ZYKLON – DisIntegrate

ZYKLON
DisIntegrate
Candlelight USA
9/10




In short order, Zyklon has emerged as one of the most important death metal acts of the new millennium. Picking up where the band’s 2003 effort “Aeon” left off, “DisIntegrate assaults the senses with a callous, virulently vile attack.


Whether Zyklon is bashing out a Morbid Angel-style death groove, or a Slayer-type thrashing assault, the band remains decidedly bludgeoning in unleashing a vivid torrent of muscular death. Life-eradicating anthems like the brutalizing title track and the chaotic, cacophonous cut “Vulture” underscore the band’s penchant for creating blasting strikes without remorse.

Experiencing the tyrannical vocal presence of Secthdamon, or the hyperspeed detonation emitted by revered drummer Trym gives the listener an experience that is as close to death as one can get without attaining the actual feat.

Zyklon proves with this beastly offering of crushing sound to be nearly matchless in the field of death metal today.


ERIN FOX © 2005 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE SEVENTH CROSS - Scorched By The Flames Of Vengeance

THE SEVENTH CROSS
Scorched By The Flames Of Vengeance
Candlelight USA
1/10




On “Scorched By The Flames Of Vengeance,” The Seventh Cross melds early Gothenburg sounds with hardcore. It’s very, very apparent that these guys are no masters of their instruments. You’ll find a pile of chug-chug riffing, and the sort of song arrangements that add up to lots of hair swinging and guitar flipping. Most fifteen year olds that aspire to be the next As I Lay Dying can generally fare better than this.

Although this was supposedly remixed, remastered, etc., that doesn’t stop the levels of the drums from fading in and out with an annoying degree of irregularity. The bell on the ride cymbal of drummer Simon simply must be stopped. The volume of this clanking piece of shit is irritating to the nth degree. Bet five bucks he asked for it to sound like that, too.

Chug-chug-chugga, et al and an untalented Drano barf from frontman Sheep adds to the trash-it factor. It’s excruciating to sit through a whole album of this sub-par, basementish demo-quality garbage, but hey, it’s a review, so you do what you gotta do.

By the time this is all sorted out, not only are there zero tracks worth mentioning, it has me wondering why Candlelight is waiting to ante up on the big Erin Fox solo record.

Seriously, most folks with a miniscule amount of talent could eek out something more creative and enjoyable than this, and they probably wouldn’t have to waste any time and/or cash remixing the damn thing. Caveat Emptor to the max, metal people...


ERIN FOX © 2007 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Starkweather - Croatoan

STARKWEATHER
Croatoan
Candlelight USA
8/10




A decade after their highly-influential “Into The Wire” album, Philly’s Starkweather has returned with a tortured slab of twisted metal, “Croatoan.” It’s really confusing when people label music such as this as hardcore. The music of Starkweather has little to do with hardcore, in all actuality. There are no downbeats, no gang vocals and not a stereotypical breakdown to be seen. At a certain point, bands decided to play with the intensity of death metal, but didn’t want to be pegged into that scene intellectually. Try Art Metal, it’s a much more appropriate modifier for the schizophrenic musical personality of Starkweather.

When this band does venture near slower-paced chugging, as they do on “Taming Leeches With Fire,” it’s more like drugged-out doom with angry, gargling vox. Be it as it may, there’s no need to try and re-write history, however misguided it may have gotten along the way in aspirations of spiffy taglines. Yes, this group’s obscure initial recordings in the mid-nineties were responsible for inspiring the Dillinger Escape Plans and Ipecac artists of the world, and it’s likely that their inspiration came just as much from The Melvins and The Jesus Lizard as from meathead moments in the musical manifest.

Here, they tackle sludgy, disconnected rhythms and escapist, unconventional shifts in focus with similar zest. Half the time, singer Rennie Resmini sounds like he’s being strangled and during most others, he exhibits a detached, rounded tone that’s certainly unlike most others. If drugs don’t inspire the majority of this group’s musical explorations, then idle time has certainly took its toll on their collective psyche. At times, it’s hard to fathom which direction the music of Starkweather will take next. They turn left, do a one-eighty then do a back flip from measure to measure. Regardless, a large amount of this work is packed with tonnage and the bizarre asides the group takes during the records more abstract moments are less distracting than they originally appear. “Bitterfrost” weighs in as one of the most interesting tracks to surface this year, grooving with a trippy doom parade lurch then drifting into pissed-off obnoxiousness, anvil-heavy and scathing.

