DENIED: ...When the Slate Becomes Diamonds

Released: June 2008

Anyone who's followed this blog closely will know just how much I love power metal, and Italian power metal in particular. Denied (or perhaps just singer Stefano Bottari, who's apparently the only person left in the band these days) obviously know this because ...When the Slate Becomes Diamonds seems to be sending up their country's ridiculously awful power metal scene. Just check out that cover. In case you can't see it very well, it's a dude in spiky armour smashing a guitar into the ground with so much force that diamonds are flying out. And they have a song called "Ride to the Land of the Machine Guns"! If that isn't the greatest power metal song-title of all time then I don't know what is. While some bands are clearly unintentional self-parodies with idiotic names it seems that Denied at least knows how silly this whole schtick really is and don't try to play it all that straight. After all, they do have a song about riding to a land full of machine guns that has one of the most rousing choruses in the history of bad heavy metal.

Musically, Denied tap the Maiden-crossed-with-Helloween Euro-power vein mercilessly until every song sounds pretty much alike and by the brilliantly-named "Before Then After Later" you've really heard everything this band is ever likely to do (and dragging out the last track for almost ten minutes is over-playing an already over-played hand beyond most limits of patience). Still, for a one-trick pony, Denied are amusing enough that you might listen to this album all the way through and even put it on again once in a while, even if it's just to blare it loudly in the background while you swill beer. It's dumb in a way that so many band pretend they're not, and because of this it's totally inoffensive and somewhat likeable. For a little while anyway.

1. The Dawn
2. When the Slate Becomes Diamonds
3. Denied
4. The Waste Remains and Kills
5. Ride to the Land of the Machine Guns
6. Before Then After Later
7. Horrorama
8. Quest for Deliverance
9. Circle of Fire
10. Bearers of the Slate

Rating: 40%

KATATONIA: Night is the New Day

Released: 2009

Virtually every review of one of this band's albums since Discouraged Ones talks about the shift from blackened doom to the gloomy alternative rock direction they have now long been in as if the writer is self-consciously trying to show everyone that they knew Katatonia back when Blakkheim and Lord Seth were in the band. Katatonia's musical divergence happened so long ago now that mentioning it is about as relevant as reminding everyone that Metallica was once a thrash band. Yet, despite having left the metal arena some time ago, Katatonia still harbours a massive and loyal fanbase dating back to that period because while their music is stylistically different, they still exist within the dark and moody world they inhabited back then.

For their own part, the band has claimed Night is the New Day to be heavier and more diverse than what they have done in the past, and in some respects that is true, especially with regards to the subtle use of keyboards that help to add another layer to their trademark atmosphere. But underneath the lush production and the somnambulent melodies, it's still the same Katatonia. Like previous albums in their catalogue, Night is the New Day is an exploration of the darkness and solitude of the human condition through a collection of gloomy, repetitive, trance-like dirges, this time peppered with sprinklings of trip-hop keys and drum loops. Anders Nyström drives the tunes with churning minor-key riffs and Jonas Renkse colours em with dark, obscure musings in a melodious voice that evokes comparisons with Steve Kilbey of The Church and, significantly, Mikael Åkerfeld.

More than once on Night is the New Day, Katatonia comes as close as anyone to sounding like Opeth -- a delicious irony when one considers how often Opeth were once accused of sounding like Katatonia. In "Idle Blood" Renkse sounds more like Åkerfeld than Åkerfeld does and the band manages to capture the same emotion as a song like "Bleak", but in less than half the time. It's really no accident that these two bands can be so alike considering their history and influences, but Katatonia plunges even further into abysses of gloom and despair and with the added effects and what could be Jonas Renkse's best vocal performance yet, Night is the New Day is another morose triumph.

1. Forsaker
2. The Longest Year
3. Idle Blood
4. Onward into Battle
5. Liberation
6. The Promise of Deceit
7. Nephilim
8. New Night
9. Inheritance
10. Day and then the Shade
11. Departer

Rating: 89%

AUSTRALIAN METAL AWARDS

The Forum, Moore Park


Saturday night The Forum in Sydney rolled out the red carpet for the biggest names in Australian metal music. Tuxedo'd luminaries and their glamorous partners courted the cameras as they took their places inside at tables they had paid $450 a ticket for, and a who's who of celebrities kept the crowd entertained with music and comedy.

