diversity is so awesome, it defies classification - and I'm also talking about instrumental diversity. There are two things that will stand out on a first listen: the church organ and the cowbell. The organ is mostly used solo (so as not to disturb the riffs) for intros, but it also gets a song of it's own. Track #6, "Trance of the Undead", is a creepy church organ solo. And the cowbell is, well, scattered throughout the songs. Keep your ears peeled. Seriously, more and more metal bands should use cowbells. They are awesome and METAL AS FUCK.

I guess that these two instruments represent the album's atmosphere the best: creepy, evil, old-school and METAL AS FUCK. Of course, one should not overlook the brilliance of the other instruments. There are like 246 riffs per second, ranging from thick proto-death worship, to Hellhammer-esque rockin', to malefic tremolo picking, and culminating with some cool traditional doom flourishes and lead work. And guess what, there's barely any filler!
The bass is, surprsisingly, very present. Check out the Mayhem (well, Varg, I guess, since I'm talking about the song "Life Eternal" present on DMDS) tribute in the beginning of "A Church in Ruin" or the cool rambling in the doomy "Unhallowed Ground".
Indeed, take note, but also watch out for the fantastic drumming. This guy is versatile as hell and uses lots of old-school techniques, to boot. There's plenty of cool cymbal work, tom fills and double bass to keep your interest, but I like the fact that the guy can hold back. He thrashes when appropriate, he rocks when it's rockin' and he dooms it up splendidly. Due to the highly varied and technically proficient nature of the album, I think it's as close as I ever got to "technical" black metal.
So, we've established that these guys play like they somehow got their hands on the Pick of Destiny (and...uhm, the Drum Sticks of Destiny?). What about the vocals? Well, they fit the music at hand perfectly. They're somewhat of a snarl, but have a reverb effect on them, which makes it sound like the vocalist is an Arch-Daemon with seven mouths, here to sing us the Song that Ends the Earth.
To top it all off, we've got the production - cavernous, grainy, but professional (each instrument is perfectly audible, and they do not overpower each other). The overall feeling is one of being isolated inside an old gothic cathedral's dungeon, your perception confined by the granite slabs that surround you, maliciously assisting to a rite of Necromansy, all with nihilistic nonchalance, providing a mirror for society's skewered views on the aesthetically acceptable and development of the Individual Self.

Given it's diversity, agression and atmosphere, I'm sure Negative Plane will be regarded as a classic by the metal community in a few years. They're one of the rare bands that pays homage to the Altar of the Metal Gods, yet manage to pull off their own sound, something of which I'd like to see more in this day and age. Oh, and anyone that says that USBM sucks after listening to this album deserves a beatdown with a sock full of batteries. (Note: this reveiw's word count is 999. Pretty blasphemic, huh?)

-Radu

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Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi (1983)

Cinematography has proven itself as an art form time and time again. I'm not going to make a fool of myself and say it's superior to, say, literature, given the fact that you really can't compare them, but I will say that, with the possible exception of theatre, nothing can be as challenging to the senses as the synesthesia a great movie provides. Synesthesia achieved thanks to, in no small part, that atmospheric device so brutally ignored by most of today's filmmakers: the soundtrack.

Flash back to 1960. Bernard Hermann's score for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho", particularly during the shower scene, became an auditory icon of terror. 8 years later, Stanley Kubrick used Richard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" to make one of the most instantly recognizable openings in cinema history. Go to 1972. Andrei Tarkovsky's highway scene is a hallucinating journey through technological anxiety, that gives me the chills every time.