Blame it on whichever style you like, Starkweather still has the capacity to inflict some massive damage after all these years, and keep you on your toes at the same time. Most bands can’t claim that feat. “Croatoan” is challenging yet refreshing in its abstract obtuseness. Here’s one that you must delve into quite deeply, but the reward is certainly attractive. Consider the value of Starkweather to lie in their ability to be ornate and abrasive as hell, from moment to moment, with the outfit’s pure, persuasive unpredictability being the unchallengeable ace in the hole.


ERIN FOX © 2007 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

SHE SAID DESTROY - Time Like Vines

SHE SAID DESTROY
Time Like Vines
Candlelight USA
4/10




As the dissonant, mostly basal beginning of “Armageddon, Anyone?” unfurls, it’s easy to peg She Said Destroy as just another batch of death metal pretenders. While the quartet is sufficiently skilled at playing their instruments, they severely lack focus and direction. Song parts switch around in a bid to add a technical bent to their death metal approach, but the arrangements leave the listener befuddled and bored as opposed to enveloped.

As the band’s frontman, UGMOD gives a flat, uninspiring performance that’s not only one-dimensional, it’s frankly unskilled. Although the group is apt to launch into a spider web lick that shows they have a bit of dexterity, She Said Destroy sounds like a mouse trapped in a maze, running in every direction but too small-minded to take the shortest distance between two points and keep their goal in mind as the songs play out.

Muffled production aims to mask the drudgery and even slick riffing ultimately leads to a murky fog of sonic misdirection. Thousands of bands are producing similar music that’s much more effective, listenable and worthy of attention than this.

Certainly, it can be gleaned that these gentlemen are fair and perhaps even above-average musicians. Yet rudimentary songwriting and a complete lack of focus still hold them back during the strumming, grunting murk of “Der Untergeher” and the confounding, directionless “Beyond The Borders Of Our Minds.” This music is just too damn messy to be enjoyable. Much of the dissatisfaction can be attributed to the shaky production, where the drums need more compression and the vocals suffer from flatline-inducing predictability.

There’s nothing here that’s going to convince big fans of the style that She Said Destroy is anything to be particularly excited over. “Time Like Vines” is just one great big fat ol’ blasting death metal “Duh,” repeated ad infinitum.


ERIN FOX © 2007 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TORCHBEARER - Warnaments

TORCHBEARER
Warnaments
Candlelight USA
9/10




Torchbearer made a distinctive impression with their debut, the black metal-leaning “Yersinia Pestis.” While cuts like “Sown Are The Seeds Of Death” and “Bearer Of The Torch” hinted at death metal underpinnings, this Swedish outfit’s major thrust was in delivering slightly above average black metal. For the most part, the ideas explored by Torchbearer gave an impression as being underdeveloped and a touch too self-involved to make a quantifiable impact on the extreme underground music scene.

A year and a half can make a big difference in a band’s direction. On the unbridled and barbaric “Warnaments,” this Pär Johansson (Satariel)-led quintent offers up a barrage of blasting melodic death that’s replete with blistering guitar acrobatics and deathly growling. When “Dark Clouds Gathering” kicks in with an overpowering fury, one thing is patently clear. Torchbearer has improved a great deal. Collectively, they cover a lot of ground in one song, without ever sounding unnatural or disjointed. The musical thoughts expressed on this album are highly articulate and judging from the experience of the band members themselves – other projects include Unmoored, Incapacity and Scar Symmetry, to name a few, it was just a matter of time before Torchbearer delivered a monolith. Henrik Schönström delivers some real highlights as well, with fleet-footed double bass beats and rolls and an impressive blasting ability. His performance runs neck and neck with the competent shredding and riff bludgeonry of guitarists Patrik Gardberg and Christian Älvestam as being the most exciting element of this group’s music.

“Burial Waters, Deepsome Graves” fades in with a soft piano melody which evolves into a highly memorable chug, then a chaotic, mid-tempo death metal pounding. Tracks like these are emphasized by great production, a quality that makes the group’s intensity all the more defined. As the classically-enhanced interlude “The Stale Drownings” gives way to the unstoppably chaotic, yet intensely melodic “Battlespawn,” listeners will revel in this records sonic multiplicity. Setting an ambience is key and Torchbearer manages to cover a lot of ground over the course of this record.

The final verdict is that “Warnaments” is both articulate enough to bear weight with technical-minded fans, memorable enough to entice repeated listens and definitely heavy enough to bang even the most stubborn of heads. Keeping this in mind, “Warnaments” is certainly one of the surprises of melodic death metal for the year and a very strong outing that is worth your time.


ERIN FOX © 2007 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED