CD REVIEWS - Miscellaneous - http://maxpages.com/aeazine2/ISSUE_11_CD_REVIEWS

JAPANISCHE KAMPFHOERSPIELE Fertigmensch
www.japanischekampfhoerspiele.de
If you haven't already guessed, this band with the ultra long name hail from Germany. This album's complete playing time is just over 20 minutes, but that's more than enough to convince you they're tearing pages out of the rulebook two or three at a time, and slipping them back into spaces of their own choosing when it comes to playing death-grind. The brutality of Fertigmensch is backed by a very precise drummer whose snare drum sounds stretched very tightly as he guides the rest of the band through a series of oddly positioned accents, stop-start-stop action between time changes and AK-47 velocity blasting. All the vocals are sung in German to add to the band's unique personality. The pauses in between each song are so fleeting you almost miss where one ends and the next begins if you're not listening closely. "Amokschlaf" has interesting interaction between the drums and the guitars, followed by a bizarre groove that doesn't lose its heaviness by the time it gives way to a thrashier progression. The interplay with low-pitched and high-pitched vocals sees the higher-pitched vocals tear into your mind like it's been thrown into a meat grinder. - Dave Wolff

JIGSORE TERROR World End Carnage
Listenable Records; BP 73; 62930 Wimereux; FRANCE
www.listenable.net
listenable@wanadoo.fr
This is a good quality CD that stays true to itself. That being, in the name of pure grind. This CD, for me, was reminiscent of hearing Exhumed. It was just drudgy and slaughters everything in its waking path. The songs are relatively short, but what they do within the songs just astonishes me. Those to listen are sure to get beaten, stabbed and gutted in less then an hour’s time. Jigsore Terror can serve it up on a blood-drenched platter. Seeing these guys live would be a really good thing! Their album can be found on the official Listenable website: www.listenable.net. - Mickmo

LEVELSIX Views
2160 E. 35th St.; Brooklyn, NY 11234 USA
www.levelsix.net
info@levelsix.net
Not an official demo, but a single-track promotional CD from this New York band you can likewise read of in this issue. For information on how to acquire their official releases you can visit their site. "Views" starts with a nu-metal rhythm that's joined by an 80s metal lead harmony. The verse settles in with heavier crunching, slowing down between lines for another two measures before the tempo slows again and another guitar harmony enters the picture, one that's more circuslike than the last one. All this makes you think that the singer is sinking deeper into a morass of despair, but then the song picks up in speed again and the mood changes to a sense of release. These transitions are quite clever, and all in the space of two verse-chorus patterns. Wait until things take a turn toward industrial-hardcore in the middle break. If this song indicates this band's potential, it has me interested in what else they've been writing. - Dave Wolff

OF INFINITY The Essence of Infinity
PO Box 780224; San Antonio, TX 78278-0224 USA
www.ofinfinity.com
OfInfinityEmail@aol.com
Yet another band whose interview you can read in this issue, Of Infinity are one of those bands who take themselves seriously enough to release their CD demo with a complete press kit. The packaging and layout are just as professional as the folder this CD arrived in, with a clean finish and a nice, almost goth-metal-like logo. The music inside isn't exactly goth-metal, but it's deep, enriched with atmosphere that's unusual for a death metal band. The first minute or so of "The Voice Without" had such an impact on me I had to go back and listen to it a second time. The piano, keyboards and lead vocals of Alessandra Zinicola were so transcendent they'll make you forget about purists' claims that true underground metal should not have any additional trappings. Indeed, you can't even classify this band's music as death metal since it encompasses a wide, wide range of influences. If you thought that first song is good, wait until you get to "Shadow of a Lie" and "It's Only For Forever" which stretch the musical range a lot more. Watch for these guys. - Dave Wolff

