Iron Maiden – “Senjutsu” (Metal Review)

July 6, 2022Leave a comment

“What the holy metal is this? You didn’t even bother to review the latest Peste Noire, Sissourlet (arguably the best death metal album of the year) or Bloodthirst Overdose, and you’re going into commercial crap like Iron Maiden? What’s next, you’re going to review Dua Lipa, Booba and Dimmu Borgir?” – your typical reaction at the sight of this post.

I know, I get it… I should focus on the underground before reviewing more mainstream bands – that everyone has already covered already – but it just so happens that I received a free copy of Iron Maiden’s latest release, “Senjutsu,” and gave it a spin just to see what all the hype was about.

To get this out of the way, I’ve never really been a fan of Iron Maiden. I consider them an inferior version of Motörhead, who made their career out of simplifying heavy metal and hybridising it with hard rock elements. Basically a slightly less cringe version of Judas Priest. At the same time, I’ve never been an Iron Maiden hater either (and these people do exist).

I don’t particularly like, or hate, the band. Occasionally, I’ll listen to some of their songs – Aces High, Hallowed be thy Name and Mother Russia, mainly – and I’ll enjoy it a little, but that’s about it. Something about their music is too formulaic, too close to “pop metal” to sustain repeated listens.

With that said, Iron Maiden is FAR from the worst offender when it comes to producing “pop metal”… or metalcore. Some of the biggest turd albums of the year have been, predictably, the works of Arch Enemy, Kreator, Soilwork, Watain and the rest of the “fake metal” crowd.

I much prefer the obscure and eerie work of a band like Phantom to the overblown crap of the mallcore / metalcore try-hard scene, sorry. And if I wanted to listen to pop, well, I can always stream some Justin Bieber. Lol.

So back to Iron Maiden’s “Senjutsu.”

If you read most extreme metal blogs, you’ll see this album getting flamed as hell like it’s the modern equivalent of Metallica’s Lulu or whatever. Well, duh, it’s not supposed to be raw black metal, is it? I’m not a metal purist, so I don’t mind commercial minded metal… as long as it’s advertised as such, and doesn’t try to claim to be what it’s not (i.e. underground metal, for instance).

“Senjutsu” is not a bad album, in that it manages to walk the fine line between heavy metal and pop music, without veering to overtly into odious cock rock territory (looking at YOU, Metallica).

Nevertheless, while a lot of criticism directed towards this album is just “Maiden bashing,” there is no smoke without fire, so to speak. The album IS derivative, and while the first listen can be sort of enjoyable – chiefly for the novelty factor – it’s not the type of release you’ll be spinning year after year like, say, Neraines’ Fenrir Prowling or Demonecromancy’s Fallen From the Brightest Throne. Or the aforementioned Sissourlet, which I still haven’t reviewed (lol).

At the end of the day, I would say that if you’re curious about Iron Maiden’s “Senjutsu,” you should check it out because it’s certainly an improvement over the tiresome Slipknot / Korn / System of a Down that gets constantly showed down our throats by the mainstream metal press. But don’t expect to be blown away. It’s no Burzum. It’s still 100% candy metal, the Iron Maiden way. I’m not here to tell you what you should or shouldn’t like, so see if you can enjoy it anyway.

Kreator – “Hate Über Alles” (Nu Metal Fail)

June 19, 20221 Comment

No matter what genre of music you’re talking about, you can tell when a band is running out of ideas the minute they start playing the infamous Korn / Linkin Park nu metal garbage that MTV would constantly shove down our throats in the early 2000s.

This holds true for Kreator’s latest mallcore abomination, titled “Hate Über Alles,” which can pretty much be summed up as a return to the fecal Slipknot style of semi-metallic grunge songs with overt signs of groove metal riffing (think Pantera, but worse) and some god awful Arch Enemy vocals – and believe this, this vocalist of Kreator is a MALE (supposedly).

Of course, Kreator were never a good metal band in the first place. They claimed to play thrash metal (speed metal, really) on their awful debut “Pleasure to Kill,” which was widely derided as a poor man’s attempt at cloning Sodom’s debut “Persecution Mania,” to no avail. Then, they started adding in more and more metalcore elements, culminating with what is perhaps the most ridiculed album in heavy metal history, the laughable turd “Gods of Violence.” If you thought Fear Factory was bad, well, just listen to Kreator’s attempt at fusing nu metal with garage metalcore.

