HELLOWEEN: 7 Sinners

Produced by Charle Bauerfeind
Released: November 2010

The first thing that strikes you about the new Helloween album is how heavy it is. It's almost worth forgiving them for the ridiculous Unarmed if that's what it took for them to get as heavy as this. The second thing is how metal it is. Just how goddamn METAL is this album? Skip straight to the fourth track, "Raise the Noise", revel in the seriously savage riffarama going on and then listen in astonishment at the goddamn rampaging flute solo! That's how fucking METAL this album is, there's flutes where guitars should be. Helloween has always had the temerity to do whatever they please, and this time it works.


7 Sinners is a great heavy metal album. If "Are You Metal?" was written as a response to all those who wondered what the fuck Unarmed was, then the rest of the tracks are Helloween's affirmation that they are, indeed, metal. By the time "Raise the Noise" comes around, the band has decided that restraint is no longer required and they are churning out what is easily the heaviest stuff they've ever done, without compromising their incredible grasp on melody and hooks nor their knack for storytelling. What is frequently overlooked with Helloween's lyrics is how thought-provoking they often are and many of the songs follow the lyrical theme suggested by the album title: avarice and lust. "If A Mountain Could Talk" and "You Stupid Mankind" make telling and topical points about humanity's rapacious wastefulness and "The Sage, the Fool, the Sinner" is a murky little tale about murder and greed. They haven't forgotten their quirky side (the aforementioned flute solo) or their past (the shadow of "Perfect Gentleman" in the intro to "Who is Mr Madman?") either, nor the classic power metal they're best known for ("Long Live the King") and the final track hints at a darkness in tone and style that's rare for them. Andi Deris shines, but here it's hard to find to someone who doesn't. The drums are massive, the riffs and solos are huge and the song-writing and hooks are as strong as you'd expect from a band who are masters of the game.

As someone who has always been less than a massive fan of Helloween, 7 Sinners was damn impressive and by the end of it I even found myself going back to re-acquaint myself with their earlier stuff. A sterling effort.

1. Where the Sinners Go
2. Are You Metal?
3. Who is Mr Madman?
4. Raise the Noise
5. World of Fantasy
6. Long Live the King
7. The Smile of the Sun
8. You Stupid Mankind
9. If a Mountain Could Talk
10. The Sage, the Fool, the Sinner
11. My Sacrifice
12. Not Yet Today
13. Far in the Future

Rating: 92%

SHELLFIN: Second Hand Family

Produced by Shellfin
Released: 2010

A casual listen to Shellfin's debut could give you the impression that Second Hand Family is just one long track. Because essentially that's just what it is: a loose, semi-structured jam that even sounds like it was recorded in one take, with lyrics and vocals an afterthought to the enormously grooving riffs.

Like Kyuss, the band they originally formed to salute, Shellfin is a jam band that allows the music to dictate the path they take and how long it takes to get there. As the album progresses it becomes a series of jams-within-jams as the various members break into extended improvs that turn around on a timely fill from drummer Geeks back to the main riff or go in another direction altogether. The lyrics have a similar train-of-thought quality about them and the vocals have that deliciously slightly off-key aspect that only works for stoner bands. Like they say in their promo material, this is not about smoking weed but being immersed and entranced by heavy grooves, and the deeper you go, the more immersed and entranced you become. Some albums this long begin to feel like an ordeal just over halfway through, but Second Hand Family never loses its grip for the entire trip. Then fifteen minutes after the end of "Intervening Time" the hidden track "Of Bowels and Breath" rises from the silence on an immense, sinister riff so sludge-ridden it could have come from the bottom of the sea.

This infectiously likeable groove is available only through shellfin.bandcamp.com, for the very special price of whatever you feel like paying! And this deserves far more than small change. Shellfin don't really do anything that Kyuss hasn't done already, but these guys are our own, doing it with integrity, so they deserve support.

1. The Extent of It
2. Cruzzin
3. In the Head
4. Short Spew
5. Hedgehog
6. Fleishgeist
7. What's That Smell?
8. The Intervening Time

Rating: 90%

DEATH ANGEL: Relentless Retribution

Produced by Jason Suecof
Released: August 2010

It's been a couple of years since Death Angel graced us with a new album, but considering the upheaval and turmoil that has surrounded the group in the last decade, we should be thankful they've given us an album at all. And we should indeed be thankful, because Relentless Retribution is another sterling effort from the most over-looked of the trash pioneers.

This doesn't hold up to the likes of Exodus and Overkill's 2010 efforts, being somewhat uneven overall. It suffers a little through the middle and due to some strange track-listing choices, but nevertheless it helps to remind us what a great band Death Angel is with their idiosyncratic take on metal. The thrashing starts immediately and ferociously as Mark Osegueda exhorts us to join him or die in "Relentless Revolution". He hasn't neglected the cerebral side of his songwriting with a mixture of empowering and topical lyrics across the set. Unfortunately the album is let down by a few unremarkable songs like "Truce" and "River of Rapture" and the near-Triviumising they suffer in "Claws so Deep". That track ends with an extended coda from guests Rodrigo y Gabriela and as cool as that is, I couldn't help but feel that it actually interrupted the flow of the album just as it was getting going and may well have been much better as a segue into the oddly Black Label Society-like ballad "Volcanic" later on. Still, this is Death Angel so it's going to have real standouts, and in that area "Opponents at Sides" with its combination of meaty thrash and healthy groove and "Into the Arms of Righteous Anger" certainly fit the bill. The sinister "Absence of Light" is also a clear highlight, making Relentless Retribution a bit of a mixed bag and Jason Suecof's production gives the band's music a modern sound with a commercial edge that will no doubt be a sore point with some fans.

This is a good album from Death Angel without being a great one, and we know they're capable of those. Perhaps if Osegueda and Cavestany can keep the same crew together into the future we'll see a real return to form.

1. Relentless Revolution
2. Claws in So Deep
3. Truce
4. Into the Arms of Righteous Anger
5. River of Rapture
6. Absence of Light
7. This Hate
8. Death of the Meek
9. Opponents at Sides
10. I Chose the Sky
11. Volcanic
12. Where They Lay

Rating: 72%

LORD: Return of the Tyrant

Produced by Lord Tim
Released: October 2010

If there's one band from this country that does epic well, it's LORD. So when they decide to record a sequel to the 2005 Dungeon track "Tarranno del Mar", a long-standing live favourite, they don't just do an EP, they do an enormous EP that's even longer than their last two albums! To be fair, the original intention was to split this into two, but time and budget constraints forbade it, so "Return of the Tyrant" clocks in at a whopping 65 minutes, which ain't bad for a CD with only three new songs on it.


The first of these is the title track, an immense 10-minute saga into which LORD cram almost every trick they've ever pulled and then some: crunchy guitars, catchy riffs, soaring vocals, big melodies, huge solos, cheesy voice acting and finally an epic dose of orchestration that makes this perhaps the biggest sounding song this band has ever recorded. And that's saying a lot. If ever there was one song that could encapsulate a band, "Return of the Tyrant" is the one that represents LORD, and there's another two versions -- a radio edit and an orchestral one -- included just in case one isn't enough. The other pair of newies are covers. Both are relatively faithful to the originals and both show the band taking something of a departure from their usual style. "Of Sins and Shadows" is a Symphony X song and features extended keyboard soloing for the first time on a LORD recording. For such a guitar-oriented band, this is a refreshing change and works so well here, the question has to asked: will there be more in future? Next, they slip into melodic AOR mode for a run through the 80s classic "(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight" with vocals handled by bassist Andy Dowling. As always, the covers are done with aplomb and deep respect for the originals and show LORD's versatility.

