Torche – Harmonicraft

Two-horned creatures puking rainbows in a pink candy-sky-land. One of those covers that just oblige you to buy the album, no matter how it sounds. The good thing in this case: it doesn’t just look like a drug trip becoming true, it also rocks butts right from the beginning. And I can’t believe that the first song sounding like a metal version of “I Want Candy” is a coincidence.

Torche’s third album is something like a newbie’s guide to sludge music. You may even call it pop-sludge. If Fang Island is the good-mood-metal band of these days, then Torche should be the one for happy sludgy holidays. Harmonicraft cuts its own path fluently until the end. Popish guitars never take too long to drift into a distorted outburst, walls of sound never finish up being boring. You may not like the Volbeat-like vocals. Fair enough, but you can’t really hold it against those cute creatures. One look into their lunatic eyes when vomiting in all colours of the rainbow, and resistance is futile.

During the middle part of Harmonicraft the guitars slow down a little, giving a short breath to the visitors of candy-land.  The length of about 38 minutes doesn’t allow too many pauses though – the next thunderstorm is already waiting to come down on the listener.

The release may seem to become more and more monotone at first appearance, but the dynamics of sludge need more listening sessions to be spotted. The strong riffs even sometimes drift into a 70s rock homage without being insincere at all. The only thing which doesn’t match the overall appearance is the doomy conclusion, with best regards from Black Sabbath.

Recommendations: Letting Go, Kicking, Sky Trials

By the way, their video for Kicking would be a perfect aspirant for Trash Monday!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1obEt5dmmo]

Desdemonia – Existence


There is one Luxembourgish band that probably everyone from the metal scene of the country has heard about and has most likely also seen live at some point. I’m of course talking about the death metal legends Desdemonia. This quartet has probably been the pioneer of heavy music in our little country and has celebrated its fifteen year anniversary at the beginning of 2012. In late 2010 the band released their long-awaited album Existence which stays true to their in-your-face sound.

The first song starts off with a rather melodic part which quickly turns into a neck-breaking riff fest coupled with the ever-so powerful vocals and annihilating drums. And let me tell you right off the bat: this is something that will be the case for the remainder of this forty-eight minute record. But let’s go a bit further into detail, shall we?

The guitar parts have a real evil feel to them and, especially at a show, you just can’t resist banging your head like a madman. Yet they have melodic interludes to build up atmosphere and show that the guitarists can do more than just play simple riffs. The bass guitar is also nicely audible throughout the whole ten songs which, as you know by now, is always a plus for me. One thing that I found interesting in the guitar department is that the main riff from the first song comes back in one of the later songs in a slightly different variant.

The drums range from barrages of double bass attacks and blast beats to groovy parts where the already strained neck gets its last dose. Production wise they’re just how I like them: clean and powerful but with a nice natural sound to them.

However, the most notable thing in my opinion are the vocals: the two Dosser brothers, who also take care of bass and guitar duty, alternate between low growls and screams. It’s this little “gimmick” that simply gives this album such a nice dynamic. I’d say that the perfect song to showcase this is the second track called Overload.

In conclusion I can only strongly recommend that you give this record a chance if you are even remotely into death metal. In the worst case scenario you’ve supported a starving (wink wink) Luxembourgish act and in the ideal case scenario this record will not leave your playlist for quite some time. I, for one, was happy to re-listen to this record after almost 2 years and re-discover why I liked it so much back then.

Check out the band’s Facebook page and visit their official website if you want to buy the record. A little appetizer can be found below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YSJEVDCVFk]

Gothic & Lolita Psycho

I most definitely developed a psychological unnatural affection for what I define as “Postmodern Japanese Cyber-Punk” movies in the last few years. I still do not know if I am ever able to review every single genre flick or if I simply get bored with these arterial blood sprayings, mutants, zombies, vampires and Japanese girls in school uniforms. At least one thing is sure, you certainly do not watch these movies because of the brilliant storyline and the incredibly talented actors. You watch them because of Rina Akiyama aka “Best Butt in Japan” for example and you watch them because of the fun factor.