Cue in Koyaanisqatsi, Godfrey Reggio's cult visual poetry about the condition of modern man. Now, I haven't seen the film yet, even though it's on my desk, staring me in the face every day. I will get to that, eventually, but for now, let's focus on the sonic part of it - the brilliant soundtrack scored by contemporary classical composer Philip Glass. First released in 1983, after the movie, it was only 46 minutes long, even though the movie was, like, 87 minutes long. In 1998 it was re-recorded and released as a 73 minutes long album (note: the link here is for the '98 release). I'd like to say that I've been a huge fan of this guy for quite a while now, but, in all honesty, I first heard his music while watching the "Watchmen" movie (Who watches the Watchmen? I am!). It contained two tracks off this album, namely Pruit Igoe and Prophecies. Yet I was not aware of that. They popped in during Dr. Manhattan's story about his past, when arriving on Mars. I heard a cello-based melody so awesome, that I didn't believe it was composed for the film. It had a baroque styling that reminded me of Vivaldi, yet had balls in a Beethoven-esque 9th Symphony (Ist Part) sort of way. I was puzzled. What the fuck could it have been? Surely the creator of such a piece is long gone, and probably has a statue in the park of some European capital. The second song there, "Prophecies", made me think of Bach, with it's mournful atmosphere and key progressions. Seriously, if there was one part of that movie that I couldn't have imagined doing better, it was that. Good job, Zack.

So, I've headed home and searched for the movie soundtrack, only to find that 2 of the songs were composed by Philip Glass. I saw no Bach, no Beethoven, no Vivaldi or anything like that on the track listing. The name rang a bell and I was like, "What the fuck, Quatsi?"; having not seen Koyaanisqatsi, I thought that the much-fabled soundtrack would be some sort of avant-garde starving artist pseudo-intellectual new-yorker with a keyboard type of thing. "Fine, fuck it", so I searched Pruit Igoe on YouTube and came across this. Goddamn, that's the song. That magnificent cello. That grandiose atmosphere. Philip Glass, you're the man. I downloaded the album right away.

Well, it's not classical through and through, as it sort-of uses samples and keyboards and other electronica shit I'm not quite able to name, but don't worry, they're used in traditional symphonic ways, so you won't find dance music or techno here. The entire thing flows great, and Mr. Glass seems to have a boner for droning, repetitive sections, so drone fans might like this. Also, there are vocal harmonies to be found. The ritualistic chant in the first track is great, but sometimes, they're a bit too much, as in the 21 minute epic "The Grid". However, the flow of the album may also be it's weakness. While great in theory, some sections do seem to wander off or linger for too long, making the album a bit tiresome after a few listens. However, I guess they need the visual support of the movie to overcome that, given their symbiosis.Philip Glass' work here is not flawless, but it is indeed a mindfucking experience that's sure to leave you in awe. Get at all costs.

The last movie with a good score was There Will Be Blood, but still, the world needs another musically-inclined director like Kubrick or Reggio, should cinema climb out of the gutter it sank into for the last decade or so. I'm gonna go watch Koyaanisqatsi later, hopefully, and I suggest you do the same. Sit back, relax, and enjoy pure cinema at it's best.

-Radu

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Ripping Corpse - Splattered Remains (1989)

Most of you are familiar with Ripping Corpse's only full-length, 1991's "Dreaming With The Dead". Most of you consider it a masterpiece of deranged, shrieking and insanely fun death/thrash metal. But what if I told you that things were dirtier, sloppyer, madder and overall more fun in 1989? Some of the tracks on this demo went on to be re-recorded for their debut, but the absoulte highlight of Ripping Corpse's career (in my opinion) is here - "Exhumation Day". Man, that groove. Those riffs. Those excentric vocals. Those lyrics. Pure, sloppy, unadultered FUN. The songs on the album might have been a bit more well-played and polished, but a touch (or a helping) of dirt works wonders.
I guess that's all I need to say about this. You know what to do next.

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-Radu

Vordr - I (2004)

When listening to Vordr, you'd have a hard time believing that they were formed in 2003. These Finns play raw-as-fuck punk-ish old school black metal akin to Von, Darkthrone or, most obviously, Ild-fucking-jarn.

The production manages to keep each instrument discernable, while having an overall ancient, cavernous rawness. Composition-wise, it consists mostly of short (around 2 minutes) tracks, with the odd 4-5 miuntes tracks that are mid-paced, Burzum-inspired numbers. These short lengths work to the album's advantage, as no song overstays it's welcome.

