Hate Plow - Everybody Dies (Pavement Music, '98)

Rating: 9/10
Tracks: Everybody Dies, Stalker, Prison Bitch, $20.00 Blow Job, Challenged, The Gift Giver, Crackdown, In The Ditch, Ass To Mouth Resuscitation, Compound, Ante Up, Anally Annie, Denial, Born With Both. Bonus Tracks: Sunshine of Your Love, Pepe Lopez Song

I love death metal. I just love it. Especially when it is this well done... Hate Plow features Phil Fasciana from Malevolent Creation on gitfiddle, the late Larry Hawke on drums, Tim Scott of Revenant semi-fame on bass, Kyle Symons formerly of Sickness on vocals and Rob Barrett of Cannibal Corpse and Solstice fame on geeetar. Solstice's excellent Century Media release actually comes to mind (how many years ago was that released... 6? Damn, I am getting old...) when listening to Hate Plow. Both albums have a set of balls like a tit job gone bad... huge, ugly and downright frightening.

Everybody Dies is simply a vicious, spiteful release. The boys have really pulled out the stops on this one and let abhorrence spew forth in a relentless flood of snarling rage rivaling Deranged in its flawless delivery. No new ground broken, but a few jaws most definitely are as Hate Plow rage through the 14 tracks herein, not only not sparing the horses but completely mutilating them beyond recognition.

Symons hails from the "deep and mean" school of voice. The kind of roar that makes anyone over 30 that is not a seasoned death metal fan squint their eyes and shake their head and sends parents running into a 13 year-old's room screaming, "He sounds like he is singing about the devil!! Let me see the lyric sheet!!" A decent majority of the lyrics are actually decipherable by ear alone (a feat in itself when dealing with this low of a range), and with lines like "Some say it's sick, they don't understand/An ass in your face, makes you a man" being especially audible, chances are they'll be tearing the inlay card up before even glancing at it. Drummer Hawke provides grooves, double bass workouts and precision snare blasts that hold water with the best in the field... and with their history, you know the string "trio" here is going to deliver the goods, and that they do with well-written and well-executed arrangements that seldom slow down to less than an all-out frenzy, but when they do... prepare for the primordial blood to rage.

Oh, and "Sunshine of Your Love..." absolutely perfect!

"Ante up, motherfucker!!" - Al Kikuras

Kreator - Outcast (Noise/F.A.D. Records '97)

Rating: 10/10
Tracks: Leave This World Behind, Phobia, Forever, Black Sunrise, Nonconformist, Enemy Unseen, Outcast, Stronger Than Before, Ruin Of Life, Whatever It May Take, Alive Again, Against The Rest, A Better Tomorrow

Kreator is a band than made a lot of waves in the 80's. They have had many cool, exciting records... my favorite being Extreme Aggression. Kreator have turned it up another notch. This album is heavy, in your face, and completely disgusting!!! Kreator is a band that have been able to improve with every album. Their musicianship is tighter than ever, and they take control of this album like complete pros.

The whole album has a feel of isolation, desperation, and despair. The song "Leave This World Behind" kicks off the album and gives the listener the fist real introduction to what this album is about. Lead singer Mille Petrozza bellows out a completely vicious tale of hopelessness while the rest of the band (Tommy Vetterli - Guitars, Christian Giesler - bass, and Jurgen Reil - Drums) crank out a wonderful distortion-filled wall of melodic ass-kicking, blisteringly heavy metal.

The second song "Phobia" really gives the feel of some intensely paranoid guy scared of the world with thoughts of horrible fear pounding inside his skull. "Forever", "Enemy Unseen", "Stronger Than Before", and "Ruin Of Life" are all cool songs full of great ax-grinding guitars and blistering drums. "Black Sunrise" is a mood filled, eerie song full of dark ideas. "Nonconformist" is an angry song stating the power of not falling in with the crowd. "Outcast" returns to the moody feel of "Black Sunrise", while adding the anger of "Nonconformist". "Whatever It May Take", Alive Again", Against The Rest", and "A Better Tomorrow" finish out the album in the same powerful style that controls the entire album. There is not one clunker in the bunch.

