SYMPHONITY: Voice From the Silence

Produced by Libor Krivak
Released: 15 August 2008

Symphonic power metal and I don't have the greatest of relationships, so you would have thought that a band called Symphonity was just asking for trouble. After all, the only reason I decided to listen to their album at all is because it was one of only two that came in a recent promo package that didn't have voiceover watermarks all over it (the other one was the latest Journey album, which is one CD I would have expected to have them). Imagine my surprise, then, when I realised that I actually rather enjoyed this.

Formerly known as Nemesis (one of the most overused band names ever), Symphonity is a Czech band whose name immediately tells you what sort of music they play. And on Voice from the Silence they don't exactly stretch the boundaries of symphonic Euro-power metal very far (or at all), but they do string a few decent songs together, have a singer with both a good range and a fairly ballsy style and haven't forgotten that metal is guitar-based music. Originality is not a strong point and many of the songs are outright Gamma Ray/Helloween worship, especially tracks like "Gates of Fantasy" and "Searching You". But Symphonity do it rather more convincingly than most, with some nice touches thrown in like the extended guitar-keyboard duelling in "Give Me Your Helping Hand" and veteran vocalist Olaf Hayer (Dionysus, Luca Turilli, et. al.) is rather more than just a Kai Hansen clone, with a solid mid-range and a good high voice that doesn't sound like he's about to go off-key or stretch too far. The longer tracks are nicely structured and "Evening Star" works towards its extended orchestral section so it fits instead of sounding like it was just chucked in to make it longer or to show how in-tune the band is with their classical side.

Voice from the Silence won't win any points for being groundbreaking or different, but it is a pretty solid entry in its genre and fans of symphonic metal will love it.

1. La Morale dell' Immorale
2. Give Me Your Helping Hand
3. Gates of Fantasy
4. Bring Us the Light
5. Salvation Dance
6. The Silence - Memories (Pt I)
7. The Silence - In Silence Forsaken (Pt II)
8. The Silence - Relief Reverie (Pt III)
9. Searching You
10. Evening Star
11. Afterlife

Rating: 65%

PSYCHRIST: Debauching the Minions

Produced by Astennu and Lachlan Mitchell
Released: 2002

Psychrist were ten-year veterans of Australian death metal when this album was unleashed, and Debauching the Minions was ample testament to a band that managed to stick around so long, through shaky line-ups and bad record deals. Each new release saw them surpassing the one before in malice and intensity. Debauching the Minions is nothing less than a monolith of pure brutality, a destructive, unforgiving slab of furious hatred.

A crack of thunder heralds the approach of ‘Scourge’ like a malevolent storm, and so it is: blazing black metal riffing with ultra-gutteral demonic death metal vocal rumbles. Some bands try mixing death and black and fudge it, but Psychrist had no such problems, combining the best and most extreme elements of both styles seamlessly and thus making for an incredibly crushing and blasting set of tracks. The likes of ‘Godfucked’, ‘Haven of Betrayal’ and the title track are absolutely immense, unceasing walls of hate that conjure images of some demonic horde laying seige to the gates of heaven themselves and a new version of ‘The Shroud of Profanity’ brings the album to a cataclysmic finale, with guitarist Yuri Ward’s acoustic closer ‘Harbouring the Fire’ the only respite from the violence.

Debauching the Minions is a masterpiece of Australian metal that may be difficult to find but well worth seeking.

1. Scourge
2. Depraved Humanity
3. Haven of Betrayal
4. Debauching the Minions
5. Godfucked
6. Dead Emotion
7. Severance
8. Shroud of Profanity
9. Harbouring the Fire

Rating: 94%

KOTIPELTO: Waiting for the Dawn

Released: 2002

Someone once criticised Bruce Dickinson for making a solo album that sounded exactly like the other band he had been in, and while that was true, it could be sort of forgiven because eventually his albums were better than theirs. Timo Kotipelto is best known as being the singer for Stratovarius and his debut solo effort bears little or no distinguishing features from that group.

Unlike Bruce Dickinson, however, Timo seems to be running on a zero level of inspiration that’s even spilled over onto Derek Riggs, whose surprisingly unspectacular art graces the cover here. It’s true that Kotipelto has gathered a breathtaking array of Europe’s finest metalheads about him to create his Ancient Egyptian myth cycle -- some of whom include Roland Grapow, Michael Romeo, Sami Virtanen and Janne Warman -- but it’s also true that even they can’t save this from being exactly what the promo sheets promised Waiting for the Dawn would not be, and that’s bland, boring rock.

Personally, I can’t stand Timo’s voice because sometimes he sounds like he sings flat on purpose, to see if anyone will notice, but that’s not why I think this is ordinary. I think is ordinary because it is ordinary, and that’s that.

1. Intro
2. Travel Through Time
3. Beginning
4. Lord of Eternity
5. Knowledge and Wisdom
6. Battle of the Gods
7. Beauty Has Come
8. Vizier
9. Chosen by Re
10. Waiting for the Dawn
11. Arise
12. Movement of the Nile

Rating: 30%

DIO: Killing the Dragon

Released: 2002

After spending a few years experimenting with different things and mucking around with his basic style in the mid-90s, Dio's Magica album was much vaunted as a comeback of sorts, but turned out to be a turgid exercise in self-indulgence that was disappointing to say the least and it could have been argued that after 40 years in the recording business it was time for him to give it away. Then this album appeared, and the title track was barely halfway through before I realised that the little guy still had it in him.

Killing the Dragon hearkens back to Dio’s glory days of the early-mid 1980s, making little or no deviation from the songwriting formula he’s been using since at least his Rainbow days and perhaps earlier. The album maintains his obsession with metaphors taking the shapes of dragons and fantasy themes (although there’s no mention of rainbows at all) and wraps them all up in tightly-played commercial heavy metal that, while generally mid-paced thanks to Dio’s age-old predeliction for grand plodding, rocks out on occasion when tracks like “Rock and Roll” call for it. The introduction of Doug Alridch on guitar also added a some spark.

Dio hardly reinvented himself here as he had tried to do with the likes of Angry Machines; instead it was more of a renaissance, showing that he’s a true master of metal and even as he headed for his mid-60s, he could still churn out a good album.

1. Killing the Dragon
2. Along Comes a Spider
3. Scream
4. Better in the Dark
5. Rock & Roll
6. Push
7. Guilty
8. Throw Away Children
9. Before the Fall
10. Cold Feet

Rating: 71%

RED DESCENDING: Where Dreams Come to Die

Produced by Red Descending
Released: 2008

Where Dreams Come to Die is the debut album from Perth band Red Descending. Their overall style could be labelled "melodic death metal" I suppose but in essence they seem to be a group that is a little difficult to pigeonhole so conveniently. The album was mastered in Stockholm, a move that would appear somewhat unnecessary considering the quality of domestic mastering facilities these days, unless it was to provide some direct connection to Sweden that couldn't have been recognised in the music itself, and yes, the music has a very Swedish sound to it.

At first I thought Where Dreams Come to Die was going to be an album of either keys-heavy prog or symphonic power metal, because the most obvious aspect of Red Descending's music is the sheer predominence of the keyboards. Imagine if Dark Tranquillity buried the guitars way down in the mix so only Brändstrom and Stanne could be heard, then instead of just playing the melody, have the keyboards do all the main riffing also. The melodies totally overpower any real heaviness in Red Descending's music, resulting in a very symphonic and melodic approach like Gothenburg death metal with the death metal taken out except for the harsh, rather one-dimensional vocals. None of this would be of any consequence if Where Dreams Come to Die wasn't also rather bland and generic. Of the ten songs on this album, the only one that really reached out and grabbed me was "Valhalla", a speedy instrumental that sounded like DragonForce playing Viking metal. Otherwise, the rest of the tracks just sort of flowed by without much of an impact. There wasn't any bad songs but no real highlights either, which made the album seem to drag on for much longer than its 47 minute playing time. Overall, Where Dreams Come to Die suffers from a lack of diversity both in the songwriting and in Bernard Shaw's vocal delivery and is rather devoid of any real hooks.

I've always had a pretty high opinion of most metal from Western Australia and while this four piece group hasn't tarnish the state's reputation in that regard, Where Dreams Come to Die didn't really raise the bar either

1. Building My Weakness
2. Century
3. The Grand Memory
4. Slaughter Falls
5. Descend
6. Fragile Nation
7. Deceived Again
8. Departure
9. Valhalla
10. Landscape

Rating: 50%

BLACK MAJESTY: Sands of Time

Produced by Endel Rivers and Black Majesty

Released: 2003

This debut album by Black Majesty marked them as something very special in the power metal arena. From the three-track sampler I was priveleged enough to hear a year or so before the complete album was released I knew this would be good, but even that didn’t prepare me for the experience of hearing this in full.

Sands of Time is such a well-crafted blend of European style power metal and Queensrÿche-like progressive metal that it’s almost hard to believe. The cover art is a bit unfortunate, making it look like the dozens of second rate acts that litter the market, because this is one of the better albums of its kind you will hear. The promo disc’s stand out cut ‘Fall of the Reich’ opens proceedings at a power-metal flavoured faster pace; however, the balance of Sands of Time takes on a distinctly progressive feel and style, reflected in the complex arrangements of the songs and a truly outstanding vocal performance from John Cavaliere. Musically too, Black Majesty are far more than simply impressive, with a typically Australian ballsier edge than their European counterparts. The guitar solos in ‘Journey’s End’, for example, are simply breathtaking; indeed the work of Hanny Mohammed and Steve Janevski on this album is up there with any of the great metal guitar teams that you could mention.

Cavaliere is also helped out occasionally by Silvio Massaro of Vanishing Point and the towering range of Eyefear/ex-Pegazus vocalist Danny Cecati, and their contributions do nothing but further the already significant appeal of this recording. Sands of Time is a masterpiece.

1. Fall of the Reich
2. Legacy
3. Guardian
4. Sands of Time
5. Destination
6. Journey's End
7. Colliding Worlds
8. No Sanctuary
9. Beyond Reality
10. Lady of the Lake

Rating: 90%

COLD CHISEL: East

Produced by Mark Opitz and Cold Chisel
Released: 1980

In mid-1977, Cold Chisel was a hard rocking blues band that couldn't get a record deal. By the end of 1980, they were the biggest-selling act in the country. This album is why. A finely-crafted slab of contemporary radio-friendly rock and pop, East never faltered from its opening seconds and remains to this day one of the best Australian albums ever made.

Cold Chisel's previous album Breakfast at Sweethearts had taken the rough edges off the band's brash sound and begun to display its pop sensibilities. With East, the slick production of Mark Opitz enhanced them even further. That all five of the band's members contributed songs for the first time also helped to create a bunch of tunes that continue to resonate through the national psyche.

East succeeds because its subjects are so familiar to its audience. They are simple songs about the everyday experience: "Every night when I come home/I settle down to prime-time limbo," sings Jimmy Barnes in "Ita"; on "Standing on the Outside" he dreams about robbing a TAB and setting himself up in a personal Paradise somewhere. Other songs are about dreams come unstuck, like the jaded protagonist of "Cheap Wine", who just leaves it all behind for "cheap wine and a three days' growth". "Four Walls" is a sorrowful piano ballad about life behind bars and the emotional "Choir Girl" follows a young woman through an abortion.

Of course it wouldn't be Cold Chisel without straight out rocking, and the pensive mood of the ballads is balanced by the brash rockabilly of Barnes' "Rising Sun", the smouldering, political "Star Hotel" and the ragged "My Turn to Cry". Every song was memorable, as East struck the perfect balance of all the band's moods. Ian Moss' "Never Before" became the first song ever played on Triple J, Barnes still performs "Rising Sun" in his live shows and Phil Small's sweet pop ditty "My Baby" remains a radio staple to this day.

28 years later, East is still the perfect Australian rock album.

1. Standing on the Outside
2. Never Before
3. Choir Girl
4. Rising Sun
5. My Baby
6. Tomorrow
7. Cheap Wine
8. Best Kept Lies
9. Ita
10. Star Hotel
11. Four Walls
12. My Turn to Cry

Rating: 100%

VANISHING POINT: Embrace the Silence

Released: 2005

Vanishing Point spent five years working on this album through lean periods, personnel reshuffles and battles with former managers and labels. But it seems that every moment and every tribulation paid off. Embrace the Silence is a monster of an album, with 13 songs and a playing time of almost 80 minutes as well as one of the most striking cover illustrations of any Australian metal album.

It isn't that often I’ll listen to the same album five times in a row but that’s exactly what happened with Embrace the Silence. This is a majestic, mesmerising listening experience. It is Vanishing Point’s songwriting and true mastery of melody that makes this record. This time however they’ve made the guitars significantly crunchier and heavier and combined them with stunning production and Leonard Koplias’ Dream Theater-inspired keyboards that surge and swell and fill out every track. Previous Vanishing Point releases haven’t been known for extended guitar soloing as twin melodies have been the focus and that’s the case once again, but now and then a simple, understated lead break does emerge. The fine singing of Silvio Massaro completes the package. With more than a passing vocal resemblance to Jon Stevens, particularly on the ballads “Embrace” and “As I Reflect”, he is one of the finest singers of melodic metal in the world today.

This is a masterpiece, one of the finest releases of 2005.

1. Hollow
2. My Virtue
3. If Only I
4. Live to Live
5. Embraced
6. Season of Sundays
7. Once a Believer
8. Reason
9. Breathe
10. Somebody Save Me
11. Insight
12. A Life Less
13. As I Reflect

Rating: 95%

YAKUZA: Way of the Dead

Released: 2002

Yakuza sounds rather like what you would get if you crossed Meshuggah, God Forbid and the Dillinger Escape Plan with a jazz band. If it’s hard to get your head around what that would sound like, their second album Way of the Dead doesn’t really make it any easier!

Unique and challenging are words that are bandied about a lot by bands and labels in an effort to get their acts to stand out, but in this case there’s really no better description, because Yakuza really is like no other band. With all that said, Yakuza may not appeal to the average listener. Way of the Dead has far too many twists and turns, subtle surprises, tempo changes and even style and mood changes that anyone who just wants to rock out will most likely flee in confusion. It is, in fact, quite difficult to listen to for the first (or even second) time with off-kilter melodies, strange drum patterns and bizarre saxophone intrusions, but the more art-minded prog and avant-garde audience will warm to Yakuza very quickly.

Capped off with an incredible (and perhaps a little pretentious) 43-minute ambient jazz jam, Way of the Dead is a truly challenging musical achievement.

1. Vergasso
2. Miami Device
3. Yama
4. Signal 42
5. TMS
6. Chicago Typewriter
7. Obscurity
8. 0100011110011

Rating: 82%

NAPALM DEATH: The Code is Red... Long Live the Code

Produced by Russ Russell

Released: 2005

With the sad demise of Nasum, this was without doubt the political grind album of 2005. As the world seemed to turn more to the Right every day and as the spectre of an Orwellian nightmare loomed over the West like never before, it probably wasn’t that surprising that Napalm Death would unleash one of the angriest volumes they had recorded in a very long time.

