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Genre: Thrash, Metalcore
Label: Elephantine Records 

I’ve been waiting four years for this album to come my way! I reviewed 18 Wheels Of Justice’s Deceive Them All back in 2007 and have been drooling for their next album ever since (I think their superb cover of The Trooper helped grease those wheels). After several failed attempts to receive one through the mail, I opted for the MP3 format. And now, my four year wait is over! Here we go…

Immediately, Execution eclipses Deceive Them All in all conceivable arenas. The songwriting is sturdier. The fast riffing is even faster. The thrash is fucking thrashier! I can’t really add much to this review on a musical analysis level. If you heard their last album, just take everything that might of been a little loose and tighten it up until you’re afraid it’s gonna snap, then add a fresh coat of paint and attach CO2 canisters to it and you’ve got this album in a nutshell.

Vocalist and new kid on board, Adam Sloan has a much wider range of vocal styles than Steve Justice. Adam has the hardcore shouting deal down alright and even throws out a shrill shriek every once in a while. But occasionally his growling tends to waver and wobble and it’s a bit distracting. Other than that, I can’t complain about his performance and I welcome and accept him into the family.

I should also mention that Deceive Them All was mostly metalcore in musical direction, regardless of what you might of heard elsewhere. Execution is Deceive Them All’s polar opposite in terms of ratio. This time it’s 25% metalcore and 75% thrash which will hopefully expose these guys to a wider audience of Thrasholes!

Overall: A thrashy overhaul and a new vocalist make Execution a clear improvement over their last album. And while I wouldn’t recommend this album to everyone I know, I’d still recommend it to a shit-ton of them!

8/10

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Genre: Power, Heavy Metal
Label: Century Media

Would you like to hear something funny? I never cared for Iced Earth. Never. I heard a couple of tracks off of Something Wicked This Way Comes and read a couple of interviews with Jon Schaffer (man, what a DOUCHE!) and that was enough for me. But, here I am. Face-to-face with a review that I promised that I’d do even though I really don’t wanna.

At the end of the title track/album opener, I could tell that I was going to have to write some things that are going to have my friends telling me, “I told you so!” Ugh…

Moving into track two, Anthem, Mr. Schaffer cuts loose and mows me down with some dumbfoundingly catchy (re: awesome) riffs! I’m almost ready to take back everything I’ve ever said about Iced Earth, so let’s hope they keep this awesomeness up…

Another tally in the “Pro” side is when new vocalist Stu Block isn’t trying to sound like Matt Barlow or Tim Owens with the high notes, he barrows from the book of Chuck Billy with an almost hardcore bellow. That’s not counting out his own style of clean vocals either. They aren’t great per se, but they do fit where they appear, like in one of the more somber tracks entitled, Anguish Of Youth. And since I don’t have the handicap of being a rabid fan like most of you freaks, I can honestly say that I dig the combination of vocal styles.

I’ve got to hand it to these guys for putting out an album with ten tracks on it that doesn’t seem to repeat itself. I believe that it’s due in part to Brent Smedley’s drum work. Keeping the beats fresh is a tricky thing when you’re supposed to be support for the vocals and lead guitar, but Brent manages to quietly shine in the background while not pulling focus from what, I’m sure, many believe to be the star attractions.

On the Neg, those catchy riffs that Jonny Boy dishes out early on appear to be the extent of what he was willing to do for this album as after you reach the fifth track, all of his work seems to go flat like week old radiator soda. Even the solos seem hollow and phoned in. And since his ax work is what I hear about constantly, that’s enough to drag down the overall score quite a bit.

Overall: I’m still not going to run out and grab as many Iced Earth albums as I can find, but I’m not going to all out ignore them when I hear them on zee metal radios. I would recommend this album to fans of traditional metal in general, no problem.

8/10

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Genre: Brutal Death Metal
Label: Comatose Music

With Bloodsoaked’s previous album, Sadistic Deeds… Grotesque Memories scoring a 9/10, the bar for The Death Of Hope was is set pretty damned high. Can The Death Of Hope live up to expectation? Or will it aptly destroy one of the few remaining glimmers of hope for the death metal (brutal or otherwise) genre?

The answer lies in the middle, leaning more towards the expectation. Slaughtering soloist Peter Hasselbrack can still supply the monstrous riffs and buckets of blood, guts and vagina necklaces, but there are a few areas where he seems to be lacking this time around.

