Deserted Fear – Dead Shores Rising
The riffs are simple but effectively heavy. No new ground is broken here. Deserted Fear appear content to drive the in the same wheel ruts that Amon Amarth and Dark Tranquillity did 10 years ago.
Spectral Apparition – Manifestation
Someday, you’ll be able to say you were one of the few who knew about this project when it was still completely underground. This level of quality won’t stay there long.
Epitaph – Sinner Waketh
There are nine full songs across the album’s ten tracks that pivot between blast, groove and doom and keep the vocal carousel spinning throughout.
Echelon – The Brimstone Aggrandizement
Sometimes playing an established style to the point of excellence is preferable to masturbatory experimentation. That is certainly the case with Echelon.
Dark Tranquility – Atoma
I would think a more accessible hard rock sound & production as found on this album would warrant more clean-singing, like it does on the title track. However, many songs lean heavily on the harsh growls.
SONG OF THE WEEK: Vermin Womb – Age of Neglect
This song, and the album from which it relentlessly crawls forth like an invading creature of spiteful violence, are among the most brutal, hateful, bile-filled creations I have ever heard.
Discarnatus – Awakened Through Pain
Discarnatus is like a re-animated corpse with blackened, putrefying flesh layered over a skeleton of death metal.
Scorched – Echoes of Dismemberment
The opening riffs…seem to take their time clomping up the stairs with the realization that killing you may be more of a challenge than they thought.
Morbo/Bunker 66 – Into the Morbid Bunker Split 7″
Sometimes 12 minutes of savagery is all you need.
Minenwerfer/1914 – Ich hatt einen Kameraden
As a historical album, really as an album in general, Ich hatt einen Kameraden (I have a comrade) is a masterpiece.