When it comes to old school bands that are still alive and kicking, and continuing to present the metal community with great music in the 90's, I'd put Outcast right alongside such great albums as Pantera's The Great Southern Trendkill, King Diamond's The Graveyard, and Manowar's Louder Than Hell. These guys deserve your support and you deserve this album. - Piston Rod

Morbid Angel - The Beginning (Label Unknown, '98 - Available via Full Moon Productions)

Rating: 10/10 (for comical and entertainment reasons only)
Track List: The Gate/Demon Seed*, Evil Spells (Welcome To Hell)*, The Gate/Demon Seed**, Evil Spells (Welcome To Hell)**, Evil Spells (Welcome To Hell)**, and 2 "hidden" tracks which absolutely will not be mentioned in the review aside from right here, suffice to say that they absolutely HAVE to be heard... whooohoo....

The demo material on this release pre-dates 1986's Abominations of Desolation. I am not surprised that I, or most people, have not heard this before... Morbid Angel must have spent the past 12 years with the material on The Beginning looming over their heads like a bucket of warm piss...

To be absolutely honest, the material on here isn't all that bad, but with the virtuoso persona that the Morbid boys have been going for over the past few years I am sure these tracks lurk in their past like the pictures some major corporation CEO took in a garter and stockings while partying with a teenage prostitute, both of 'em sloppy drunk... you know they're out there, but you just hope they don't show up. After all, you have a reputation to uphold... Pantera's first slew of cock-rock albums comes to mind.

The only member still in the fold from these days is the outspoken Mr. Trey Azagthoth. The rest of the lineup is rounded out by the one and only Mike Browning (of Nocturnus/Acheron fame) on drums, Dallas Ward on bass and vocals on three of the tracks (denoted by * above) and "local metal vocalist" Kenny Bamber on the other three (denoted by **). [Note: the inlay card indicated that Dallas is responsible for the vocals on three of the tracks, but Kenny's voice is absolutely unmistakable...]

The production, as you might expect, is pretty damn awful... on the level of Decide's Feasting the Beast (but at least Deicide had the balls to release it themselves). The music itself is very close to the versions on Abominations. What really makes it stand apart, and the true joy of this release, is the vocals... ahhh, the rapture!!

Dallas' voice, to his credit, is not terrible; reminiscent of the vocals on Dark Angel's We Have Arrived with the delivery of Killjoy from Necrophagia. Semi-aggressive chanting, no growls, and sudden piercing high notes. Very standard for the time. It is the performance of Kenny Bamber, and the enigma of what was going through the other member's heads when they auditioned this guy (along with the photos inside, to be covered later), that makes this release the absolute pleasure that it is.

Bamber's falsetto is so pathetic it is comical. Like a movie that absolutely sucks so bad that it becomes hilarious without trying or intending. Kenny sounds like most of us have on a nice summer day, driving down the highway at a cool 70 miles an hour with King Diamond blaring over the stereo, singing along with all the high parts, knowing we can't hit the notes with even a smidgen of balls and not caring at all. As stated in the brief biographical notes accompanying this release, "Kenny's style did not fit the band..." Indeed.

Yes, folks... "Evil Spells" with high-pitched cock-metal vocals. Not even good ones... as if that was not enough to get the chuckles rolling, whomever is behind this delightful release (and no one takes credit for it anywhere on the CD or inlay... probably for fear of the wrath that will befall them when wind of this release swings Morbid Angel's way) saw it fit to include classic photos of the band. Trey Azagthoth with a fro that would make Art Garfunkel jealous. Eye liner. Spiked hair. Ripped up shirts. To their credit, they appeared to be as genuinely into Satanism and the occult back then as they are now... but the overall effect is as if Motley Crue had actually meant it on Shout At The Devil.

