Lair of the Minotaur-War Metal Battle Master DVD
(Southern Lord, 2008)

This is a band that I am unfortunately not all that familiar with. I've heard a song here and there but have never heard an entire album yet from Lair of the Minotaur. So it is needless to say that I was eager to dig into this DVD and see what exactly I was missing out on. A lot by the looks of it.

The main focal point of the DVD is of course the uncensored War Metal Battle Master video complete with gore and nudity to spare. Even without the blood soaked boobs the video would be awesome, so the nudity is just an added bonus. The tv edit of the video focuses more on the performance aspect of the video and is honestly still a pretty cool video in its own right. Also included is around 35 minutes of behind the scenes footage from the video shoot. It's fairly interesting but you'll probably honestly only watch it once.

Also included are 10 live songs recorded at various different concerts. The sound quality varies song to song but it is definitely a good indication of what the band is like in a live setting. All in all there is 70 minutes of metal intensity to dig through and if you are a fan of the band buying this isn't optional.

Dimmu Borgir-The Invaluable Darkness DVD
(Nuclear Blast Records, 2008)

While I am a fan of some of the earlier albums from Dimmu Borgir it has been some time since I've heard a new album from the band. In fact the last album I listened to was Spiritual Black Dimensions in 1999. I have heard a few songs here and there but this 3 disc set is easily my first exposure to a lot of the newer songs and honestly I'm very impressed not only with this DVD but with how stripped down and catchy a lot of the newer songs are.

The bulk of the material here is live footage. You have footage from the bands Invaluable Darkness tour which makes up the majority of disc 1. Also added are some behind the scenes clips and a small dose of bonus features. The live footage looks and sounds fantastic. The band knows how to make their sound work in a live setting and even without the visual aids the band is quite interesting in a live setting. Disc 2 has a lengthy set from Wacken, all of the bands music videos, the P3 Session as well as an image gallery. The Wacken set is professionally filmed and sounds fantastic. The band is playing in front of a ridiculously large crowd and totally have them in the palm of their hands.

I wasn't expecting to but honestly I really enjoyed this DVD. The band is quite good in a live setting and the newer songs really took me by surprise. If you are a fan of Dimmu Borgir this is definitely worth your time. There is a ton of stuff to dig through here and everything from the packaging to the menus is impeccably put together.

Gamma Ray-Hell Yea!!! Live in Montreal DVD
(SPV USA, 2008)

I think very few people would argue that Gamma Ray is one of the best power metal bands around right now and have been near the head of the pack for a very long time now. Having never seen the band live myself I was more than anxious to see just how the bands sound measures up in a live setting. The answer is quite well as the band plays with a class that only years of experience can give you.

This 2 disc set features a ridiculous amount of material to dig into. The main focus of the set is of course the live footage. The band plays for 2 hours and the professionally filmed concert is a joy to watch. The material is pulled from albums spanning the entire career of the band. Of course the band sticks to their slightly more popular songs but when you have so many albums to pull from you tend to stick to the hits if you will. The bands performance is spot on being a nice reassurance that there are indeed power metal bands out there that reproduce their studio albums in a live setting.

The second disc is essentially the bonus features and trust me there is a lot here. 2 and 1/2 hours worth to be exact. You have a few documentaries about the band on tour, a number of video clips from the band and bonus live footage from Wacken. Sure the concert is the main draw here but the bonus features are quite cool as well and show you a side of the band that you probably have never seen before.

If you are a fan of Gamma Ray this is pretty much essential. Be sure to set aside a big chunk of time though as the entire 2 discs are a whopping 4 and 1/2 hours in length. If you are sick and tired of paying for short music dvds, here you go.

Human Mastication-Grotesque Mastication of Putrid Innards
(Sevared Records, 2009)

This one just isn't really hitting me as hard as it should. The band plays a fast style of brutal death metal but the songwriting never really grabs you. The band moves from one riff to the next and there really isn't much in the way of a flow to the songs. Sure the parts themselves are incredibly heavy but it doesn't ever really add up to a song.

The vocals are also just really not together at all. Instead of vocal lines it really just sounds like random grunts throughout the album. The guitar tone also needs a bit of work. It is down tuned but not very heavy to be perfectly honest with you. The tone is also far too fuzzy. I know that this is an underground band from the Philippines so I don't expect a perfect sounding album but there is no denying that the album never really comes together.