After I reviewed Attack Girls’ Swimteam Vs. The Undead, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and Tokyo Gore Police, I decided that you could bear another Tokyo weirdo movie. This time I decided to check out Gô Ohara’s Gosurori shokeinin aka Gothic and Lolita Psycho. When it comes to Japanese gore flicks stories simply do not matter and they only diversify on a very small level and the best is that nobody cares about it. But there are nevertheless some aspects in Gothic and Lolita Psycho which I found very interesting and in the end were the catalyst why I wanted to write about the movie.

Compared to the last Japanese gore film I reviewed (Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl), Gothic and Lolita Psycho plays in darker surroundings or at least tries to build up a gloomier atmosphere without abdicating the excessive ballyhoo. Beside this fact there is something special which makes this flick quite unique for me. If you are interested in console fighting games, especially Street Fighter II on the great Super Nintendo and Tekken 3 on the Play Station, you will love the homages the director pays to these games.

You have to check out the Japanese Uri Geller aka Uri Gelleo which makes exactly the same sounds as Yoshimitsu from Tekken 3 and just like the latter one, he uses the tailor seat as a special attack. The Dhalsim imitation in the final fight is by far more obvious but not less funny. I did not see that coming. The last and probably the most subtle obeisance to fighting games also can be seen in the final fight when Yuki, the main character turns into a monster. They not only copied the sounds the monster makes from Tekken 3’s Orgre, no they also adapted its winning pose which I actually think is really cool. I am not sure if there are more game homages but as Street Fighter and Tekken are my all-time favorite ones you probably can imagine that I quite liked this flick. If you are into weird stuff, check it out and make up your own mind.




Fights and Fires – The Proof That Ghosts Exist

The Proof That Ghosts Exist (or how I would say: “the proof that totally unknown bands selling totally cheap CDs can actually be pretty catchy!”) is the 2011 release by the 4 young Englishsmen Fights and Fires.

“Fights and who..?” you might ask now. Well, the boys have started to build up some reputation in the UK for sure, their excessive touring over the last months actually also brought them to Luxembourg’s Food For Your Senses 2012 festival for example, where I had the chance to enjoy their show (check here).

I must say the opener of their album caught the whole heaviness and rudeness that filled the tent stage back then. 59 seconds of pure force followed by My Rusty, a mix of hardcore, postcore, punk and pop punk elements. “Are you kidding me?” No they apparently aren’t. My astonishment quickly changed into excitement, because this mix actually gives them a very catchy mark, very enjoyable if you like popish postcore elements these day (or back in the At The Drive-In times).

Shake It again sums up the whole Fights And Fires sound and even lets your hips move with its danceable refrain. Don’t worry; they never miss the right moment to smash your face with post and hardcore outbursts. In case this all sounds like a Sum 41 release to you – it is not the case. As already said, the odd thing about all this is the fact that they actually seem to be way more brutal during their live performances, which doesn’t mean that the album loses its energy. I would never have expected to encounter such a situation with a 5 € CD, coincidentally bought on a small festival. You just got to love such discoveries.

A head banging and hip moving experience, mixing punk refrains with “bear-ish” outbursts (that front man actually looks like a bear, cheers mate!). Drums, bass and guitar also perfectly switch from metal to disco (damn they gonna kill me if they read this). Although slightly flattening towards the end, this release is a very welcome guest in one’s CD player during a half an hour car trip.

Recommendations: Tracks 1 to 4 in a row!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0M7-iZ1vHE]

Massacre – Condemned To The Shadows


Massacre are back!

The single includes two brand new songs written and performed by the new line-up. There really is no use in describing both songs, just check out the video if you want to listen to both songs, it will only take you 8 minutes. If you need a little more insight then read on.

I find it a bit difficult reviewing this single as I am a diehard Massacre fan and have been dreaming of a reunion for the better part of the last 15 years. Massacre finally agreed to grant me this wish, unfortunately, without Kam “the tyrant” Lee.

Musically, the band omits the atrocious sophomore album and focused on their classic From Beyond album. Rick Rozz manages to recapture that old school death metal feeling after having been decades away from Heavy Metal. The new vocalist Edwin Webb shows a nice set of lungs when growling his way through both tracks, shrieking here and there, but never captures the charismatic delivery of Kam Lee. But to be fair, neither does Kam nowadays. Still, I can not help but feel that if Rick and Kam had worked together on new music the result would have been better.