Like fuck. Sure there was music, and certainly comedy (at the same time, in fact), but instead of the nightmare that would make Cliff Burton turn in his grave and Dimebag return from his and rip shit up, the Australian Metal Awards was mainly a bunch of hard-drinking male metalheads and a pleasingly high percentage of hot metal chicks (including a couple of pseudo-lipstick lesbians who seemed to have made it their mission to flirt with absolutely everyone) watching some bands while every now and then some guy grabbed a microphone and yelled a bunch of stuff no one could understand that was, in fact, the announcement of the night's prize winners. The rumoured appearance of Phil Anselmo never occurred, but Ugly Phil O'Neill turned up for a while and even watched one of the acts. The focus was meant to be the awards themselves, but to be honest the attraction for most was the first (and only) performance by Sadistik Exekution in 10 years. There was a lot of bands in between however, so that meant a lot of drinking at the nearby pub for a lot of people who only came to see the headliners; but that's not to say there wasn't quite a crowd watching the festivities.

The Awards were the labour of love for Matt Willis and Natalie Meisenhelter, who persisted with the idea in spite of all kinds of cynicism and criticism and while technical difficulties on the evening itself forced some last minute changes of plan, things seemed to go rather well from my end of the beer can. Having the award presentation in the roped-off VIP section on the top floor didn't really work though, as no one on the levels below could see or hear what was going on -- it just sounded like a dude yelling things. Also, with Andrew Haug from Triple J, Ugly Phil from MMM, the owner of Utopia and Riot!'s Chris Maric there at different times of the night, I would have thought they could have been utilised as guest presenters. An idea for next year, perhaps?

Bane of Isildur and Eyefear were on early; too early for this reviewer unfortunately, but I did arrive in time to see Geelong's Death Audio. These guys have done some bigger shows around Melbourne over the last year including a few supports with The Red Shore. They're confident and have a pretty talented bass player but while their version of generic metalcore is solidly played and performed it is, to be fair, also solidly generic. Literally dozens of bands are playing this style now and as good as they are, Death Audio don't do anything with it. After them was Five Star Prison Cell, a band I love to watch but can't listen to for longer than a song or two because their time-signature free, 100-riffs-in-two-minutes, zero-melody mathcore spazz-metal attack always threatens to make my brain explode. So I headed outside and caught up with a few people including the singer for one of my favourite ever bands who was already quite pissed indeed.

The next band on the bill were the night's big winners. Despite not even having a record out yet and no real profile outside of Sydney, the death metal band Ouroboros picked up three awards including Best Bassist, Best Drummer and Best Unsigned Band. So they certainly had a lot to prove tonight, especially to everyone who kept saying "What? This guy's better than Dave Haley?" (Haley himself probably doesn't care all that much). Whether such comments are fair or not is really a matter of opinion; Ouroboros are quite good, they have a lot of presence and some decent if not-quite-original songs (one of them sounded quite a lot like Mortal Sin's "Mayhemic Destruction"), but they have still have some way to go before they're headlining their own shows at the Gaelic. After them came Asecretdeath, whose screamo/post-metal/noisecore hybrid didn't seem to gel well at all with many and it seemed that quite a few punters ducked back to the Fox and Lion for a while before the place got filled up with trendies and hipsters.

Chaos Divine followed, the awesome Perth progressive quintet who picked up no less than five awards tonight. It was doubtful if too many people in the room had even heard of these guys before this show but quite a lot of them went away talking about them. And they weren't saying bad things. Rock, death metal and melodic progressive stylings, Chaos Divine blend it like the best of them and should be one of Australia's biggest metal bands before too much longer.

