Nuclear Blast

Rating: 7/10

Night In Gales became quite famous in the European metal (not so) underground scene by the the release of their previous effort “Towards The Twilight”, but vocals have changed a bit: Now they are less deep and softer yet sharper, and more appassionatted. Melodies are similar, with weighty riffs, perhaps a bit slower and heavier, but the melody lines created by the Basten brothers maffia (Jens Basten and Frank Basten) are also drawn in the background of the songs, which now are more gothic and less deathy. In fact their label calls their style “Death’n’Roll”. The album contains 13 songs, whereof one is the so-called “thunderversion” of their successful hit “From Ebony Skies”. A fairly good album of a fairly good band.

Repulse Records

Rating: 7/10

Out of the ashes of Vomiting Corpses and Vae Solis come German band Anasarca. Anasarca play a German-styled death metal (similar to Messiah in the fastest parts yet less melodyc) full of aggressivity and brutality. In fact, immediately after the symphonic overture “The Way Into The Light” begins a grinding maelstrom of ultra-fast brutality with loads of escalating riffs that slaughter you till the ending “Whips And Cries” (Sorry! “Whispers And Cries” that is, what was I thinking about? :)) Vovals are both screamy (demonlike) and growling, sometimes combining one with each other as in “The Weird Ways”.

No sleep till death (metal), Anasarca will be probably on tour with Swede geezers Centinex by Europe. Hope to see how do they do on stage…

Diehard

Rating: 9/10

In Greek mythology, Charon is the name of the shady man who ships the souls of the dead through the lake Styx up to the misty island of Hades, the beyond of the pagan Hellenes. Out of this dark and rusty realm comes Charon, a brand new band hailing from Finland.

Charon play melodyc and agile atmospheric metal, being kind of the result of a sexual night on the bed with Type O’Negative’s Peter Steele, Paradise Lost’s Greg Mackintosh and Sentenced’s Ville Leihala. After nine months, the child born would be Charon, an atmospheric metal band bedeckened with the sensuality of singer Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto (What kind of surname is Leppäluoto???).  Songs like “Wortex” have a Paradise Lost’s guitar line, catchy song “November’s Eve” (of which a video has been recorded) and industrial-ized, piano-ized and Type O’Negative-ish song “Morrow” are highly promising and enoughly nice looking so as to guarantee a great success for this commercial (yet excellent) album.

Diehard / Emanzipation 

Rating: 3/10

A bizarre and industrial intro gives way to the Megadeth-esque riffs of “My Lament”, combined with faster Swedish-styled melodies, which flourish again in songs such as “Into The Dawn” and throughout the album, actually. Unfortunately, these Swedish-made guitar lines have been cloned by hundreds of bands, so the fan may begin to feel fed up of them. It’s enough with one At The Gates, we don’t need clones! And by many ways Taetre are another Swedish-styled Swedish-made Swedish-played Swedish band, so they hardly bring anything new (apart from the experimental outro “The Return”). So if you are a fanatic who loves everything Swedish, then you’ll most likely love it, but for the rest of us who have eyes, we have had enough and demand something different. As you know, it’s a question of tastes.

Repulse Records 

8/10

Gothic Sex is a ten years old Spanish band whose ”band concept” deals with extreme topics such as sado/maso, gore and violence. This album has been released through Nightbreed in the UK, through Ausfahrt in Germany and now Repulse in Spain (and the rest of the world I think), so it’s up to your choice depending on where do you live.

Musically they play melodyc doom with a gothic atmosphere, basing 80% of the melodies upon the guitar work, which draw the main lines while the male and female vocalists sing, slowly yet appassionattely.

10 songs that as a whole last 40’ that will appeal to those who are into gothic/doom metal bands such as Lacrimosa, Septic Flesh or Love Like Blood and the like.

Oops! I nearly forget to mention it: the CD includes a CD-Rom track that increases the appeal of this by-its-own-right excellent work. Twisted minds, dark sould and horny beings, this is what you were waiting for!!!

Repulse Records 

Rating: 6/10

“If you think (Finnish) death metal is dead, then perhaps it is you who should be dead!” say the guys at the awesome Madrid-ian label Repulse Records. Mmh, if they are right or wrong, judge by yourself, because Adramelech doesn’t make the question any clearer at all.

The MCD contains two new songs (“Seven” and “The Sleep Of Ishtar”), a new version of “Ancestral Souls” (rebaptised as “Captured In Eternal Lost”) and two songs performed and recorded live both from their previous work “Psychostasia”.