In all, a great release for the entertainment value, and it will make it a lot easier to shrug off the band's current-day ego... if you don't want to pick it up, at least find someone that has it and borrow it for a day or two. The material won't change your opinion of Morbid Angel. I still respect them and am a huge fan, even moreso... it is just nice to see that even the self-proclaimed "biggest death metal band in the world" came from the most humble beginnings... - Al Kikuras

Strapping Young Lad - City (Century Media Records '97)

Rating: 10/10
Track Listing: Velvet Kevorkian, All Hail The New Flesh, Oh My Fucking God, Detox, Home Nucleonics, Underneath The Waves, Room 429, Spirituality

Devin Townsend was the lead singer on Steve Vai's Sex And Religion album. Don't turn away too fast. Yea, that album sucked but Devin is a talented guy. Strapping Young Lad's City is one of the heaviest albums ever. The drumming of Gene Hoglan (drum god) is so powerful and blisteringly fast that it sets this album apart from any other album that has come before or after.

This album should be a textbook on how to perform heavy music. There is a slight industrial feel to the album ("Trend" Reznor should take a listen to this album and hear why his shit sucks!), but not overpoweringly so. There is definitely the feel of the old school catchiness that made such bands as Dark Angel (Gene Hoglan's old band) and Forbidden so good. However, it doesn't give in at all in the way of heaviness.

The album starts out with a short introduction type song to let you know what this album is going to be all about, anger and hatred!!! Then we move into a song called "All Hail The New Flesh" that blows you out of your pants, and it only get heavier from there!!! "Oh My Fucking God" is so fucking heavy and fast it will knock your mother into early menopause!! It's all about fast, heavy, and extremely fast playing until the song "Room 429". At this point SYL decide to change it up a little. Remaking a song by the band Cop Shoot Cop (Who? Exactly!) is a piece of genius. This song is so out of place on an album for this magnitude that it fits perfectly. You will have to hear it to see what I mean.

This album may be too heavy for most people, but then again most people like Hanson. This album is why we listen to extreme music. I will warn you, every song is filled with cursing and the anger is overflowing. If Jewel is your cup of tea you should probably avoid this album (although perhaps you would like to hear metal as good as it gets). If you haven't given SYL a chance yet, do it!!!! I hope to see great things from these guys in the future. They will never be commercial, but that's no reason they can't be big!!! - Piston Rod

Black Funeral - Empire of Blood (Full Moon Productions '98)

Rating: 1/10 (based on the lack of relevance of this release... see below)
Tracks: Vampire-The Wisdom Within. The Truth Without, Opherblut (aka Ex Sanguini Draculae), The Land of Phamtoms (aka The Floating Blue Witchlight), Bathory Incarnate: Goddess of Death Rises (aka Spectral Agony of Pain and Loneliness), Der Werewolf, Knight's Blood, Leviathan - The Roaring Black Oceans. Bonus tracks: Nihlist - Lord Sathanas Returns (aka Vampyr - Throne of the Beast), The Funeral Procession Descends, Journeys Into Horizons Lost.

The US black metal band that seems to go virtually ignored within the underground... I am man enough to fess up to the fact that I have a thing for cheesy US black metal. The thought of someone from Indiana praising their ancestral roots makes me giggle. I actually enjoyed the music on the Journeys to Horizons Lost demo. The raw edge just gave it a feel that appealed to the Veleeta factor in me. Then came Vampyr - Throne of the Beast. Along the same lines as the demo, but with better sound. Not much growth musically, but leaps and bounds as far as production.

Now, understand, I have the utmost respect for Full Moon Productions. Their mailorder is great, they are professional, dependable, friendly... I highly recommend turning to FMP for your black metal needs. They usually produce a strong caliber of releases... but why this album saw the light of day is beyond me. I received it the same week as a slew of other releases I had ordered. I opened the package, looked at the contents, but didn't get around to listening to it for the first time until about a week later. My initial impression... the production is worse than the last album. Not as muddy as the demo, but worlds tinnier than Vampyr, itself far from a model of quality sound. I listen on, focusing on the material... the first track is a soundscape intro ala Darkness Enshroud (the much-ridiculed Baron Abaddon/Michael Ford "ambient" project, ala Mortiis, whose first album Ancient Kindgoms I actually enjoyed). Fine. The second song, "Opferblut" sounds strangely familiar... I have definitely heard this somewhere before. Is it a cover?? No... although the lyrics are credited to LaVey (from The Satanic Bible), all music was written by Michael Ford, according to the liner notes... strange. Next track: "The Land of Phantoms..." that same sense of deja vu. Yes, I have heard this before. Looking through my collection, I realize where... Black Funeral's Vampyr - Throne of the Beast. What the fuck? I am baffled... I pop the Vampyr disc in, the first track starts... "Ex Sanguini Draculae." The music is exactly the same as "Opferblut." Confused shitless, I skip to track two... "The Floating Blue Witchlight." What I am hearing is "The Land of Phantoms," or rather I was hearing "The Floating Blue Witchlight" when listening to "The Land of Phantoms," or... you get the idea. Next song, "Bathory Incarnate: Goddess of Death Rises" is track 4 on Vampyr, "Spectral Agony of Pain and Loneliness." The arrangements on the songs are slightly different (primarily the drums and some added female vocals), and the lead vocals are a bit deeper, but these are undeniably the same songs. I start to skip around a bit. The title track of Vampyr-Throne of the Beast is also to be found on Empire under a different title... listed as a bonus track, "Nihlist - Lord Sathanas Returns."

I grab the ad for Empire of Blood that came with the package. "11 haunting tracks of cold and violent, grim medieval Black Metal." Slowly a vague memory comes creeping from somewhere in the recesses of my mind... a faint recollection of seeing a line on a smaller Black Funeral ad for Empire when I first opened the package that stated "This album contains new recordings of previously-released material," or something to that effect... I go sifting through the piles of 'zines and ads in my room and naturally there is no sign of it. I had originally disregarded the statement as a typo, as I had noticed that all the song titles are different... this is indeed baffling. Why would you re-record material you released on your last album? And record it piss poorly, much worse than the original release? And CHANGE ALL THE SONG TITLES?? I am not going to compare the rest of the tracks on either album note by note... there is a possibility that some new material is on Empire, I am pretty sure that the ambient pieces interspersed throughout are... but to be honest, I am turned off by this release to the point that if there are some new tracks on it, I really don't care to hear them. Unless Black Funeral's next album is the Bitches Brew of black metal, I am going to steer far and wide of it.

Having read the Black Funeral interview on the Full Moon Productions site , I gained a little more insight into this release. Mike Ford clearly states that it is old material re-recorded (wish I had read that before buying the album) and that this is the last Black Funeral album. It's a shame that Empire has become their epitath.

I am not going to let this release at all mar my opinion of FMP... if you've yet to deal with them, don't let this review deter you in the slightest, and pick up Vampyr for some extremely raw black metal, but do make sure to avoid Empire of Blood like a $3 hooker with a limp, one eye, no teeth and a bad cough. There is just no way in hell you are going to get your money's worth... - Al Kikuras

Zimmers Hole - Bound By Fire (Heavy Devy Records '97 - note: this album is currently available through mailorder only, visit the Heavy Devy Records site for info)

Rating: 9/10
Tracks: Follow, Blister, Pork Rind Toes, Two-Headed Anal Baby, P.B.C., Hell Comes to Breakfast, Fully Packed, Rent-A-Cop, Bread, This Is Metal, DIS, Waste of Towels, Gospel Sodomy Boy On Blow, Terry, Bound By Fire

Side project featuring 2 members of the aforementioned Strapping Young Lad (Jed Simon and Byron Stroud, guitar and bass, respectively). Bound By Fire immediately receives my endorsement, not because I am a huge SYL fan (although I am) or because the CD was just $10 or because the music contained herein is heavy, well-executed and humorous, or because it was produced by SYL mastermind Devin Townsend... anyone out there planning on submitting materials for review, pay attention: any time there is flatulence on a release, it immediately starts off on the right foot with me.

That said, I will move on to the music. Zimmers Hole incorporates elements of most metal genres: death metal complete with blast beats and roaring vocals, frenzied thrash, old school power metal, FNM/Bungle-ish humor and changes, tinges of SYL's beyond-heavy industrial/metal hybrid... all with a sense of humor and cut-and-paste arrangements so smooth that the changes slide by like spew falling onto the mattress. There are laughs abound on this disc, from "Rent-A-Cop," complete with a Simpsons sample (always a big plus) and sound effects to "This Is Metal." with the poignant lyrics, "I'm storming the castle/I have my sword/It's METAL!!!" For those of us with molten metal running through our veins, this is, indeed, an anthem... and the music and lyrics fit the theme perfectly. The title track is a death metal monster as heavy as the genre's most prolific... "Hell Comes To Breakfast" a metal abortion that twangs of country for some bizarre reason... the descriptions and songs are as wide and varied as the items you might find in a dump you take after gorging yourself at a Chinese buffet. And they all are twice as tasty going down.

