KROHM - The Haunting Place CD

KROHM - The Haunting Place CD
Imagine you woke one day and decided to create a Black Metal record that's key ingredients were misery and despair. Well then that would make you Numinas (aka:Dario Derna) the genius behind the one man project KROHM. Numinas did seek to make a release that was on par with some of the old 90s Black Metal stalwarts (BURZUM & DARKTHRONE). He definitely succeeded with this his third release. Although his second release is actually a reissue of early material.Some of you might remember Numinas (aka: Dario Derna) when he used to drum for EVOKEN as well as the band ABAZAGOTH. He also drums for label mates DRAWN AND QUARTERED.

But getting back to this CD, it's 7 tracks (56 plus minutes) of uncomfortable misery on an epic scale. This should be played on college radio stations during exam finals. There would be bodies flying out of dorm windows by the minute. Wouldn't that be fun to watch especially on a week night when there's nothing to do. Get together with friends, bring some lawn chairs and a cooler full of beer. Find yourself a good spot and then watch the festivities as "The Haunting Presence" blasts in the background. What I like about this CD is that each track is more nightmarish than the one preceding it. The opener "Bleak Shores" sets us in the mood for misery. It's followed by the melancholy, with the exception of the rapid fire drumming, "Lifeless Serenade" which is almost like a death march into some unseen as of yet oblivion. But you know something horrible awaits as Numinus's bellowing growls press you onward.

"I Respiri Delle Ombre" translated from Italian means "the breath of the shadows" and as the third song on this CD, it starts off at a rocking pace. But that's short lived since fun is not allowed. And so Numanis slows things down to a shoe gazer pace. By the way he sings the song in Italian which definitely drapes more misery onto a song worthy to die for. "Relic" is the most bombastic cut on this CD by far. Also it is the most reminiscent of early DARKTHRONE, while the rest is territory previously spat upon by Varg Vikernes. For all of you naysayers out there who still consider the USBM scene to be utter shit, the time has come to eat your words and choke upon them.

"Memories of the Flesh" is my obvious favorite cut on here for a number of very personal reasons. First and foremost, it's with the lyrics. "Trapped in the procession of time. Hatred stirs memories of the flesh. Uncovering a solace only found. In the loss of my humanity." It is these words that perfectly reflect my most recent past experiences, the truly painful crap. One person recently told me that I'm running. But in actuality I'm exploring the depths. And it's within this very song that I feel a kinship. As if I have totally disregarded everything in my recent past on purpose because it was the flesh which felt the pain. Undressing it was the best thing for me although losing my humanity was the cost of that decision. Oh yeah and the drumming is incredible on it.

Numinas follows that perfectly with another cut sung in Italian, "Tra La Carne E Il Nulla" or in English "Between Flesh and Nothingness". The song slowly lurches from shoe gazing in the lair of darkness onto an impressive pace of drum beat blasts and melodic guitar strumming. Added screamed vocals by Numinas rounds in out until it's eventual climax. The seventh and final cut is "Syndrome" a doomish dirge that slowly picks up speed. Until the end with it's frantic stretch of sludge. Yes it's time to leave, get the fuck out! Or for you weak ones, smash jewel CD case and slash wrists appropriately. Numanis even provides the perfect keyboard passage out as you begin to sleep for the final time.

Moribund Records

http://www.moribundcult.com

ANAAL NATHRAKH - Hell is Empty and all the Devils are Here CD

ANAAL NATHRAKEH - Hell is Empty and all the Devils are Here CD

What I like about this twisted British duo is how they mix EMPEROR style symphonic black metal with modern day psycho grindcore, right down to maniac screaming. Yeah the tagline for this genre is "blackened death grind" but medically this would fall under clinical psychoses. "The Final Asolution" is a cut that will either grab you in as a sicko fan or totally assault your metal snobbery. I'm a fucking freak so I dove in head first. Although the pace is not set to blistering speed throughout, ANAAL NATHRAKEH slow things down to a melodic mood after a while.Yeah we all need to breath now and then. But the power and brutality of this release really never breaks down to lose the listener. You're either in it for the long haul or you fell off the ride some time at the start. Hopefully you're lying somewhere in excruciating pain and no one can hear your pathetic screams for help.
At least not with this CD blasting, ha!
Feto Records

