15 track to wake the dead.....

Another thing while i'm still on my vacation. Last week, i bought a Metal Hammer magazine and it had this demo / sample CD, with 15 songs by 15 different artists, and i thought that i could go though it and write my opinions down. I have no idea of the genre of the songs and there's only one band that i have head of in there, so this should be fun. Hoping to discover a few bands.

Let's pop her in and get going.

#1

The whole thing starts with "Armed for apocalypse's" song "The demon who makes trophies of men".

It's slow, heavy and brutal, it's sludge. A genre that i don't pay that much attention to. The riffing is you'r basic fifth chord slides and the heavy rhythmic "bom" "bom" "BOM" 's The vocals are a bit too black metal to fit well in here. And there's a super brutal moment too. Not a great song, you'r basic really slow and heavy  piece. Actually the best part is this about 15 seconds long "show off" of death metal riffing near the end :P

If you're a hardcore brutal dm / sludge fan, you can check them out, but don't expect miracles. 

#2

Meta stasis - "Space occupying lesion"

Okay, what the fuck is this, it's some kind of highly experimental, messed up form of grind core, i liked bit's of it from here and there, but as a whole, it doesn't really work for me. Basically  it's good when they keep it in the borders of going not too damn experimental. There are some weird audio clips heard a couple of times during the music, but they are mixed just low enough not to make sense out of them. 

The solo's nice tho.

#3

Possibly the most brutal logo out there

Party cannon - "We prefer the term living impaired"

It's an okay song, as i am not a huge fan of ultra brutal death metal, the lead vocals are in my opinion worse than the ones used a couple of times on this track. The drum work and guitar's sound really nice. They sure don't take themselves too seriously ;) "god daymn"

#4

Bound by exile - "Aborted Atrocity"

Okay, here we have what is the best song so far on the list, it's just how i like my death core, fast and aggressive with minimum  amount of typically executed breakdowns. This one is actually just fine. There are a couple of extremely fast double bass sections in there, and a LOT of blast beat. Aaaand a short arpeggio scale. It's gooooood.

#5

Osiah - "The blood soaked meadows"

Starts up with what could be an recording used as proof in a rape case, this is not how you make a good intro. It leans a bit over to your typical death core, the riffing has that annoying pattern with lot's of muting, you know what i'm talking about. At least the singer(s) is really diverse, which explains all the pig squeal vocals, which i greatly dislike. Aaaand of course the song is almost 7 minutes long. There are some good shred's and bomb blast's if i need to find something good from it. 

#6

Subservience - "Exit wounds"

Starts up with a distort / clean guitar dual riffing (that's how you /intro) , which is pretty nice, and here we go. It's good. sort of groovy sounding death metal. The vocalist mixes high and low vocals, which i always love, there are "calm" melodies and the drumming is steady on. The only minus is the ending of the song, which is that the song just basically stops, like it hit the wall or something, all though the purpose of it could be a passage to another song on they're album. yeah, it's good.

#7

The atrocity Exhibit - "The bitter aftertaste of exploitation" 

On a side note, how come most of the songs are titled so damn long, it's almost Nile out here.

First thing, damn that snare sounds good. This one is really groove-ish grind core basically. The only problem is that it really doesn't stand out, it's just you're basic metal music, the like of which there are thousands upon thousands of bands in each metal sub genre ever made. It's not bad, but neither is it good, it just is.

#8

Xisforeyes - "Serpentine Magnetoesthetic" 

(hard words are hard)

Upon seeing the logo, i knew that there were only two alternatives of the genre of the music, either death core or some ultra technical death metal. 

Well, it's the first kind. It's okay, stands out way more than the band before it. It's not filled with breakdowns, and somehow a bunch of riff's remind me of black metal, and it's the first bands to feature keyboard's that are audio able. 

Moving on.

#9

Black veins - "The cycle will never cease to end"

It starts up with a study bass line, which reminds me of Solstices bass sound. It's fast, proggressive, Napalm death sounding, nothing groundbreaking and really short. 

#10

<No pic here>

Red Shachath - "Follow the bastard prophet" 

begins with a Gaahl like scream, only worse. Another one that doesn't really go anywhere, it's a bit more on the OSDM side, but i wouldn't call it old school death metal. The drumming reminds me of old Cannibal corpse.