The riffs are fucking simplistic and have that great, evil second-wave fuzz, but they never become too repetitive or tiring. Even though you may not be able to tell most of the songs apart, variety isn't a stranger here, especially if you know a thing or two about early '90s Norwegian Black Metal. The drumming is equally simplistic and Burzum-ish. Double bass and blast beats are lacking, though the drummer knows when to pick up the pace in a punk-ish manner.

So, it has the raw black metal aesthethics nailed, but what about the spirit? Well, Vordr sport a kind of Ildjarn-like nature-admiring misanthropy, wishing nothing but death for modern man and all of his contraptions. With schizoid, "Aske"-ish screams to support it! This minimalist, hateful, sylvan theme permeates the album through and through, from the cold, isolated artwork down to the song titles, such as "Rhythm Of The Storms" or "Fertile Human Waste". All in all, I guess I can imagine these guys living in a cabin somewhere in the woods, splitting logs with nothing but their unadultered distaste for humankind, wearing lumberjack shirts, sitting on their porch with a couple of beers, blunts, and hand-made crossbows on their laps, to protect their property from intruders. They're the kind of manly men that hunt deer by repeatedly bludgeoning them to death with their erect phalluses, while humming "Forest Poetry" and mentally sketching a couple more paragraphs for their "Unabomber"-like manifestos. And that's always something welcome!

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-Radu

Fornicator - Fornicator (2002)

Well, yesterday was International Women's Day, and what did you do for your special someone? Did you take your gal out for some caviar and champagne at a fancy french restaurant, then to a theater to see that new romantic comedy with Owen Wilson? Did you take her for a walk in the park, holding hands, telling hillarious, yet politically-correct jokes, throwing your coat on the ground so that she can walk over puddles without getting dirty, knowing that a simple "My, what a gentleman!" look is enough compensation for your ruined, custom-made leather jacket?

Did you go back to her place to watch The Notebook and eat ice cream, give her a back massage, ponce her feet and prepare her a nice bubble bath, complete with incense sticks, candles and her favorite music? Did you respect her intimacy when she said she's too tired for sex, and that it would be a good idea for you to go home?

OR

Did you spend most of your day imbibed in alcohol, hearing your dead mother's voice inside your head, masturbating in front of an orphanage, resenting females because of childhood trauma, kidnapping teenagers (only to rape those cunts somewhere in the woods), fistfucking crackwhores, defecating inside emptied human torsos and generally treating women like objects?

If so, this album's for you. Kick-ass grind containing members of Lord Gore and Engorged, with Rob (Zooombie Roooooob!) from Whore, this is hate-filled music of G.G. Allin-esque proportions. The intro samples are good, the riffing's tight, the drumming's great and blasturbation-free, the vocals are sick (in a good non-wigger way) and any further stylistic disection would be somewhat useless. With song titles such as "Get On Your Knees And Fuck My Dog", "I'm A Goddamn Rapist" and "I Got Your Fuckin Kid Bitch", you're the one to decide if this is for you. Highly recomended if you're in a particularly agressive, humorous or paedophilic mood. Or all of them!

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-Radu

Lunar Aurora - Ars Moriendi (2001)

With over 7.000 listeners on Last.fm, one wouldn't exactly call Lunar Aurora an underground black metal band, but it sure pisses me off when people don't mention them when talking about quality, worthwhile black metal.

Every other black metal band nowadays seems to have the "symphonic" moniker attached to it's genre description, simply by using keyboards in the music. Lunar Aurora do use synths, but I'm not gonna be all cliché and tell you that their sound is majestic or whatever. I'll try to be brief and just say this:

They kick ass.

Instead of lumping a brick on top of certain keys to hummm some repetitive sounds in the background, they sporadically appear throughout the songs, bitchslapping the guitars to STFU while they do their thing. Fuck coexistence and supporting roles, this is a war now! Yet do not think there's some bitchin' 70s guitar solo going on, and then the synth comes in, unplugs the guitar's amp and goes off in one of Chopin's "Etudes".