Stripped down to a four piece following the departure of (the now sadly late) Jesse Pintado, the originators of grindcore make a partial return to the nihilistic sound of their earlier days here, and it’s a devastating, unrelenting assault on conservatism and Right Wing hypocrisy and falsehood, an unbridled and unyielding attack on the powerbrokers in Washington and their fabricated war on freedoms masquerading as a battle to save them. If there is one single current album that encapsulated the common resentment of conflicts based on lies and the restrictions of liberties for the benefit of security, The Code is Red… is it. This is socio-political grind at its best: “So called champions of the poor/Tax us against the wall” Barney Greenway roars in “Pay for the Privilege of Breathing”, “Full frontal assault on your choice/to spurn the flag/Waves of retribution awaiting those who dissent” he continues in their condemnation of the Patriot Act, “Climate Controllers”.

Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta, Jeff Walker from Carcass and California’s favourite dissident Jello Biafra all add their weight to this raging slab, arguably Napalm Death’s finest moment in a decade.

1. Silence is Deafening
2. Right You Are
3. Diplomatic Immunity
4. The Code is Red... Long Live the Code
5. Climate Controllers
6. Instruments of Persuasion
7. The Great and the Good
8. Sold Short
9. All Hail the Grey Dawn
10. Vegetative State
11. Pay for the Privilege of Breathing
12. Pledge Yourself to You
13. Striding Purposefully Backwards
14. Morale
15. Our Pain is Their Power

Rating: 90%

HATERUSH: Mark of the Warrior

Released: 2004

Haterush is a four-piece power metal band from Sweden. That should almost tell you enough about them, and it practically does. Mark of the Warrior was this band’s first album, and it certainly isn’t groundbreaking, earth-shattering or original in any way but it isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever heard either.

The biggest problem here is wild inconsistency. When they add a bit of classic 80s style aggression Haterush is very good, but when they play the HelloGuardianRay card it comes off as little more than shameless copying. The album opens with the pointless “The Chase”, little more than a long keyboard surge and some “climactic” drumming that gives way to “Silver Bullet”, easily one of the most generic power metal songs ever written. It’s only because I’m a nice guy that I let this album play on after this, and found that “Hold On” injects that aforementioned classic sound into proceedings, making for a good, catchy track with crunchy guitars. The next track “Dying to Surrender” follows in the same vein, but then Haterush gets all generic and half-arsed again and this trend continues throughout the whopping 13 songs on Mark of the Warrior.

Surely a shorter album with maybe eight of the better tracks would have been a better introduction to the world, and I really can’t see anyone rushing out to add this to their collection.

1. The Chase
2. Silver Bullet
3. Hold On
4. Dying to Surrender
5. Solitude Solution
6. Titans Will Fall
7. Guiding Star
8. Sea of Love
9. Warrior
10. I Will Survive
11. Face the Evil
12. Rise
13. Fly or Die

Rating: 50%

MANDRAGORA SCREAM: The Whisper of Dew

Released: 2003

The Whisper of Dew is the second offering from Italian Goth band Mandragora Scream. Unlike their debut Fairytales From Hell’s Caves, a musical fantasy based around Dante’s Inferno that struck a sometimes uneasy balance of atmospherics and melodic doom, on this album the band concentrated its energies on the Goth elements of its music, an aspect which it handles quite well.

In fact, the band strives for perhaps a little too much atmosphere and as a result the songs flow together without too much setting them apart from one another, but Morgan Lacroix’s singing is much stronger and more confident than previously. It’s really her evocative and occasionally haunting vocal presence that really drives the songs and the high points are the moments when, as in ‘Rainbow Seeker’, she shifts into a higher, grittier gear and the band strides out with a heavier edge. While for most of The Whisper of Dew Mandragora Scream seems fairly content to just meander through various shades of quiet melancholy, when the album reaches its climax with the title track, the listener is given an insight into their true potential with a heavy atmosphere pervading through a rather more aggressive approach.

More discerning Goth rock fans won’t find much of note in The Whisper of Dew but those just tasting the waters may find it appealing.

1. Issergia's Hope
2. Silent Lullabies
3. A Vision They Shared
4. Velvet Eyes
5. Iiaonman Iifbiich Vampires
6. Labyrinth of Earth
7. Lactate Veins
8. Bloody Ballade
9. Rainbow Seeker
10. Close Every Door
11. Crow's Love
12. A Whisper of Dew

Rating: 45%

DOMAIN: Last Days of Utopia

Produced by Axel Ritt

Released: 2005

Epic symphonic neo-classical power metal. That’s Domain’s Last Days of Utopia in a nutshell. My thoughts on this genre have been expressed many times already, but this album is at least not totally worthless although I didn't find it particularly memorable.

Here is a band that definitely likes a bit of cheese with their pizza, and you need to go no further than second track “A New Beginning” to find it when Domain starts playing part of “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies” for no seemingly apparent reason. Next is the overwhelming 9-minute “On Stormy Seas” where the guitar shredding goes on and on for minutes at a time. As overwrought as it is, the playing on this track is nevertheless mindblowing and certainly grabs your attention. Most of the other songs here boast similar displays of wankery, and in truth it’s difficult to argue with the standard of musicianship needed to pull off such audacity. In the end though, there’s nothing really here that hasn’t been done innumerable times before.

Domain has been around for twenty years, so they are definitely very comfortable in their niche and doing it well, but it’s pretty clear that they aren’t very interested in breaking any new ground whatsoever.

1. Harbor of Hope
2. A New Beginning
3. On Stormy Seas
4. The Shores of Utopia
5. Ocean Paradise
6. The Beauty of Love
7. The Great Rebellion
8. Endless Rain
9. Last Days of Utopia
10. Underneath the Blue
11. Left Alone

Rating: 50%

DORO: Fight

Produced by Doro Pesch, Dan Malsch and Chris Lietz

Released: 2002

Most of Doro’s albums have been almost overloaded with session players and special guests, so it’s rather refreshing to find that Fight was recorded using her long-standing live band. That isn’t to say there aren’t a few notables who make an appearance here, including Pete Steele and Chris Caffery on ‘Descent’ and songwriting legend Russ Ballard, who contributes guitar to ‘Wild Heart’, a track he also co-wrote, but it’s interesting to see what the German metal queen can put together without a phone book’s worth of outsiders cramming the studio.

The truth of it is, Fight is okay, and that's all. There’s nothing jaw-droppingly outstanding on here and while it won’t win awards for musical depth or originality, it does contain a few choice tracks of Doro’s trademark German-style melodic heavy rock. ‘Always Live to Win’, ‘Salvaje’ and the very catchy ‘Chained’ – which should be the first track, not tucked away near the end – stand out as good solid fist-pumping arena rockers, the sort that would turn the fields of Wacken into a sea of bobbing heads from the first chord. ‘Sister Darkness’ is also a belter with a fuzzy, thrashy guitar sound. In typical Doro fashion, there’s also a bunch of big-voiced power ballads, like the Gene Simmons-penned ‘Legends Never Die’ and the aforementioned ‘Wild Heart’, both of which aren’t too bad.

Fight’s twelve tracks pass by easily enough, but apart from ‘Chained’ and ‘Salvaje’ it doesn’t really grab you by the throat and will probably wear itself out after a few listens.