#11

Seprevation - "Sea of thoughts" 

okay, it's one of the bands that employs both thrash metal vocals and death metal vocals. The riffing sounds really Morbid angle. And the double bass sounds triggered as hell. Pretty solid.

#12

Foetal juice - "Brewkakke"

And here's one of those gore themed death metal acts, the guitars sound almost black metal, and the vocals are....well....Brutal? Nothing to be seen here.

#13

Regurgitate life - "The living stillborn pt 1 / pt 2

Upon seeing this logo i thought that i was walking into a mindless brutal death metal fest. But this one is actually executed nicely, the vocals are not too messy, and the riffs are catchy from time to time.

#14

In the hills - "Season of the witch"

It's the calm AFTER the storm, with the nice piano intro. too bad the intro was the only part that i liked.  :(

#15

Some Doom metal in here. Which was expected after i noticed that the song is 10 minutes long :P Usually, i don't really go for doom metal or progressive metal because i don't like songs that are 10 minutes (or longer) with about three riffs, each one looping for 4 minutes. The same problem comes into play here. the song just doesn't evolve enough for it to be worth 10 minutes. At least there's a nice acoustic "calm" state near 2:50. 

So that's the whole thing, a bit death core / Brutal dm filled. I miss Dm and melodeath all ready :)

There were three bands that got my attention and they were : 

Bound by exile, Subservience and Xisforeyes. 

Check them out if you want to :)

You're in the army now (OoouOuh)

It's been two weeks since i joined the mandatory army training of Finland, and let me tell you, it's been both interesting and really hard. Good thing i don't have a problem adopting to the new environment, sure, it's not nice being separated from your family and most of you'r friends, but i'm good with that stuff. And i still get weekends to myself. 

Except for the first weekend that we spend in the barracks. 

So let me break down the basics of the army:

Every male of the age of 19 has to serve at lest 6 months in a brigade he chooses, there are different brigades focusing on different things around Finland, the one i'm enlisted in is focused to artillery, but there are multiple branches available. I choose the place because i live 30 minutes away from it, there's about 600 people enlisted yearly in the brigade that i serve in, so it's not a small place at all.

Actual pic from the brigade that i serve in.

So, each guy who joins any brigade will go through basic military training which lasts 8 weeks, during which they (and also i) are tough basic soldier skills like gun control or marching. 

After the basic training there's a couple of months of special training, basically, after the basic training each man will choose a "specialty" which will determine the duration of your service too, for example, a basic artillery man will serve 6 months, but if, instead of artillery you would choose i.e the military police, that would last 9 months etc. And after the basic training, those men who are willing and have shown leader qualities will be drafted into NCO school to become non commissioned officers (Corporals) who will, after they're own training, train a unit of men through the basic training.

And after the special training, there's a small phase called "group action training" which basically means fulfilling the special role that you were trained in a huge scale wartime training. 

The first two weeks.

Two weeks ago, on a cold Monday morning i, and a friend of mine set on a drive towards the brigade, we had no idea what was to come and were pretty much terrified. 

Basically, the level of your physical health and capability determined the section of which you belong into: There are four companies, and each of them contains four sections, and every section contains about 40 men, all in a group of 10. 

The first day was pretty easy, we retrieved out basic military equipment, met our trainers and corporals, got briefed on how to act in the army, met the other 8 people sharing the room with us and all that. Pretty much after that the basic training commenced. Each day has about two hours of "actual" training, and two hours of theoretical training, some days are more focused on actual field training and some lean heavily on theory.

After like 3 days we retrieved our assault rifles, learned how to safely carry them, where to lock them, how to handle them and spend about three hours disassembling and assembling the gun, which is a process that has to become "automatic" and happen though flesh memory, which is the case in many of the things in the army. We learned to dissembler the gun in different situations since an actual battlefield situation is not a calm classroom, we did it while laying down, eyes shut, sitting, behind a cover etc. 

The default rifle that each soldier will be thought to use.

The gun that Finnish defense force employs is called "RK 62" And it's the standard issue infantry rifle of the Finnish army. 

Of course the army is not all training an stuff, we get a nice amount of free time for our self's as well. 

Slacking it.

This, after a nice 7 hours at the shooting range = awesome.