No sir, everything fits nicely, thanks in no small part to the exquisite drumming. It's not 399,999 bpm fast, there aren't tom rolls every split second and I don't think you can find 7/3,14 beats here. However, it's varied, the drums themselves have a nice crunchy sound, and they're angry as fuck. You can feel the misanthropy dripping off every cymball crash, forming a pool of AIDS for all humanity to drown in, ignorantly screaming, begging to be forgiven for their intransigent ways.

To expand on the aforementioned guitar-synth interplay, I'll say that these two do a good job at complementing each other. While the former buzzes along nicely and ever so abrasive, spewing out good, somewhat standard black metal riffs, the latter varies from droning, selenial, Beherit-esque electronic sounds to short orchestral bits, keeping the tracks fresh and entertaining, but never restraining you from headbanging. And speaking of "selenial", no wonder that adjective came up when referring to a band named Lunar Aurora. However, instead of using the moon as some sort of gloomy feminine symbol for flowery sonatas and bukakke rose petal fetishes, you feel as if Aran and the gang are outside in the middle of a wintery night, striking the Abbathian "storm summoning" pose on top of a cliff somewhere, declaring their distaste for mankind while lightning flashes behind them in a dramatic scene, after which they retreat to their medieval, tastefully-decorated castle found somewhere in the mountains of Germany to sip wine and listen to Wagner or Beethoven. And maybe give each other foot massages.

It's an album that reveres nature and psychotically laughs in the face of modern man. You can try to remember it by its lycanthropic nature, it's misanthropy or it's kick-assity. You can put peanut butter and anchovies on it and place it between your thighs, for all I care. Just get it if you're a fan of wintery, atmospheric black metal akin to Paysage d'Hiver, german black metal, in general, or this interview. If I've over-hyped it, go complain to your boyfriend, your mom, or your pet weasel.

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-Radu

Nausea - Crime Against Humanity (1991)

Having Oscar Garcia of Terrorizer fame on vocals/guitar, this LA based band has been thought of as some sort of side project. However, give this (their only LP) a spin once, and you'll see that it stands well on it's own two feet.
They're a death/grind band with a slight doom influence. The most accurate description would be saying that it sounds somewhat like Terrorizer/Napalm Death combined with Brutal Truth (check out that absolutely HEAVY, buzzing bass guitar) and a hint of Black Sabbath.
One can figure out their theme quite easily by just looking at the album cover. If politically-charged lyrics make you cringe, just try to ignore them, for the music at hand is surely friggin' sweet.
I could say that the production is a bit uneven and the drum sound somewhat poor, but when has that ever stopped our appreciation of the music? Also, fun fact: some songs off "World Downfall" were actually Nausea songs, taken by Oscar to complete the album *winks at the Viking*

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-Radu

Cynic - Roadrunner Demo (1991)

I'm fucking sick of people creaming their pants over the last Cynic album, or their "breathtaking" live performances, or even those that think "Focus" was some kind of mindblowing tech death revelation.
The thing that bugs me the most is that they had shitloads of potential during their early days, as this '91 demo will prove. It's some obliterating thrashing old school death metal with a slight technical edge that's guaranteed to make you fuck up your vertebraes, ask "Focus what?" and shed a tear for the abrupt end to their brilliant style.
Seriously, listen to the third track. The riffing/soloing towards the end has got to be some of the catchiest guitar work ever to come out of Florida. It's like Atheist's "Piece of Time", but a slight bit thrashier and memorable.
I sure am sorry for the poor saps that hail fusion thrown into death metal as some sort of creative breakthrough for mankind, yet have not had a chance to listen to this old gem.

