Infester (USA) - To The Depths, In Degradation- Album Review

Time to review one of the albums mentioned in the Top 50 list. My personal choice, Infester.

Sonically, Infester is the opposite of melodic, beautiful music. This overlooked, under-appreciated gem of an album from one of the sickest bands gives the listener an audio experience of a dungeon right in the middle of the burning heat of hellfire.

To The Depths, In Degradation is not quite what you would expect from a Death Metal album from 1994. It explores the darkest corners of Death Metal music, bordering Black Metal a lot of times. This is one of the few, rare bands I would tag as "Atmospheric Death Metal", as they create a horrifying, genuinely scary atmosphere consistent throughout the album. The music has a sense of urgency, being involved in an escape from a demonic fiend chasing you through a labyrinth. One of the main reasons being the extensive use of tremolo riffs and underlying keyboard, which is neither dominant nor too underpowered to notice, and give the album a Black Metal feel to it. The drums are a sidelined component in the music though they blast away most of the time, but add to the already morbid atmosphere, slowing down when necessary, but avoid being repetitive will rolls and fill in the right places.

One very noticeable element of the music is the inclusion of a "slam" section in the songs. Those slams are very unlike what one would hear in a Brutal Death Metal song. They are surprisingly atmospheric and scary. The fast and "urgent" sense of music ends at this point - the demon has caught you and there is no escaping it now. The mentioned "slam" sections are especially prominent in the title song and songs like Chamber of Reunion and Braded Into Palsy.

The highlight of the album would be Jason Oliver's vocals. The vocals are like no other, and are the main reason this album isn't for the weak-hearted. The growls and especially the shrieks do not sound like they originate from a human larynx. There is no other way to describe the vocals, so I'll leave it to this, though I'll add a picture that perfectly describes the "thing" doing the vocals.

Yes, he is THAT badass.

Overall, this album is one of the best Death Metal releases of all time, and manages to be what Death Metal was all about in the first place - horror, morbidity, and brutality all encapsulated in the form of music, and this album perfectly fits all 3 descriptions.

Highlights: To The Depths (In Degradation), Braded Into Palsy, Chamber of Reunion, Excoriation Killz The Bliss

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Walpurgis Rites - Hexenwahn, Belphegor- Album Review

Walpurgis Rites - Hexenwahn, the 8th release by Austrian Blackened Death Outfit, Belphegor, our underground sweethearts. The album lives up to its trademark 'evil' and sexual profanity but I do admit, the album gives one a feeling that the band has run out of ideas, lack of inspiration.

The album contains 9 tracks in total starting with the title track consisting of some serious blast beats and layered growls, it starts of pretty intense and pretty much stays real forceful throughout.
Veneratio Diaboli - I Am Sin, the 2nd track is my personal favorite, because of its sense of uniqueness among all the other tracks. Haunting atmosphere, underlying melodies + raspy vocals are a win, the alternating guitar segments in the song merged pretty well even with slow tempos, its also the longest track but it's loaded with cataclysmic mayhem.
The 3rd track, Hail The New Flesh, okay, the name is pretty corny I felt. It's got a similar atmosphere but we've lost the riffs. Fierce drumrolls, crazy blastbeats. Brutal but kind of cheesy more than haunting.
Reichswehr In Blood is a bore. Why? Because it really has no special standout moments, its fast its demonic but very usual.
The Crosses Made Of Bone again has these very oldage riffs. Not much.
Der Geistertreiber is a little interesting, you'll either like it or hate it. Very bassy, gutteral vocals and an industrial feel, more like Rammstein * Death.Metal.
Destroyer Hekate leaves you breathless, it's another fav. I'd like to see someone headbanging to this piece of brutality.
Enthralled Toxic Sabbath retains that atmosphere that was evident in the starting of the album, killer drumming, raspy vocals. Doom riffs and a bit of an old school touch to it.
The last track of the album, Hexenwahn- Totenkult continues to have the doomy riffs, but the song seems to be very laid back, slow tempo-ed, except w\for the haunting intro, i didn't like much about it.
All-in-all, the album is aggressive, wicked vocals, groove and catchy riffs, lots of pummeling blasty parts, speedy drumming, good technicality. Lyrics were fairly okay, (I always do check out the lyrics of Belhphegor!) The entire album was very in-your-face with a sense of eroticism which is Belhphegor's signature style. But I'll say it again, lack of inspiration, not much experimentation except for a little melodic contest, Bondage Goat Zombie was a better one for me.

Blackfield- Welcome To My DNA- Album Review

Blackfield came into existence as a collaboration between Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson & Israeli progressive rock wiz, Aviv Geffen.They've done two albums namely Blackfield and Blackfield II and have gotten fans asking for more ever since. To begin with, I'll be honest here, I never took Blackfield seriously but then I heard their new album "Welcome to my DNA", I remember scrobbling the songs on last.fm and liking almost every one of them!
Summary: Melancholic feel-trippy-ambient-dreamy and pop rock-ish.