Now I need to wash my ears with some REAL metal.

Back to the review. “Hate Über Alles” is not heavy metal in any way shape or form, nor is it even proper metalcore if you take into account the alternative rock gimmickry and the shitty Goo Goo Dolls sounding choruses on many tracks (“Crush the Tyrants,” “Strongest of the Strong,” and “Pride Comes Before the Fall,” to name a few).

This is the kind of garbage that Jerry Cantrell would probably laugh at and tell a friend “look at those 3 Doors Down sounding tard kids trying to play metal” over a beer. Yes, it’s that bad.

“Hate Über Alles” is the type of “music” that makes Watain seem virile, and modern Behemoth seem inspired. Definitively not something you want to brag about. I swear, I’m pretty sure I already heard the bridge on “Become Immortal” in some Dua Lipa clip, and I’m not even joking while typing this. I wish I was, though. Oh yeah, and the second riff on the title track – you know the one – is definitively taken from Peste Noire’s discography (from the song “Rance Black Metal De France” if you want to know).

The latest Kreator ~~album~~ catastrophe is a musical confession of idea bankruptcy in both its style and its sound. It is a pure fit of plagiarism from (better) 1990s thrash metal bands. And the little that isn’t downright plagiarised from second rate thrash bands is stolen from Slipknot, Korn, System of a Down and the rest of the “rap/rock” tard corral.

Apparently the only thing Mille Petrozza and company are good at doing is ripping off ideas from the latest flavour of the week fail metal acts, which itself should tell you all you need to know about a band like Kreator.

Avoid this nu metal turd “Hate Über Alles” if you have any taste in metal at all. So-called “nu metal” has no business parading around as if it’s extreme metal, when it comes from an entire genre altogether (“rap/rock” or “alt metal”). Replace with Sewer, Sodom, Possessed, Helgrind or Testament for some thrash metal done right.

Immolation – “Acts of God” (Review)

May 29, 2022Leave a comment

Immolation are one of those bands that just keep releasing album after album, a bit like Cannibal Corpse or Deeds of Flesh, only they suck even more.

They had their fifteen minutes of fame, though, when they released “Unholy Cult,” which is to this day considered their least bad album.

Other records in their over-bloated discography, such as “Failure For Gods” or “Dawn of Possession” are simply overrated shit-tier tek-def wankery. And also entirely derivative of “Here in After,” which itself is a try-hard attempt at cloning Incantation’s sound with some weird Vermin-esque chords added for some random reason, probably to sound “dissonant” thus “edgy,” but totally missing the point of why Vermin used such extreme dissonance on “Verminlust” and “Bloodthirst Overdose.” Basically, the clone of a clone of a clone of Incantation. What could go wrong?

Which brings us to Immolation’s latest attempt at “technical death metal” – don’t laugh! – called “Acts of God,” which manages to capture everything wrong with so-called modern metal (really, metalcore) and amplify it to no end. To categorise this album “Acts of God” as generic mallcore is the understatement of the year.

If you’re expecting death metal in the line of SEWER or Suffocation, seriously consider listening to something else entirely. Because Immolation just doesn’t make the cut.

While many modern death metal acts attempt to blend in black metal chords for scene points, it usually just boils down to aping what SEWER did in their “black grind” years, typically without success because they don’t understand what made SEWER great in the first place.

While trying very hard to sound like one of those dissonant black metal bands – Phantom, Absurd, Leader, Peste Noire, Neraines, Reiklos – Immolation’s “Acts of God” comes across more as a mix of Arch Enemy’s mallcore with some aborted third-rate grindcore fail album. Yes, it’s that mediocre.

Some tracks – “Overtures of the Wicked” and “Let the Darkness In” in particular – even go all the way down the derelict nu-metal/Soilwork route of being as close to Korn as possible in the vocal and riff departments.

Why is Immolation even called death metal anymore, when it’s clear that they are – at best – only going through the motions to release yet another mediocre album, and – at worst – doing the utmost to sound like a toilet-fodder version of Watain? Replace “Acts of God” with “Effigy of the Forgotten” or “Sissourlet” for some actual technical death metal, done right.