PENETRATOR Unleash the Fury
Metal Queen Management; PO Box 47038; 220 Yonge St.; Toronto, ON M5B 2P9 Canada
www.metalqueenmgmt.ca
betty@metalqueenmgmt.ca
Penetrator are a power metal band hailing from Canada whose debut recording Unleash the Fury has received quite a few favorable reactions from the press and as many requests on metal radio from the six page bio from Metal Queen Management. There is inspiration in Judas Priest and a fierce resolve to leave an impression on all who cross their path in equal quantities. The CD thrives on the guitars of Bess Ross, Tony Iommi's guitar tech for Black Sabbath's Never Say Die tour, and the vocals of Maxel Black, whose presence is forceful enough to prevent him from being overshadowed by Ross' playing. Comparisons between Penetrator and Eidolon have occasionally been made though I might say these guys are a little more diverse after hearing the transition from verse to chorus in the opening title track. "Adulteress" is another song that grabbed my attention, due mostly to the controlled fury in the verses and explodes when the chorus kicks in. Penetrator have a strong rhythm section in David Green (bass) and Simon Vanderzand (drums) who keep the songs intense all through the raw energy projected by Ross and Black. - Dave Wolff

POTENTIAL THREAT Self-Titled
www.potentialthreatsf.com
Oh dude, this sounds so much like Prong, it really ain’t funny! So try not to laugh to loudly at the reading of this article. This is edgy, sort of like Candiria, but short. The track list has 5 songs and the album is pretty good. Not my favorite by any means. But I am just trying to keep an open mind here in all of this. This is an album that is reminiscent of old Agnostic Front. Listen if you really want to, and by all means, carry the proper arms and ammunition with you. - Mickmo

RAVENOUS Blood Delirium
Red Stream; PO Box 342; Camp Hill, PA 17001-0342 USA
www.redstream.org
The samples and gargling-on-vomit lead vocals in "Razor Blade Salvation" leave no mystery about what Ravenous has in store for you. The effect the band intended with this grows even sicker instead of tapering off in "Mordum," "August Underground," "Gore Whore," "Nightmares in a Damaged Brain" and "Blood Delirium." Musically Ravenous sounds like a cross between Carcass, Discharge and Black Sabbath, with gore flick imagery suited to fans of old school death-thrash. Even if you won't find anything too groundbreaking, it's entertaining as you watch your favorite splatter picture. - Dave Wolff

REQUIEM AETERNAM Philosopher
www.requiem-aeternam.com
This is a pretty maniacal album by 3 guys who are into a fair amount of progression in their sound. But the guitar work is pretty great on this. You can really hear an influence of Chuck Schuldiner on this and sometimes: Children Of Bodom. Even a tinge of Yes in this is present. Man, these guys would be really cool to see live. But I really dig this album, very cool, even when he does talk Spanish out of the blue! Check out their album for more stuff! D'oh! - Mickmo

RIGOR SARDONICOUS Principia Sardonica
Paragon; 31 Cedar Ridge Drive; Ridge, NY 11961 USA
sataninmyveins@aol.com
Rigor Sardonicus; PO Box 77 Selden, NY 11784 USA
This starts out with a mellow form of expression, and then it just goes dark and brutal with “The Dead”. This album is really tormented and downtrodden, as if you were walking down a deep dark shaft of rocks and dead bodies hanging from old rotting chains on blackened walls. But this is definitely one that is just moody and grave ridden. A tomb of your own making in the latter stages of the embalming process. This CD is not just death, it is fucking burial incarnate! So check out the site: www.smilingdeath.com to get one of these CDs. Death is taking you down with no remorse! - Mickmo

SPINAL CORD Remedy
Crash Music; 4025 E. Chandler Blvd.; Suite 70B-3; Phoenix, AZ 85048 USA
www.crashmusicinc.com
mark@crashmusicinc.com
Spinal Cord; c/o Krystian Wojdas; P.O. BOX 49; 28-100 BUSKO ZDRÓJ Czech Republic
spinalcord@poczta.onet.pl
A technical infantry of masterful brutality here, Spinal Cord rips and tears up everything in this release. This one, pretty much impressed me from the start. It has its melodic parts but stays consistently heavy throughout the entire CD. (On a side note, one of these guys looks like John Edward to me, don't know why that is.....but he does!). I want to say these guys originate from Poland, which automatically makes you heavy in nature and deadly anyway. Yeah, this album can pretty much grow to become an addiction, and this band has the Remedy! Thank the lucky stars for that one! Check out http://www.spinalcord.metal.pl/ for more happenings on this heavy as hell band. - Mickmo