If those songs are a departure, the rest of the tracks are a complete digression - unplugged versions of tracks from the past two LORD albums as well as of the Dungeon songs "Against the Wind" and "Paradise". For a band that has pretty much stayed completely away from acoustics in the past, you have to question whether they are capable of pulling this off. Metal songs don't always translate well to the unplugged format, and to a degree that's the case here too. "100 Reasons" and "Paradise" misfire, but the others come across well: "Rain" has some great guitar play-off that actually reminded me a little bit of Tommy Emmanuel's Up From Down Under, and "New Horizons" is probably better done this way than in its original form. Considering how heavy it is normally, "Eternal Storm" somehow works too.

Overall this is a pretty valid experiment that really shows the depth of talent LORD has and the risks they are willing to take in the name of their music.

1. Return of the Tyrant
2. Of Sins and Shadows
3. (I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight
4. Against the Wind
5. Rain
6. 100 Reasons
7. Paradise
8. Eternal Storm
9. New Horizons
10. Return of the Tyrant (orchestral mix)
11. Return of the Tyrant (edit)

Rating: 75%

TERROR: Keepers of the Faith

Released: 2010

For the best part of the last decade, Terror has been keeping it real and keeping it honest, and on their latest blitzkrieg release they simply refuse to compromise that integrity to any degree whatsoever. Keepers the Faith has 13 tracks in just on 33 minutes, and hearkens back to the metallic hardcore glory days of Shai Hulud, Earth Crisis and Vision of Disorder.

The cover says it all: no frills, no bullshit. This is what the underground is all about. Here there's no melodic choruses or whiny vocals and no melodeath-style twin guitar harmonies. It's just simple, speedy punk beats, hard and fast, catchy riffs and slammin' breakdowns perfect for the pit. That's it. Scott Vogel delivers his lyrics as a spitfire string of unsung hard rhyme with no thought to busting out into choirboy-mode when the chorus rolls around. The guitars roar with a metallic fury with a spastic, rapid fire solo squeezed out here and there for a splash of colour.

If you want to know what metalcore sounded like before Atreyu ruined it, then Terror's your band.

1. Your Enemies Are Mine
2. Stick Tight
3. Return to Strength
4. The Struggle
5. Shattered
6. You're Caught
7. Dead Wrong
8. Keepers of the Faith
9. Stay Free
10. Hell and Back
11. Only Death
12. The New Blood
13. Defiant

Rating: 90%

CRADLE OF FILTH: Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa

Produced by Scott Atkins, Doug Cook and Dani Filth
Released: November 2

Here, on their tenth album, Cradle of Filth do what Dimmu Borgir wasn't quite able to pull off on Abrahadabra, a successful combination of their orchestral and choral pretentions with some at times quite insanely savage extreme metal. In spite of its clumsy title, Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa is a continuation of their comeback from creative mediocrity that was presaged by 2008's excellent Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder, as the influence of the very talented Ashley Ellyllon and the resurgent guitar work of Paul Allender comes to the fore.


Indeed the album owes it success more to the arrangements and playing than it does to any of the vocals - the female leads lack Sarah Diva's considerable gravitas and Dani Filth concentrates mainly on a rather monotonous mid-range croak. In the past he's always been like a demented King Diamond but on this album he seems strangely restrained. There are a couple of times he adds a nice bowel-rumbling growl like the one in "The Persecution Song" but apart from a somewhat half-arsed effort in the opening track his high shriek is virtually absent.

Of course, some listeners will appreciate this more than others, but it seems like it's given the rest of the band a license to cut loose with some of the most furious and chaotic music that's adorned a Cradle of Filth album in a very long time. Martin Skaroupka uses a combination of technical wizardry and blast-beat laden speed to lay down a seriously brutal drum assault and Allender and co-conspirator James McIlroy use a superb combination of hook-ridden rocking with hyper-speed black metal-style guitar parts and downright heavy death metal riffs like the key riff in "Deceiving Eyes" - one of the heaviest tracks this band has ever recorded. Then there's Ellyllon's keyboards, playing counterpoint as the rest of the group's metallic cacophony swirls around her like a maelstrom. There's also no instrumental interludes - not even an intro track - to break the furious pace this keeps up for its hour-long running time. Late in the piece the band take a sharp turn with the blatantly commercial Gothic rock track "Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned)" that begins with an amazingly poppy clean guitar melody and ends with Allender and McIlroy soloing all over it like they're in Iron Maiden. The strings and choirs add the colour and spice they're designed to but, as mentioned, Lucy Atkins as Lilith is a bit of a letdown. Filth's lyrics don't seem to contain quite so much of his subtle humour as usual, but he does come up with amusing titles like "The Nun With the Astral Habit" and the loud-out-loud bonus-disc track "Mistress from the Sucking Pit", and conceptually this is actually quite similar to Cruelty and the Beast, which will certainly please those who have found this band's output since then less than remarkable.

Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa shows just how great Cradle of Filth can truly be when they put their minds to it and might even bring some of the lapsed followers back to the fold.


1. The Cult of Venus Aversa
2. One Foul Step from the Abyss
3. The Nun With the Astral Habit
4. Retreat of the Sacred Heart
5. The Persecution Song
6. Deceiving Eyes
7. Lilith Immaculate
8. The Spawn of Love and War
9. Harlot on a Pedestal
10. Forgive Me Father (I Have Sinned)
11. Beyond Eleventh Hour

Rating: 90%

BLIND GUARDIAN: At the Edge of Time

Produced by Blind Guardian and Charlie Bauerfeind
Released: July 2010

In scaling back some of the overt histrionics that were threatening to turn them into a parody of themselves, Blind Guardian's vision on At the Edge of Time has somewhat crystalised. The folk and orchestral elements are still present but they're not overdone to the point where they become the whole focus of the music. The same can be said for Hansi Kürsch, who has reined in his overbearing vocals so they work with the band and not against it, as we were beginning to witness on A Night at the Opera. The result is a solid and enjoyable album of catchy power metal that is perhaps their most consistent since the end of the 90s, almost attaining the heights they enjoyed on Imaginations From the Other Side or Nightfall on Middle Earth.


Using the science fiction and fantasy works of people like Jordan and the peerless Moorcock as inspiration, Blind Guardian don't exactly take their listeners anywhere they haven't been before. That's true about the music itself also: At the Edge of Time isn't exactly full of surprises. What it does have though, as noted above, is focus. They've kept what works and ditched the rest. Coupling Kürsch's Freddie Mercury-inspired vocal arrangements with a real orchestra gives their more elaborate, epic numbers a true sense of depth and the songs that bookend this collection, "Sacred Worlds" and the magnificent "Wheel of Time", perfectly embody Blind Guardian's creative ethic. In between is a series of cuts like "A Voice in the Dark" and "Ride Into Obsession" that combine speed, hooks and heaviness in perfect proportions, and the balladic "Curse My Name" incorporates strong Celtic folk elements. Then right in the middle is "Valkyries", a multi-layered, melodic progressive metal mini-saga that could be among the best songs the band has ever done, and there's barely any real cringe-worthy moments to be had.

