HATESPHERE: Ballet of the Brute

Produced by Tommy Hansen, Jakob Bredahl and Hatesphere

Released: 2004

In the wake of The Haunted, bands of a similar nature started springing up all over the place at the beginning of the decade. Most weren't worth the effort of checking out, but there were a few that certainly knew how to do it. Hatesphere from Denmark was one of those, as their mightily impressive third album shows.

Ballet of the Brute is a formidable collection of brutal thrash that leaves others sprawling in the dust. ‘The Beginning and the End’ starts things ominously with a slow build up of heavy riffing and then ‘Deathtrip’ lets loose in a rampage that lasts less than two minutes. Infectious and heavy riffing is the order of the day for Hatesphere as they rage through killer tracks like ‘Vermin’ but the album actually gets better as it goes on, showing somewhat more diversity in the speed and vocal attack than The Haunted did on One Kill Wonder. ‘Downward to Nothing’ has a slight hardcore feel but the incredible thrash riffing and melodic lead guitars keep it from straying from the feel of the album. ‘What I See, I Despise’ is slower but none the less menacing, being one of the album highlights with Jakob Bredahl’s voice adopting a growlier aspect to contrast his harsher vocals in the faster songs. ‘Blankeyed’ is simply awesome and ‘500 Dead People’ combines the sinister slow riffing of ‘What I See…’ with outright speed to close the album with a blast.

The hidden cover of ‘Bark at the Moon’ is hilarious, but apart from that there isn’t a bad song on here: Ballet of the Brute is a minor thrash masterpiece from beginning to end.

1. The Beginning and the End
2. Deathtrip
3. Vermin
4. Downward to Nothing
5. Only the Strongest...
6. What I See I Despise
7. Last Cut, Last Heard
8. Warhead
9. Blankeyed
10. 500 Dead People
11. Bark at the Moon (hidden track)

Rating: 85%

ENTOMBED: Morning Star

Produced by Entombed
Released: 2001

After a short period where it looked like this band had doomed to the realms of musical history with a well-executed but ill-advised excursion into heavy rock, Entombed came storming back, first with the punked-out scream from the garage that was Uprising and then this. Morning Star.

This is an album from a band which has once and for all given up all thoughts of mainstream rock glory, stepped back and gone back to doing exactly what they are known for best. Blending the catchy death rock element of Wolverine Blues with the rawness of Uprising in twelve songs all themed in some way around Lucifer and the fall of the Angels (hence the album title), Entombed came up with perhaps some of their best songs ever here. Opener ‘Chief Rebel Angel' starts a little omniously with a slow bass/piano combo like some wallet-chain wearing pseudo-metal pretender band, but within seconds this is destroyed by a crushing old school metal attack that never lets up for the rest of the album. LG Petrov sounds pissed off like he hasn't sounded for a while and the way Alex Hellid and Uffe Cederlund throw riffs around it's like they woke up to find themselves back in 1993. ‘I For an Eye' has an Arise-era Sepultura feel about it and ‘About to Die' recalls Slayer at their height; this is unadulterated pure metal and could well be one of Entombed's finest moments.

This was a fantastic return to death metal form for one of the pioneers of the genre, but sadly also marked the last time Entombed would reach such heights.

1. Chief Rebel Angel
2. I For and Eye
3. Bringer of Light
4. Ensemble of the Restless
5. Out of Heaven
6. Young Man Nihilist
7. Year One Now
8. Fractures
9. When It Hits Home
10. City of Ghosts
11. About to Die
12. Mental Twin

Rating: 90%

DARK TRANQUILLITY: Character

Produced by Dark Tranquillity

Released: 2005

Coming three years after Damage Done re-established them as melodic death metal force, Character saw Dark Tranquillity making some considerable way to wresting the crown of the kings of their chosen style from contemporaries who had had it for so long, a crown that is, and has always been, rightfully theirs. Dark Tranquillity has been at it longer than anyone, and have always been more than one step ahead of their compatriots in their experimentations with keyboards, electronics and clean vocal melodies but their refusal to dumb-down their approach to its most basic and commercial form has meant they have never attained the status of more illustrious bands like In Flames and Soilwork.

Character continued this proudly uncompromising tradition and showed that Dark Tranquillity stoods at the pinnacle of their creative height. For this album, Dark Tranquillity went back to their classic sound from the Mind’s I period, but seamlessly added in the modern keyboard element from Damage Done, and it works brilliantly. “The New Build” opens the album perfectly with some instantly fearsome thrashy death metal injected with an insane sense of melody and a ferocious hook. So the scene is set for 45 minutes of tight, articulate melodic death metal that doesn’t forsake its ferocity and intensity for commerical mediocrity. Mikael Stanne gives a powerfully aggressive vocal performance throughout and Martin Brändström’s electronic elements are well woven into the songwriting fabric rather than existing merely for the sake of it.