http://www.feto-records.com
http://www.myspace.com/anaalnathrakh

AFTER FOREVER - Self Titled CD + DVD

AFTER FOREVER - Self Titled CD + DVD
Since the band EVANESCENCE made it's breakthrough single into the US pop music airways. Female fronted progressive/symphonic/gothic metal bands from Europe are popping out faster than breasts during Spring Break in Florida. AFTER FOREVER are the latest European export, although this Dutch band has been around for a while. This, their fifth full length, is the first to properly reach our shores via a big metal label, Nuclear Blast.

Unfortunately what this band as well as all others of this genre suffer from is
repetitiveness. You have a handful of songs that are catchy enough to hold your attention. But then the filler Euro centric symphonic melodies come in to test your attention to metal detail. The band even enlist the city of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra on here. And that's when you are reminded that all these bands must be produced from the same commercial template. You got your complex arrangements, beefy guitars and bass, whirling keyboard solos, and of course the hot female vocalist. In AFTER FOREVER it's Floor Jansen, who can punch the opera like vocals up to where former NIGHTWISH singer,Tarja Turenen, once did for Finland's entry in this genre. Although I'll take Floor over the former NIGHTWISH diva any day.


Songs like "Evoke" and "Energize Me" are definite winners in the metal music radio airplay department. They're throwbacks to the 80's power metal days in style. "Equally Destructive" could even touch the hearts of those into the more extreme side of metalish themes. That's if you still have a heart. Alot of the songs on here have Floor and guitarist/composer Sander Gommens in dueling vocals. Floor with the glorious soprano and Sander doing the death metal grunting. It works well on "Withering Time" and on the disc's opener "Discord".

"De-Energized" is where the CD starts moving away from the more pop friendly tunes and the songs turn towards a more complex route. This is where the Gothic/Prog stylings take over for better or worse. And by the halfway point of the 11 minute metal-opera epic "Dreamflight", I was at my limit. Like I explained in the beginning of this review. Alot of this genre's style is decent but formulated to the ultimate degree. Genre purists will obviously go ape shit over this and obviously they should. AFTER FOREVER are a fantastic band, my Dutch heritage having no bias in that statement. I made it three quarters of the way through before I was ready to hear something else. Maybe you can do better. Still, it's a great release of epic proportions.
Nuclear Blast Records

http://www.nuclearblast.com
http://www.afterforever.com
http://www.myspace.com/afterforever

HALFORD - Metal God Essentials Vol. 1 CD + DVD

HALFORD - METALGOD The Essentials Vol. One CD + DVD
It seems fitting that Rob Halford is finally getting credit for his solo work after leaving PRIEST in the early 90s. Of course you'll still get an occasional idiot who thinks their opinionated snobbery is worth something to consider. But no it's not, in fact you losers who have slagged the man's post PRIEST output couldn't even carry the his leather. Better for you to lick his ball sweat because he is the Metal God. Halford has one of the greatest voices ever in metal. Now I'm sure some of you losers might've been conceived in a "heavy metal parking lot", while I was inside the concert hall watching PRIEST in their glory days. You still have no earthly right to disrespect a living legend. Better for you to buy this and learn something.

This compilation, approved by the Metal God himself, features some of the best material from his solo years with the bands FIGHT and HALFORD with tracks from FIGHT's "War of Words - Demos" release plus HALFORD's "Silent Screams", "Crucible", "Live Insurrection" and "Resurrection". Listening to "Resurrection", "Screaming in the Dark"or even "Made in Hell", you just can't help but raise your fist in metal triumph. The heavy metal scream that can peel paint is back again, ah but it never left. "Golgotha" is outstanding as it starts out slow in a SABBATH-esque way and then ripping into a thrash attack. "Into the Pit" and "Nailed to the Gun" are lost treasures that should've been blasting from radio stations back in the 90s. Also this CD has some surprise cuts of newer HALFORD material from 2006.