Perhaps realising that they were getting a little bit too clever and self-indulgent for their own good, on At the Edge of Time Blind Guardian appears to have finally got the balance right once again. It's a victory for substance over style that other bands should note.

1. Sacred Worlds
2. Tanelorn (Into the Void)
3. Road of No Release
4. Ride into Obsession
5. Curse My Name
6. Valkyries
7. Control the Divine
8. War of the Thrones
9. A Voice in the Dark
10. Wheel of Time

Rating: 85%

THE POOR: Round 2

Produced by The Poor & Greg Clarke

Released: October 15, 2010

The Poor's comeback album out of last year was a rather disappointing collection of somewhat bland older songs they'd never got around to releasing the first time they were around. While there were traces of the old rock n'roll brawlers on it, it didn't live up to expectations.

On Round 2, they come out swinging much more convincingly, punching out a short, sharp album of no-nonsense hard rock that doesn't over stay its welcome or try to be anything more than it is. The Poor has got their mojo back and they quickly prove it with "Black n Blue", "Blood" and "Trouble" lashing out a 1,2,3 of solid rock heavy hitting with tasty riffs, catchy hooks and Skenie's mean n' clean vocal stylings. When they do take the foot off, it's for a bluesy acoustic ramble through "Rock N' Roll Survivor" that's every bit as road-weary as it sounds. "Jesus" brings back the rock immediately and shows that even a song that seems to have absolutely nothing to say can be fun if it's catchy enough. Refreshingly, the back half of Round 2 rocks out just as well as the first, closing with the totally rollicking "Which Part of No Don't You Understand".

A much better statement of intent than the patchy comeback, Round 2 shows that this time The Poor means business.

1. Black N Blue
2. Blood
3. Trouble
4. Bad Taste
5. Anna's Old Man
6. Rock n Roll Survivor
7. Jesus
8. Kiss My Arse
9. Nothin to Say
10. Grave
11. Which Part of No Don't You Understand

Rating: 75%

METALLICA: Six Feet Down Under

Released: September 20, 2010

Tonight, Metallica kicks off the second leg of their sold out Australian tour with a show in Brisbane. So what does an old, ardent fan do when one has no ticket to any of these events, other than cry into one's beer? This so-called "EP" does provide the opportunity for a trip down memory lane to the band's previous Down Under tours, so one could start there.

Labels like to have some product for a band to promote while they're on tour, but when the band is Metallica, the album's two years old and they won't allow permission for a special "tour edition", what can you do? You grab a bunch of bootlegged live tracks recorded on previous "Trans-Tasman" tours (as the booklet is at pains to point out, although no NZ shows made the cut) and turn them into the world's longest EP. Metallica are old hands at this "official bootleg" caper of course, but the results on this occasion turn out to be perhaps the rawest-sounding live takes officially released by any band ever. The first three are especially rough. "Through the Never" sounds like it was recorded on a mobile phone (which I'd almost believe if it wasn't from '93) and the recording quality of the first two is also very bad, to the degree where Metallica is almost entirely drowned out by people talking nearby a couple of times. The off-key harmonies in "...And Justice for All" are also very jarring. If this were a DVD or an actual concert, you probably wouldn't even notice. But because it's not, it's very, very obvious.

Things get better later on. Both "The Unforgiven" and the remarkable acoustic version of "Low Man's Lyric" complete with hurdy-gurdy are perfectly acceptable and it's great to hear them tear out "Fight Fire with Fire". But in all seriousness, there isn't really any reason for this to exist. Most of the tracks have probably been on YouTube now for years and despite the plea from the band in the booklet to "please don't take this too seriously", it's a bit cynical to expect people to fork out for a collection of (mostly) terribly recorded live tracks. On the plus side, this is being marketed as an EP (despite being five minutes longer than Ride the Lightning), so it only costs about $15. And that's fine, until you discover that it's only part one, meaning you're up for more cash in another month or so, when the second one comes out.

1. Eye of the Beholder
2. ...And Justice for All
3. Through the Never
4. The Unforgiven
5. Low Man's Lyric
6. Devil's Dance
7. Frantic
8. Fight Fire With Fire

Rating: 55%

DIMMU BORGIR: Abrahadabra

Produced by Dimmu Borgir
Released: September 29, 2010

Dimmu Borgir have thrown absolutely everything at their latest opus: inordinate amounts of orchestration, a full choir, Lovecraft-inspired artwork, lyrics evoking dark mysticism. It makes for a very elaborate and impressive package, but in the wash-up, Abrahadabra sounds less like Dimmu Borgir and more like the orchestral metal of Therion. To this end, this doesn't turn out to be quite as innovative and original as Dimmu probably intended it to be, and not quite the triumph it was lauded to be either.


Abrahadabra is the pinnacle of symphonic metal toward which this band has been steering now for many years, perhaps even from the moment they started, although they couldn't have known that then. The only problem is they've climbed so high up the symphonic summit they've almost left behind the key element that made them such a great metal band in the first place, namely the "metal" part. A friend of mine suggested this sounded like the sountrack to a Tim Burton film, and she's not far off. Abrahadabra would slot right into one of Burton's darker, psychological dramas. But as an extreme metal album, it leaves something to be desired. The orchestral and choral sections simply swamp the band itself to the degree where it's almost as bad as Rhapsody in places. Musically, Silenoz and Galder bring virtually nothing to the table. It's like Shagrath went into the studio with the orchestra by himself and the others turned up later to see how he was going, then quickly laid some stuff down to go along with it. For the time and apparent effort Dimmu Borgir spent on this album, it should have been one of the most amazing releases of the year so far, and up there with Enthrone Darkness Triumphant and Death Cult Armageddon as their greatest work. Instead it's a let down without any of the spectacular highlights that one would expect from a symphonic exploration of Aleister Crowley by a band like Dimmu Borgir.

Abrahadabra is by no means a terrible album, but in a lot of ways it sounds like Dimmu Borgir adding a bunch of strings and choirs to cover up their lack of new ideas. Liber AL vel Legis deserves better treatment than this.

1. Xibir
2. Born Treacherous
3. Gateways
4.Chess With the Abyss
5. Dimmu Borgir
6. Ritualist
7. The Demiurge Molecule
8. A Jewel Traced Through Coal
9. Renewal
10. Endings and Continuations

Rating: 68%

THE RED SHORE: The Avarice of Man

Produced by Roman Koester

Released: September 2010

It's hard to imagine a band that's been through more in the last few years than The Red Shore. Yet if ever there has been an example of getting stronger through tragedy and turmoil, then this band is it, and here is proof. If extreme metal is any kind of catharsis, The Avarice of Man is the ultimate therapy for the pain some of these guys have suffered.

This band is virtually unrecognisable as the group that unleashed "Salvaging What's Left" and even Unconsecrated. With Chase Butler taking over the vocal reins from the tormented Jamie Hope, all remnants of their deathcore past have been finally stripped away and in its place is a fearsome, brutal and ugly technical death metal monster which now edges close to some kind of unrelenting cross between Morbid Angel and Decapitated. The mix (courtesy of Jacob from Textures) evokes a horrible sense of unease as, quite apart from many of their contemporaries, The Red Shore has gone for a distinctly murky sound on The Avarice of Man. It might take a couple of listens for some ears to penetrate the sludgy guitars and Butler's concrete larynx, but when they do they will discover a crushing album with some inventive tech-death riffs and occasional Morbid Angel-like moments where the guitars are like slabs rising from some rank and primordial ooze. Butler's cerebral lyrics might be lost through his dense, somewhat monotonous growl but the claustrophobic atmosphere is perfect for the apocalyptic concept of humanity's violent destruction that is weaved throughout.