Although you can hear the undeniable influence of other bands in Zimmers Hole, never does the impression that they are ripping their mentors off come to mind. Rather, they are paying homage, poking a bit of fun, and adding their own twist and a tongue-in-cheek sincerity that makes the entire album a pleasure from start to finish. - Al Kikuras

Note: Bound By Fire was released March 1 in Australia on DC Records. It is available down under from all record stores nationwide, and can be ordered by sending $25.00 Australian (postage included) to:

DC Records
PO Box 863
Kogarah, NSW, Australia, 2217

Contact DC Records via email.

Order it via Heavy Devy Records elsewhere.

Meshuggah - True Human Design EP (Nuclear Blast, '97)

Rating: 8/10
Track list: Sane, Future Breed Machine (Live), Future Breed Machine (Mayhem Version), Future Breed Machine (Campfire Version)

Meshuggah is a band I have been interested in for a while, but have had a very hard time coming across. I found the None EP in a little CD shop in NYC and took it home with much anticipation. It was good, but not at extreme as I had been led to believe. I wanted to get their LP Destroy Erase Improve so that I could really give them a chance, however to this day I still haven't found it.

I was overwhelmed when I saw True Human Design in a different CD shop in NYC. I was disappointed that it was only an EP, but I was glad that I would be able to hear more Meshuggah. This EP is everything I wanted from None and more, and only makes me more hungry for a complete Meshuggah album to sink my teeth into.

"Sane" is one of the heaviest songs I have heard in a long time. Jens Kidman's voice is brutal, a lot heavier than on None. The guitar sound is completely in your face, and the song has a Fear Factory meets new Voivod feel to it. However, the sound is completely Meshuggah, and not a rip off at all.

I was a little worried when I saw three versions of "Future Breed Machine" that it would be just another band handing off their music to some engineer who would remix it to a techo beat, ala Fear Factory's Remanufacture. This isn't true at all. "Future Breed Machine" (Live) is more in your face than "Sane," and completely brutal. You wouldn't know it was a live version if it wasn't for the crowd cheering at the end of the song. Very good production.

"Future Breed Machine" (Mayhem Version) is Meshuggah changing up the song a little giving it a different feel from the original. It's very interesting to hear a band do this nowadays. It reminds me a little of the way a jazz musician will change the arrangement of their songs every time they are played. The Mayhem Version gets extremely heavy after an interesting intro.

"Future Breed Machine" (Campfire Version) is very interesting and gives the listener a broader picture of the range and humor of this talented band. It's funny and weird and completely out of place on the record, which is why I like it so much. It's played on a acoustic guitar and is great.

The album also contains two hidden tracks and a CD ROM. The first one has weird techno-on-acid feel to it, and the second hidden track is another pseudo-techno song. Just little more to show you that Meshuggah has a lot more to offer the listener than just all out heavy attack music. The CD ROM is a disappointment however. It contains a very poor video and a few other very uninteresting things.

This is obviously a band with a lot of talent and ideas. I can't wait to finally get my hands on a complete album from these guys, and eventually see them live. - Piston Rod.

JJ's Greatest Band On Earth - Furniture Detector (Showercap Records, '96)

Rating: 9.5
Tracks: Fish, Limp and Lonely, The Cyclops Belly Wiggle, Bologna Sandwich, Ghetto Boy, Daddy Loves You, Suey's Younger Sister, Abusive Boyfriend, Tarzette (King of the Apetress), Flea, My Place, Puking in a Corner, Teacher, Don't You Love Me?, JJ's a Ho, Canine, JJ Couldn't Have Done It, Thelma's Back Porch, Ugly, I Write the Songs

Listening to this album brings me back to when I used to wake up early on Saturdays as a kid to watch cartoons. Back when they were actually good. You could spend a solid 4 hours in front of the TV Saturday mornings, completely entertained... hungry, thirsty, grabbing your crotch because you have to pee and you don't want to turn your back on the screen for a second. Hell, you even wanted to watch the commercials.