The two weeks went past really damn fast. We were thought all kinds of stuff like: Basic gun control, cleaning the gun, moving in the battlefield, moving in a group, aiming steadily, reloading, marching and all kind of stuff.

The week was topped of by this one day on which we had "TST" which translates to "Battle and march training" which, besides forest days is one of the toughest forms of basic training.

During Battle and march training, you will be suited in a full combat armor  carrying a helmet, wearing a combat vest that you can see up there, which will contain three mag's, a shovel, weapon maintenance pack, water bottle, compass, ear protectors and other stuff which will cause the vest to weigh about 7 kilos. 

And of course the rifle.

Battle and marching training is pretty self explanatory, you will move as a squad, led by the corporal and commanded by the lieutenant and upon command, you and you're squad will employ a lot of different shooting positions, crawl a lot, find cover, run for great distances in that gear, scout, assault, defend. And damn let me tell you, if you think that it's easy, try doing that for four hours in a full combat gear, it gets really exhausting really fast. 

Anyways.

All and all. Army is not as bad as i tough, surely some things piss me off but still, it's pretty okay.  i'v actually had a lot of fun, i get to do things most people will never do, i get to push my mental and physical health to the limit, i get a chance to become a corporal and test my leadership skills with 9 initiatives, and i'v met a lot of great people :) 

And i get paid for this :P

The year 2012.

Here's a "small" rundown of the year 2012 in terms of extreme music. I could write a huge damn list about everything that happened to metal on 2012, but to keep this list readable, i will write about the things and albums that "considered" me.

Announcements: 

1.

Basically, 2012 started up really badly, on 6th of January Black Sabbath's Tommy Iommi was diagnosed with cancer. Yeah, a nice start for the year. Let's hope that this metal pioneer will stay with us for a while longer.

2.

The Canadian Brutal metallers Cryptopsy announced that they have recruited a new bass player. While not being anything new with the band, since the lineup has changed countless of times during the years, and with the drummer being the only "original" member in the band, this was still something i found interesting. 

3. 

Mikael Åkerfeld of Opeth left his side project "Bloodbath" due to his lack of interest in Death metal. I'm not a huge fan of Opeth (fuck me, right?) for countless of reasons if someone wants to know what i think about Opeth, here's a small thing i wrote in Reddit a while back:  Opinnions

Apparently Bloodbath didn't break up because of this, and i red an article somewhere that they have a new singer lined up, just remains to be seen who that will be....



4.

Dark funeral signed a three album record deal with Century Media records (Aborted, Arch enemy, Deicide, In flames, Marduk and Vital remains to name a few) Which basically means, more god tier black metal.


 All through i didn't like the fact that Emperor Magus had to leave Dark funeral, i must say that Nachtgarm is in no way a bad lead figure for the band. Now only if i saw them live....Someday.....


5. 

there's the whole thing with Randy Blythe of Lamb of god and the manslaughter thing, but i'm sure that every and each one who cares about lamb of god knows more than enough about this. If you're still interested, Google Randy Blythe.


6. 

Krimh (Drummer) of Decapitated left the band because of "Personal Differences" This was sad news, but not the saddest news many have heard about Decapitated. Krimh was replaced by Paul, who's one of Poland's all stars (Lost soul, Thy disease, Vader, Christ agony).




7. 
Michael Keene of The faceless announced that one of the founding members Steve Jones has departed from the band. The Faceless being one of my favorite things, this was grave news, but as it seems, they have kept on going!

There's a couple of ones that were important to me.

Releases of 2012

Again, i can't really type down each record that released on 2012, so i'll do my favorites, i'll also keep the reviewing short, in case i'll review the bands separately sometime. Multiple releases of 2012 will probably not be mentioned, but here is my absolute top of 2012:

1. 

2012 for me pretty much started with Aborted's  "Global flatline"

Global Flatline, released on 23th of january, is the seventh studio album of the Belgian DM band Aborted. It's the first Aborted album to feature the new ex  Abigail Williams musicians, Ken Bedene (Drums)  and Mike Wilson (GTR). 

here's a nice one from Global Flatline: 

2. 

Psycroptic's "Inherited Repression" Released on 7th of February. For me, this was a short of "comeback" album of Psycroptic, since it was the first album in a while from them that didn't feature pigqueal vocals (Which i greatly dislike) and it's a really good album overall.