To me this sounds like an extra long demo and possibly the band wasn't quite ready to tackle a full length album just yet. There are some excellent riffs here and the band is fairly tight but the songwriting needs to flow a bit more and they really need to do something about the vocal approach and in a hurry.

Cesspool of Vermin-Bestial Necrophilia
(Sevared Records, 2009)

This must pretty much take the cake for the most ridiculous death metal album cover of all time. That said musically the band is quite good and offers a technical yet rythmic style of US death metal that seems like a cross between the current crop of brutal death metal bands with an older band like Broken Hope. It's rhythmic, vicious and just ridiculously heavy.

While the band does explore numerous different ideas for riffs the vocals do seem to stay pretty much the same throughout the entire album. The guttural style is powerful but a bit of variety would have been nice. A cliche as it is mixing in some higher register screams would have helped to break up the growling. As far as the songwriting goes there is a surprising depth on display here. Of course there are a lot of straight ahead death metal riffs, but the band adds little flourishes to the riffs and even has some almost progressive sounding moments. Granted these moments are short lived but they certainly stand out. Oddly absent are guitar leads. They would have added to the music nicely but are nowhere to be found. That said the songs still manage to pack a lot of punch just through the sheer ferocity of the riffing and the drum performance.

If you are a fan of US death metal, then this is an album you will be able to get into with very little trouble. Fans of Lust of Decay, Broken Hope and any number of the Texas based death metal bands will absolutely devour what Cesspool of Vermin has to offer.

Thelema-Fearful Symmetry
(Soulflesh Collector Records, 2009)

This being my first exposure to this Russian band I am flabbergasted that I have never heard anything about this band. The band plays a technical and groove based style of death metal that is basically unlike anything you have ever heard before. If you think creativity is non-existent in death metal wait until you hear this band break into a jazz or funk break in between heavy as all hell riffs and see if you still think the same way.

I know there are some purists that think that death metal should never have any outside influences but come on, you can only have so many blast beats and tremolo picked riffs until a band says enough is enough. The main core of the bands sound is indeed death metal but it seems like everything is fair game and even the heaviest moments still have a unique feel. Jazzy chords are interlaced into the songs and progressive guitar leads are quite common as well. There is also a slight electronic feel throughout the album which mainly only shows itself during intros but it adds yet another layer to the bands sound. A good way to describe the album might be if Steve Vai tried his hand at writing a death metal album. Joe Satriani and Buckethead influences are definitely there as well with Buckethead being most noticeable in the closing The Fly.

With death metal becoming increasingly one dimensional over the years an album like this certainly stands out. If you are a fan of experimental death metal, Cynic or any of the more well known instrumental guitarists out there, this is an album you definitely need to check out.

Cephalic Impurity-Perverted Surgical Concept
(Soulflesh Collector Records, 2009)

While at times I do like death metal to be a bit restrained, at the same time I sometimes like the bands that push the extremity of the genre to the breaking point. Though I wouldn't say this Russian band is the fastest death metal band around, they certainly are one of the heaviest and feature one of the most guttural vocal approaches I have heard in a long time. Mixing intense blasting with rhythmic crunch the band manages to have a polished sound that is quite surprising given that this is the debut album from the band.

While I really hate to use the word groove to describe death metal, this is one of the few bands that seems to do it right. I guess technically it would be called slam death metal by the cool kids, but groove is the word I will stick to. What I like about this band is that the groove riffs are the be all end all of the sound. The band utilizes a great deal of blast beats and the riffs themselves aren't simplistic. Even the rythmic riffs are much more involved than most bands of this style. The vocals are just complete guttural noise and I fucking love it. It fits the music perfectly and even though you can't make out even one word, I wouldn't change anything about it. The band does utilize a drum machine but it is a very good sounding drum machine. In fact you have to really listen closely to notice although a few of the blasting sections are where it really stands out.

The production is also quite strong which really allows all of the nuances of the riffing to ring through without turning into a noisy mess. The drum tones used are sharp and crisp but never overshadow the guitars. The vocals are also mixed perfectly and when they are in this type of style is it easy for them to overpower the mix. That definitely isn't the case here and overall this is one hell of a good sounding underground death metal album.