The new songs go in the same vein of their previous releases, so you can guess what is it all about. The best song is undoubtly “Captured..”. As for the live songs (“And The Gods Succumbed” and “Across The Grey Waters”), they are good enough to be recorded live, but of course it is nothing compared to the feeling you have when you actually are IN the concert. All in all, a good MCD worth listening to if you like Finnish death metal; the only thing I don’t like about this band is Seppo Taatila’s communist t-shirt, but Europe is (unlike America) is a REALLY FREE nation, and everybody wears what they want, but of course this has nothing to do with music…

Repulse Records

Rating: 7/10

If you are told of a Swedish band whose songs’ titles are “Embraced By Moonlight”, “Summon Th Golden Twilight” or “The Beauty of Malice”, you would probably imagine a mainstream, trendy and oversaturating black metal band, and you would be wrong. Centinex are not a bunch of young blackmetallers, but a veteran band that took part of the early 90’s Swedish death metal avalanch (At The Gates, Dismember, Entombed, Dark Tranquillity…) yet still rocking.

Now signed to fabulous Spanish label Repulse Records, Centinex deliver throughout “RTF” all their talent and energy materialized in music, a music which sounds Swedish as hell and has nearly no steps, kicking you in the face from the beginning till the end with their Swedish guitar riffs, their drum machine (Kalimaa) and singer’s electric vocal strings. Speed, aggressivity and striking riffs and simple tunes all around… …the Swedish school is still alive! 8 songs, whereof one is a version of the legendary Italo-German combo Kreator (“Under The Guillotine”)

What is Bloodstone? Well, as explained in page 3,  a bloodstone is, according to a Greek legend, an heliotrope which reflected the sun in the earth as blood red.

However, what we are refering to here as “Bloodstone” is a brand new magazine that deals with all which is related to vampires, nightly blood and the Carpathian way of life. Got it?

After its launch issue, Bloodstone released its first “official” issue, 60 A$ pages plenty of news, articles, reviews, reports concerning Vampyrism. Most relevant articles are a biography of legendary Draculian actor Bela Lugosi, a report on John Polidori’s work, on Vampyre role-playing, an Erzsebet Bathory (who inspìred Cradle Of Filth’s last album “Cruelty And The Beast”), an extremely interesting article on the relationship between sadomasochists, pagans and vampires (with power as the main concept around which the three worlds stem), a large report on “Twins Of Evil” (legendary Hammer-made film) and a killer report on Vampyrism in ancient Egypt (to me, the best article of the mag).

Along with this all a good load of music, video and book reviews is brought showing how wide-spread is the Vlad Tepes’ offspring’s work. Written with a healthy sense of humour, Bloodstone offers all which a vampyre living in this decaying Western Civilization would ask for: quality and quantity all related with Vampyric subjects. Except for the poor artwork design (maquette) and for the fact that most pages are black-and.white coloured, this magazine comes close to excellence. Not forgetting neither gthe nice and b(r)easty gals who embellish the mag…

Darkness upon your world.

You can make you order to London for UK pounds 4.50 or US $ 8.00 – the price includes postage and packing. Payment should be made in UK pounds sterling cash sent via International Recorded mail or via Bankers Cheque in UK pounds.

Bloodstone / Dark Angel Productions
BCM Box 3475
London WC1N 3XX
England
E-mail: Bloodstone darkangelprod.demon.co.uk

Rating: 8/10

 

Review by Metallykon. Webzine Metalzin / Metali-k.o. Reviews

New Gotia

8/10

Asgaroth han compuesto un magnífico álbum. La banda catalana hasta ahora había sacado sólo un MCD llamado “The Quest For Eldenhor” y no era demasiado conocida, pero estoy seguro de que con este álbum conseguirán estar en boca de medio mundo. Su música rebosa melodía aunque intensa y rápida, con fantásticas partes instrumentales y un drumming martilleante junto a un masivo uso de los sintetizadores y de los teclados. El álbum empieza con una temible y amenazante intro que da lugar a su black de estilo nórdico lleno de influencias de bandas como Emperor, Arcturus. Todas las canciones son pequeñas joyas como “The Dark Force” (que podría perfectamente encajar en el “The Shadowthrone” de Satyricon), “Omens (Presagios)”, “Last Battle (Tower Of Doom)” (que aparecía ya en su anterior MCD), “The Choirs Of The Elemental Deities” (con su riff heavymetaloide) o las instrumentales “Lost In Natura” o “Prelude In Dusk”, la última que sirve como preparación de la mejor canción del álbum, la exhultante, superba y exhultante “Placious Echoes At Darkwoods You Greet… Silvering Moon Between My Shadows”. Si no haces caso de los títulos de las canciones (algunos realmente engorrosos y pretenciosos a parte de no querer decir nada, eso sí, suenan muy bien, este álbum podría convertirse en uno de los mejores álbumes de black metal del año a nivel mundial.