1. Fight
2. Always Live to Win
3. Descent
4. Salvaje (Untouchable)
5. Undying
6. Legends Never Die
7. Rock Before You Bleed
8. Sister Darkness
9. Wild Heart
10. Fight by Your Side
11. Chained
12. Hoffnung

Rating: 58%

SUNS OWL: Recharged

Released: 2001

Suns Owl is a Japanese band that plays a roaring, raging form of modern thrash. Recharged is violent and caustic like early Skinlab but without any of the nu-metal pretensions, only pure, aggressive metal. Dispensing with trivialities like down-tunings and breakdowns, Suns Owl just roar in a high, angry gear over everything in their path.

This is some really quality, intense stuff, at times recalling Sepultura (‘Horse of Iron’) and in other places Vision of Disorder in their more metallic moments. The vocals are potently acidic, backed by a relentless, powerfully rhythmic guitar, honed to precision with a sharp clarity that further enhances the attack. Indeed, Recharged is a fine example of a band attempting a modern metal sound without compromising the heaviness and hostility that makes metal what it is. I’m not sure what purpose the techno-remixed ‘Psychedelic Terrorist’ is supposed to serve, however, as there’s no original version to compare it to here and it stands out like the ska riff in ‘Mulling Up’ but far more out of place—and seems completely unnecessary.

That one criticism aside, Suns Owl put a mighty slab together here that put other more famous bands to shame.

1. Introduction
2. Succession of the Truth
3. Unbound
4. Recharged
5. Horse of Iron
6. 4735 Days Like Hell
7. Hi-Tech HG
8. Mulling Up
9. Psychedelic Terrorust (NADA remix)
10. Pussywhipped

Rating: 85%

JIMMY BARNES: For the Working Class Man

Produced by Mark Opitz, Jimmy Barnes, Jonathon Cain, Chas Sandford and Gary Gersh.

Released: 1985

When Jimmy Barnes released Bodyswerve the beast that was Cold Chisel was barely dead in the ground and their former singer could have recorded almost anything and seen it go to #1 in Australia, which is precisely what did happen. But American conquest was always on Barnes' mind and the ragged bunch of garage rockers with their raw production from his first solo outing simply weren't going to cut it on the world's largest music market. For the Working Class Man was apparently the answer, half new material penned by professional songwriters and half of the previous album's songs given a fresh coat of paint.

Originally released in Australia as a double vinyl in a gatefold sleeve to compensate his domestic audience for the fact that this was, in effect, only half an album, For the Working Class Man replaced Bodyswerve's rough and ready blues with slick American-style radio rock. It made next to no impact on that market, but smashed into the top of the chart in Australia, where Barnesy's legions of fans simply didn't care that most of its songs were written for him by (and for) a bunch of Yanks. "Working Class Man", the histrionic blue-collar anthem that sealed Jimmy's reputation as a screamer of seemingly unlimited power was quickly adopted as some kind of unofficial nation anthem, the irony of it having been written by an American AOR guitarist completely lost on the Aussie masses blasting it out at every opportunity. While it subsequently captivated a generation, "Working Class Man" wasn't even the album's best song, an honour that lies with "Ride the Night Away", a scorching rocker written by Springsteen's right hand man Stevie van Zandt complete with Charlie Sexton on guitar and Mick Fleetwood nailing down the beats. Unlike "Working Class Man" where Jimmy's objective seems to be to blow his larynx out, the other songs feature a more controlled performance. The album also introduces the power ballad to Barnes' oeuvre in the shape of "Without Your Love". The only one of the new tracks to feature the singer's writing credit, it was a hint of what was to come from the man over his next couple of blockbusters.

The balance of For the Working Class Man was made up of seven of the twelve songs from Bodyswerve, giving a makeover by Bob Clearmountain in New York. Most noticable was that of "No Second Prize", where, for some reason, extra tracks of Barnes bellowing the chorus to the fade were dropped over Mal Eastick's guitar solo. The other songs were similarly dicked with, although not to same extent, but it really doesn't seem at all necessary and from a local perspective they were just stuck on to make it releasable as an album.

For the Working Class Man helped to establish Jimmy Barnes as Australia's top male rock singer, but it probably succeeded more because of his reputation than due to its songs. As good as the new songs were (well, except the US radio dross that is "American Heartbeat"), this was essentially just Bodyswerve with a handful of different tracks and is really just a stopgap between that album and the triumph of Freight Train Heart to come.

1. I'd Die to be With You Tonight
2. Ride the Night Away
3. American Heartbeat
4. Working Class Man
5. Without Your Love
6. No Second Prize
7. Vision
8. Promise Me You'll Call
9. Boys Cry Out for War
10. Daylight
11. Thickskinned
12. Paradise

Rating: 65%

THE DEVIL RIDES OUT: Volume III

Produced by Al Smith and The Devil Rides Out

Released: 2008

The Devil Rides Out is a Perth combo with an eclectic background: vocalist Joey K and drummer Royce Uyen were in early 90s death metal bands, guitarist Andrew Ewing from the indie band Thumb and original bassist Ben Franz is from The Waifs! The resultant sound is gritty blues and stoner metal, nothing like any of their other bands. "Volume III" is the third of their trilogy of EPs (all featuring six tracks each), and the first to feature Franz' replacement Brendan Ewing. It is also their dirtiest and heaviest material so far, given more impetus by some punchy production.

"Volume III" is also angry, pummelling and aggressive music that could well be the soundtrack to a fight. The riffs are sharp and abrasive, the vocals a caustic rasp that rises to a venomous bark. And The Devil Rides Out sure knows how to rock. On both "The Shape of a Heart" and "Six (I Got Your)" they dole out enormously catchy doses of rollicking groove-laden sludge that wouldn't be out of place on an album by Corrosion of Conformity. "Slow Gun" and "The World Has Fangs" are driven by bouncing riffs and the growling anger of the vocalist. "Fiftyonepercent" has a raw punk edge perfectly suited to Joey K's hardcore snarl that can at times recall Henry Rollins when he gets his blood up. The musical style may be different these days, but this man is no less pissed off at the world. "Meet Joe Blues" is mean and sleazy biker blues like the kind you'd find on the jukebox of the roughest pub in the universe.

This the perfect way for them to round out this triumvirate of releases, rough n' ready, violent rock n' roll, hard and unrelenting like a bare-knuckle brawl.

1. Slow Gun
2. Fiftyonepercent
3. The Shape of a Heart
4. Meet Joe Blues
5. The World Has Fangs
6. Six (I Got Your)

Rating: 78%

THIN LIZZY: Jailbreak

Produced by John Alcock

Released: 1976

I said a few days ago that Thin Lizzy invented twin guitar heavy metal, and while that may be a big call to make in light of the fact that Sad Wings of Destiny by Judas Priest came out on almost exactly the same day as this album, I stand by it. One listen to the closing track on this 1976 masterpiece should just about remove any doubt: "Emerald" is the prototype for all Iron Maiden songs, twin guitar melodies and criss-crossing lead breaks building to a crescendo of epic proportions. You can almost picture Steve Harris listening to this and saying, "That's what I want my band to sound like!"

Thin Lizzy made some great records but Jailbreak is possibly their greatest. Every song on here is a deadset gem, a testament to the abilities of the band and the sheer power of Phil Lynott's songwriting genius. His lyrics are evocative and detailed, like the story-telling poety of Dylan or Springsteen and he sings them in a richly resonant, velvety smooth voice that occasionally sounds like a lucid Hendrix. This album may be remembered mostly by many for the brilliant "The Boys Are Back in Town" with its vivid depiction of delinquent nightlife, but trying to find a track here that doesn't match it is virtually impossible. Lynott's almost seductive singing is offset by thunderously heavy riffing and the interplay of Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham, a team that, as mentioned, set the benchmark for dual-guitar rock that Maiden, Priest, Saxon and even Def Leppard would later mimic. It's a sublime and compelling combination, put together in a way that has never quite been matched.