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-Radu

Jerusalem - Jerusalem (1972)

Child of the 70's, this is the first (and only) album from the british band Jerusalem. It's a traditional doom metal/hard rock band, kinda like Black Sabbath, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin that deserves some goddamn recognition for being truly awesome and kick-ass. If rockin' basslines, heavy riffs, steady drumming, balls-out shredding, acid trips and acting like you're a know-it-all artists that feels the love of the world in a cynical society are your thing, then don't skip this. For 1972, it's quite heavy and a slight bit prog rock-ish, unlike the more straightforward approach of Pentagram's debut (even though that's not from the 70's, just sayin'), but still catchy as fuck. Try not to sing along to "Primitive Man" or the all-out rockin' masterpiece that is "She Came Like A Bat From Hell" (which is also their best song).
Some quotes regarding the band:
"They gigged throughout Europe and shared the same stage as bands such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Status Quo"
"It has often been stated within the music business that Jerusalem were a substantial influence on many of the 2nd generation Rock "metal" bands and Punk bands of the 80's"

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-Radu

Hooded Menace - Fulfill The Curse (2008)

This, like Acid Witch, needed some blog cover too. Razorback Records released lots of great materials last year, this being one of them. Taking cue from the "Tombs of the Blind Dead" series, where eyeless zombie templars chased young women in slow motion on rotting horses, to perform exsanguination rituals on them, these old-school loving freaks are sepulchral, skull-crashing old school doom/death. You could cite Winter or Asphyx as influences, but I think it does a good job of standing on it's own two feet. It's got lots of riffs, melodic soloing, dual guitars and tempo shifts to provide an interesting listen, though if you're into the SAW movie series, fancy caffe lattees and/or rampant male buttfucking, you'd better try to find something else.

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BONUS
What's that you say? You haven't seen the Tombs of the Blind Dead? Well, aren't you lucky today! 'Cause I've just happened to upload the first movie of the series! Enjoy "La Noche del Terror Ciego"!

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-Radu

Fullmoon Bongzai - Noisense (2008)

Look at the cover motherfucker it's a bunch of motherfucking goats and a pink motherfucking black metal logo. Fuck.
I gave it a spin, and, maaan, was my habit of downloading bands with weird names rewarded! Hipsters are gonna cream their collective 120$-a-pair underpants when they'll hear this. I guess I could say it's idm/ebm/power electronics/psychedelic trance/any other bullshit electronica subcategory I've never heard of, but, in essence and structure, it's black metal with quite a sense of humor, played with atypic instruments for black metal. Shitting at the end of the rainbow is an "interpretation" of Ved Buens Ende..., the guy from Varathron provides vocals for three tracks, and various samples from artists such as Diamanda Galas and Screamin' Jay Hawkins are deformed for your entertainment. I feel somehow guilty for liking this a lot, I feel like I should wear tight, Armani t-shirts, memorise the initial cast of "Cats" on Broadway, and try cocaine at rave parties. It's not a true album, but it's a very, very entertaining listen.
Get this if you're a fan of unique sounds or any music with a sense of humor.

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-Radu

The Ruins of Beverast - Unlock The Shrine (2004)

Well, boys and germs, here's The Ruins of Beverast's debut LP, Unlock the Shrine. It's a one man band, the genius responsible for this being Alexander von Meilenwald, the drummer for the late Nagelfar. He plays every instrument here, and I gotta say, more drummers should be guitarists. There's an uncanny sense of groove for a black metal record, here, and it doesn't feel out of place at all. The musical synesthesia is just astounding, even though it's quite a thick and layered album. Electronics intertwine with guitars, drums and movie samples to create something new on each track. From the progressive headbangable riff on The Clockhand's Groaning Circles, to the bitter atmosphere of Unlock the Shrine, and even the trip-hop sounding synth on Between Bronze Walls, this album puts most black metal bands to shame in terms of diversity. And, also, it does much more than make you bang your noggin and tap your foot...the artist(yeah, I used this word, Alexander is a true artist, something very rare these days) connects to you on a personal level. Read the lyrics. Bask in the album's atmosphere. It's a moving piece of art that will not leave you indifferent.

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-Radu