So until JUDAS PRIEST releases their two-CD conceptual opus on the life of famed 16th century French prophet, Nostradamus, sometime this year. Keep this one close by your CD player since it's for fans of old, like me, and for the new ones.
Frontiers Records


http://www.robhalford.com
http://www.myspace.com/robhalford

METAL NIGHT'S PLAYLIST

Since Monday night was New Year's Eve we had no Metal Monday Nights at work. So I decided to do it on Wednesday night. And so here is the night's play list from start to finish.






HALFORD - Metal God Essentials Volume One
WITHIN TEMPTATION - The Heart of Everything
69 Eyes - Savage Garden
SODOM - In the Sign of Evil
ASTARTE - Demonized
ABRUTUM - Evil Genius

BEST PART OF THE NIGHT CAME WHEN I WAS LOCKING THE FRONT DOOR AND SAW A WOMAN WAITING OUTSIDE FOR THE BUS. NOW IT WAS COLD OUTSIDE TONIGHT, THE TEMPERATURE WAS IN THE 20s. SO I OPENED THE DOOR AND TOLD THE WOMAN THAT SHE COULD WAIT INSIDE THE BAR FOR HER BUS TO COME. AND THE WOMAN WAS THANKFUL ABOUT IT AS SHE CAME INSIDE. NOW THE ABRUTUM CD WAS PLAYING AT THE TIME. FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH ABRUPTUM, THEY WERE THE MOST EVIL BLACK METAL BAND ON THE PLANET IN THE 90s. SO I REALIZE WHAT'S GOING ON AND I GO INTO THE KITCHEN TO TELL THE BARTENDER WHAT WAS UP. AND WE'RE LAUGHING OUR ASSES OFF. AFTER A FEW MINUTES I WALK OUTSIDE TO THE BAR AND THE LADY IS BACK OUTSIDE. SO I TELL THE BARTENDER THAT THE MUSIC MUST HAVE FREAKED HER OUT. THEN I SIT DOWN AT THE BAR AND BEGIN A PLAY BY PLAY OF WHAT'S GOING ON OUTSIDE. TWO MINUTES WENT BY BEFORE A BUS CAME BY AND I WATCHED THIS WOMAN WAVED DOWN THIS BUS LIKE HER LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. I DOUBT IT WAS EVEN THE BUS SHE WANTED. SHE JUST GOT ON A BUS TO GET HER ASS AWAY FROM THE DEVIL BAR.
WE FINALLY GOT WHAT WE WANTED ON METAL NIGHTS. TO SEE PEOPLE SO FREAKED OUT AND FRIGHTENED BY THE MUSIC THAT THEY WOULD ACTUALLY RUN OUT OF THE BAR NO MATTER WHAT. WELL CERTAIN TYPES OF PEOPLE THAT IS.

THE LUST OF WINTER and THE WOLF MOON of JANUARY by Wolf

The Wolf Moon comes in January which is in the heart of winter. It is when wolves could be heard howling with hunger outside of villages and human settlements. I had that in mind this morning when I went on my early morning work. It was at 6AM and the temperature was a brisk 29 degrees. I was in ecstasy as I left the warm comfort of my home and was assaulted by the cold wind. I actually love it this time of year. Yes the Fall can be nice but here in the South the weather is constantly changing. So we still have hot days in December. So it's up to the month of January to chill the bones of the weak and strengthen those of us who lust for the cold dark Winter.

As I walked my route through the neighborhood I started recollecting all of the things I lust about in Winter. There's that "silence" about in the early morning. You don't hear the lifesigns of animals or bugs. There's that "crunch" sound when you walk across frozen grass. Then there's the crackle of my leather jacket in the cold air. It's a powerful sound, the crack of leather, almost masterful, unrelenting, powerful.Then there's the solitude that you are one of the few walking about at that time of the morning in the cold. At least for foot traffickers, there's still the early morning drivers headed to work who fly by, taking advantage of the empty streets.