For some reason, Jailbreak doesn't seem to enjoy the same level of regard these days as some of more illustrious releases from that year (and let's face it, there was some great ones: Sad Wings, Dirty Deeds, Dreamboat Annie, Destroyer, Hotel California, 2112) but metal may have never sounded quite the way it does without it.

1. Jailbreak
2. Angel from the Coast
3. Running Back
4. Romeo and the Lonely Girl
5. Warriors
6. The Boys are Back in Town
7. Fight or Fall
8. Cowboy Song
9. Emerald

Rating: 96%

HEINOUS KILLINGS: Hung With Barbwire

Released: 2006

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Yesterday I reviewed one of the greatest albums ever; today it's one of the worst. I knew this would be stupid before I even listened to it. Heinous Killings just about scrapes the barrell-bottom for ridiculous band names. "Barbwire" isn't even a word (it's "barbed wire") and the past tense of hang as in, to hang someone, is actually "hanged", not "hung". So the album title should be Hanged With Barbed Wire. But even if it had been called that, it wouldn't have stopped this being atrociously dumb and dumbly atrocious. Joe Wolfe used to be in a band called Clean Flesh, one of the worst bands ever. Heinous Killings is his solo project that rates as something even worse.

Wolfe has the most idiotic vocal approach of anyone in any band ever, including the parrot from Hatebeak and the dogs from Caninus, the song titles make Cannibal Corpse look like Shakespearean poetry and the music is muffled, talentless, one-dimensional garbage. This is why people think death metal is stupid.

I could shit on a guitar and then fart through a trumpet and still make a better album than this. When I reviewed this elsewhere a couple of years ago, I was accused of being a Slipknot fan who didn't understand death metal because I didn't like this, which just goes to show that even the most talentless idiot in the world can find a fan somewhere.

1. Possessed to Kill
2. Strangled by Intestines
3. Skinned Alive in Acid
4. Hung With Barbwire
5. Chopped Up in a Bodybag
6. Asphyxiating Soil
7. Dissected Spinal Cord
8. Infection Consumed
9. Severe Throat Stabs
10. Nailed Cranium

Rating: 0%

AC/DC: Back in Black

Produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange

Released: 1980

Where do you even start to review an album that is by mass of sales alone the greatest rock album ever made? Perhaps an anecdote might be a way to begin to explain the enduring qualities of Back in Black that has kept it at the forefront of rock since it first appeared.

During my late teens I went on a camping trip with some friends. Where we went and when isn't important. What is important is that the only music was had for the trip was Back in Black and the Blue Brothers soundtrack. That both got played endlessly and that we never got tired of either is a testament to the greatness of them. Back in Black was only about seven years old then, but even now it sounds as timeless.

As their tribute to their fallen comrade, AC/DC could have done no better. In making one of rock's defining moments they succeeded almost without peer. Back in Black has it all. Killer songs, ferocious guitar, some of the greatest riffs ever and the sheer power and caustic urgency of Brian Johnston, surely one of the world's most unique vocalists. The opening is simply ominous, as if announcing that this is the truly great piece of work it turned out to be. The slow tolling bell gives way to a simply evil-sounding intro; "Hell's Bells" is genius with Johnson's voice splitting eardrums the same way he tells us his flashing white light is splitting the night. The title track features one of the ultimate riffs of all time and a dirty blues vibe permeates through "Rock N Roll Ain't Noise Pollution". Everything is executed perfectly, even if Johnston's attempts at Bon Scott-like craftiness come occasionally unstuck. There is, for example, something quite disturbing about lines like "Don't you struggle, don't you fight/Don't you worry coz it's your turn tonight" from "Let Me Put My Love Into You", but in the impossibly catchy "You Shook Me All Night Long" he gets the metaphors so right that he and the band were fighting off allegations that Bon actually wrote it for well over a decade.

There really isn't any need to go on. Everyone is so familiar with Back in Black it defies being written about any more. Only a few other albums have come even remotely close to its greatness.

1. Hell's Bells
2. Shoot to Thrill
3. What Do You Do For Money Honey
4. Given the Dog a Bone
5. Let Me Put My Love Into You
6. Back in Black
7. You Shook Me All Night Long
8. Have a Drink On Me
9. Shake a Leg
10. Rock n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Rating: 100%

ROLLINS BAND: Weight

Produced by Theo Van Rock

Released: 1994

Weight made Rollins Band nudge the mainstream, while actually being far from it. With a delightfully satirical single becoming a minor hit and laden with lots of other great songs, Weight was the album Rollins had been working towards for almost a decade. The End of Silence had helped to gather a wider audience with its metallic leanings and more focused songwriting, but this follow-up went further still.

While ostensibly a punk band, Rollins Band also blended the aesthetics of both metal and jazz that was reinforced here by the addition of bassist Melvin Gibbs who gave the already searing rhythm section a swing-like vibe. Nothing that Henry Rollins does vocally could ever be described as actual singing, but his hard bellowing style does come close to carrying a tune here and there. Rollins' real skill lies with the urgency of his delivery, the sheer power of his voice and the enviable control he has over it. Whether a bark or a roar, you get the feeling that Henry Rollins could make himself heard and understood above the volume of his band even without any amplification. This would be no mean feat, because Rollins Band is a loud and very powerful unit, and on Weight they made the album of their career.

Weight capitalised on the success of the previous album and improved on its formula with even tighter songs and, as mentioned, a more jazz-inflected sound. Gibbs and drummer Sim Cain lay down a ridiculously swinging foundation for Chris Haskett's metal guitar lines as Rollins himself unleashes his vocal tirades. The man's lyrical scope widened here from the seemingly endless self-analysic of previous efforts to encompass broader issues, and throws in some self-effacing humour that, typically, went right over many heads. On the oft-misunderstood "Liar" he writes from another's perspective, and in "Icon" with lines like "lyrical visionary, caught in the spotlight" and "there'll be another Messiah right here, next week" he seems to be taking aim as much at himself as at other artists. "Disconnect" opens the album with a slow-burning menace, "Volume 4" and "Step Back" are brutal rockers that slam like a huge truck destroying everything in its path, then on "Fool" the band gets funky even behind Henry's angry bark. There really isn't a bad song on here although "Divine" really sticks out as somewhat weaker than the other. Certainly the clear highlight however is "Shine", an inspiring and uplifting song about self-empowerment and perfectly placed at the end of the album to balance out the stark anger and humbling despair of many of the other tracks.

Weight is the pinnacle of Henry Rollins' musical career, where he got everything just right. Other versions of Rollins Band made some good albums after this, but they have yet to match it.

1. Disconnect
2. Fool
3. Icon
4. Civilized
5. Divine
6. Liar
7. Step Back
8. Wrong Man
9. Volume 4
10. Tired
11. Alien Blueprint
12. Shine

Rating: 98%

METALLICA: Kill 'em All

Produced by Paul Curcio

Released: 1983

Some may argue the point, and some, like Overkill, may be able to back it up, but this is where thrash truly began. Before Kill 'em All, thrash was just an embryonic, underground musical movement like thousands before it. After this release, metal would never be the same. While some may still regard this as one the best thrash albums ever, Kill 'em All became pretty dated almost immediately by its creator's very next release and those of the slew of like-minded bands that rose up in its wake. The lyrics are vacuous, the production is ordinary and some of the material is relatively weak but for its all faults, this is where the American thrash wave got its start and it is still a vital release in that regard.