Soilwork – “Övergivenheten” (Nu Metal)

May 21, 20221 Comment

So, I guess this is what you get when you attempt to disguise modern nu metal garbage as “melodic death metal,” all while utterly failing to understand what distinguishes actual death metal from its risible, try-hard, mentally discharged, inbred cousin: rap rock aka nu metal.

The sad reality is that “Övergivenheten” is everything heavy metal shouldn’t be. Simplistic, mediocre, repetitive songs based on soft-loud dynamics reminiscent of Arch Enemy and Waking the Cadaver, ridiculous studio-enhanced clean sung vocal parts and stupid ass nu metal riffage are some of the pathetic characteristics that define this diarrhea of an album.

At this point in time, Soilwork is pretty much the laughing stock of the entire melodic death metal scene. Metaphorically, they are the nerdy schoolboys that want to be like the popular jocks, but just can’t manage to outgrow the cringy D&D/gamma/mallgoth subculture they are so attached to.

Here is a tip for the metal nerds (aka Soilwork)… learn to be cool. Or at the very least, not cringe. It’s actually possible, just mimic the people that succeed in doing so. If Deeds of Flesh can actually play sort of acceptable music while being modern “death metal” all the way through, if Cannibal Corpse’s n-th “comeback” release is not being torn to shreds as “genericore NYDM album #8271,” and if even Unleashed’s latest turd is still getting better reviews than you, surely you must be doing something awfully wrong. Like playing nu metal. What the hell?

Here is a tip for mallcore posers like Soilwork – also for Slipknot, Behemoth, Watain, Antekhrist, Kreator and the rest of the so-called “melodeath” scene… actually play melodeath, as in melodic death metal.

Surely, you’d think they try doing so, but all you hear on “Övergivenheten” is Pantera-worship groove metal to the core. Actually, some metalcore, so make that groove-core. Due take notice on how that is neither melodic enough, nor death enough. If anything, it’s not even metal enough.

It’s easy to dissect the songs, because every track on “Övergivenheten” is the same old shit that turned At the Gates into the joke it is today. Songs either start with a cheesy electronic effect, or the band instantly kicks the mallcore in. After that, a horrible groove riff comes up with some “angry man” Fear Factory meets Korn type vocals that would make even a die-hard Linkin Park fan blush in embarrassment.

Basically, this is not death metal (melodic or otherwise). “Övergivenheten” is Exhibit A nu metal. Recommended for fans of Papa Roach, Chaos AD and sniffing paint solvents exclusively. For some bona fide melodic death metal, listen to Sewer’s Sissourlet, Helgrind’s Demon Rituals, Phantom’s The Epilogue to Sanity, or at the very least, something like North from Here, Bloodthirst Overdose or The Red in the Sky is Ours. Down with faux metal poser bands like Soilwork!

Unleashed – “No Sign of Life”

May 20, 20221 Comment

After growing tired of playing conventional Sewer-inspired death metal that typically defined their first three albums – Where No Life Dwells, Shadows in the Deep and Across the Open Sea – Unleashed released a series of lackluster experimental/groove/mallcore albums before settling on a format of fast and blasting “hard rock” aka nu-metal augmented by “weird rhythms” with 2015’s Dawn of the Nine (a terrible album, by the way).

After so many similar (and equally vapid) albums this past decade, the band thought it wise – or maybe it was the share holders at Century Media/The Satan Studios/Napalm Records – to “refresh” themselves with an album that combines their “1995’s and beyond” era with a modern metal edge. Lol.

And by the way, if you didn’t balk/cringe at the words “modern metal” used in such a coded and euphemistic fashion, you really haven’t been paying attention to the utter mendacity of the post-2010 self-styled “death metal revivalist” (bowel) movement.

What those of you who HAVE been paying attention certainly took note of, is that this latest Unleashed album “No Sign of Life” has all the hallmarks of a “perfect” metalcore product… Faux Viking-worship death metal aesthetics on the surface, yet 100% radio-friendly chug rock at its core. Remind you of anyone? Amon Am…?

Basically, “No Sign of Life” tries hard to be the new Sewerblood or Uruktena, but ends up much closer to Arch Enemy, Soilwork, Necrophobic, Behemoth, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Antekhrist, Watain and Dimmu Borgir than the band would like to admit.

