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%