Flagellation - Incinerate Disintegrate (Last Entertainment Productions)

This is thrashy sort of death metal with raspy vocals that are easily decipherable, and a clean production.  There's some cheese-wiz in the music, but every once in a while there's some kind of twist, but not enough to clean the palate.  Face it, if you yawned while your next door neighbor had a catastrophic orgasm and sperm rocketed into your mouth, there's really no amount of toothpaste that can make you feel purified.  So the longer you have this CD in the stereo the more likely you will start to feel like a penis has broken into your mouth.  If you don't do something about it, the fourth song introduces massively gay vocals, and then you might as well start looking for a therapist.  I had to crack open the CD booklet to figure out what the agenda is, if any.  The band seems to be very anti-metal.  It's the kind of lyrical theme that is typical of fags - songs about how people hate each other and how it's all going to lead to nuclear war if we don't start acting as gay as the band.  I think these guys should change styles to hardcore, because that scene is full of uneducated people who like to opine about social problems in the most ignorant rants imaginable.  If you are forming a band, get this album so you and your friend will know what NOT to do in music. METAL MONSTER

Malfeitor - Incubus (Agonia Records)

I don't think that I was in the mood to hear a Sesame Street muppet, but when the black metal vocals came on I wasn't immediately repulsed because the vocals weren't the high screeching that just smack of gayness.  No, these vocals, though unmanly, made me imagine a diminutive creature, like a gremlin.  So this kind of muppet-voice didn't set off the homo-alarm..  There are some death metal growls to prevent any kind of cross-dressing behavior in listeners, just in case.  The music is drenched in those powerless dissonant chords that black metal is known for. Listening to this album in its entirety is not a good idea, but if one song is placed into a mix-CD for a long drive then it can be enjoyed for the novelty-factor.  It's just funny how all the songs sound the same even though they are really not the same at all.  As I mentioned, consume only one song per session and this album might work for you.  METAL MONSTER

 

Lethian Dreams - Bleak Silver Streams (Orcynia)

Doom, sweet doom.  This is the sad variety of the precious musical style.  Female vocals can be boasted, but these are not the operatic soprano.  No.  These are quite different.  They are soft and lulling, and beautiful.  The music parts for her voice and she rides above the mournful waves.  If a watchful ghost were to visit me, this would be her way to speak words to me.  Perhaps she will resonate inside you as well.  As for the music, it is not the crushing sort, being more of a soft sorrow, made more lofty by the melodies and the introspective riffs.  The male counterpart provides both death metal vocals and clean spoken-word.  No matter which type of doom breaks your vision the most, this album is important to your collection.  Any music that erases the images before you and replaces them with the theatre of the mind must be heard and owned.  BILL ZEBUB
 

Sanctification - Black Reign (Pulverised Records)

Here we have a solid death metal album, heavily old-school flavored.  The vocals belong to that family of guttural-yet-understandable, like Unleashed, Morgoth, et cetera.  Understandable but not gay.  Good production, good songs.  There's nothing much else to say.  Do you really need anything else?  METAL MONSTER

Opium Warlords - Live at the Colonia Dignidad (Cobra Records)

The packaging made me wonder if this was even metal.  I saw on the back of the CD that the label is from Finland, so I decided to take a chance.  The first song struck me as a really odd version of Venom's "Warlord", like if a band like UPSIDE DOWN CROSS ever did their version of it.  So it had the makings of stoner doom, ha ha.  The vocals were a sort of burn-out chorus, and one of the voices sounded like a guy who was being tickled by a really cold feather.  I couldn't stop laughing.  And of course, I couldn't shut this off.  There was just something compelling about what I was hearing.  Oh, and by the way, the title of the album is misleading.  This isn't a live album, or at least one that had an audience cheering and such.  The second song came in after eight minutes, continuing in the dirty stoner doom way.  Holy shit!  It turned out to be a thirteen-minute instrumental, but it didn't suck - it was just as weird as the first song.  What a strange effect - it sounds normal and abnormal at the same time.  Well, I had a chance to sift through the big CD booklet and laughed at all the bizarre content.  The first sentence of an untitled text reads, "This interest in decay is frequently expressed in the craving to smell the odour of something that is decaying."  The third song is even longer, and in the middle of it appear vocals similar to old Cream, like from "The Tales of Brave Ulysses" - well, kind of, and they're good, so this singer is still keeping the whole stoner doom classification intact.  This song seems rather meandering and trippy, but by this time you will probably have lost your marbles.  That's a good thing, by the way.The fifth song cranks the distortion and gets a bit mean vocally as well.  It's called "Feel the Funeral Breeze."  At this point I decided that even if the other half of the album sucks I already got my money's worth.   Little did I know that there was a big cherry-on-top waiting for me.  The seventh song, "Overwhelm Me, Black Sorrow" had some scrumptiously crazed vocals and the deal was done - I became a fan.  Imagine a stoner-doom version of Helhammer's "Triumph of Death."  What a surprise this unique band is.  Please try to support them.  METAL MONSTER
 

Arkona - Goi, Rode, Goi (Napalm Records)

This is one of the better folk metal bands.  The language is Ukrainian.  I don't know how it sounds to people who don't understand it, but it was an added bonus to me.  If you never heard this band, I highly recommend the eighth track as your initiation.  The female vocals are heartfelt, and the notes that climb and descent fill me with wonder.  Absolutely astounding.  This is also the song that has the least amount of folk-ish-ness to it, so you can let the other characteristics overtake you, like the heaviness, the sorrow, and the terror.  The album has some merriment, as folk instruments are known to generate, but the band is Slavic, and such, the melancholy of the culture is dominant.  It really is something savory.  The instruments are played with virtuoso performances.  The male vocals are anguished, and I am happy that they did not choose the black metal style.  It is best to hear the lyrics in the tortured style.  Svartsot's debut album, "Ravenes Saga" was the most perfect blending of metal and folk, with heavier emphasis on the metal part.  This Arkona album is second, of all albums that I have heard, with heavy emphasis on the folk part.  But Arkona is superior in atmosphere, and unequaled in passion.  BILL ZEBUB