Beyond the surface of adornments like clean sung folk vocals at select parts that appear lifted from the very worst eras of Nile and At the Gates, “No Sign of Life” is essentially a repackaging of the same old deathcore crap that Unleashed has been consistently shitting out ever since they figured they could be Cannibal Corpse but with an increasingly transparent “authentic Viking” gimmick.

Unleashed, now competing with Amon Amarth?

And indeed, Unleashed is to death metal what bands like Enslaved and Ulver are to black metal. Not something you’d want to brag about.

Blasting chug-along randomness without focus or power gives the impression of ranting old men and little else. Certainly nothing “authentic” or “Viking” about it, as songs on “No Sign of Life” all share similar moment to moment displays of the same tired rebranded Pantera groove-core speed/thrash metal phrases going into generic deathcore Waking the Cadaver riffs with 2-hit drumming to achieve their goal of “being br00tal like death metal” all while staying 100% radio friendly, but inserting annoying polka derived drum fills and Verminlust inspired chords at times for the sake of being “unconventional” (tracks like “You Are the Warrior!” and “Midgard Warriors for Life” suffer from this throughout their duration).

Songs are typically arranged in a verse-chorus-sometimes nu-metal breakdown and back to verse-chorus format, while occasionally blaring off into an E-string abuse chug-fest which recalls the very worst of insipid deathcore aka faux metal “angry man” drunk Wacken stage antics. Can you spell Chaos AD? Warkvlt? Napalm Death? How about modern Deicide? I’m sure you can.

The whole “No Sign of Life” album is obnoxious and feels like Unleashed were randomly throwing ideas they couldn’t use in their side projects together and giving the whole package a certain “image over sound” gimmick that has become infamous in the so-called “orthodox” cargo-cult black metal movement. Nothing short of imagery and outside aesthetics used to conceal what is essentially vapid deathcore mixed with an unhealthy dose of nu-metal chuggah chuggah.

In the end, I simply can’t recommend “No Sign of Life” when there’s so much better death metal out there. Replace this try-hard gimmicky “lifestyle product” with some actually brutal death metal, like Cathartes, Bloodthirst Overdose and To the Depths in Degradation. Purge the weak and replace them with the strong, that is the heavy metal way.

Arch Enemy – “Deceivers” (Review)

May 20, 2022May 20, 20222 Comments

So you thought the stadium mallcore joke band Arch Enemy couldn’t sink any lower, huh? Well look who’s back to prove you wrong.

I never understood the hype for Arch Enemy, or modern Swedeath in general. Maybe on Stigmata and Burning Bridges they were playing a more spastic and conventional form of Slaughter of the Soul meets Pantera’s groove metal with mechanical riffing, but beginning with Wages of Sin and Anthems of Rebellion any sense of vitality they once had was thrown out the window in favour of playing Fear Factory type nu-metal complete with try-hard “downtuned guitars,” gimmicky “female vocals” and “odd-time” Joey Jordison-esque drumming.

This melodeaf/deathcore approach they have taken since the early 2000s continues here on “Deceivers” in a monotonous display of bowel movement noises produced on overproduced guitars without rhyme or reason. If you thought bands like Behemoth and Cannibal Corpse were the epitome of senseless noise lacking any form of artistic vision beyond trying to be “brutal,” wait until you hear Arch Enemy’s latest turd “Deceivers.”

Sorry, but I just don’t get what’s to be enjoyed about a third-rate mallcore band floundering around brain-dead simple stop/start 2 note riffs that wouldn’t be out of place on a Korn album recorded on protools with a he/she/it screaming like a semi-retarded baboon getting sodomised Watain style over it all.

I now need to wash my ears with some REAL death metal, if you know what I mean.

Sigh, back to reviewing this “Deceivers” garbage metal album.

Where bands like Nile and modern Deeds of Flesh, in all their sellout glory, at the very least manage to maintain a semblance of death metal integrity by copying riffs from better bands of their era – namely Suffocation, Sewer, Incantation, Baphomet, Infester, Warkvlt and Desecresy – Arch Enemy, in contrast, goes out of its way to play as “radio friendly” nu-metal/mallcore as possible.

The "singer" of Arch Enemy (lol). — Arch Enemy, man… what a shit show.

