Funeral Rain Press Corps

Genre: Thrash

Label: Heavy Artillery Records

It’s always fun to hear about a band that you picked up a demo from at one of their shows has been signed to one of your favorite labels. Even better is when they finally release that much anticipated debut EP. Better still? When their nine track full length album finally hits your ears! Best of fucking all?!  It ends up being the best goddamn thrash album you’ve heard all year!

If the album cover doesn’t give it away, Excruciator play on the darker side of thrash. (Less Tankard more Kreator, you know?) The kind of thrash that can boarder on death metal if one is only kind of listening to it in the background. So it’s no real surprise that Devouring is as fucking fast and fucking vicious as you would expect an album called Devouring by a band named Excruciator to be! Also note that eight of these nine tracks are original songs, the one exception being the immortal Nuclear Exmortus.

Lyrically, Devouring is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Excruciator: Booze, violence, war, glory holes, cheese graters and catheters! Instrumentally, Excruciator  plays tighter and more focus than ever before here. Every solo sounds like it wasn’t a first take “fuck it”. The vocals sound better than previous efforts as well. I mean, I dug the vocals in past releases too. It’s just that here, they sound like true, menacing thrash vocals!

Disciples Of Menace is easily the best new song on the album. It’s got everything! Rage filled lyrics, hot handed thrash riffs, classic drum beats and a wildly driving bass line! Not since the first time I heard Peace Sells have bass chops like that been stuck in my noggin.

And what’s this? Devouring closes with a cover of Onslaught’s Metal Forces?!?!? …no? Oh poo. Nice tease dickholes!

…still and awesome song though.

Overall: Devouring is a 100% thrash attack!!! And you know that Excruciator is only going to get better from here.

9.5/10

Excruciator On ReverbNation

Excruciator On Facebook

Genre: Heavy Metal, Speed Metal

Label: Heavy Artillery Records

NONE of you have any idea how badly I have been wanting for this day to come! I’ve been following these lads since they were Final Awakening (sort of) then Leatherwitch and then finally, Spellcaster. “I can’t wait until the demo comes out.” It did. I reviewed it. “Can’t wait for the EP to launch!” It did. I reviewed it. “Hey guys, when’s the album gonna get here?”

Oh, it’s here…

Under The Spell features re-recordings of all of the songs from the EP Spells Of Speed (minus the live tracks) so there’s an instant metal boner for anyone who missed out on all the glory of Locked-On or Chainsaw Champion. In addition to old favorites, the soon-to-be new crowd favorite, Nite Of The Hellbeast and insta-pit-stigator, Molten Steel and more join the ever grown ranks of completely off the wall classics that Spellcast farts out like three alarm chili!

Thomas Adams still sounds as powerful as ever, especially since they went back and did retakes of when he faltered a wee bit back on the EP. The track, Sands Of Fear is where he gets to kick you in the ass the hardest with his unique brand of vocals. He even dips into some growls from time to time!

Cory and Tyler still have it in spades when it comes to whipping up neck-wreckin’ riffs! I dare you to listen to Molten Steel and NOT try to bang your head and play air-guitar! And let’s talk about the human beer can that is Shad Covert and his ability to expand on a gallop beat until it’s a living, fire breathing entity… shit! Shad actually conjured the goddamned Hellbeast!

Holy fuck! I can hear Gabe playing the shit outta his bass this time around! It sounds glorious and all, but in Power Rising, there’s a few spots were it kind of fluctuates from the background to the foreground in a odd bit of a mixing snafu. No real harm done though. You just REALLY get to hear what he’s made of for a few seconds!

There is one thing I should bring up though. As far as “new” material goes (they’re all technically new since they were all re-recorded) there’s three totally new tracks and an minute, forty-one intro on an eight track album. Some may find this bullshitty, but most of us won’t care to terribly much.

Overall: The spells have been cast, the posers slain and your life has been given meaning! Under The Spell is every bit as mind blowing as you thought it’d be and maybe even a little more! Recommenced for fans of… well, METAL!

9/10

Spellcaster On Reverbnation

Spellcaster On Facebook

Genre: Heavy Metal

Label: Heavy Artillery Records

I’ve been sitting on this one for a little too long I think. Don’t ask me why because I can’t answer that one for you. There’s nothing wrong with Powerkiller at all. In fact, it’s great! It’s got everything I love about the golden age of NWOBHM tightly packed inside it’s seven scorching tracks: Twin guitars, soaring and shedding like some kind of mutant eagle/Turbo Ginsu hybrid! The drums are as frantic as to be expected for the genre, but Derrick Kroll brings something extra to the kit with his intense energy (it’s there on the album, it was there live!) and innovative flourishes.

But let’s talk about Karl Warkentin vocals for a second… at times, say in Creature Of Sin, they’re about as metal as you can get! But for the rest of the album, they sway back and forth between good-ish and ear gougingly annoying. But hey, Karl’s still better than 90% of the new breed of vocalist’s of this genre. Unfortunately, the bass is another thing I’m gonna gripe about. Where the hell is it? I happen to know that Sam Martz can play, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Grrrrr to basslessness.

Overall: One or two little gripes aren’t gonna waste this album at all. Evil Survives is one of the most entertaining and metalgasmic bands on Heavy Artillery Records (except Spellcaster, of course)! And if you needed any proof of this fact, Powerkiller is around forty-seven minutes worth of Exhibit A!

8.5/10

Evil Survives On MySpace

Evil Survives On Facebook

Genre: Heavy Metal, Speed Metal
Label: Heavy Artillery Records

Spellcaster? I LOVE Magic: The Gathering! …oh.

Take 2: Spellcaster? I LOVE Heavy/Speed Metal! And if anyone out of the new wave of bands playing old school metal has this shit down to the letter, it’s Spellcaster. The proof is in the pudding…

Vocalist Thomas Adams is a wrecking ball of NWOBHM style baddassery, showing his potential best in opener (and fan favorite) Chainsaw Champion. Also climbing the ladder straight up to legendary status is guitarist Cory Boyd. Some people say he’s a face melter. That’s only the half-truth. Cory’s so bitchin’, his solos will melt your skin clean off your skull, pick it up, reshape it into a new visage and then reapply it! And while that’s all well and good, second guitarist Tyler Loney refuses to be out done! He riffs and rams this speed metal up your ass (and that’s a painful sodomic event. Have you seen his guitar? Points everywhere!) so hard, you’ll shit molten metal for a year!

I mentioned earlier that Chainsaw Champion is an undoubted favorite of fans of Spellcaster. Well, I’m here to break the norm and proclaim Locked On as my favorite! It’s a song about a space battle for fuck sake! It’s like if Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone was written for Star Wars, not Top Gun… and not lame! Plus, it’s where drummer Shad Covert really gets to show his shit on the kit!

Gripesville: I know that Gabe Franco is in there somewhere. I also know that he’s a beast of a bassist, so it’s a fucking shame that I can’t hear him at all! Also; It’s a five track EP (three studio tracks and two live tracks, one of which is Chainsaw Champion again and neither of which are of good quality) of material that you can’t exactly just listen to once. It does it’s job of wetting your appetite for the full-length album (coming… soon? Hopefully…?), but until then, you’re losing sleep over your hunger for more of Spellcaster’s brand of metal!

Overall: “Ripping and roaring, your head will go soaring…” need I really say more? No. You’re goddamned right I don’t.

9/10

Spellcaster On MySpace