True hooks are few and far between, as this is not an album that sweeps you along with catchy groove after groove. Instead, it is a raging torrent of blast beats and ever-changing technical riffs, broken up now and again by old-school Suffocation-style breakdowns that have taken the place of the hardcore slam sections from earlier work. "The Approaching Tempest" is appropriately named, exploding with a hailstorm of ferocity that leads to the twisted complexity and savagery of the title track. Indeed, the five tracks preceding the grinding interlude "The Union" are tableaux of epic death metal violence that are second to none. The others are nothing to be sneezed at either because with The Avarice of Man, The Red Shore has delivered a masterful slab of extreme technical brutality that stands alongside the best on the world stage.
 
1. Creation
2. The Seed of Annihilation
3. Human, All too Human
4.The Approaching Tempest
5. The Avarice of Man
6. Of First and Last Things
7. Armies of Damnation
8. Inflict De-creation
9. The Union
10. And It’s Own
11. Awakening
12. Reduced to Ruin
13. The Relapse of Humanity

Rating: 95%

OPETH: In Live Concert at the Royal Albert Hall

Released: October 2010
There was a point about halfway through the first disc of this immense DVD when I suddenly realised that the flag draped over the barrier at the front of the stage wasn't the Swedish flag but the Norwegian one. Either some Norwegian wanted to show the world he was there or some well-meaning British fan had brought the wrong flag to the gig. It's only a minor thing really, but rather distracting. And it may be a telling point about this near-three hour long live performance from one of the world's best bands that I could get distracted from it so easily. Because unlike groups like Tool and Pink Floyd who adorn their shows with visuals, lightshows and other effects to draw attention away from the fact that the band itself is pretty much just standing there, Opeth use only a big screen with some static images on it.

As magnificent a band Opeth is, and as flawless as this live version of Blackwater Park is also, the fact is that if you removed the visual part of this DVD you would miss nothing. Mikael Åkerfeldt doesn't speak a word to the sold-out Albert Hall crowd for the entire 71 minutes of the first disc, and barely acknowledges them at all. As a live act, Opeth really isn't the most dynamically interactive band. On the flipside, they are, as mentioned, brilliant and more capable of allowing the music to speak for itself than almost any other.

This special 20th anniversary performance was filmed and recorded at London's iconic Royal Albert Hall and features not only a meticulous live recreation of the Blackwater Park album but a second, even longer set that includes a song from each of their other albums, presented in chronological order. Unsurprisingly, every single track is spot-on, perfectly recreated in the live forum as it would be in the studio, so in essence this is virtually a best-of collection. Åkerfeldt becomes rather gregarious on this second disc, talking the crowd through the history of the band and even the genesis of some of the tracks, and Frederik Akesson finally gets some screen time, unlike on the first disc where the camera cuts away from him every time he starts soloing. As a visual spectacle however, it's no different from the first, and at an hour and three quarters it is probably a bit of a long haul even for the most rabid Opeth nut.

If anything though, In Live Concert... is the supreme example of how great Opeth is and how they got to be that way. The playing time above doesn't include the 40 minute interview and 45 minute tour documentary, only the actual concert itself. It might be tough to sit through all in one sitting, but it's certainly something that needs to be seen.

Disc One:

1. The Leper Affinity
2.Bleak
3.Harvest
4.The Drapery Falls
5.Dirge for November
6.The Funeral Portrait
7.Patterns in the Ivy
8.Blackwater Park
9.Interview with Mikael Åkerfeldt

Disc Two:

1.Forest of October

2.Advent

3.April Ethereal

4.The Moor

5.Wreath

6.Hope Leaves

7.Harlequin Forest

8.The Lotus Eater

9.Documentary: On tour with Opeth

 
Rating: 95%

IRON MAIDEN: The Final Frontier

Produced by Kevin Shirley
Released: August 13, 2010

Iron Maiden's comeback from the realms of commercial and artistic stagnation that would have killed almost any other band has been remarkable to say the very least. It's a rare band indeed that could return from such a slump and go on to create material that ranks beside the classics of their past. Their fifteenth studio album sees that success curve continue as they maintain listener interest in spite of its prestigous length by throwing in a few curveballs and some of the best music of their career.


The Final Frontier starts off with a very un-Maiden sounding extended intro that is certainly one of the more interesting things the band has done in a long time. It kind of sets the stage for some of the other less-typical aspects they've sprinkled throughout. After the segue is the usual strong opener let down only slightly by one of Steve Harris' unimaginative, single-line choruses ("The final frontier! The final frontier! The final frontier!") but otherwise the lyrics are Maiden's typically celebral fare. "Mother of Mercy" is a particularly impressive track early on, followed by the surprising "Coming Home", a rare ballad from Iron Maiden and one that actually works. Then comes "The Alchemist", a reasonable effort but nothing these guys haven't done a few dozen times already.

The back half of The Final Frontier is introduced by the majestic Arthurian epic "Isle of Avalon" with "Starblind" showing off the band's rather more aggressive side. It is on these last five songs where Iron Maiden's progressive nature finally flowers with some of the arrangements and extended instrumental sections among the best they've ever done. The guitar work has always been brilliant, but some of the work Messrs. Smith, Murray and Gers do on this album is truly breathtaking. "When the Wild Wind Blows" is the only track on the album written by Harris alone. It's been hailed by some as the album's highlight but on analysis there's several bits and pieces from the band's back catalogue weaved into it, notably a large section of "Afraid to Shoot Strangers" at one point. Nevertheless, even at eleven minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome and really does show how magnificent a band Iron Maiden is when they set out to create something truly amazing.

The Final Frontier is not the easiest album to digest. The complexity and layering of the arrangements and production may mean it takes more than a couple of listens to penetrate, but the effort is worth it. This is Iron Maiden's best since the 80s and without a doubt one of the best albums of 2010.
 

1. Satellite 15... The Final Frontier
2. El Dorado
3. Mother of Mercy
4. Coming Home
5. The Alchemist
6. Isle of Avalon
7. Starblind
8. The Talisman
9. The Man Who Would be King
10. When the Wild Wind Blows

Rating: 95%

IMMOLATE: Ruminate

Released: August 2010

Recently recruiting ex-Tumbleweed member Dave Achille into their line-up to help bolster their sound, Wollongong quartet Immolate unleash hell in the shape of their latest full-length release, Ruminate.

Even if you knew nothing about this band, you'd expect that with a name like Immolate they were hardly going to be about gentle melodies and delicate symphonics. And you'd be correct. Like some bastardised hybrid of Pentagram and The Jesus Lizard, Ruminate is coarse, repetitive, atonal dissonance where sludge, noise and doom combine in a 42-minute orgy of sonic mayhem. Nick Irwin's unadorned monotone is virtually buried in the mix at times, a mix that is dominated by Achille and Irwin's brother Justin torturing their guitars with a procession of raw, angular, grinding riffs and wildly off-key solos. It's an ugly, primitive sound, oddly compelling but neither for the faint-of-heart nor those with an ear for the more melodic. Indeed, it's almost too much. By two-thirds of the way in, the uncompromising sameness and unrelenting barrage of discordance really starts to feel like you're being repeatedly battered by a heavy, blunt object. Nothing stands out except for how jarring it is.