Finally, after a long, long break, the band that almost everyone was there to see -- younger fans who'd never seen them play, older fans who wanted to see them again and curious others who wanted to find out what the fuss was about -- finally came on. If Chaos Divine were the sublime, then Sadistik Exekution were the ridiculous. It may have been ten years since they've played last, but they haven't changed a bit, except that perhaps Rok gets crazier with age. Dave Slave has always billed himself as the mental one of the band (and that's saying a lot), but Rok was off the fucking planet tonight, crawling around on his knees and slapping himself constantly in the head while making spastic noises, ranting and raving, swearing and generally behaving in a totally unhinged fashion. Musically of course, they were as terrible as a band that proudly announces themselves as "the most fucked band in the world" could be, although there were some surprisingly coherent moments like the doomy opener. But they were hilarious. I could hardly stop laughing from the moment they began. Rok was so berzerk that it was difficult to pay attention to what the others were doing and it almost seemed as if the band was having the same trouble sometimes.

Reaction from punters was intriguing. "I can't believe I paid $45 to see this shit!" said one friend. "This is the worst band I've ever seen!" said another, then left. "Does he ever say anything else?" I was asked by one young metaller when Sad Ex had played yet another song where all the lyrics sounded like "Death! Fukk! Metal! Kill! Fukk! Death!" I only smiled. At the end, they played "The Magus" and finally seemed to actually click as a band instead of just four guys making a fuckload of noise. Rok went crazy and Kriss Hades slashed his guitar strings and then smashed the instrument to pieces. It was nuts. Outside afterwards, people didn't seem to know whether they had just seen a very strange band or a very strange circus when really, it was kinda both.

Some of the winners and a few of the bands left people aghast, but aside from the technical hitches the night seemed to be something of a success. Hopefully some of the cynics and critics can shut up now and help out in 2010. With the mountain of killer Australian metal releases that have come out in 2009, there should be more than just a few winners next year.

• Best Metal Fan/Web/Magazine: http://www.metalobsession.net/
• Most Popular Merchandise: Psycroptic
• Best Album Cover: Psycroptic - (Ob)servant
• Best Band Name: Psycroptic
• Best Film Clip: Psycroptic - "Initiate"
• Best Producer/Recording Engineer: Jarrod Hearman (Sing Sing Studios) - Chaos Divine, Avalon
• Best Drummer: Dave Horgan - Ouroboros
• Best Bass Player: Michael Conti - Ouroboros
• Best Keyboards Player: Chris Stevenson - The Eternal
• Best Regional Band: Alchemist
• Best Youth Band: Asphyxia
• Best Export: Psycroptic
• Best Live Band: Psycroptic
• Best Guitarist: Jimmy Lardner-Brown, Killrazer
• Best Vocalist: Dave Anderton, Chaos Divine
• Best New Band: Death Audio
• Song of the Year: Chaos Divine - "Refuse the Sickness"
• Best Unsigned Band: Ouroboros
• Best Album: Chaos Divine - Avalon
• Best Overall Band: Chaos Divine

BON JOVI: The Circle

Produced by John Shanks with Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora

Released: Yesterday

I'm not sure what "the Circle" is, but it could be something to do with the direction that Bon Jovi has been travelling for a while now. Despite some odd excursions into country-rock and deconstructive acoustic experiments (which, it must be said, was actually a pretty interesting thing for this band to do), most of the Jovis output has been pretty formulaic and predictable since These Days (and how many of us can remember a single song off that?). Have a Nice Day was their best album in a long time even if most of the songs sounded surprisingly alike, probably because the emphasis was on the good-time rocking out that made Bon Jovi so huge in the first place. The Circle isn't as successful at recapturing that vibe, instead trammeling a path of laidback contemporary pop-rock along similar lines to that of Bounce.