Character is a brilliant example of modern Swedish death metal without wimping out at all.

1. The New Build
2. Through Smudged Lenses
3. Out of Nothing
4. The Endless Feed
5. Lost to Apathy
6. Mind Matters
7. One Thought
8. Dry Run
9. Am I 1?
10. Senses Tied
11. My Negation

Rating: 95%

THE DEAD: The Dead

Produced by The Dead

Released: 2007

The Dead is the continuation of a Queensland heritage, containing as it does guitarist Scott Edgar from the now-defunct Misery, one of the greatest Aussie death metal bands of all. It would be easy to suggest from a cursory listen that his new band is merely a resurrection of his old one, but this would be a mistake. That there are similarities cannot be denied but there are some idiosyncracies evident on this album that delineate these bands and it has to be said that The Dead come off as somewhat inferior.

Edgar and vocalist Michael Yee have been doing this sort of thing longer than almost anyone and there's no doubt they know what this is all about, and The Dead churns out enough solid, meat-and-potatoes death metal to keep any fan more than satisfied. The production tends to be a little demo-ish at times (rather like the artwork), but fits rather well with the band's unadorned style. The bass is surprisingly audible (perhaps because the bassist mixed this) but strangely toppy and thin while Edgar's guitar retains the huge sludgy sound he used in Misery and the drumming is mostly blastbeats. In the end however, The Dead falls a bit short. Apart from the last song, the earth-shaking and doom-laden "The Doomsayer" that more than any other track here evokes the shadow of Misery, there isn't really much in the way of a real stand-out and the material suffers a little from the rather cliched lyrical matter and cheesy titles like "Onslaughter" and "Raging Violence"; no matter how many times I see it, "They Eat Their Wounded" just strikes me as a silly thing to call a song and it makes me laugh out loud everytime. Lyrically The Dead doesn't really rise above the usual tales of serial killings, murder sprees and demonic invasions of so many other bands and at times they don't seem that well thought out: "a killing kind of war" suggest there's some other kind and "The dead are alive/Crucifixions burning inside them" appears to make no sense. The Dead is also very short: with nine songs it still only clocks in at just on half an hour, which is shorter than a Misery album and that's saying something.

The Dead is a competent album of unrelenting death metal, the kind you would expect from a couple of scene veterans, but there isn't that much to it and doesn't stand out at all from any of the hundreds of others like it.

1. Hunting Humans
2. Onslaughter
3. Raging Violence
4. Nameless Entity
5. The Dead
6. Drown in Sin
7. They Eat Their Wounded
8. A Killing Kind
9. The Doomsayer

Rating: 55%

...AND OCEANS: Allotropic/Metamorphic - Genesis of Dimorphism

Released: 2001

...And Oceans was never been a band to go for simple album titles, and this one has perhaps the the most contrived. Whatever it is supposed to mean, Am God, by which is it thankfully better known, is an interesting and diverse album of extreme blackened metal that was a logical progression from 1999's sublime The Symmetry of I - The Circle of O. Rarely were they known to shrink back from a little experimentation either, and this CD is no exception.

...And Oceans built grand, often epic songs using straight forward death metal riffs, grim vocals and frequent bursts of tumultuous black metal intensity, and this is certainly the case here. On this album however, it is the keyboards that are the real star of the show, providing a starkly futuristic feel in their spacey, otherworldliness that displays the kind of initiative that is missing from many other recent releases. At times they almost possess the character of deep trance techno, but it's only ever used to enhance ...And Oceans' otherwise aggressive sound and help to create the dramatic atmosphere oozing from tracks like ‘Postfuturistika' and ‘White Synthetic Noise'. That's with the exception of the last track, ‘New Model World', which actually is deep trance techno! This is of course caused all sorts of consternation and hand-wringing when the usual metal crowd got a load of it, with whining and whingeing about ...And Oceans going the way of Theatre of Tragedy, and while they did go further into the electronic area they never got close to being as lame as that band.

Am God is nothing less than a boldly experimental volume of progressive extreme metal and a frightfully good one at that.

1. Intelligence is Sexy
2. White Synthetic Noise
3. Tears Have No Name
4. Espirit de Corps
5. Odious & Devious
6. Of Devilish Tongues
7. Postfuturistika
8. TBA in a Silver Box
9. New Model World

Rating: 92%

ASTRIAAL: Renascent Misanthropy

Produced by Lachlan Mitchell and Astriaal

Released: 2003

A true renewal of hatred, this was the pinnacle to which Astriaal had been climbing gradually for a few years. Since their classic ‘Glories of the Nightsky’ demo, the band had been tuning their talents and tweaking their songwriting, making better and better recordings with each step of their journey. By the time this album was about to surface, Astriaal had become the most visible and highest-profile black metal band in Australia and one with a rare status and reputation that allowed them to play on virtually any metal bill with bands of any genre. Anyone who had followed their career had to realise that this album was going to be a good one. The only question was how good it would be.

