Funeral Rain Press Corps

Genre: Blackened Death Metal
Label: Listenable Records

Polish masters of blackened death, Hate sound in some ways a lot like Behemoth. They’ve got a similar vocal style and music writing, but there seems to be less of a black metal atmosphere to Hate’s music, taking a more direct death metal approach.
And fuck is it great. Not a note is wasted, not a breath is in vain; Erebos goes for the throat of the religious and the weak with seemingly no regard for the safety of those that get in the way.
The production of the album lets you hear everything, each guitar, each bassline, each drum kick, snare, cymbal and tom, allowing for maximum air instruments. The vocals of ATF Sinner are deep and evil, and you’ll soon find yourself invisible-oranging to them without conscious thought.
Erebos is nearly a perfect album, and if you’re into Behemoth, Morbid Angel, or Death you should get it.
8.5 out of 10.

Hate on Facebook.
Hate on MySpace.

Genres: Metalcore, Metallic Hardcore, Progressive Metalcore
Label: Listenable Records

A brutal beatdown of extremely talented proportions, The Eyes of a Traitor’s Breathless is a metallic hardcore assault on the senses. Well, assault on one sense at least. Auditory receptors will become scarred with the high volume and repetitive listening that this album will cause.
Sing-along parts that are not full of whiny vocals, but rather strong emotive ones are coupled with screams that sound like come from the soul, not the lungs. Simple guitar parts are followed by fingerburners with great solos and killer blasts from the drum kit. In other words, it’s progressive metalcore, pushing the often stale genre to a new height, seeming to take what Killswitch Engage and their contemporaries all brought to the table and combining it into something else to make it their own.
I definitely recommend getting this into your collection.
8.5 out of 10.

The Eyes of a Traitor on MySpace.

Genre: Blackened Death Metal
Label: Listenable Records

Musically, these guys are awesome. A less symphonic and majestic sounding Behemoth, featuring current and former members of Aborted, Akercocke, and Cradle of Filth. Vocally, fucking outstanding. Very much a violent black/death sound coming out of B.S.T.’s throat.
But lyrically… I don’t know. The band’s name amounts to The Order of Satan (Apollyon basically being the Greek name of Satan). But their bio and photos paint them as a very Christian band. I hope these details become clearer and soon.
In the end, good stuff. I recommend them if you’re into Behemoth, Morbid Angel, and really good death metal in general.
7.5 out of 10.

The Order of Apollyon on MySpace.

Genre: Industrial Metal
Label: Listenable Records

It’s like a breath of fresh air to listen to Sybreed’s newest, The Pulse of Awakening. It’s a fast moving, bassy, and dance floor worthy metal album, something that makes me want to bang my head and shake my ass at the same time.
As for the quality of the music itself I think I made it clear that it’s great stuff. Mixed screamed and clean vocals with simple, effective, and heavy as hell riffs with a driving drum and bass section as well as well written electronics are all being combined in the way that only Sybreed does, which is kind of like a cross between Static-X and Rammstein.
Quantitatively the music is pretty damn good too. 12 tracks populate Pulse and they are all winners. Pretty much all of them are radio friendly lengths, some on the longer side of radio friendly. My favourites are “Doomsday Party”, “Human Black Box”, “I Am Ultraviolence”, and “The Lucifer Effect”.
8.5 out of 10.

Sybreed on MySpace.

The countdown to the official release of NOCTIFERIA’s Death Culture has begun. The band will enlighten us about the making of each song from a deep musical and lyrical view. Each step will be explained on Noctiferia’s official MySpace Blog every other day from now on. The track “Premonition” coming first; you are welcome to move towards the era of Death Culture beginning TODAY.