The lyrics are similar to those on From Beyond, Lovecraftian tales of horror, but again, I always felt like Kam Lee was the one who was responsible for the Lovecraft influence (a fact shown in his albums released in the last decade). So while I welcome the typical lyrics, I sometimes cringe and feel like it was forced upon them as it has become a trademark.

Riffwise Rick sounds like on From Beyond, the riffs, the groove, the tremolo-wanking, it is all here, yet it never touches the classic material. Now, do not get me wrong, the music is quite enjoyable, but it obviously does not compare to their classic songs. Before the review takes on a too negative note I would like to say that the two songs are quite enjoyable and fans of the band should not miss out on this release. I read that the band is working on an album for a 2013 release and am looking forward to it. The two songs show that the band embrace their old sound and are able to write similar material. All they got to do now is focus on writing memorable breaks and riffs, they sure have the structure and sound down.

Recommended to fans of the genre. Available here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-svcA59hogA]

The Human Centipede (First Sequence)


A week ago I went to the Netherlands for a few days and as always I combined this wonderful trip (thanks to Denis, Tanja, Marc and Frantz for the great time) with upgrading my DVD collection. Buying movies during my vacation has become something like a ritual and I always want to profit from the Dutch openness, progressiveness and liberalism towards uncut and hard-to-get controversial cinema. I really dig DVD shops and it is a great opportunity for me to rummage around in shelves full of crazy stuff with the security that nearly everything I find is uncensored.

Back when I first read about The Human Centipede (on Bloody Disgusting.com) until today it never really got my attention, probably because I do not like modern horror flicks but as I found it for only 10 Euros in a real nice shop, I decided to give it a try.

So what can I say? Human Centipede is a movie where nothing really happens. Director Six explained that the inspiration for the movie came from the well-known Nazi experiments during WWII and a joke he made about what to do with child molesters. Although I plead for pedophilia being a psychic medical condition and you cannot hold the people suffering from it 100% responsible for their actions (neither should you ignore basic human rights), I consider this main idea a quite interesting one with a lot of potential. Unfortunately the essential plot is already over after half of the movie.

When I look back I think that the movie has exactly become the opposite of what it intended to be in the first place. Human Centipede is a lethargic cinematic adaption of a perverse but genius idea, characterized by incredibly bad actors and unintentional comedy. It is in no way shocking nor disgusting (please, just because there is a woman eating shit we still do not need a Salò comparison) but rather an anti-climatic and illogical pseudo-scandalous arthouse flick. I am really OK with psychological horror stuff without any blood and gore (in fact the original Funny Games is one of my all-time favorite movies) but come on: you still have to keep it interesting in some way.

Beside the developable story being one main negative aspect (maybe a short, 30 minutes, movie would have worked), the actors complete the weakness of the film. There are around 10 “actors” in the movie. Three of them are building the human centipede with two women having sewed their mouths to anuses. The third part of the centipede is a Japanese tourist who is screaming all the time in his mother-tongue, that’s all for the acting over here.

Most people agree on Laser doing a fantastic job playing a well-known, retired surgeon who seems a bit out of his mind. I have to disagree on this point, the Dr. Heiter character is a completely over-stylized, unintentional comical mad scientist version of Dr. Joseph Mengele and Dr. Herbert West, a complete no-go, an incredible farce. The other 6 actors are not even worth mentioning.

This movie simply doesn’t work on so many levels and the worst is that, without expecting anything from the beginning on, I am even a bit disappointed. The Human Centipede (First Sequence) sucks asses (got it?).


Slipknot – Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)


In one of my previous reviews I said that I’d probably do another one like it, meaning that I’ll talk about the album and mix it with a bit of personal history. Since this is my tenth contribution I figured this would be a good time to do so. Which is why I’ve decided to review a record that awakened my musical hunger, which to this day luckily hasn’t been stilled, and made me really relate to it as well.