Renascent Misanthropy is a work of sinister genius that put Astriaal far beyond the reach of other Australian acts in the same field and even well past many from other parts of the globe. This album is that good. Renascent Misanthropy is an almost perfect combination of violence and melody, technical playing, elaborate arrangements, catchy riffs and cold, scathing hate. It isn't particularly innovative from an originality point of view, but it did embody precisely how to create a work within the rigid framework of their chosen style. From merciless onslaughts like ‘Ritual Hate Construct’ and ‘Revere the Labyrinth’, Astriaal can then turn a deftly creative hand to summon a maliciously beautiful instrumental piece in the shape of ‘Acquisition of the Stars’ and follow that with a masterpiece of evil such as ‘Reaper of Dark Ages’ with a consummate ease that is almost frightening in itself. The songs are complex without becoming mindlessly self-indulgent and the production has been steered expertly to highlight every sound within the maelstrom and throughout Astriaal managed to create a sense of real menace without wandering into the realms of self-parody to which so many others have become ensnared.

This album is a total masterpiece, one of the best Australian metal albums ever.

1. The Funeral Procession
2. Ritual Hate Construct
3. Revere the Labyrinth
4. Glories to the Nightsky
5. Ode to Antiquity
6. Aborescence
7. Acquisition of the Stars
8. Reaper of Dark Ages
9. The Halls of Peridition

Rating: 98%

SOILWORK: A Predator's Portrait

Produced by Fredrik Nordström and Soilwork

Released: 2001

Their first release was a surprise and a revelation, the second cemented their reputation. With just two albums, Soilwork had showed themselves to be one of the very best of the plethora of melodic death metal bands to have emerged since the term was coined. They were young, they were talented and they knew how to make all the parts fit together. All they needed was another album to saw that they really were in for the long haul. A Predator's Portrait set that in stone.

Under the guiding hand of master producer Fredrik Nordström, A Predator's Portrait is instantly infectious from the very moment that "Bastard Chain" makes itself known. From start to end, this is nothing but a breakneck collection of hook-laden groove and catchy riffs, studded with blazing melody lines that in no way inhibit the insidious brutality that lies beneath. If anything it only serves to give Soilwork's music even more bite, an attack that is even more fleshed out with some subtle keyboards that work so well with the guitars that I didn't even really notice them until I'd listened a couple of times. Not only that, but esteemed friends like Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth singing on the title track and Freak Kitchen's Mattias Eklundh dropping a ripping solo into "Needlefeast" helped to make things even more special. The most obvious progression was that evidenced in Björn Strid's vocals. A Predator's Portrait marked the point where he began to experiment with clean, melodic singing, an aspect that would shape the follow-up album (the Devin Townsend-produced Natural Born Chaos) and eventually the entire sound of the band. Nevertheless, its presence here is part of what made the songs work so well.

A Predator's Portrait is nothing less than an excellent release of ferocious melodic death metal from a band that would never quite sound the same way again.

1. Bastard Chain
2. Like the Average Stalker
3. Needlefeast
4. Neurotica Rampage
5. The Analyst
6. Grand Failure Anthem
7. Structure Divine
8. Shadowchild
9. Final Fatal Force
10. A Predator's Portrait

Rating: 90%

MAMMAL: Mammal

Produced by Mammal

Released: 2006

Mammal is a band that has had people falling over them for the last couple of years, having quickly gone from the rehearsal room to full scale national tours in virtually a heartbeat. This EP certainly shows them to be an energetic and sometimes interesting band but also highlights a few of the lapses that can result when things seem to just come together so quickly. Mammal's vocalist is Ezekiel Ox whose previous band Full Scale was Australia's answer to the Deftones; their guitarist is Pete Williamson, whose previous gig was with Pete Murray's backing band. Such a disparate clash of backgrounds was only really going to go one way, and unsurprisingly Mammal sounds nothing like Pete Murray.

The EP opens with the funkified hard rock of "New Breed Judas". With its catchy grooves and syncopated vocal delivery, this reminds me of a band called Non Intentional Lifeform, a unit that must surely have been an early inspiration for Ox at least if not Williamson also. Indeed the entire CD has the whisperings of an influence from NiL's Uisce, which is obscure enough these days that this band's target audience has likely never even heard of it.