As far as comparisons go I'm not even sure who I would compare this to. I would say that fans of US death metal, particularly Texas death metal should be able to get into this quite easily. If you've overlooked the death metal bands that use groove because you think it is overly simplistic, Cephalic Impurity might just change your outlook on that.

Katalepsy-Triumph of Evilotuion
(Soulflesh Collector Records, 2009)

I have to admit that I am very new to Russian death metal but from what I have heard so far the country must have one of the sickest and most seemingly hidden scenes around right now Katalepsy actually reminds me of one of my favorite US death metal bands of all time, Regurgitation. The band has the same rhythmic yet somewhat technical style built on solid grooves, bestial vocals and high speed blasting sections. The band may be from Russia but this is US styled death metal through and through.

This EP may only be 17 minutes long but it certainly packs a punch. Each song is around the 4 minute mark and is incredibly energetic. The band definitely has a lot of different ideas at work throughout the course of a song and this is not an album that will leave you bored in the least. The riffing is put together incredibly well and even during what could be considered the technical sections of the album, remains consistently memorable. The drums do a fantastic job at accenting the riff, particularly in the song Carpet Wounding with excellent stabs of blasting during slower sections. The vocals are guttural but not to the point of being ridiculous. They are still very natural sounding but quite sick none the less.

What makes this different than say a band like Waking the Cadaver is the fact that this is death metal first and the groove doesn't take over the sound completely. Waking the Cadaver is more of a hardcore band with death metal vocals and a few death metal riffs in reality and this is death metal through and through. If you like your death metal to be rhythmic but still incredibly heavy, check out this Russian band.

Purulent Jacuzzi-Stench of the Drowned Carrion
(Soulflesh Collector Records, 2009)

While I'm not quite sure what I think of the band name of this Russian based goregrind band, the music is definitely quite awesome. Stripped down, fast as all hell but not without groove, the band plays a style that is somewhere in between Last Days of Humanity and Gut. You won't get anything overly involved here, just short bursts of energy and that is exactly what you'd want from a band like this.

Songwriting wise the songs are all fairly similar in nature. They usually start off with a blasting riff which gives way to a groove based riff and then the cycle is repeated throughout the song. The band manages to keep things interesting though by making the groove riffs all fairly different. The blasting riffs are all fairly similar in nature but there are the few that stand out as being different. The album never becomes boring because the songs really aren't long enough to become boring. The album packs 29 songs into 25 minutes so you know these aren't epics. In fact I think the longest song on the album 2 minutes and that is actually the outro to the album and not an official song.

So yea sure a lot of the songs do sound similar but if you enjoy the style you'll enjoy the album. For me it's nice to see a band playing short and blazing goregrind and not throwing in any sort of technical garbage. This is simplistic through and through which is pretty much the point of goregrind. I don't want to hear anything fancy. I want guttural roars, blasting drums and catchy riffs and that is exactly what the band delivers.

Ripped Off Face-We Are the State
(Metalhit.com, 2009)

It's quite disappointing to me that I am just finding out about this band and they have already called it a day. While the band has been called death metal, that doesn't even begin to fully show just what the band had to offer. Elements of death metal, grindcore, hardcore, crust and even doom metal come together to form the Ripped Off Face sound. One thing is certain the band was very good at what they do and was very from from being one dimensional.

What is the most surprising about the album is just how well the band manages to mess the styles and also how almost entire songs aside from the use of screaming aren't incredibly heavy. The Lioness is more of a mid-tempo song for the most part and features a very post-hardcore style of songwriting although the guitar solo is pure metal as are a smattering of riffs throughout the song. The band also likes to keep the songs fairly lengthy with a number of the songs being over the 5 minute mark. These songs are pretty much epic in scope and feature a staggering amount of sections. It never sounds forced though and no matter where the band goes with their sound it just works. Shallow End of the Gene Pool starts off with a black metal style riff and then goes straight into a riff that wouldn't sound out of place on a Converge album and yet the band makes it work perfectly.

Bands come and go these days but this is a band that definitely was onto something. The melding of styles and the energy on display make this an album that is damn hard to not pay attention to. Also due to the fact that the album released posthumous the band has decided to make it a free download so you can't really go wrong.

http://www.wearethestate.com