It's very different from when I had to go back out in the afternoon to run errands and pick up some Chinese food for lunch. Yes that's when the sidewalks were fuller of people all hustling about. I could see that they were miserable amid this drop in temperature. I simply smiled as I walked down the street passing them by. I even heard one jackass curse because he wasn't dressed warm enough. My thoughts brought me back to the years I spent in Alaska. I felt the chill of 75 degrees below zero, when ice sickles from on your nose hair and your eye lashes freeze up. You continually blink to free them or your eyes will freeze shut. Lovely weather up there and I recommend everyone in the southern regions to experience it at least once in their lifetime. It was up in Alaska where my fingers tips got frost nipped. So ever since, whenever the temperature gets to freezing or below. My finger tips lose all feeling. And yet my heart still lusts for the cold.

With that all said for this early part of January I'll be catching up on some releases that came out in the Fall of 2007 and weren't in our reviews. I have a stack of them in front of me now. Each one is calling to me to be listened to over and over. Preferably during the cold darkness of night under the January Wolf Moon.
Happy New Year? Not very likely!

Our Favorite Release of 2007: ASTARTE - DEMONIZED CD

SCUMFEAST METAL'S FAVORITE RELEASE FOR 2007

ASTARTE - DEMONIZED CD

Yeah we saved the best one for last. This release, which is the fifth by this female trio from Athens, Greece, is are favorite for 2007. From the opening pounding of "Mutter Astarte", you realize that this is going to be intense and incrediable. It's like being dragged kicking and screaming down to a torture chamber of horrors, in a good way of course. Tristessa's vocals are pure demonic. You wonder how something sounding so horrifying could come from one so beautiful. And the title track tells all, "Fire in her eyes. Her beauty hide the signs. She devil female disguise. Innocence has died". Add to that the blackened death sounds backing her up on here. "God I Hate Them All" is like the soundtrack to an artillery barrage, provided by the percussion talents of guest drummer Ice and guess guitarist Lycon. (As of now they are perminant members of ASTARTE) "Lost" is more destruction to your senses, if you are weak. And since this CD's release in the early part of 2007, I've read some unflattering reviews done by men who can't grasp the greatness of this. They are the weak wet shit butt pissers who dismiss this as just a female fronted act in the Black/Death Metal genre. I see this release as something sinister. Musically this is like a firestorm on the horizon coming to feed it's hungry flames on your flesh. On the back of the CD insert there's a final line comment from the band which reads as follows; "A Big Fuck Off To All Of Those Who Tried To Take Advantage Of Us and Do Us Harm We Are Still Here Alive and Kicking"

And now onto the incrediable parts, this release features Tristessa performing vocal duets with a perverbial "who's who" of underground metal guests. "Lycon", which opens with the howl of a wolf from far off, features MAYHEM's own Attila Csihar sharing the mike with Tristessa. Actually Attila sounds better on this song than he did on this years MAYHEM release, Ordo Ad Chao. Obviously Tristessa has a way of bringing out the best in others like on the song "Queen of the Damned". Here she pairs up with Henri Sattler of GOD DETHRONED. Henri almost comes off sounding as if he's in worship mode and why not, Tristessa is a Demoness! Another guest, Nicolas s.i.c. Maiis of LLOTH, adds some gutteral monster vocals to the song "God Among Men". The fourth guest vocal duet is obviously the most interesting to say the least. It is on the song, "Black At Heart" where Tristessa pairs up with Angela Gossow of ARCH ENEMY. Here we have the two great goddesses of Extreme Metal Destruction on one hell raising track. It's as if these sisters of evil are standing upon a mountain top looking down into a valley of bloodied and blackened bodies who they have just slaughtered with their bare hands.

It was at this point of the CD that I told myself months ago, when I first listened to it, that this was going to be on my best of 2007 list. And as time went by, whenever I wanted to listen to something which would share my anger, hatred, and disgust for things around me. I put this release into the stereo and joined in on the chaos as the music charged out of my speakers. And there's a song on here, "Black Star", which conveys that feeling. "Feel the tension in your mind, black is the sign. A sign that fades into, into your eyes. tghe sin was never clear, a statue born of fear. As things were never clear". Well listening to "Demonized" makes alot of things clear to say the least.

http://www.astarteband.com/

http://www.myspace.com/astartetristessa

http://seasonsofmist.com/