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While British Bolt Thrower may not play the most brutal or even original stuff available in the grindcore/death metal genre, they sure do get points for consistency. “Honour Valour Pride” is chock full of evenly well-written, slower-tempo, songs featuring grinding guitar riffs, machine-like drumming and deep, raspy vocals. The latter work less well in my opinion, due to their lack of distinguishing texture so that they just sort of fade into the background, but are more than made up for by the sheer “cool” factor of the mechanoid blasting beats and the band’s melodic excursions. Songs like “Contact Wait Out” and “Inside the Wire” lay the foundation for the rest of the album, building up the overall tempo slowly but surely with surgical efficiency.

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It starts off well enough, with warm electric/acoustic guitars playing in the rich, earthy tradition of American folk rock, but slowly descends into a sort of Coldplay-meets-Neil-Young bland indie record. And that’s never a good thing, in my modest opinion. While he plays his guitar well enough and sings quite sweetly, the problem with our singer/songwriter Mr. O’ Sullivan seems to lie in the deep and dark abyss of originality. Develop your own style, man, and it should all be very much better. Nobody wants to listen to the same old, recycled stuff over and over again.

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Swedish hard rock lives.

Even though Turbonegro’s Euroboy might have been exaggerating when he said that, “Glenda’s got the best guitar player in Scandinavia,” there’s no denying that these boys have something going for them. With driving rhythmic phrases, somewhat catchy melodies and distorted vocals similar to Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, there are no notable flaws to be found on their debut EP “Scandinavian Reptile”. Of course, there aren’t any truly distinguishing marks either. To tell you the truth, I’m not that captivated by their music. It’s just another Swedish hard rock record that shows promise for a band with a chance of success in the future.

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Released by the No Colours label, “Suicidal Emotions” does justice to the name of its mothership (oh, is black a colour?). This debut release by Shane Rout�s “Abyssic Hate” black metal project is as dark and grim of an album as you will find. The 4-track, 50 minute record demonstrates the pure, raw, screechy BM style that was apparent in Darkthrone�s earlier sound (and, I suppose, their “current” one too). The purposefully poor production quality adds to the intense and rather depressive atmosphere generated by Rout�s flesh-tearing vocals. Along with his vocals, the guitars form the main focus of the sound. They are heavily distorted and create a vibrant effect, which alienate the drumming as the main drive in the composition. “Suicidal Emotions” requires more than a quick listen, which makes it wholly unsuitable as background music (although something tells me, that�s not exactly what the creator had in mind when going into studio…). Instead: light up some candles, turn off all other electrical sources of light, turn up “Depression: Part I” and listen through the entire composition. It really is very well thought out.

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It’s quite strange to think that Hellhammer’s (no, not the drummer) rather mediocre album “Apocalyptic Raids” would, along with Venom, help spawn the black/death metal movement. When the Swiss group set out to create music, they simply wanted to play something no-one had ever heard before, and managed to do so by borrowing from 80s metal acts, the punk movement as well as throwing in some pretty lousy recording equipment (by that time’s standards - of course, Darkthrone had not yet come into existence) and their personal signature of droning fuzz-guitar riffs and quickly shifting atmospheres.

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Oooh, I quite like this one. Isis’ “Red Sea EP” (which on CD includes an early, but well-produced demo by the band) is pure aggression, a monumentally dense and sludgy doom/hardcore metal release. Awesomely brutal vocals combine with extra sludgy riffage and shockingly distorted bass/guitar combos for aural assault opener “Carmicarmicarmicat Shines To Earth”. Great, mysterious sound samples featuring some quasi-Southern chick expounding on the wonders of nature work as a backdrop to the relentless, unwavering “The Minus Times” and crushing “Red Sea”. Isis quite obviously master a sound remiscent of genre-buddies Neurosis, and even add their own to the pot with some of the most gruelling, grinding, unforgiving stuff I’ve heard in a long while.

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How in the non-existent hell am I going to categorize the ’special’ sound that Jon ‘J.S.’ Clayden and his fellow pitchshifters have yet again unleashed upon the masses in their 2000 release “Deviant”? Lesa Pence got it right when he said: “Perhaps the stores should just create a section called ‘Pitchshifter’ and make their lives easier.”

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Quasi-complex sound/noise arrangements + guitar effects + whiny vocals/lyrics != good music.

By throwing together all sorts of breaks and beats and bongo noise, then piling on a bunch of ‘poetic’ texts twice as pretentious as the title of the album itself, the Mars Volta seem to think they’ll get away with good reviews and maybe even a few platinum discs just because it’s a “concept album” based on the suicide of a Mr. Julio Venegas. But they’re wrong. “De-Loused in the Comatorium” is just boring, tedious effects noise, and not very interesting noise at that. Sure, they have all this “energy”, but it’s terribly, terribly unfocused and unbearably dragged out in an effort, I’m guessing, to give customers “value for money”. When they try their hand at more balladsy and soft material such as in nonsensically titled “Televators”, it comes out far too contrived to have any impact upon my critical ears. My guess is that they could have cut the 60 minutes of music on “De-loused…” to about 10-15 minutes of material actually worth listening to. Oh, and if I want energy, remind me to buy some sugar cubes and have a few cups of coffee next time (Although not together! Real men drink pure black coffee, only!).

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Arise began as a band playing covers of Sepultura, Machinehead and Panthera. I’m pleased to report that they have moved quite a way from their musical roots. Their second full-length “Kings of the Cloned Generation” is melodic death/thrash metal reminiscent of fellow Swedes At the Gates and The Crown. In my mind it is an improvement upon Arise’s debut, and has a much tighter sound as well as a clearer production, with aggressive riffs and catchy underlying melodies combined with thrashy drumming and not too over-the-top growling vocals. The growling isn’t as interesting as that of At the Gates, nor are the melodies as beautiful, but opening track “Strangled Love” and “Stains of Blood” come close.

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