3. 

Ah Dyscarnate. One of my favorite bands. On 27th of February they released what has come to be one of my favorite albums too "And so it came to pass"

Really damn impressive show of "Traditional" Death metal. I'v already written a little something about the band, so check it out if you want to.


4.

13th of March marks the beginning of a new episode of Cannibal Corpse, the Death metal legends. CC is another band that i have been listening to for ages.

So, "Torture" twelfth studio release of CC, and a really good piece of traditional CC, a big improvement from "Kill" id say. Produced by one and the only Erik Rutan. While i have seen CC live once, i'm more than willing to see them for the second time if i ever get the chance.  Looking forward's for more released.


5.

Spawn of possession's "Incurso". Third studio album, Released on the same day as CC's "Torture".

I'm not a huge fan of the album, it's one of those things that go way too "messy" and even "technical", i'm sure that the same note does not appear twice on "Incurso" ;). I'm not a huge fan of those super mega fast ultra technical bands like Brain drill. The new sound can be easily explained by the fact that before this album released, Christian Muenzner (GTR) of Necrophagist and Obscura joined the band. Yeah.

 But it's still an okay release and i'm a huge fan of Spawn of possessions first album "Cabinet".

The cover art on this one is excellent, and it's made by one of my favorite cover artist's ever. Per Olofsson. Here's a gallery of cover arts made by him. Really damn nice job!


6.

27th of March was another remarkable day, since the new Hour of penance title came into existence, This was one of the albums that i was really damn exited about, and it did in no way disappoint. In fact, there's nothing bad to be said about Sedition. Or Hour of penance.

God tier Tech-Death right here:





7.

Another one of the best albums of 2012.

18th of May, Carach angren released it's third album, called "Where the corpses sink forever"

Even tho CA is not an old band, or not a band with thousands of cd's it has come to be another one of my favorite bands ever. Every album of CA is a concept album, with different subjects like, the first one being about Ghost legends, the second one about the sea and this about about War.

Carach angren has achieved a sort of different position in my musical taste. It's a band that i just love to listen to while reading the lyrics, since the band is so much sort of "story telling" oriented. It's just awesome.

I remember the day i got this one to my mailbox, i waited for the night to fall, i popped the cd in, took my headphones for maximum atmosphere, opened up the booklet and red the lyrics while listening to the songs. I had goosebumps.


here's a song for you from the latest album. It's a story about a depressed German soldier during WW2 who tries to end his life. I strongly recommend reading the lyrics while you listen to it.

Lyrics:

Another tale of tragedy.
He made his choice to end his life.
So it is written, passionately.
This soldier's fervent wish for suicide.
Soul torn asunder by the horrors of war.
One carrying so much death will soon care for life no more.

On the first day the soldier would quietly retreat to shoot himself through the head not far from his infantry.

"I can hear footsteps.
Someone's coming near.
Fuck! Should I stay? Disappear?
Es ist mein bester Freund.
Dieser Soldat ist immer für mich da.
Quickly I put my Luger away.
I thought this was my last day but I failed!"

"Bitte tötet mich! Bitte tötet mich!"

On the second day he opened his eyes.
Consumed by sadness he thought:
"Today is the day I die.
I will take my life with the rope,
a bullet or maybe the knife"

So depressed.
So empty.
Wandering, hopeless, searching for death.
His soul feels so old and so cold.
The only desire left is his yearning for death.

He stumbled across an old farmstead and entered this wooden shack.
There he found a rope and the guts to jump and hang with a broken neck.
The second he tightened the slipknot, the barn door flew open.
This time he was caught by a farmer who grabbed his legs to lift and hold him high.
The soldier kicking and screaming: "You bastard! Let me hang and die!"

In this struggle the soldier went mad.
After the rope snapped, he pulled a knife and nine times in the stomach, the farmer was stabbed.

"Bitte tötet mich!"

On the third day there was a fire fight.
This bloody assault would last until midnight.
Another opportunity for our soldier who craves the suicide.

With open arms into the line of fire he asked for death.
But then he watched his friend,
who is trying to prevent him from killing himself again,
die for his own determined suicide.

