Füneral Rain Press Cörps

Genre: Death Metal, Folk Metal
Label: Napalm Records

Folk metal is kind of a lie. There’s a bit more happening here than just folk metal. Like death metal.
But hey, whatever. This album kicks ass. Accordions are side by side with some crushingly heavy guitars, as are whistles, flutes, and the like.
Vocally, death vocals are the order of the day, grunted out with a nice intensity, but not too fast. Kind of reminding me of Corpsegrinder’s sound, but totally different in style.
It’s another really simple review for Napalm Records, and my first review of Svartsot. This stuff is great, and it makes me want to play D&D and get hammered.
8.5 out of 10.

Genres: Death Metal, Hardcore, Thrash
Label: Napalm Records

This here is an oddity from the Netherlands. The Kandidate are mixing a couple unlikely elements from three genres and turning it all into their own thing. There’s the basic framework of thrash, with some small death metal elements, and tons of hardcore, probably New York style (I don’t know a lot of hardcore, so I don’t know exactly), and hardcore’s brother genre, punk.
But don’t think of this as some kind of metalcore or deathcore; rather think of it as The Kandidatecore.
I’m thoroughly enjoying this, and I can understand why Typhon enjoyed it a lot too. Personally I only know Jacob Bredahl (vocals) from some of his work with HateSphere (never really heard lots of them), and the other guys are all pretty new to the scene so I don’t know them at all. But from what I’ve heard from Until We Are Outnumbered, I hope this band is around for a loooooooong time. This is awesome.
8.5 out of 10.

The Kanidate on MySpace.

Genre: Black Metal
Label: Naturmacht Productions

Agael is one man, making black metal for a limited set of people. The man creates soundscapes more than punishing ear shredding riff fests of blackened hate, but the hate is here too. Slow, dirgy guitars with birds chirping over top, lyrics in German and English about nature, wizards, and more – basically, many of the hallmarks of black metal, but not full of cliches and definitely not boring.
I like.
7 out of 10.

Genre: Power Metal
Label: AFM Records

German power metal for the epic win. At Vance are so fucking metal it’s unreal, and although they haven’t made too many drastic changes to the sound or formula since their 1999 debut, this is the kind of metal that doesn’t need changes.
Fast, slow, high, low, it’s all here man. And it’s all good. Olaf is still ripping wicked guitar lines, with Rick Altzi (on his second album with At Vance) still singing strong, powerful, and slightly proggy vocals. And if you want to hear some wicked drumming, look no further than Alex Landenburg’s work here. The man is a fill machine!
If you’re like me and you enjoy power metal, 80′s metal, Metalgasmic guitar solos, and songs you can SING to as well as headbang, throw horns, and mosh to, you’ll probably like Ride the Sky.
8 out of 10.

Genre: Black Metal
Label: Moribund Records

Avsky are back with another assault on the senses, and it’s pretty fucking good.
These are not the same tired black metal riffs, with the same stale vocals that all too many bands are spewing out right now. It seems the Swedish duo are throwing in some death metal elements and some minor experimentation in their evil formula, which makes this review a little bit more fun. Creepy sounds are going on too, with some seriously fucked up and frightening vocals as well. And the fact that only one song is under the seven minute length (three out of the six are over nine minutes) is adding more grim joy to my listening experience.
It wasn’t hard to tell after the first song, this album was going to rank kind of high. After the third song it was cemented. After the sixth song:
8 out of 10.

Avsky on MySpace.