Even though I started listening a lot to bands like Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Bloodhoung Gang around the age of thirteen, I was never really into metal since I just hadn’t found the right thing. Then at sixteen a classmate, who happens to write for El Gore as well, introduced me to bands like Megadeth, Exodus and the likes…the stepping stone for a large musical evolution had been laid. In 2004 however an online friend sent me a new song, Don’t Get Close, by Slipknot and I couldn’t stop listening to it (fyi: the song ended up becoming a b-side). Even though I had known the band before and actually enjoyed a song or two by them, I wasn’t really into them since my taste was still elsewhere. But now, for the first time in my life I was anxiously awaiting the release of an album: Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses). It wasn’t until May 25th of that same year that I finally held it in my hands and listened to it non-stop. I’m not kidding when I say that by the way…I literally listened to the album at least five times a day over a period of almost nine months in a row.

Enough about me; let’s get down to business…well kind of. The 3rd album, ignoring Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat., by the nine masked Iowans was produced by Rick Rubin and recorded in his notorious Mansion in L.A.. I’m not sure whether it is due to the change of producer, from Ross Robinson to Rubin, or due to the various side projects the band had during their hiatus between Iowa and this album but the difference of the sound can already be noticed after the first note of the intro. Even though I thoroughly enjoy the two predecessor albums, Iowa and Slipknot, this one just finds the perfect mix between heaviness and melodic parts. The production has gone through a similar change and, at least to me, this is their best sounding album.

The fourteen songs pretty much cover every aspect of Slipknot‘s sound, that fans have grown to love, and introduce new touches such as the marching percussion on The Blister Exists and The Nameless. Then there’s two ballads that were a big surprise when the album first came out; especially to people who didn’t know about the singer’s other band Stone Sour who released a ballad as a single the previous year. The thing that strikes me the most is that every single song has at least one highlight that will make you remember it.

The vocals are, as is tradition with Corey Taylor, flawless and in some parts quite creepy but in a way that you just get sucked into the song’s atmosphere even quicker. The prime example for this is the song Vermilion, which is about a stalker that follows a girl around…or at least thinks he does. Just listen to it and you’ll see what I mean. The choruses on the album are, I’d say, among the best ones that Slipknot have ever written and you’ll be chanting them along faster than you can say the album’s title three times in a row. The lyrics are filled with metaphors and less common words which I tried to figure out for ages.

All in all, this is definitely my favorite Slipknot album for a couple of reasons: first of all because it’s the album that got all of it started for me. Secondly because it’s just so diverse and well-written, ranging from neck-breaking headbang parts to goose bump inducing passages. And last but not least because it put the band, who had been written off prior to this release, back on the map with a bang. It’s pretty safe to say that this record will remain in my top 3 albums of all time until the day I die. Go ahead and check out the song below, which actually won them an Emmy, and their Facebook page.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_09wFxoaeQ]

Morbus Chron – A Saunter Through The Shroud


Morbus Chron formed in 2007 and released one demo (not counting the very first demo tape that was limited to a single copy), two Eps and a full-length album. They also appeared on the, now cult, Resurrected In Festering Slime compilation.

A Saunter Through The Shroud is their second EP and their first release since the album Sleepers In The Rift and shows a different side of the band. The three songs are much more progressive than their other material. What I mean by that is that the band added many new layers to their old school Swedish Death Metal. I can not help but think of Possessed’s Beyond The Gates as an influence. Both albums were truly a step-up for both bands, showing a much more progressive musical structure based on an interplay between brutality and eerie atmosphere. Also, both albums showed both bands at their musical peak, meaning riff upon riff upon riff kicking your teeth out of place. Another band that seems to have influenced Morbus Chron are Pestilence. Especially the vocals show a Martin van Drunen-esque influence. Robba has a raspy, throaty voice and sounds as despaired as van Drunen himself when screaming those horrid lyrics.

I will not review the songs individually as there are only three songs. Let me just say that those three songs are, in my opinion, among the best five songs Morbus Chron have ever released this far.

The EP is only available on vinyl on black vinyl limited to 700 copies, a limited volcanic red version limited to 200 copies available at www.cmdistro.de and a electric red version limited to 100 copies available at www.detestrecords.com.

This is a must-have!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10fHd2TDCfM]