Here comes the part where he sticks the Luger into his mouth.
He was shot twice in the spine from behind,
then blows half his face all over the ground.
Not dead yet but completely fucking paralyzed,
Kept alive in his hell for two long years before he finally died.

For some reason, the color of this section is really fucked up.

8.

Be'lakor - "Of breath and bone"

1th of June.

Be'lakor's third studio album. Be'lakor is a Melodic metal band from Austria, and they are a band that i have the utmost respect for. The melodies and the songs are awesome, and the songwriting. My god, the songwriting, i'm a big fan of reading the lyrics of songs and trying to comprehend them.


The song "in parting" and it's lyrics. I admit. I cried.

There aren't many songs that actually can achieve this, some can because of the memories linked to them, and few can, like what Be'lakor has done wiht "In parting". Not many bands can pull this off, and that expresses a great deal of musical talent and songwriting ability, which will instantly earn my respect.

If only i would be able to pull something as great as that off whit my writing skills.


If you have the time, and care for such thing, stop what you're doing, listen to the song and read as it goes on.



Lyrics:
After one but before the next,
In a tree where new life writhed and flexed
Two birds emerged to hold the world
And grow from feeble talons curled

But fate see them part that day
As lightning cut their branch away
By winds to distant places sent
Almost as if it all had meant

That though their bloodied wounds would fade,
They'd wonder where their brother lay
For every day from that day on
They'd wait to hear a certain song

In vain, for years, thought one was strong
And one was not, for far too long
Until his bones and thoughts were old,
And feathers burnt and lost and cold

The stronger of the two could see
A distant bird, how weak was he
In drawing near but knowing not,
Just who he was, or why, or what

the stronger talons tore at flesh
And stripped away that feathered mess
And all without a sound or cry,
Or even ever knowing why

Yet as the sun began to sink
He seemed to sense, he seemed to think
That soon his brother might appear
From somewhere close, from somewhere near
Convinced this was his brother's fate,
Above his corpse, he sat... to wait ...






8. 

19th of June. Dying fetus released they're seventh studio album "Reign supreme"

I'm a big fan of this three man act of utmost brutality. Nothing really to be said here, it's as awesome as anything from Dying fetus. Kick ass material.

If only i could play that guitar like John can.


¨



I'm going to have to stop now, since it's getting really damn late. I'll continue this list when i can, my apologies :(

Three days later, and i'm back.



9. 

29th of June opened a new chapter for the Swedish death metallers Miseration. There's another band that keeps getting better with time, i didn't really find they're first album "Your demons - They're angels" to be nothing but another album in the genre, it's not bad, but neither is it good. The second one, titled "The mirroring shadow" in my opinion is way better of an album than the first. It's a bit more on the melodic side,  it's more aggressive, more technical... More interesting

And this third album called "Tragedy has spoken" just keeps on going. It still has that more melodic approach
on DM. And it's spiced with all kind of different musical angles and surprises, like the mandolin and throat singing.




10. 

July was most definitely kicked off by Nile's "At the gates of Sethu"

Ah, Nile. I can't praise Nile enough, "Annihilation of the wicked" & "Ithyphallic" are without a doubt one of the high peaks of Tech - Death, and albums that everyone should own.

"At the gate of Sethu" is just a bit weaker of an album than "Those whom the gods detest", but it's still really, really good work. The main difference of this Nile release is the singing style of Dallas, which now, instead of his usual growling is this sort of mid-lvl vocal style. Karl's vocals basically remained as they were. Another thing is the guitar tone which is a bit different too.

The riff's are amazing from time to time, and always really good. And there's nothing bad to be said about Kollias. On some level i'm hoping that this is one of those "experimental" album's, but even if the next Nile album will be on this path, i have no doubts that it will still be amazing.




11. 

August 14th:  The Faceless released they're third studio called : "Autotheism"

And here's another album which doesn't follow it's roots and experiments a lot. I'm a huge fan of both "Alkaldama" and "Planetary Duality", and "Autotheism" is not a bad one at all too, just not as glorious.

The first thing that one will notice is the increasing amount of clean vocals, and a new lead singer. I kind of even saw this coming since "Planetary duality" had some clean parts as well, and they worked just fine on it. I got nothing against clean vocals in brutal music, IF they're done well. Which they are in this case.