"Hit the Lights" rips from the silence with all the energy and immediacy of a young and emerging band, a barely controlled eruption of rapid fire guitar solos exploding from all directions as frantic vocals spit out drivel like "when we start to rock/We never (want to) stop again!". Until St Anger, this is Hetfield's worst vocal performance as his voice wavers all over the place, but at least here he sounds excited. "Motorbreath" and "Whiplash" are further examples of early Metallica's triumph of speed over substance, the latter prefaced by "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth", Cliff Burton's wildly impressive but, from an album point of view, completely pointless bass solo. There's more to making an album than youthful exuberance, and this may well have been the end for Metallica had this been the best they could do.

Fortunately for them, Kill 'em All is redeemed by a couple of tracks that remain classics to this day. "The Four Horsemen" is the the track that dominates the first half of the album. With its main riff written by Dave Mustaine, this is an infinitely more together piece than anything else on the first half of the album and hearkens at the epic approach to songwriting that Metallica was to take after this album. The lyrics in the bridge even strive for some level of sophistication, even if they get the name of the First Horseman wrong. Similarly, the second half of Kill 'em All is overshadowed by "Seek and Destroy", the song whose immediate classic intro led countless wannabe axemen to the guitar store for lessons. Both of these songs point the way forward for Metallica, displaying some of the menace of which they were truly capable later on.

Twenty-five years down the road, Kill 'em All's NWOBHM-on-speed thrash prototype may seem decidedly lame as metal continues to get more aggressive and extreme, but make no mistake: without this, metal as we now know it may never have come to be.

1. Hit the Lights
2. The Four Horsemen
3. Motorbreath
4. Jump in the Fire
5. (Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth
6. Whiplash
7. Phantom Lord
8. No Remorse
9. Seek and Destroy
10. Metal Militia

Rating: 78%

SKINLAB: Nerve Damage

Released: 2004

At the time of this release, Skinlab’s career extended to a mere three albums and given their status as something of a second-tier act it seemed a little overindulgent to release a whopping great double CD of rarities and demo tracks but I guess Century Media had to fill the void left by the promised-but-still-yet-to-appear follow up to Revolting Room somehow. If that sounds cynical, then it’s because it is.

I quite liked the first two Skinlab albums although they’ll never be anything that special but Revolting Room was appalling. Nonetheless I thought that with two discs and more than 2 hours of music there would be something on here I could get into, but I was wrong. This was a complete waste of my time and ended up making me very angry that this type of crap could be foisted on unsuspecting fans. The two new tracks ("Losing All" and "Beneath the Surface") are thoroughly uninspiring, the horrible cover of "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" is one of the most unnecessary things ever recorded and the “remix” of "Slave the Way" is annoying beyond words. The appropriately named ‘Suffer’ EP tracks at the end of disc one almost gave me a migraine.

Disc two has two different versions of "When Pain Comes to Surface", perhaps the one track that, rightly or wrongly, this band will always be remembered for, a bunch of demo versions of stuff off the first album and some live cuts. It’s all a bit too much for a band that really hasn’t done a lot, and you would have to be the type of fan who would have Steev Esquival’s autograph tattooed across your back to get anything out of this except pain, because Nerve Damage sounds the way its title would feel.

CD 1:

1. 
   1. Losing All
   2. Beneath the Surface
   3. Anthem For A Fallen Star (Radio Edit)
   4. Come Get It (Steve Evetts Mix)
   5. One Of Us (Steve Evetts Mix)
   6. Jesus Cells (Demo Version)
   7. Disturbing the Art of Expression (Demo Version)
   8. Take As Needed (Demo Version)
   9. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
2. 10. Slave the Way (Remix)
   11. Purify (Acoustic Version)
   12. So Far From the Truth
   13. Noah
   14. Raza Odiada
   15. When Pain Comes to Surface (Demo Version)
   16. Paleface (Live Version)
   

CD 2:

1. Paleface (James Murphy Roadrunner Demo Remix)
   2. Promised
   3. The Art of Suffering
   4. Ten Seconds
   5. Stumble
   6. Down
   7. Dissolve
   8. Noah
   9. Race of Hate (Live)
   10. When Pain Comes to Surface
   11. Blacklist
   12. Slave the Way (Live)
   13. No Sympathy For the Devil (Live)
   14. Purify (Live)
   15. Scapegoat (Live)
   16. Know Your Enemies (Live)
   17. Come Get It (Live)
   18. When Pain Comes to Surface (Live)
   

Rating: 15%

IRON SAVIOR: Battering Ram

Produced by Piet Sielck

Released: 2004

Battering Ram is the fifth album from Germany’s Iron Savior, and true to form it sounds exactly like everything else they’ve done. Frustratingly consistent, every album Iron Savior has recorded has been nothing short of excellent: soaring, incredibly catchy anthemic melodic power metal of the highest order. This one is no different, and therein lies the problem. There’s nothing at all to distinguish it from any of the previous albums, apart from the possible exception of the almost total absence of keyboards from this release.

Trying to find a technical fault or a lapse in Iron Savior’s songwriting ability is impossible because Piet Sielck helped to develop the formula for this sort of thing and is no less a master at the form than the likes of Kai Hansen and Hansi Kursch, and the musicianship is faultless. But again, this is so polished and seamless in every respect that it could have just rolled off a production line somewhere. Fans of mainstream European power metal will love this because, as usual, Iron Savior does it so much better than most, but for anyone seeking some degree of originality and innovation or something a little more challenging, this is likely to serve as little more than background music for a rowdy drinking session.

1. Battering Ram
2. Stand Against the King
3. Tyranny of Steel
4. Time Will Tell
5. Wings of Deliverence
6. Break the Curse
7. Riding Free
8. Starchaser
9. Machine World
10. HM Powered Man

Rating: 85%

RUDE AWAKENING: A Tribute to Thin Lizzy

Released: 2007

I'm really not sure what to make of this. Bands doing covers albums aren't unusual these days, but bands dedicating entire albums to one artist's work are rare. And those that are out there are generally shit (Six Feet Under, I'm looking at you). Rude Awakening is a band that has been around in some form since the mid-80s according to their extensive but confusing bio, with a short string of albums and former lead vocalists behind them. In recent years it would appear they have reinvented themselves as a Thin Lizzy tribute band, the end result of which is this 13-track CD.

Thin Lizzy invented twin-guitar heavy metal, and indeed if it hadn't been for them then Iron Maiden would have ended up sounding like Jethro Tull, so any band attempting a tribute hasa heavy responsibility to ensure it is done with the respect this most important but these days oft-overlooked Irish group deserves. Rude Awakening has all but totally succeeded with A Tribute to Thin Lizzy. So good is this album that the band has been invited to Dublin to perform at a show celebrating what would have been Phil Lynott's 58th birthday in August.

This is Lizzy right down to the finest details. Only "Wild One" is a bit on the ordinary side; otherwise, this is close to superb. Mitch Urban pulls off a near-perfect Lynott impression most of the time and the guitar team of Johnny Goodwin and Bill Sablan nail everything. "Emerald" was so perfect it almost made me weep.

The only question I have to ask is why bother? There's no shame in being a Thin Lizzy tribute band when you're as good at it as Rude Awakening, but with so many Lizzy compilations available, most with the same tracks as this, it does seem a bit pointless to have spent time and money recording such a thing. It is excellent though, so at least it wasn't a wasted effort.

I'm not sure what Gary Moore would think of it, but Lynott himself would probably approve.