The Circle is very typical modern Bon Jovi, a safe, formulaic collection of straight-forward radio rock and heart-string tuggers that broach the usual Joviesque subjects: love, yearning and heartbreak, and workaday tales of ordinary people. The first two tracks are standard Bon Jovi, a sure-fire upbeat lightweight rocker in "We Weren't Born to Follow" and then "When We Were Beautiful" the usual balladic workout that is also from the soundtrack to the somewhat self-indulgent DVD of the same name that comes with the limited edition version of the album. In "Work for the Working Man", Bon Jovi revisits "Livin' on a Prayer" briefly (even stealing his own song's bassline) as he courts his Springsteen muse, but in the end he winds up a little off-target. The anti-war song "Bullet" is something of a surprise with its liberal use of heavy (for Bon Jovi) and distorted guitar and one of the most explosive solos Richie Sambora has pulled off in a very, very long time. For the most part however, it's all pretty innocuous and predictable fare: midpaced light rockers offset with wistful ballads, little in the way of musical interludes to distract the attention from Jon's voice and lyrics that are either corny ("Fast Cars") or direct steals from the Beatles ("I had a girl we fell in love/Or should I say she had me") or dozens of his other songs.

Bon Jovi freaks will love this because they'll be getting exactly what they want (and being married to one, I know this to be true), but most others probably won't find The Circle to be that exciting. I do quite like "Bullet" though.

1. We Weren't Born to Follow
2. When We Were Beautiful
3. Work for the Working Man
4. Superman Tonight
5. Bullet
6. Thorn in My Side
7. Live Before You Die
8. Brokenpromiseland
9. Love's the Only Rule
10. Fast Cars
11. Happy Now
12. Learn to Love

Rating: 50%

EARTH: Fear of Tomorrow

Released: 2009

It seems like ages since I’ve heard much from Earth although they’ve toured with Dismember twice and never really gone away. I’d heard rumours of something new from them for a while and I’m glad to see that rumour has become fact in the shape of Fear of Tomorrow.

In the seven years since the last album, their sound hasn’t changed much despite most of the band having been replaced in the meantime. Essentially, they are still very much about playing classic Swedish-style melodic death metal as crushingly as possible. The biggest difference is that the keyboards have been integrated into the music more seamlessly than before, when Earth seemed to add breakdowns just to accommodate them.

The keys work best in the two more expansive tracks, “Gagged and Bound” and the brilliant “Don’t Look Back” that features the album’s best dynamics and some harmony backing vocals from Sarah Jezebel Deva of CoF and Therion fame. On the rest of Fear of Tomorrow, the guitars truly dominate. Every song is a feast of catchy melodic and heavy death metal riffs and harmonised guitar lines in the Gothenburg tradition. It has to be said, however, that apart from the songs previously mentioned, this is a bit lacking in diversity. “Tomorrow” and “Terrorized” are short and speedy with the latter closing in on grind intensity. Other songs vary the pace only a little between fast and faster and the band’s reliance on the standard galloping riff patterns of early In Flames and Dark Tranquillity makes a lot of the tracks sound rather alike. It takes a second or third listen before the subtleties and vagaries of different songs emerge; for example there is a sprinkling of solos which the band has made little use of until now. Still, the catchiness alone will carry the listener through much of the album’s blood-soaked tracks. The hooks are immense and everywhere. The songs drip with them, and the precision playing and expert production erase most of the feelings of sameiness quite quickly.

Earth is one of the few bands still actually playing the pure form of this style and do so extremely well, so Fear of Tomorrow will definitely have appeal to fans who yearn for the days of The Gallery or The Jester Race and “Don’t Look Back” is without doubt the finest thing they’ve done since “Prophecy and Destiny” off their debut.

1. Tomorrow
2. Gagged and Bound
3. Banner of Death
4. Land of the Dead
5. Terrorized
6. Morbid End
7. Visions of Blood
8. Don't Look Back
9. Bloody Carnival
10. Human Carnage - The Requiem
11. Balls to the Wall/Seeing Red
12. Damned Forevermore

Rating: 70%

IMMORTAL: All Shall Fall

Produced by Peter Tägtgren
Released: September 25



There’s little doubt that this is the most anticipated comeback album of the year, and there’s none but a few who could honestly say they’d be that disappointed by it. While Immortal may have been taking the piss out of themselves now for a long time, it’s also clear that they’ve always been deadly serious about the music itself. The evidence list for this begins with the daunting and impressive packaging of All Shall Fall that borrows from Beyond the Gates by Possessed (a band to whom all groups like this pay a debt) and continues with Demonaz’ detailed lyrics and the blasting soundtrack the band provides them.