Ruminate is absolutely not for just anyone, and those who merely dabble in the realms of dissonant doom may find this gloriously ugly album too much to bear. This is definitely one for those who have a real taste for it, and Immolate should certainly satisfy.

1. Heathen

2. Hot Heat
3. Live By (Knife and Gun)
4. Kill Your Idols
5. Trap Me
6. Tune Out
7. Ruminate
8. Broken
9. Integrator
10. Seven Heads
11. Code

Rating: 65%

ASTRIAAL: Anatomy of the Infinite

Produced by Astriaal

Released: August 2010

Seven years ago, Astriaal attained the pinnacle of their art with Renascent Misanthropy. Anatomy of the Infinite sees them reaching the same height, if not surpassing it in its exploration of cold, malefic spite.

With much of the previous album's symphonic elements stripped away, Anatomy of the Infinite brandishes a harsher, even more malevolent sound. The rawness only helps to further enhance Astriaal's sharp, deft melodies that stand in antithesis to the sheer brutality of the riffs and Gryphon's relentless blast beats. Baaruhl and Helthor's unison tremolo picking and Arzarkhel's typical shrieking howls don't see the band experimenting very much beyond the usual melodic black metal framework, but that only means they are working closer to the perfect ideal of the genre. Snippets of narrative and choruses of dark chanting add to the cheerless vision of ultimate oblivion that is this album, draped in the morbid works of Notke and Valdés Leal. Like Renascent Misanthropy, the intro piece "Blessed are the Dead" builds towards the crushing fury of "Visceral Incarnate" and little remorse is offered from that moment. The clean tones and gentle, haunting dynamics of "Relinquishment of the Stars" is in stark contrast to "For the Day Will Come", an epic, majestic track that closes the album on a note of unaccountable bleakness.

Anatomy of the Infinite is the perfect companion to its predecessor and a further definition of Astriaal's mastery of their chosen art, their own unflinching statement on the fraility of humanity in the face of eternity. Another masterpiece.

1. Blessed are the Dead
2. Visceral Incarnate
3. 'Neath the Bones of Salvation
4. Ad Interim
5. The Scars of Aberration
6. Foundations in Flesh
7. Relinquishment of the Stars
8. For the Day Will Come

Rating: 95%

KORN: III - Remember Who You Are

Produced by Ross Robinson
Released: July 2010

The last ten years have been long ones for Korn, as they slipped from the pinnacle of the rock world to teeter on the brink of being nothing but burned-out hasbeens, two men down and without a label on the back of one of the most critically-reviled albums of recent times. Going back to basics was probably the only option left after their run of disastrous and lame experiments with acoustics, duets with pan flashes like Amy Lee and other rubbish while former protegees like the Deftones grew in maturity, sophistication and popularity.

So Korn has now entered phase III of their career with the affirmation to remember who they are. To that end, the band has reunited with Ross Robinson in an effort to go back to where it all began, to that primal, urgent rumble that sparked an entire genre. Even the artwork reflects that of the groundbreaking debut. The result is only partly successful.

Remember Who You Are is Korn being Korn, and that's pretty much it. In some ways it's as if everything after Follow the Leader never happened, but at the same time you know there's been some crazy shit that's gone down to have led them back to this place. Korn in 2010 is like an angry kid coming back home after running away to find his old house knocked down and another, almost similar one, built on the same spot. It's kinda the same, but not quite. There is more technical finesse about Korn's musical delivery, the menacing sludge of Munky's murky riffs and Fieldy's bass throb, but Jonathon Davis' whiny vocals and woe-is-me lyrical bullshit doesn't take them anywhere they haven't been eight times already. It's almost like he's learned nothing.

"Oildale (Leave Me Alone)" is a great opener and "Let the Guilt Go" is probably the best song Korn has done in a very long time, but in between and afterwards is an album that neither scales any true heights or sinks to any appreciable lows. Remember Who You Are is solid the way a comeback should be, but not remarkable like it needs to be. It does show scope for the band to continue if Davis can find it in himself to move on from the cathartic angst of 16 years ago to something that rings truer. 

1. Uber-time
2. Oildale (Leave Me Alone)
3. Pop a Pill
4. Fear is a Place to Live
5. Move On
6. Lead the Parade
7. Let the Guilt Go
8. The Past
9. Never Around
10. Are You Ready to Live?
11. Holding All These Lies

Rating: 65%

STONE SOUR: Audio Secrecy

Produced by Nick Rasculienecz
Released: September 2010

As Joey Jordison once again indulges his 80s horror sleaze rock fantasy, his Slipknot colleagues Corey Taylor and Jim Root are advancing a rather more mature -- though arguably much less fun -- musical argument with their third Stone Sour album.


Stone Sour has consistenty transcended the post-grunge genre. Always heavily populated by horrible bands that in effect destroyed everything grunge actually stood for, that really wouldn't take much, but the lush melodies and diversity of the performance -- particularly from Taylor -- lifts it well above the usual mire of that ilk. It isn't perfect, and tends to see-saw too dangerously and too often between radio fodder and metallic rock, but Audio Secrecy is another solid effort from the band. "Mission Statement" and "Digital (Did You Tell)" open the album in a big rocking if unspectacular way ahead of the darker, brooding "Say You'll Haunt Me", the first demonstration of Stone Sour's more layered, melodic approach this time around. "Dying" veers close to the type of insidious dreck the likes of Nickleback have foisted upon us in recent years before "Let's Be Honest" gets everything somewhat back on track.


It's from here on that Audio Secrecy seems to get confused, alternatively mellowing then busting into a heavy vibe again. After another almost balladic track in "Hesitate", "Nylon 6/6" rides in like a bastardized version of "Song Remains the Same" before exploding into what is almost a Slipknot song, albeit without the necessary twisted groove. That it takes until track nine for the album to reach this height says something about the way the track list is loaded. Indeed, "The Bitter End" and "Threadbare" are also clear highlights that loom over clutter like "Miracles" and "Unfinished" and help to emphasise that, at 54 minutes, Audio Secrecy is at least 15 minutes too long.

For the most part, Audio Secrecy delivers as a solid collection of modern heavy rock, but it feels padded out by too tracks. It also again emphasises the schizophrenic nature of Taylor and Root's musical guises because more often than not here, Stone Sour sounds like precisely the sort of band that Slipknot was formed to destroy.

1. Audio Secrecy

2. Mission Statement
3. Digital (Did You Tell)
4. Say You’ll Haunt Me
5. Dying
6. Let’s Be Honest
7. Unfinished
8. Hesitate
9. Nylon 6/6
10. Miracles
11. Pieces
12. Bitter End
13. Imperfect
14. Threadbare

Rating: 70%

MURDERDOLLS: Women and Children Last

Produced by Zeuss
Released: August 2010

Musical trends are a strange thing. If Murderdolls had debuted in 1997, they would have most likely suffered immensely from the 80s backlash that was still apparent then and then vanished without trace. So it's interesting that only five years later they were able to launch themselves with a mildly-successful album and build a cult following that was drawn from the fanbases of Slipknot and Static-X, many of whom probably wouldn't have been caught dead listening to Mötley Crüe or Alice Cooper -- and only knew the Misfits by way of Metallica -- because Beyond the Valley of the Murderdolls was essentially an homage to the trashy metal and shock rock that the 90s had tried to bury.