Overall, the band presents an energised mixture of punchy rock and funky groove with something of a progressive bent. When Mammal manages to pull this off they do it extremely well, as in the lead-off track and particularly the excellent closer, "Groove Junkie". The band's more progressive leanings become more apparent on this track, and although they perhaps draw rather a bit heavily from Tool for comfort it's still pretty convincing. "Hell Yeah" and "Think" however are rather less impressive, especially the latter's juvenile know-it-all ranting that detracts from the EP's more sophisticated aspects. This song might go off all right on-stage in front of a pumping crowd, but here it sounds as try-hard as that 50-year old bloke on Big Brother.

Mammal certainly deserve some of the hype they've been getting. Their style won't be to everyone's taste and on this EP they sound too much like their influences, but there's far worse bands you could be listening to.

1. New Breed Judas
2. Think
3. Hell Yeah
4. Inciting
5. Groove Junkie

Rating: 65%

NOCTIS: For Future's Past

Produced by Dan Mazzarol

Released: 2007

Perth has a deserved reputation among Australian metal critics for spawning great bands. It's also a rather incestuous scene where seemingly every notable band features a member of some other notable band. Both these observations prove true for Noctis. With musicians that have played or continue to play with groups including Vespers Descent, Pathogen, Chaos Divine, Psychonaut, Bereavement and Voyager, this young band already has a formidable amount of experience behind it and 'For Future's Past' bears this out.

With such a disparate list of bands in their collective resume (melodic death, groove, prog, black) it would be hard to pinpoint what Noctis might sound like if the cover art didn't give it away, and yes, this is expansive doom/death in the vein of 90s masters Katatonia and Amorphis with a hint of early Opeth thrown in for good measure. There's certainly no doubt that these guys knew where to look for influences. As a colleague has pointed out in his review of this EP, Noctis often sound rather too much like the bands they were inspired by, but this would only really be a major criticism if Noctis weren't any good. Because they are, you get the feeling that they will shake off their sound-alike aspects as they progress. So essentially, 'For Future's Past' is nothing original, but Noctis nails the sombre atmospherics and mournful darkness of their chosen field expertly, weaving in snatches of orchestration and delicate melodic vocals and making them work rather than adding them just for the sake of it. The EP seems to build to a climax too with the final track "The Meaning Dies Within" dominating the set with its extended running time and elaborate arrangement. No, it isn't breaking any new ground, but it's very good indeed.

My biggest hang-up is the apostrophe in the title because I can't figure out if it's a grammatical error or not, but I can't even let that annoy me as much as it should because the rest of it is so good.

1. Time
2. Remembrance of Death
3. Of Emptiness
4. Eternity's Worth
5. Nostalgia
6. The Meaning Dies Within

Rating: 82%

DREADNAUGHT: Body.Blood.Skin.Mind

Produced by Dreadnaught

Released: 1996

When people talk about Australian metal bands, for some reason Dreadnaught invariably gets overlooked. Just how much of an injustice this is becomes immediately apparent when the power and emotion of the band's first album is allowed to wash over you. My first experience of this was listening to a copy dubbed onto a cassette that was given to me by their late drummer Sudz; it was so different to so much of the metal I was listening to at the time that I at first didn't quite know what to make of it. But just as the first track creeps and builds under the swirling samples of the TV suicide of US politician Budd Dwyer, Body.Blood.Skin.Mind. took hold of me and now stands as one of my all-time favourites.

Dreadnaught's musical style on this album is far removed from the groove-laden dirty rock n roll they play these days; indeed they would sound like a totally different band if it weren't for the distinctive vocal presence of Greg Trull. From a truly enormous, powerful roar of frustration or rage to a threatening whisper or cry of despair, there are few other singers who exude such a wide range of emotions often in the space of a single song. The haunting "Flowers" is a case in point, a career stand-out for the band and the perfect showcase for Trull as his voice embodies the emotional battlefield of the lyrics. Throughout the album, however, the entire band simply shines, crafting a genius-like combination of early-90s alterna-metal with the progressive thrash of bands like Death only without the extended guitar solos. Here the guitars focus on measuring out melody while at the same time dredging up massively sludgy riffs like those in "Begotten Not Made" or at other times pacy driving metal like in "Harlequin". It really is difficult to pigeonhole Body.Blood.Skin.Mind into a comfortable genre because Dreadnaught makes use of so many of them. There are splashes of the groove rock they would adopt later, some of the industrial element borrowed from Trull's other band Discordia, melodic thrash and dark rock that hints vaguely at the likes of Tool, and all put together with a level of brilliance that remains under-rated even today.

The album is rounded out by "Return of the Astral Traction Bleeder", a 26-minute long ambient track of rumbling thunder and stormy weather that finishes with clashing riffing and rolling drums. Dreadnaught made a fantastic album here, the genius of which should remain overlooked by you no longer.

1. Dripping
2. Distant
3. Mindbend
4. Harlequin
5. Remote Control
6. Flowers
7. Twisted Prayer
8. Begotten Not Made
9. Return of the Astral Traction Bleeder

Rating: 95%