TARTHARIA Abstract Nation
Crash Music Europe; 16 rue Georges Clemenceau; 63000 Clermont-ferrand; France
www.crashmusicinc.com
phil@crashmusicinc.com
This is Ind’s band outside of Grenouer. (It sure sounds like him on this album anyway.....) This thing stars out with music into reminisce of the Czars of long ago in the cold tundra of Siberian winter! Think this about the sound here: technical like Cryptopsy but clean like Octinomos. But the melodies on this, just really deeply enriched in brutality and thick torment. From the realms of Russia, the inhabitants do slay with their blades without any shame! Yeah, guttural elaborate sound just the way I like it dude! - Mickmo

TORTURE KILLER For Maggots to Devour
Candlelight USA; PO Box 707; Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462 USA
www.candlelightrecords.co.uk /
PJH1029@aol.com
www.karmageddonmedia.com
promotion@karmageddonmedia.com
Torture Killer do mid-tempo death metal so heavy I imagine it would compress your brains and the head surrounding it into something vaguely resembling a plate of food left in the refrigerator for weeks. With clean production by the band themselves, the relentlessly pulsating music drives graphic images of violence, dismemberment and necrophilia home in such a way that those lyrical descriptions may linger for hours after the last song concludes. Gorehounds should have a blast with Torture Killer's deranged imagination, as pictures of plucking out eyes with knives, slicing bodies apart with chainsaws, murdering by strangulation and especially intercourse with the deceased abound in all their gory glory. The nine cuts here are described as stab wounds, rather appropriately, considering how percussion-driven they are. Take a listen to "Flesh Breaks to Open Wounds," "Necrophag" and "Fuck Them When They Bleed" to see whether or not you can stomach the detailed descriptions of rampant brutality waiting within. More fun than a TV special on serial killers. - Dave Wolff

UNHOLY GHOST Torrential Reign
www.unholyghost.com
www.olympicrecordings.com
Unholy Ghost was formed in January 2003 by ex-members of Diabolic and Pessimist. That they set out to obliterate all in their path is obvious the start of Torrential Reign, an album they wasted no time to bring to the world. This is a manic and powerful black/death metal album that leaves no question as to their musical ability. Incidentally the band are based in Florida, home state of many legendary death metal bands, so who knows, with the right backing this band could well be the next major act from there. The band's undying hunger to be heard by the metal community rings with every blast beat and guitar progression as they charge through "The Calling Of Sin" and "Soul Disment;" these are just the first two songs but they'll make you feel drained before things have had a chance to settle in. "Eyes of Lost" slows things down for a time before "Decimated" picks up the pace again, seemingly even faster than before. I recommend this to anyone who thinks they have a good ear for brutal music; it may shock you into reconsidering. - Dave Wolff

V/A Metal Queen Compilation Volume 1
Metal Queen Management; PO Box 47038; 220 Yonge St.; Toronto, ON M5B 2P9 Canada
www.metalqueenmgmt.ca
betty@metalqueenmgmt.ca
Volume one of the Metal Queen compilation series is a collection of tracks by hard rock, thrash, death metal and nu-metal bands signed to their label. There's no information about these bands in the inner sleeve, so you'll have to visit the Metal Queen Management site to get more info on them. The full list of bands is Black Hour, Shatterpoint, Betrayer, Goat Horn, The Hellz Kitchen Show, Warmachine, Twilight Odyssey, Surface Underground, Enedeavour, Little Sunday, Love Letter Refuge, Oklahoma Bomb Squad, Endorphins and Bloodshoteye. While there's a strong late 70s/mid 80s feeling on this CD, some of the bands are heavier than others. This comp has a nice balance for those of you who prefer hearing several different styles of music on one CD. Some standouts are Shatterpoint's "Crashing Down," Goat Horn's "Fortress Doomed," Twilight Odyssey's Iron Maiden-ish "The Endless Days of a Stranger" if you're into classic and 80s metal. - Dave Wolff