Eight years on, with the 80s hip again and many of the original bands storming back as if they'd never been away, Women and Children Last shows the Murderdolls have their Crüe-crossed-with-Misfits horror rock schtick still firmly in place. Almost a decade has passed and the 'Dolls haven't changed a bit. Wednesday 13 intones his pulpy horror comic lyrics in a Cooperesque/Rob Zombie-like drone and Joey Jordison mines the 80s hair-and-glam rock riff catalogue relentlessly. They even manage to rope in Mick Mars to add a genuine touch as he peels off a couple of solos in “Drug Me to Hell” and “Blood Stained Valentine”, and given how much Wednesday is trying to look like Nikki Sixx these days, the old guy probably felt right at home. Just like the debut, Women and Children Last doesn’t pander to any calls for a power ballad or to anything other than guitar-fuelled schlock rocking.

“My Dark Place Alone”, “Chapel of Blood” and “Drug Me to Hell” are clear highlights, but really the whole album is quite solid, an effective pastiche that owes its look, sound and lyrics to a time when guys were teasing their hair and chicks wore blue eyeshadow, when most Murderdolls fans hadn’t even been born yet.

1. The World According to Revenge
2. Chapel of Blood
3. Bored til Death
4. Drug Me to Hell
5. Nowhere
6. Summertime Suicide
7. Death Valley Superstars
8. My Dark Place Alone
9. Blood Stained Valentine
10. Pieces of You
11. Homicide Drive
12. Rock n Roll is All I Got
13. Nothing’s Gonna Be Alright
14. Whatever You Got, I’m Against it
15. Hello, Goodbye, Die

Rating: 75%

The Annex Podcast

Some readers may be aware that I present a regular weekly radio program on BLU FM every Friday night at 10pm. I feature plenty of interviews on the show, and now I will be gradually adding them to a podcast. You can check it out here.

RECOIL: The Will to Sin

Produced by Recoil

Released: 2010

Sydney's Recoil has been around since 2002, maintaining the same line-up the whole time. That in itself is a pretty remarkable achievement not too many others can lay claim to. You would expect that a group this stable would be able to really churn out a pretty decent bunch of tracks, and The Will to Sin certainly doesn't disappoint.

"The Rope" builds ominously towards the first proper track, the aggression-fuelled, groove-driven metallic roar of "Crowned on the Way Down" that sets the tone for the violence to come. With a classic, no frills approach, Recoil aren't reinventing any wheels here but they're definitely keeping it real. Every track is solid fist-pumping, headbanging material that doesn't waste time with extended instrumental noodling, drastic time-signature changes or dramatic displays of technicality. Somewhere, these guys were described as death metal/deathcore, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Essentially, this is textbook heavy metal: chunky riffs, catchy grooves, raw, angry vocals and driving beats. If there's a real criticism, it's only that they do this so convincingly that you find yourself actually wanting them to do something else. And then they do: the instrumental break "El Dia mas Triste" appears like a rose between thorns late in the playlist, a track of striking beauty and emotion that both belies the otherwise savage nature of Recoil's music and elevates it beyond the rudimentary but effective metal bludgeoning of the rest of the album.

Recoil has obviously invested every moment of their eight years together into making The Will to Sin the best debut they could possibly deliver, and they have succeeded. Anyone seeking pure, unadorned metal that's good need look no further.

1. The Rope
2. Crowned on the Way Down
3. Immortal
4. Scarification
5. Road to Redemption
6. This Winter
7. The Hole
8. …and a Hard Place
9. What Solution?
10. El dia mas Triste
11. Within a Curse
12. Suicide Trip

Rating: 80%

DARK ORDER: Cold War of the Condor

Produced by Dark Order

Released: 2010

Sydney’s Dark Order have been around now for 18 years, making them one of the longest-running metal bands in the country. To show for it they’ve got two previous albums, a breathtaking string of line-up histories and not much else as the band has rarely been stable long enough to establish a foothold. It’s a testament to leader Raul Alvarez Garcia’s seemingly unshakable self-belief that he’s been able to keep Dark Order around this long and just as remarkable that he’s finally been able to complete a third album after the yawning seven-year gap since The Violence Continuum.

With Cold War of the Condor, Dark Order almost completely max-out the CD playing time with an epic treatment of Chile's totalitarian Pinochet regime, illegally installed by a CIA-sponsored coup during the infernally corrupt Nixon administration and eventually costing the lives of thousands. The band details 17 years of bloodshed over 14 exhausting tracks, most of which are played out in their deliciously uncompromising old-school thrash style as if everything after Seasons in the Abyss simply never happened, rapacious full-tilt riffs, blazing solos and Garcia’s arsenal of Araya-styled rasping barks and shrieking warcries. Occasionally though, there’s a poignant acoustic moment like “A Lament for Victor Jara” – the political activist who was one of the first victims of the junta – and “Villa Grimaldi” is dark and creeping like one of early Skinlab’s moody pieces. Raul uses his real singing voice in both “Victor Jara” and the evocative coda “Requiem Eternal” too, in stunning contrast to his regular frenzied wail. Most of the time, however, this is nothing short of a thrash metal feast that is without doubt the best thing this band has ever done.

The album’s downfall however is that it's just too damn long. Cold War of the Condor is even longer than the latest Exodus album, and it probably doesn’t need to be. Some of the tracks could have been cut in half or at the very least lost a couple of minutes without anyone noticing: there's no real justifiable reason for "Operation Condor" to be eight and a half minutes long. This isn't Dream Theater or Opeth, with sweeping instrumental breaks or dizzying technical histrionics, and as good as it is, there aren’t quite enough stylistic flourishes to keep the interest up for the full 76 minutes. Despite this, Cold War of the Condor is something all thrash fans should check out immediately.

1. September 11th 1973
2. Dissension of the Raptor
3. State of Siege
4. A Lament for Victor Jara
5. Tears of the Exiled
6. Caravan of Death
7. Villa Grimaldi
8. Operation Condor
9. The Disappeared
10. Operacion Signo Veinte
11. Criminal of State
12. Blood Fire
13. Continuum of Cold War
14. Requiem Eternal


Rating: 78%

SONIC SYNDICATE: We Rule the Night

Produced by Toby Wright
Released: July 30, 2010

In the cynical world of the music industry, it's more often the band that can fake it and look the best that gets the break. This is clearly the case for Sonic Syndicate. Nuclear Blast evidently saw the potential in the band's generic, crowd-pleasing metalcore mimicry with added eye-candy factor courtesy of bassist Karin Axelsson and quickly bankrolled them, talking them up as one of their next big things. The departure of melodic vocalist Roland Johansson has done nothing to slow the band down but it does seem to have delivered an opportunity to give their sound a pretty big overhaul, one that even Johansson seems somewhat bemused by. There's good reason for this, because We Rule the Night is pretty bad.


New English-born recruit Nathan Biggs has said that he likes singing melodies, and that's an admirable thing for a vocalist. But the band's grab for accessibility on this album is so contrived and obvious that they've actually crossed the line into the realms of pop-laced rock. That in itself wouldn't be such a bad thing if the results weren't so diabolical. Let's face it, as a metalcore band Sonic Syndicate was only ever average at best, no more than strictly generic second-tier tryhards that came across like In Flames by way of Bullet for My Valentine. As if that wasn't horrible enough, they've decided to add really bad melodic emo into the mix now as well. The end result of this is something like what would happen if Linkin Park had really bad sex with My Chemical Romance, and if you can picture that in your mind without going insane then you should take that as a warning not to subject yourself to We Rule the Night.