For one, the vocals are actually kind of weak. An album ago, they were deep and guttural. Enough to make your hair stand on end, they were. In this album, they’re more of an easier-to-do, raspy whisper. It makes me wonder if he damaged his vocal chords between albums or somthing along those lines… aww, now I’m sad.  :(

Secondly, the richness and complexity that was Sadistic Deeds… Grotesque Memories has gone flat when the structures made the jump to this album. I mean, there are still some barbaric riffs as mentioned earlier, but everything in between comes off a little stale and sometimes repetitive.

It should be stated that even though I’m disappointed in some of these developments, they’re still loads better than what entire bands out there are putting out. Keep that in mind when you finally reach the score at the bottom.

It’s kind of weird to being saying this (hell, all the negative points in this review were especially painful to write) but I actually enjoyed what was done with the pacing of the drum programming (done by Shane McFee). Machine gunny, but just the right amount of it. No mechanized, overachieving Vinnie Paul or some shit. Also done well once again were the lyrics! It’s like you’re right there beside him as he grinds the guts of some unlucky fucker into a pink, chunky lather!

Interesting Factoid: Peter hates Call Of Duty ModernWarefare & Black Ops or at least some d-bags he played with that he lists off in the liner notes. They’re actually pretty funny too. You’ve got to respect a dude that’s 1) a gamer and 2) has enough of a sense of humor to put something like that in the liner notes of his brutal death metal album.

Overall: The Death Of Hope isn’t the best Bloodsoaked album out there, but it’s still a damn fine one. Yeah, I might of been a little disappointed with the vocal change and the decline in song structure quality, but the fire is still there. This guy still wants shit to die in the most twisted, macabre way possible and you can’t fault him on that. I still recommend this album to the fans of brutality.

8/10

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Genre: Black/Folk Metal

Label: Bindrune Recordings

Falls of Rauros are a black/folk metal band from Maine, who I had never heard before. Some quick research revealed that the band members adhere to the neopagan beliefs that nature is to be respected and that the world would be better off without Christianity. From a lesser band, such declarations would seem generic and trite, but as I also discovered, Falls of Rauros have a musical prowess that commands respect.

Almost immediately after I began listening to their latest album, “The Light That Dwells In Rotten Wood”, the music trickling out of my speakers made me think of Agalloch. I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. This is fantastic black/folk that has it all; hypnotic black metal riffs, butter smooth guitar solos, acoustic sections aplenty, and deliciously autumnal melodies. It oozes frigid pagan atmosphere that conjures images of snow capped mountains and silent wintery forests

Two things set Fall of Rauros apart from their more well known contemporaries in Agalloch. First, Fall of Rauros employ no clean vocals (unless you count a brief whispering section in “Awaiting the Fire or Flood That Awakens It”). Secondly, their music is even more atmosphere-centric than that of Agalloch, rarely letting solos, bridge sections, or even vocals disturb the introspectiveness at work. What’s left is a semi-ambient contemplative journey through a winter wonderland.

If you like folk/black, black metal, or even neofolk and post-rock, do yourself a favor and get this. Meanwhile, I’ll be exploring the rest of this band’s discography. 8/10.

Genre: Death Metal, Grind

Label: Comatose Music

Modus Delicti started up after the band Nobody broke up in 2005. In 2006, they broke up again and reformed within the same year… yeah. After hearing that, I wasn’t expecting a whole hell of a lot from this band either. But the test of their mantel is in their metal, not in their tumultuous history. After giving Nobody a spin, I have this to say:

If you like spastic grind in the vein of Kill The Client and more groove heavy death metal by way of Skinless, then this six year veteran of the Italian metal circuit and their first full length album are right up your awesome choice of alley!

I don’t really need to say a whole lot more than that for this review. Modus Delicti plays some fairly technical, yet eerily relaxed grindcore that’s akin to countrymen Tsubo’s style. The guitar buzzes through riff after bloody violent riff and even slows down for a little melodic break in Beyond The Mask. Claude De Rosa, Modus Delicti’s drummer, is a killer. Plain and simple. ADHD pummeling and controlled, technical blasts move this band out of the shadows of mediocre grind and into “keep your eyes and these guys” territory.

The vocals aren’t terrible most of the time.  But every once in a while, there’s that irritating Cookie Monster growl that pops up and ruins the flow of an already brutal song. And as for flow breakage, at the end of The Teeth Collector, there’s about thirty seconds of silence that just annoys this piss out of me. Why the hell is that even there?

Overall: Modus Delicti’s debut album, Nobody is about twenty four minutes of a brutal groove ‘n’ grind fest!

8/10

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