V/A Voices From The Arctic Circle
Arctic Music Group; 400 SE 9th St.; Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316 USA
www.arcticmusicgroup.com
This is a compilation of underground black metal mostly, but it does have some brutal death on it as well. the bands on it are as follows..... this has songs from In Battle, Shadow Builder, Exmortem, Throneaeon, Denata, Latex, Despise, Soil of the Undead, Lord Belial, Nominon, Visceral Bleeding, Imperial Foeticide, Mortuary Iod, Repudiate, Portal & Diabolical. Just when you thought your beating would just be one punch, the Arctic Music people hit you profusely with 17 bludgeoned swipes of the sledgehammer. Last time I heard a comp this kick ass was when Jeremy from Origin gave me a Relapse Contamination comp one night. Well this is just as cool! Check out the site here: www.arcticmusicgroup.com and get yourself one! - Mickmo

VENUSIAN DEATH CELL The Darkest Globe
29 Whitechurch Hill; Ballyboden; Dublin 16; Ireland
This is the second demo from what seems to be a one-man project based in Ireland. I know about as much of what to make of this demo as Mickmo did when reviewing the first demo for the previous issue of AEA, which is saying very little. There’s a lot of noise here which makes it difficult to make anything out. Whether this is meant to be punk, spoken word, death metal or simply novelty is beyond me. The guy behind this describes it as experimental noisecore, only there is just guitars, vocals, samples and production that sounds recorded in somebody's closet. I just don't know. - Dave Wolff

VISION DIVINE Stream Of Consciousness
Metal Blade Records; 2828 Cochran St.; Suite 302; Simi Valley, CA 93065 USA
www.metalblade.com
metalblade@metalblade.com
This CD has a strange introduction of a depressed sounding guy listening to this romantic song on the radio and making an effort to sing along, but he sounds too despondent, or perhaps too psychotic, to feel the emotions being channeled through the speakers. What follows is epic power metal much like Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, with less leaning towards commercialism from the long instrumental breaks and guitar/keyboard solo tradeoffs. Keyboard and piano progressions underline some of the verses with such subtlety you have to listen closely to pick up on them. There's a lot of longing in the vocals and an exotic feeling that goes with the intricate song structure, if you're into epic power metal with eastern or Egyptian flavor. "La Vita Fugge" is one of the heavier, more strictly classical-oriented songs on this album. - Dave Wolff

VALUME NOB The Most High
Crash Music; 4025 E. Chandler Blvd.; Suite 70B-3; Phoenix, AZ 85048 USA
www.crashmusicinc.com
mark@crashmusicinc.com
Valume Nob; 2015 Browning Lane; Greta, LA 70056 USA
valumenob@yahoo.com
Well, they sound a bit like Pro-Pain, look a bit like Pro-Pain, and even attempt to spoof Van Halen on the back of their cover. But they are not actually Pro-Pain at all! They are a 4 piece from New Orleans called Valume Knob. Seeing these guys on the CD, man these dudes are big beefy dudes who eat a lot of meat man! I can tell just by the power of their songs that they do not like to fuck around with anybody. So imagine my scrawny ass getting pummeled on stage by that thick crunchy bass guitar. That would not be the best of sights, but hands down, Valume Nob is very heavy. Oh sure, not death metal heavy, but heavycore heavy! The album is rather short, with 4 studio songs and 2 bonus live tracks and a live video of Valume Nob talking about their studio and stuff. But sludgy is the name of the game with these guys! The site for these guys is this: http://www.valumenob.com. - Mickmo

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