The tales weaved on this 20-song CD are as varied and entertaining as was the Hanna-Barbera hour, Thundercats, Voltron (not the shitty car one), Thundar the Barbarian and the rest of the Saturday AM classics.... the album opener, "Fish," tells the story of a camping trip gone awry, the song's namesake going on a bloody rampage, determined to be the victim no longer. The songs also displays what is one of JJ's Greatest Band On Earth's strongest characteristics... the tone-poem songwriting style they seem to have mastered so well, where you are not listening to an assorted group of parts just thrown together for the sake of the parts themselves. The music paints the story as much as the narrative, and it is this sense of relevance and the necessity of each note and arrangement that really makes JJ's stand apart from most unsigned, and even established acts.

"Flea" gives us a peek at the world from a flea's point of view as he travels up to your wife's most private of areas and winds up philosophizing about a flea's place in the greater scheme of things. Enlightening, indeed. "Bologna Sandwich" shows the band flexing Bungle-ish chops while frontman JJ stakes his claim as the ruler of the world, proving so through freezing his nuts and slapping you in the face and mouth with his pecker. "JJ's A Ho" displays serious musical balls and will have you bouncing and grooving like a redneck on a mechanical bull. There is a myriad of influences running throughout Furniture Detector, from the funk of "Daddy Loves You" to the disgustingly heavy blasts and odd timing of "My Place;" the country twang of "Thelma's Back Porch," taking the genre to previously unreached levels of debauchery, and the epic "Ugly" which may very well boast some of the coolest parts ever written. Each of the 20 songs herein are worthy of an individual synopsis and commentary, but in the interest of space I don't dare go there.

The production is pristine. The packaging as good as anything you'll find on the shelves of your local spunkpit Tower records, while the songs and musicianship put 99% of the dreck MTV spouts to shame. It is a rare day that an independent release can clock in at over an hour and not falter for a second, never transverse into the over-indulgent or pretentious, or go to the other extreme to the point that humor overshadows the outfit's strengths and they become a total joke. JJ's Greatest Band On Earth have managed to avoid these snares so deftly that Furniture Detector warrants a review and praise close to two years after its original release. - Al Kikuras

As this is an independent release, chances are you won't find it at your local shop... it is available online at IUMA for $10 or you can order directly from the band by sending check/cash/money order (payable to Todd Martin) to:

JJ's Greatest Band on Earth
P.O. Box 465
New City, NY 10956

Sound clips and more info are available on the JJ's Greatest Band On Earth web site.

Sardonica - Grins Again (Mutant Punk Label)

Rating: 7/10
Tracks: Firing Line, My Time In Hell, Grin Again, Picked Up, Biker, Scream Silent, Blown Off, Hey Jo, Bomb Scare, Behavior, Evil Ones, Never Let Go

I received this demo from a friend at work and I was excited to hear a new local metal band. The cover boasts a horror movie feel. Most of the titles have a horror movie feel to them as well, and the album is infused with movie clips throughout it.

On a whole this isn't a bad offering from a local band. Production is very good as well as the packaging. The lineup of Fish on Guitar, Sal Bee on Bass and Vocals, and Al X on drums are a tight unit. Each man proficient on their instruments. Fish on guitar is obviously the best part of this band. His guitar playing is very prolific, although I would like it to be more in your face. The rhythm section works well together, however at times it has too much of a hardcore feel for my tastes.

Now comes my major beef. I'm not happy with lead singer Sal Bee's voice at all. It's very hardcore (If you like hardcore, I guess you would like it more than me). I was hoping for a more deathmetalish voice. I think it would go well with this music. I feel the singing takes away from the rest of the music instead of adding to it. I would suggest that Sal Bee stick to the bass (he is very good at it), and hand over the singing duties to someone with a more prolific voice.

I would like to hear more from these guys because they do have talent, and the music is good (kind of an old Biohazard feel to it). I would check this band out if you can, they have a lot to offer the metal scene, with a little refinement. - - Piston Rod.

Contact Sardonica at: Mutant Punk Label PO Box 1050 Lodi, NJ 07644