This one might be a bit harder to approach by some who's really "strict" about his musical taste, "Autotheism"
is one of a kind album, which no doubt will be an easy one to dislike by certain people. The guitar work hasn't really changed that much, it's a bit more progressive, but still the same sounding.

Michael Keene is still one of my guitar idols.

That guitar. Damn it i want that guitar :)

12.

Ensiferum! All trough Ensiferum is not the same without Jari, form me it's still one of the leading ships in Folk metal armada.  Here's the fifth studio album by them, released on 24th of August. the album is a bit on the slower side, which in other cases would't necessary be a bad thing, but since this is Ensiferum, fast songs have always been they're strong suit, and now, that taken away, it reduces the quality of this one a bit. It's still not a bad piece of folk metal.

And it had one of the best line of video diaries ever made.



13. 

Speak of the devil, Jari Mäenpää's ex-side project Wintersun's second album, which is an album that's split in two parts. And 19th of October marked the release of pt.1 of Time.

Another high point of 2012, and an album that many had awaited for 6 long years. And after the never ending wait, Time is now here. And there's more to follow.

There's only one down side on Time pt.1, it sort of has this feel that it didn't even truly begin before it ended, but that can be easily explained with the fact that obviously Jari tough Time to be one album, not two, which means that upon the decisions to split it, he probably just had to cut the album straight from the middle and create a small outro track for Pt.1

Now, if i only could wait for Pt. 2 to arrive sometimes this year.


14.

Cradle of filth's tenth studio, titled "The manticore and other horrors" October 29th.

There's no end to new CoF album's is there? Well, i sure as shit don't mind them:)
It's you'r average CoF album, with all the Goth and the Punk in it, it's not amazing but neither is it really bad, the only real minus is that it gets a bit monotonous and repetitive if you listen through the whole album on one sitting.



15.

20th of November. the fourth album by Swedish death metallers Aeon. I can't really say anything about it yet, since i haven't had time to go through it, i might do a review once i get the time for it :) But judging by what i have heard of it already, there's no need to worry if you liked "Path of fire"

Here's a shitty picture of every album released on 2012 that i bought:

Left to right: Wintersun - Time pt. 1,  Nile - At the gate of Sethu,  Hour of penance - Sedition, The faceless - Autotheism, Dyscarnate - And so it came to pass, Dying fetus - Reign supreme. Be'lakor - Of breath and bone, Cannibal corpse - Torture, Bloodshot dawn - self titled (Which i totally forgot to mention) and Carach angren - Where the corpses sink forever.



It's been an awesome year in terms of releases, new bands that i discovered and the amount of live shows that i had the opportunity to see!

Have an awesome 2013 and enjoy whatever you're musical taste might be,  i'm sure i will :)

Lapland.

Hello, whomever you might be, i'm back from my vacation in northern Finland (Lapland)

Like i said, we headed out to northern Finland on 25th of December, and returned on the 2th. The main goal of our journey was to do some downhill-sking and snowboarding. We had a group of six people, and all i can say is that it was really fun. 

Except for the trip of about 850 kilometers (520 miles), which took us 11 hours of driving and sitting inside the car. 

If you like snowboarding, and don't mind the cold, norther Finland is a heaven. We did spend most of our dime in the slopes, from early on the morning to about 18.00 when they closed down.

Some days were a bit cold, but mostly the temperatures were tolerable.

There was plenty of snow, which was nice. Even tho we basically had to push our car up to the main road on  a couple of days :)

We didn't go on the 1st, since we did some partying on new year's eve, everything went as expected.

And since (unfortunately) Like i said in the post before this, me, and two of my friends who were in Lapland with me, have to departure to the military for six moths on the 7th, which is the next Monday. So we had to cut our hair. We didn't just cut them on the spot, we created haircuts of our own and kept them for a while, until finally doing the baldy.

I had this punker hair thing, unfortunately we didn't have any hair color packs with us, i would have loved to color it red :<

Aaaaand my other friend did this hilarious Bald / long hair mixture, which caused him to take on the looks of something absolutely hilarious.

And here we finally go. There's my sister abusing what hair i had left to destroy.

There's the final result. It's a bit cold now, since all i have to cover my head is...nothing. At least showering is ridiculously fast now.

A fitting song to listen to atm.