1. Jailbreak
2. Don't Believe a Word
3. Hollywood (Down On Your Luck)
4. Wild One
5. Johnny the Fox
6. Cowboy Song
7. The Boys are Back in Town
8. Emerald
9. Still in Love With You
10. Massacre
11. It's Only Money
12. Sha La La
13. Warrior

Rating: 92%

DEW-SCENTED: Incinerate

Released: 2007

There is really only one way to describe a Dew-Scented release: relentless. If Slayer had formed in 2001 and not 1981, it's quite possible they would sound something like this. You have to hand it to these guys. They certainly know how to be consistent. Not only have they been able to name each of their seven albums so far with a single word beginning with the letter "I", they've filled each one with violently aggressive high speed thrash metal from start to finish.Incinerate is no exception. Once again channelling the 80s spirit of Slayer and Kreator (the solo from "Contradictions" even contains a snippet of that from "War Ensemble"), Dew-Scented plunge into 12 tracks (plus an intro) of fast and furious metal mayhem.

There's no breakdowns, quiet parts or any other concessions to current trends in what goes by the name of "metal" these days. Incinerate is just all about heavy, lightning-quick riffs, feverish solos and Leif Jensen's gruffly shouted vocals. While they do slow it down from time to time, it's really for no longer than it takes for a short breather before they've stepped on the gas again and laid down another trail of rubber and blue smoke. If there's one drawback of this approach, it is that a lot of their songs (and albums) don't really sound that different to one another. They all pretty much just bludgeon you around the head with some ass-kicking fury and fuck off again, leaving you lying there bleeding for the next one to come along and repeat the process until you're just about senseless.

Trying to find a stand-out track with this level of consistency is no easy task; Incinerate is another near-faultless creation from what is easily Germany's best modern thrash band.

1. Exordium (Intro)
2. Vanish Away
3. Final Warning
4. That's Why I Despise You
5. The Fraud
6. Into the Arms of Decay
7. Perdition For All
8. Now or Never
9. Aftermath
10. Everything Undone
11. Contradictions
12. Retain the Scars
13. Exitus (Outro)

Rating: 95%

YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN: Trilogy

Produced by Yngwie J. Malmsteen

Released: 1986

Following two shred-heavy albums, Yngwie J. Malmsteen made a grab for commercial success on his third album and adopted a lot of the gloss and sheen of the pop-metal bands around him, maxing out the keyboards almost to the detriment of his own rhythm guitar tracks and focusing on songs rather than shredfests. He also decided that this was Rising Force no longer but simply a Yngwie J. Malmsteen album and even credits himself as "conductor" along with producer, composer, guitarist and bass player.

This new approach pretty much failed on almost every level, because he could barely write a decent song to save himself and in Mark Boals he found a singer who was really only average at best. Malmsteen is a classically-influenced heavy metal guitarist, not a pop songwriter, so his efforts here pretty much fall flat. That said, "You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget" is really not too bad, a catchy and memorable slice of 80s pop metal only let down slightly by Boals' forced high notes. Most of the rest of the tracks are pretty ordinary however, rife with corny lyrics like "Queen in Love", juvenile attempts at Dio-like allegory ("Magic Mirror") or plain over-simplicity (rhyming "fire" with "higher" and "desire" like no one had ever thought of it before).

For all of its weaknesses, however, Trilogy has two things going for it. The first is "Crying", a synth-enhanced acoustic instrumental that actually displays some quite emotive playing that alludes to his classical influences. The other is "Trilogy Suite Op:5", in which Yngwie just does what he does best: shreds his fingers off for seven minutes. This is quite possibly the true high point of his career, a three-part epic instrumental that opens with a face-melting series of cadenza lines, blazing riffage and interplay with his own furious bass lines and Jens Johannson's synths. Later a slower acoustic section rises up before the whole thing finishes with more intense guitar madness. This shows what a truly stunning musician Malmsteen is and how magnificent he can be when he really puts his mind to it. It's also the last time he would do something like this once he realised he could simply live off his reputation and not bother putting too much effort in.

Trilogy gets most of its marks for this track alone, but it's also hard not to give Yngwie credit for that gloriously cheesy cover painting of him using his guitar to fight a three-headed dragon. Power metal bands all over Europe owe him a debt for this they can't possibly repay.

1. You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget
2. Liar
3. Queen in Love
4. Crying
5. Fury
6. Fire
7. Magic Mirror
8. Dark Ages
9. Trilogy Suite Op:5

Rating: 50%

JUDAS PRIEST: Nostradamus

Produced by Glenn Tipton and KK Downing

Released: 2008

I can hardly believe this was possible, but I was halfway through listening to this dinosaur of an album and I was struggling to find good things to say about it! How could this be so? I mean, this is Judas fucking Priest we're talking about here! It couldn't really be that bad, could it? So why do I feel cheated (and I shouldn't really, because I got this album for free)? Well, there's actually a few reasons, but perhaps the chief one is that, in attempting a concept album at the twilight of their career, Judas Priest has over-reached. Not content with just a concept album, the godfathers of metal had to go and make a massively overblown and pretentious one that's a staggering 103 minutes long. Even that would have been acceptable if it could engage you for that long, but Nostradamus simply doesn't do that.

Ignoring the power metal-like intro, we can skip to "Prophecy", which opens things in a suitably headbanging Priest fashion and things are going along all right until the "I am Nostradamus!" line almost made me burst into laughter. Still, it isn't a bad track even with the cheesy bits in the middle. After this however, the first half of Nostradamus is rather devoid of highlights. "War" sounds vaguely like a Wagnerian opera piece but doesn't really hold the listener's attention the way such a thing should apart from the grand orchestral section in the middle. The next track is equally unspectacular, plodding along at the same mid tempo. The pondering riff and Halford's sinister vocal give "Death" an appropriate feel, but it's at least two minutes too long and Tipton's jagged soloing comes in way too late. Indeed, guitar solos are pretty thin on the ground, something I thought I'd never say about a Judas Priest album. Then along comes "Persecution", and if you hadn't have had to wait 50 minutes for it you could almost forgive them. This one is classic Priest: catchy, fast and bone-crushing heavy metal. If only the rest of it could have been like this.

But it isn't, as part two opens with "Exiled", another track that just trundles along without reaching any heights, something that virtually the whole of the second CD is guilty of. "Alone" is the perfect embodiment of the entire volume: bloated. Halford hits some of the best notes he's hit in years on this one but the track just loses its way with an acoustic part in the middle for some reason that goes nowhere. "Visions" seems to drag on and on without end and "New Beginnings" is one of those overwrought ballads you usually find on a second-rate European power metal album. I couldn't even listen to it all the way through. To say by this time I was disappointed -- bored even -- would be a considerable understatement.

Then, as they always do, Judas Priest finds a way to redeem themselves. The title track starts out with a little operatic section before suddenly ripping your face off the way "Painkiller" did, and sounds rather like a reworking of that song in fact. "Future of Mankind" follows in much the same fashion, classic metal hammering with Downing and Tipton finally letting loose with some sorely-missed lead work. This is the longest track on the album but it seems like one of the shortest and again I find myself asking why all of Nostradamus couldn't have been like this.

With the fat trimmed off and a punchier production, Nostradamus could have been a really good album, but there's too many turgid tracks, too many pointless interludes that break the flow, and for an album supposedly about the life of Nostradamus, it doesn't actually tell you that much about him. Take tracks 1 to 5, plus "Persecution" and the last two songs on the second CD and you've got a decent Judas Priest album. Add the rest, and it's a huge, boring, unwieldly behemoth. Sad.