The album comprises of 11 songs starting with 'Glass House', a perfect start. It feels like a combo of Pink Floyd and Porcupine Tree but not quite a derivative of either. Dreamy vocals and tunes.

'Go to Hell' is basically a 4-10 line composition. It's dichotomous, weird weird parody, but if you want me to be positive, I'd say i love the way it goes "Fuck you all*2" in that mocking tune (I'd love to sing it that way to someone's face). The song just contradicts the poised impression of the band.

'Rising of the tide' is okay. It gets monotonous when the album is on a loop but then you cant ignore certain harmonies that are very much alive throughout the song.

And here's my favorite 'Waving'. (Waving >> Glass House). I love the "lalalalalala li", it just fits in!! and the high harmonies, quite Porcupine Tree-ish though but something to be heard live! 

'Far Away' starts a wee bit like 'Behind Blue Eyes' by Limp Bizkit, the song is emotionally driven and all in all pretty.

'Dissolving with the night'- the lyrics and the harmonies are dark and mysteriously sad with really moody tunes but definitely not a favorite, this one.

'Blood' is more like a rock opera, it's the heaviest track in the entire album yet safely distant from Heavy metal, it's got a bit of Arabic influence and catchy riffs that obviously merge in well.

The 8th track 'On the Plane' is a daddy-love-baby type, not much to say about the track except a short and sweet guitar solo somewhere in between.

'Oxygen', probably the only song where i actually liked Geffen's vocals. It's an upbeat and the popppp-iest track, it's got a foot tapping feel to it with those noticeable uplifting vibes throughout.

The longest track 'Zigota' has this late night ambient feel but a kind of a rush to it with a tinge of progressive rock. It's something you can even listen to if you're in for a nice long nap, i can (I did). It's a favorite though it could have been the ending track for the album IMO.

And we have the last track 'DNA', the lyrics, the harmonies, the melodies-It's a winner.
This lilting, acoustic track is flawless, its a perfect song for Blackfield in the 21st century.

Over all it's something i would listen to on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Good production no doubt and the little flaws only make the album sound more realistic!

Album Review : Adversarial - Prophetic Plain of Abyssal Revelation

When the world was crying about how modern sound was taking over and the 'old school' was lost, something happened. Many bands started an "Old-School" revival. A number that cannot be counted on fingers and might probably outnumber the pioneering bands. Everything, from Death, Thrash, Black was being revisited and worshiped by newer bands and that style being revived.

Though that caused the eruption of a large number of clone bands that are easily forgotten and ignored, bands like Adversarial chose their own sound while worshiping Old-school warriors at the same time.

Taking their sounds from likes of Incantation and Immolation, and even the likes of Archgoat and Black Witchery, Adversarial's style of Black/Death is very unlike the many worthless Blasphemy worship bands around and even surpass them in terms of brutality.

After a consistent, but badly mixed full-length in 2010, All Idols Fall Before The Hammer, Adversarial came out with an EP titled Prophetic Plain of Abyssal Revelation this year, consisting of 3 songs from their demo, 2 new songs and 2 covers. The songs from the demo are the same in terms of production, mixing and mastering. The snare drums might still hurt and the guitars are fairly drowned in the background, but the drumming and vocals have enough variety to keep you hooked on and intent on listening to everything that is going on, and the record keeps getting interesting with each listen as you discover something new about the riffs and bass every time.

The two new songs are titled Prophetic Plain of Abyssal Revelation and Impending Eternal Blackness and take everything good and bad about the full-length, while doubling the intensity. The recording and mixing is still the same for the former track. The snare pounds away like a jackhammer while other elements of the songs manifest themselves when the drums are not in an "Infernal fucking Hyperblast" mode, and one can hear the super-fast Blackened Death Metal riffing hidden underneath the layers of brutality. The track "Impending Eternal Darkness", in comparison has a better sound quality, and you can actually hear everything else playing and the evil sound borrowed from likes of Incantation are audible near the end of the track. The vocals are similar to Archgoat and Incantation with low, rumbling grunts in the former track, while "Impending Eternal Darkness" has vocals similar to Teitanblood and Necros Christos. The band implements doomier sections in their music for the purpose of creating an atmosphere, and does it well, avoiding over-use.

The EP ends with a cover of Archgoat's Light Devouring Darkness and Incantation's Once Holy Throne. Both covers are well done, and there's nothing more to say about it except the fact that Adversarial did justice to the covers of their masters.

Overall, a good EP that suffers from the snare flaw like the Full-length, but the positive side to that element

being that it adds an air of mysteriousness to the release and will bring a listener back for more.   
All Idols Fall Before The Hammer Check it out.!