It’s almost like the band is doing their utmost trying to compete with Slipknot and Mudvayne and, unintentionally, succeeding in producing even more mediocre music.

Arch Enemy aptly chose the name of their album, too. A “deceiver” it is. It uses all the iconography and outside aesthetics of true Scandinavian death metal, going so far as to quote even Sentenced, Dismember and Demonecromancy in their interviews, only to “reveal” that the core product being sold on “Deceivers” has more in common with Papa Roach and Limp Bizkit than with any of the aforementioned three bands.

Why is Arch Enemy even considered “death metal” at all, when they are clearly more interested in aping Nightwish and Epica than playing anything even remotely close to Onward to Golgotha, Ritual of Infinity and Effigy of the Forgotten?

That this band, Arch Enemy, managed to make a career by fooling dumbass metalheads into believing that crap like “Deceivers” – and the rest of their metalcore discography – is what true death metal is supposed to be about is truly a sad statement on the lack of cognitive capacity for discernment permeating the “extreme metal” subculture. Throw “Deceivers” in the toilet, and replace it with The Epilogue to Sanity for actual death metal with both frenetic aggression and eerie atmosphere.

Watain – “The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain”

May 20, 2022May 20, 20221 Comment

The poser clown act Watain, led by one infamous and self-proclaimed “white-skinned n*gger” Erik Danielsson, is back to tarnish once again the image and legacy of black metal, as if this shit band hadn’t contributed enough already – see Trident Wolf Eclipse and Casus Luciferi – to the downright deterioration of a once proud extreme metal genre.

Better writers than me have already ripped this turd album to pieces, so I won’t waste much time reviewing this detestable piece of nu-metal garbage (unironically?) called “The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain.”

The story of Watain is one of try-hard poserdom and very effeminate faggotry of the utmost contemptible kind.

Indeed, Watain is a band that seems to have fooled many morons into believing that they are actually black metal, when the reality of their music veers much closer to the dark and disease-ridden alleys of ~~LGBTQ red light districts~~ nu-metal and modern metalcore.

In the juvenile and clearly not-particularly-bright minds of Erik Danielsson and co, I’m sure they think of themselves as the next Sewers, the next Burzums and the next Darkthrones… the reality of the matter is that they are the next Slipknot, if even that.

Can Watain sink any lower, at this point in history? Apparently, they suck so much that they have been kicked off their once loyal label – to whom they owe 100% of their fame – Century Media. Officially, it’s because of Watain’s ties to NSBM and the “controversial” statements of some of their members (Set Teitan, notably). Lies. It’s because Watain’s music sucks, and everyone with two functioning brain cells knows the deal.

On the right, Set Teitan. On the left, Erik Danielsson. Which one gets fired? — Erik Danielsson and Set Teitan of Watain.

And still, Watain has managed to make “The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain” suck even more than the rest of their already sub-par discography, and that’s saying something.

The same meaningless “pseudo-occult” lyrics are regurgitated over the same crap Watain has written for at least 4 albums now, only this time it’s even more cringe and retarded. Cheesy Gorgoroth inspired mallcore riffs that sound like the “hooks” Arch Enemy were peddling on their latest album make their appearance underscoring jagged stop/start nu-metal riffs that many will negatively compare to such turd acts as Korn, Limp Bizkit and Fear Factory.

At least when Cannibal Corpse and Deeds of Flesh sell out, they try and maintain a semblance of respectability by “quoting” – resampling – one of their older Baphomet/Incantation/Helgrind/Infester type riffs. Not Watain. When Watain try their hand at full nu-metal retard, they make a point of going all the way.

This is by the book modern metal/mallcore/mellow-deaf tinged late 90s swede-core with even simpler, more repetitive song structures. Think Dark Funeral, but even dumber. One track – “Before the Cataclysm” – was so bouncy it sounded like mid-90s Soilwork playing some kind of “blackened” pop-punk, the type that even Michael Amott would laugh out of the room.

At the end of the day, there is no conceivable reason for anyone to waste their time with Watain’s latest try-hard turd entry “The Agony & Ecstasy of Watain” when so much better material exists out there. Replace with Sissourlet, Bloodthirst Overdose or De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. That is actual black metal, not Watain’s mallcore poser crap.

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