CD 1:

1. Dawn of Creation/Prophecy
2. Awakening/Revelation
3. The Four Horsemen/War
4. Pestilence and Plague
5. Death
6. Peace/Conquest
7. Lost Love
8. Persecution

CD 2:

1. Solitude/Exiled
2. Alone
3. Shadows in the Flame/Visions
4. Hope/New Beginnings
5. Calm Before the Storm/Nostradamus
6. Future of Mankind

Rating: 55%

GALLOWS FOR GRACE: A Process for the Destruction of Tomorrow

Released: August 9, 2008

Gallows for Grace is another one of these locally-produced metal bands that seems to be sprouting up lately and immediately getting head-hunted by labels and to open at prominent shows. A little over two years old and these guys have already played with bands like Obituary, Job For A Cowboy and IKTPQ and performed in states at the opposite end of the country from their home in Perth. Some bands are able to do this simply by jumping on a current bandwagon and playing whatever's trendy. Gallows for Grace is hardly the most original band, but despite the fact they're on a hardcore label and have done a lot of work with groups whose definition as metal is tenuous at best, they haven't simply resorted to trotting out the same bunch of tired ideas that are helping to stagnate some areas of extreme music.

Despite the unwieldly title that coupled with a three-word band name made me think of some group that screams constantly and changes riff patterns every two seconds, "A Process for the Destruction of Tomorrow" instead showcases a rather more standard form of death metal. That isn't to suggest that Gallows for Grace don't have a technical bent as "World Eater" (which, to be fair, does have something of a deathcore influence) and the Decapitated-like "The Process" show, but they also mesh it with some catchy, old-school riffing that's still memorable once the song is over. With "Primordial Orbit" they show a healthy regard for classic melodic death from the Floridian school that's quite a welcome sign. It is the EP's highlight and centerpiece "Purest Atrophy" however that really allows Gallows for Grace to show what made they're made of with its expansive arrangement combining hook-laden grooves, tempo-changes and a big slab-like section, all without a breakdown within cooee. The vocals maintain a steady growl throughout too, a refreshing change from the frankly tiresome shriek-roar-clean-roar-clean-shriek epidemic of recent times.

Gallows for Grace has certainly taken off on the right foot with this. It's easy to see why they're already doing so well.

1. Rites
2. World Eater
3. The Process
4. Purest Atrophy
5. Primordial Orbit
6. Revealing the Helical Nether

Rating: 81%

VARIOUS ARTISTS: A Pirate's Life - Skull and Bones Records Sampler Vol. 1

Released: 2008

Skull and Bones is a label from Brisbane that has been extending its feelers into the burgeoning hardcore and related fields over the past few years, gathering up bands from around Australia and a couple from Britain and Japan. A lot of this music is outside my usual listening preference and some of it is beyond my tastes. Such as it is, I can't really give an objective opinion about some of the bands, particularly the more screamo-based acts like England's Johnny Truant who seem to exist just to make as harsh a noise as possible, but A Pirate's Life certainly gives a good overview of the label's aims and would surely be a good starting point for those who are looking for more underground and local alternatives to the foreign deluge.

First cab off the rank is Maroochydore's The Daylight Curse, one of those bands that blurs the definition between hardcore and metal to the degree where they are almost indiscernable from one another. Take away the breakdowns and core-ish gang vocals and "Stick to the Code" is a catchy melodic death metal song. There's no doubting which side of the fence an act like screamo outfit The Rivalry sit however with their very noisy and audaciously long "No Face for the Mentor", nor could fellow Adelaide lads Bloodsport be called anything but hardcore. Tokyo's Loyal to the Grave play a brutal mosh-heavy style of old-school metalcore that would please fans of bands like Vision of Disorder, and elsewhere The Amity Affliction come closest to any band here to a commercial prospect with the emo-leaning "I ♥ Throbsy". Art Vandelay and A Secret Death take a few leaves out of the early Neurosis copybook with their noisecore soundscapes. On the more metal side of things is Western Decay from Brisbane who tear out some speedy death metal and the time-signature defying The Abandonment. Other bands like Cross the Lips of Grace and Coma Lies create devastatingly brain-numbing attacks of dissonance that can't adequately be described but are fearsome in their pursuit of extremity.

Some of these bands would quite frankly drive me to ram a spike into my ears after more than a few minutes and terrify a casual audience, but those more attuned to it would probably find A Pirate's Life to be laden with some buried treasures.

1. The Daylight Curse - Stick to the Code
2. Anime Fire - Venom
3. The Abandonment - Digging Up the Dead
4. The Amity Affliction - I ♥ Throbsy
5. A Secret Death - idkfa
6. The Rivalry - No Face for the Mentor
7. Benneson Theory - I Trust Me
8. Johnny Truant - The Bloodening
9. Cross the Lips of Grace - Through Your Windows of Pain
10. Coma Lies - Paris, Wide On
11. Loyal to the Grave - Stagnation
12. Western Decay - Bloodclots and Clay
13. Art Vandelay - Donec Floruit
14. Bloodsport - Devoted to This
15. A Secret Death - Line of Progression
16. Infinite Thought Process - Moth Powder
17. Cross the Lips of Grace - Take Me to the Promised Land
18. Johnny Truant - I am the Primitologist, Mr Robrt Saposky
19. Naked Burn - Empty Hands
20. Loyal to the Grave - Endless Maze
21. Coma Lies - Take Me to the Stars... I Want to Go Home

Rating: 78%

INFERNAL METHOD: Architecture of Instinct

Released: 2005

For a number of years, Infernal Method was a name on the lips of a good number of Australian metal fans all around the country. Right from the moment they began, word spread that there was something a bit special about this Sydney band. They had the songs, a fearsome sound and a savage live reputation. But they just couldn't keep a solid line-up together; indeed the band had actually split up once in the period between when this was originally recorded and when it was finally released. So the debut album from Infernal Method finally arrived after two years of promises, line-up changes and re-recordings. The grand question of whether the wait was worth it hung heavily over it.

It took me a few spins to get a grip on Architecture of Instinct. Having heard some of these songs take shape from an early demo with no vocals to live versions with different singers and then to their ultimate recorded form, I probably noticed the tweaking and reworking more than most. At first, it left me a little cold, so familiar was I with previous arrangements and the enormous death metal roar of Joss Separovic. Evan Williams has a distinctly metalcore sound to his voice and it seems as if the band has tinkered with old arrangements here and there to cater to that style.

In the end that doesn't make much difference, but Architecture was a somewhat different beast to that I had been expecting. There are times where I still wonder what’s going on. “…to the Innards of the Prey”, for example, just trails off when it seems like there’s still half a song to go and Justin Brockbank from Friar Rush comes in to add some clean vocals to “The Burning Earth” that quite frankly sound completely out of place, even now. It's still a good album, but with some qualification. Neither the technical aspects nor the playing can be faulted, and songwriter Petar Peric’s ear for a distinctive and catchy melody resulted in a bunch of solid tracks that even with their new metalcore edge still demanded the attention of death metal fans.

In the end however the album suffered from having been delayed for so long. In the two years since it was first recorded, melodic death metal had become a thoroughly swamped area and Architecture of Instinct is now another quality volume in the genre instead of the distinctive stand-out it could have been had it been released in 2003.

1. Perpetual Sonic Obliteration
2. Reanimating the Wicked
3. ...to the Innards of the Prey
4. Change Blindness
5. Whispers and Spittle
6. An Incision Across the Anatomy of Iteration
7. Union of Animal and Genius (Methodology I)
8. Animal in Chains (Methodology II)
9. The Burning Earth
10. Of Words, Will and Power

Rating: 88%