In short, Immortal may look like cartoon characters with their crazy full-face make-up and ridiculous spiky attire, but they sound every bit like furious warrior demons at the vanguard of Hell’s legions. There’s a sophistication and a skill inherent in their ferocious dark black thrash attack that belies their clownish appearance and Peter Tägtgren’s production enhances the feeling of cold, methodical bitterness, the aesthetics of pure misanthropic destruction.
Indeed, the clinical sound is what helps give All Shall Fall its immense power, turning what would still be a good track like the riff-infested “The Rise of Darkness” into a thing of pure menace. There is unquestionably something of a groove apparent thanks to the audible thump of Appolyon’s bass and Immortal has also put a heavy emphasis on dynamics here too as the mid-paced sections contrast drastically with the speedier parts when Horgh gets steam up. The clean passages in the likes of “Norden on Fire” –the closest they get to their usual Bathory-worship—enhance the atmosphere of malevolence that only a nasal grunt like Abbath’s can help create. It should also be noted that his lead guitar work on here is possibly his best yet.

While All Shall Fall has its thrashier tracks, it also has its frosty epics, closing with the immense “Unearthly Kingdom”, a grim combination of slow, pounding riffs and sudden bursts of speed; it almost sounds sad, which seems like a strange thing to say about Immortal but it fits the bill here.

Not everyone will be happy, but All Shall Fall is a strong album that bridges some of the gaps between Immortal’s early style and their later phase without really changing anything very much. It’s not a total masterpiece, but it could hardly be described as just another comeback either.

1. All Shall Fall
2. The Rise of Darkness
3. Hordes to War
4. Norden on Fire
5. Arctic Swarm
6. Mount North
7. Unearthly Kingdom

Rating: 85%

W.A.S.P.: Babylon

Produced by Blackie Lawless
Released: October 12

You gotta hand it to Blackie Lawless. Few people could have foreseen his two-chord-wonder shock rock hack act W.A.S.P. lasting much beyond its first couple of albums, and even fewer could have predicted the way the band not only lasted, but grew and developed beyond the infantile buzz-saw-wearing, blood-drinking, offal-throwing and misogynistic torture shows. Yet, armed with a modicum of real talent and an ambition, vision and drive that befits his enormous ego, Lawless has kept the W.A.S.P. fire burning now for 27 years. And if anything represents that fire, it is this, his band's 14th studio album and quite simply the best thing W.A.S.P. has done since 1992.

Flame and fire abound throughout Babylon's tracklisting: "Babylon's Burning", "Burn", "Into the Fire", "Thunder Red", "Seas of Fire" -- all kind of appropriate given the album's apparent concept as visions of the Apocalypse -- and the music is similarly ablaze with loud and heavy riffing, towering solos and Blackie's mean and demented vocal roar. There's nothing here you wouldn't have heard before from W.A.S.P.. The lead track "Crazy" starts out almost exactly like "Wild Child", for example, but this has an energy, conviction and direction that the group has lacked for a long, long time. "Babylon's Burning" is simply fantastic heavy metal that is up there with anything that could be labelled W.A.S.P.'s best and "Seas of Fire" is also a ripper. I've never been fussed on Blackie's more balladic tracks (mainly because he basically can't sing) but "Into the Fire" is also something of a highlight. The Deep Purple cover that was left off the Dominator album fits better into this concept. Stripped of the pompy keys and the funky beats, W.A.S.P. reimagines "Burn" as an apocalyptic metal song and does it pretty well. They even round things out with a metallized Chuck Berry cover that turns out sounding a little like Motörhead.

W.A.S.P. has been more miss than hit over the past decade and a half, but Babylon shows that Blackie Lawless still has a really good album in him when he gets right down to it. If you've been disappointed by his last few efforts, this should more than make up for it.

1. Crazy
2. Live to Die Another Day
3. Babylon's Burning
4. Burn
5. Into the Fire
6. Thunder Red
7. Seas of Fire
8. Godless Run
9. Promised Land

Rating: 82%