The melodies and hooks are pretty insidious, but the music as a whole is just hollow, boring and annoying. In the end, if this band didn't have Karin Axelsson, they'd have nothing.

1. Beauty and the Freak
2. Revolution, Baby
3. Turn it Up
4. My Own Life
5. Burn This City
6. Black and Blue
7. Miles Apart
8. Plans are for People
9. Leave Me Alone
10. Break of Day
11. We Rule the Night

Rating: 15%

GAMMA RAY: To the Metal!

Produced by the Spirit of Freedom
Released: 2010

As the pendulum shifts further and further toward retro-sounding bands and more and more extreme forms of metalcore, that Gamma Ray suddenly find themselves struggling for relevancy is no surprise. Over the last few years, this once inconquerable band seems to have hit a few hurdles on their trailblazing path to true power metal glory. Since their late 90s run of four incredible albums in a row, the last decade hasn't been quite so kind: Majesty was hit and miss and Land of the Free II was an inconceived hodge-podge that almost ruined the legacy of the original. In amongst them there's been an almost inordinate number of compilations, boxed sets and double-live CDs and DVDs that always seem to point to the gradual demise of a once-great band.

On To the Metal! the German quartet fall back on Judas Priest and Iron Maiden worship to the point where  Kai Hansen adopts a Halford-like bark a good percentage of the time and the title track is little more than a shameless rip-off of "Metal Gods". It isn't that the album is totally without merit. "Empathy" with its uncharacteristic gentle opening is a great track and "All You Need to Know" has the erstwhile Michael Kiske adding his golden touch. But even here, the grabs from Maiden and Rainbow are just too obvious to ignore and too prominent to be accidental. On the tracks that Hansen doesn't write, Gamma Ray sound much more themselves, without the blatant thievery from their influences. Even so, they aren't exactly creating any real magic, just joyously catchy, triple-vocal melody power metal played at ridiculous speed like they have always done, and there is schmaltzy dreck like "Mother Angel" and oodles of cheese. For the completist, the "deluxe" edition contains a making-of DVD which shall remain unreviewed because, well, seriously why bother?

Even with the flagrant plagarism To the Metal! is at least much better than the last couple of studio albums. You can tell from the artwork that it doesn't break the mould as far as Gamma Ray albums go. While they are incorporating more and more classic metal influences into their music (as least with regard to Hansen's songs), they're still uncompromisingly melodic heavy metal. It ain't Land of the Free, but at least it's not Land of the Free II.

1. Empathy
2. All You Need to Know
3. Time to Live
4. To the Metal
5. Rise
6. Mother Angel
7. Shine Forever
8. Deadlands
9. Chasing Shadows
10. No Need to Cry 

Rating: 70%

CITY OF FIRE: City of Fire

Released: 2010

Any project with the names Byron Stroud and Burton C. Bell attached tends to get people thinking about crushing grooves, dense, repetitive staccato riffing and bleak, apocalyptic visions of society driven by tight, mechanical timekeeping. So for those not familiar with their work outside of Fear Factory and Strapping Young Lad, City of Fire might come as a complete surprise; indeed, even those aware of the pair's less intense musical outlets could find this album something of an eyebrow-raiser.

For City of Fire has at its core a far looser, more raw heavy rock feel that draws inspiration from a more simple time and a basic sound that, it could be argued, seems influenced by one of the early 90s greatest bands. The shadow of Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger album looms over City of Fire like a colossus, from the way the guitars in "Carve your Name" mimic the warbling screech of "Jesus Christ Pose" to the overall feel of the entire album. This is in no way a bad thing, and Bell's idiosyncratic vocal style adds a different dimension to this collection of songs that would be lost in the hands of a more conventional singer. His alternating strangled croak and darker clean semi-croon aids in giving the band's brooding songs of despair, heartbreak and misery their necessary atmosphere. Sho Murray and Ian White's grubby guitar sound echoes the gloomy vibe of grunge rock but City of Fire adds a healthy injection of metal and groove to forge a strong and fairly diverse album. As much as it's a very different kettle of fish to anything Fear Factory has ever done, structurally City of Fire nonetheless follows a similar path to that band's classic albums by adding bleak introspection and atmospherics as the album draws toward the end, finishing off with a striking cover of "Rain" by The Cult.

City of Fire has delivered a strong and surprisingly consistent album of modern metal with their debut. One can only hope that the standard can continue in the wake of Bell and Stroud's Fear Factory workload.

1. Carve Your Name
2. Gravity
3. Risig
4. Memory
5. Spirit Guide
6. Coitus Interruptus
7. Hanya
8. Emerald
9. Hollow Land
10. Dark Tides
11. Rain

Rating: 86%

BUCKCHERRY: All Night Long

Produced by Buckcherry

Released: 3 August 2010

Buckcherry seems to have recovered from the gloom and doom that overshadowed their last album and get back to basics with All Night Long, an offering more in tune with their endless partying vibe than the ponderous and distinctly un-fun Black Butterfly.

Once again making extensive use of the songwriting talents of Marti Frederiksen -- surely this generation's Desmond Child -- Josh Todd and the lads get straight down to rocking on the title cut and keep things on track for the next seven or eight, through the AC/DC stylings of "Oh My Lord", the Cinderella-esque "Liberty" and the pop-laced "These Things". Only the stock-standard power ballad "I Want You" interrupts the flow of the good time rocking out. Buckcherry do their best work when they're not thinking too much nor depending on their audience to do so, and for the most part All Night Long succeeds in this regard. So despite the earnest good intentions, chucking on a topical piece about the Gulf oil spill like "Our World" simply rings a bit hollow when surrounded by fluff pieces about partying down and getting loaded. It's like finding a song about spousal abuse on a Guns N Roses album.

Still, with the exception of a couple of sappy ballads, Buckcherry has put together a pretty decent hard rock release, with the deluxe edition also including another 25 minutes' worth of tunes in the shape of the acoustic "Reckless Sons" EP that sees the boys maintaining a distinctly rocking edge even without cranking the distortion. It's definitely worth adding to the playlist of your next night of alcohol-fuelled mayhem.

1. All Night Long
2. It's a Party
3. These Things
4. Oh My Lord
5. Recovery
6. Never Say Never
7. I Want You
8. Liberty
9. Our World
10. Bliss
11. Dead

Rating: 75%

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY: Order of the Black

Produced by Zakk Wylde
Released: August 10

Now eight albums in, Zakk Wylde has well and truly established Black Label Society as a band that can be relied upon for consistency. You pretty much know what you're going to get from BLS and Order of the Black doesn't disappoint. The shape of the band may change slightly every so often, but the style of the music rarely does. In all fairness though, while overall the album sounds the way you'd expect even after the four-year gap since Shot to Hell, Wylde does throw in a few surprises now and then, adding a nice little twist here and a touch there, to keep up the interest factor.

Rock-out opener "Crazy Horse" is a clear indication that all the standard Black Label Society factors are in place: the massive bottom-heavy grooves, pinch harmonic-infested sludge-ridden riffs and Wylde's bourbon-soaked gravel pit vocals. As stated, all is as you would expect, right down to the lyrical obsession with damnation and doom and there's simply no end to the amount of downright catchy, groovy riffs that Wylde can come up with. And of course his instinctively soulful soloing remains a highlight. Mix in the usual sprinkling of piano ballads like "Darkest Days" and "Time Wait for No One" and Order of the Black is as consistent as anything from the Black Label Society catalogue, with huge, booming drums from newcomer Will Hunt.

Yet Wylde can still manage to throw a nice curveball, as he does in "Godspeed Hellbound" when the viciously chopping riff seamlessly segues into a dark acoustic bridge augmented with strings and thunderous, rolling drums ahead of the solo. On "Chupacabra" he breaks out into a brief burst of multi-tracked Spanish guitar picking and the local release is rounded out by a surprisingly heartfelt version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". It's moments like this that remind one what a remarkable talent Zakk Wylde is, an unapologetically old-school rocker who is nonetheless unafraid to show a more vulnerable side amidst all the overdriven bravado. Order of the Black is another solid and effective heavy rock album from a band that had rarely failed to deliver.

1. Crazy Horse
2. Overlord
3. Parade of the Dead
4. Darkest Days
5. Black Sunday
6. Southern Dissolution
7. Time Waits for No One
8. Godspeed Hellbound
9. War of Heaven
10. Shallow Grave
11. Chupacabra
12. Riders of the Damned
13. January
14. Bridge Over Troubled Water

Rating: 80%

VINCE NEIL: Tattoos and Tequila

Produced by Jack Blades
Released: July 2010

Vince Neil has obviously arrived at that point of his career where a covers album might seem like a good idea. His one-time mentor Ozzy tried it a few years back and the result was perhaps the best album he'd made in years. After all, a good song is generally still a good song even if it's put through the wringer a bit, and it just doesn't seem possible that Vince could fail as spectacularly as Bret Michaels, who no longer seems capable of even doing a decent cover of his own songs.

Tattoos and Tequila is essentially a collection of tracks that had an influence on Neil's career, plus a couple of newer ones possibly included only to extended the playing time beyond EP length. The title track isn't too bad to be honest, but the Nikki Sixx/Tracii Guns penned "Another Bad Day" is nothing other than another faceless power ballad that isn't worthy of their own bands. Elsewhere however, Neil plunders his classic rock albums collection to take on some less-familiar tunes by the bands that inspired him, and the results are rather impressive: his take on Aerosmith's "Nobody's Fault" is true hard rocking joy and Cheap Trick's "He's A Whore" and the ripper version of "Another Piece of Meat" are dynamite. Jack Blades' production strips the sound raw, echoing Neil's earliest recordings with Mötley Crüe and the dude even manages to add some real grit to "Viva Las Vegas".

On the negative side, "Who'll Stop the Rain" is one he probably should have left alone, but for the most part this is a surprisingly impressive slab of raw ass-kickery from a guy who still knows how to bring it.

1. Tattoos and Tequila
2. He's A Whore
3. AC/DC
4. Nobody's Fault
5. Another Bad Day
6. No Feelings
7. Long Cool Woman
8. Another Piece of Meat
9. Who'll Stop the Rain
10. Viva Las Vegas
11. The Bitch is Back

Rating: 70%

PARKWAY DRIVE: Deep Blue

Produced by Joe Baressi

There's nothing like playing to your strengths when you're at the height of your popularity. It's OK to take genre-bending wanders through hitherto-unexplored artistic avenues when the fanbase has started to die off (or before it swells), but when you're at the top of your game in the fickle world of rock, stick to what you know best. On Deep Blue, Parkway Drive does exactly that. Nothing less and not much more. It's catchy and it's safe, and goes precisely where it needs to go. But it's also very good. In the almost three full years since Horizons, Parkway hasn't changed that much. They've just gotten better at what they do.

Engaging the more well-rounded Joe Baressi as producer instead of sticking with metalcore specialist Adam Dutkiewicz hasn't done a lot to their overall sound but it does show a willingness to tinker with a formula without breaking it. While maintaining that level of melodramatic anger and angst that's difficult to imagine could still come out of a bunch of surfer punks living a rock n' roll fantasy (two Top 10 albums, endless world tours, mass adulation), Deep Blue harbours a level of maturity and sophistication that some of the bands they've inspired still lack. Among the bursts of furious rage, ridiculously catchy twin-guitar riffs, the insane chugging breakdown in "Deliver Me" and the groove-laden plod in the likes of "Wreckage", Parkway Drive has also sprinkled some refreshing and subtle introspective moments. They don't last long before getting swallowed up by the energetic and furious metallic attack however, an attack given further emphasis and focus due to Baressi allowing the rhythm section to breathe under the guitars.

Winston McCall's lyrics do little to explore much more than the usual PD fare, but they've came a long way since the tryhard posturing of Killing With a Smile. His delivery is typically more aggessive and convincing than many others, and on the occasions that the band veers directly into the serious metal territory of the Dark Tranquillity-style "Alone" he steps up with a frost-bitten shriek. These little diversities and his steadfast refusal to adopt any form of melodic clean vocals help to ensure that while Parkway Drive is yet to fully break out of their generic mould they are at the very least staying well out at the head of the pack.

1. Samsara
2. Unrest
3. Sleepwalker
4. Wreckage
5. Deadweight
6. Alone
7. Pressures
8. Deliver Me
9. Karma
10. Home is for the Heartless
11. Hollow
12. Leviathan I
13. Set to Destroy

Rating: 85%

OZZY OSBOURNE: Scream

Produced by Ozzy Osbourne and Kevin Churko

Ozzy Osbourne's thirty-year solo career has always been a hit-and-miss affair. Take away his first two albums and the opening pair of the Zakk Wylde era and you're left with maybe one full CD of good songs. Scream, his tenth studio release and only the third in a decade (not counting the surprisingly passable Undercover), probably brings that tally up to another half a disc's worth. Having read a bunch of reviews long before I actually got to hear this in its entirety, I'd already dismissed this as less than worthless, but if you can get over the fact that Ozzy's vocals are now more processed than ever and that it doesn't sound that different from anything he's done since 1990, then without it being anything more than average it's fair to say I found it better than it had been painted.

Scream is the first Osbourne album in 22 years not to feature Zakk Wylde, whose role is taken here by Greek facemelter Gus G -- a dude who was only 7 years old when Zakk took over from Jake E. Lee. At first, the difference is almost unnoticeable thanks to the familiar-sounding sludgy riffs and guitar tone. But Gus is a more lyrical and diverse player than Wylde, and if there's anyone who shines here, it's him. He solos with colour and flair without overpowering the song (what there is of it) or falling back on the endless repetition of pitch harmonics. He also adds a hauntingly Rhoads-like intro to "Diggin' Me Down", which is far and away the album highlight. Most of the rest are patently generic Ozzy Osbourne songs without much to distinguish them from any of the others he's pumped out over the last few albums, except for being somewhat better than most. "Let Me Hear You Scream" has a truly immense singalong chorus and "Let it Die" steals a little bit from Black Sabbath and to these ears a tiny bit from Rob Zombie, but that could be the spectacular amount of processing on Ozzy's voice that makes him sound barely human. "Life Won't Wait" is his standard ballad, but not really one of his better ones (are there any?) and "Latimer's Mercy" is a stand-out late in the piece.

As usual, Scream is Ozzy doing enough, and that's it. It's probably better than the last three Zakk Wylde albums, but that isn't saying a lot.

1. Let it Die
2. Let Me Hear You Scream
3. Soul Sucker
4. Life Won't Wait
5. Diggin' Me Down
6. Crucify
7. Fearless
8. Time
9. I Want it More
10. Lastimer's Mercy
11. I Love You All

Rating: 58%