Memphis May Fire – Challenger


Memphis May Fire is a band that I first stumbled upon around May 2011 because Danny Worsnop, singer of Asking Alexandria, tweeted one of their lines and I ended up looking them up. The lyrics were from their back then fresh album The Hollow, to which I listened to countless times in the following months. Needless to say I was surprised yet excited when they announced in early 2012 that they were working on a new record already, and several weeks later the release date was set for late June.

The new album Challenger was teased prior to its release by two full songs: Prove Me Right and most of all Vices. Both those songs were killer and got me severely stoked for the full release, mainly the latter song because of its topic, but more about that later. So when I finally held the CD in my hands I was a bit giddy to hear what else they had come up with and on my first listening session I was kind of disappointed.

But let’s rewind: the album has a clean and powerful production which puts you in the proper mood right from the first riff that is played during the intro. The drums have a slightly industrial note to them and sound really over-triggered all throughout, but that’s already been the case on the predecessor and thus it’s kind of part of their trademark sound. The guitars have also kept their powerful sound and only the bass seems to be more pronounced on this record, which is very enjoyable to me since I am usually unable to filter out the bass lines in metalcore…but then again I’m no musician.

The vocals are also at their usual perfection in both the clean and scream department and there are quite a few very melodic vocal passages that are almost bound to stick in your head at the latest after the second listening. On top of that there are two guest vocalists: Kellin Quinn from Sleeping With Sirens and Danny Worsnop from Asking Alexandria. Since I enjoy both their voices I was truly looking forward to their performance but I ended up being partially let down. The song that Quinn appears on is, lyrics aside, the weakest on the album and his singing was kind of boring, especially if you compare it to his guest appearance on Pierce The Veil‘s song that was released around the same time as the first teaser for Challenger. Worsnop’s song however put everything right for me again since it’s the exact opposite: among the top songs of the album and an equally fitting performance.

Now, you might ask yourself why I was disappointed after my first listening session…easy answer: I listened to the album without having the booklet with me. Let me elaborate. I’m the kind of person that pays a lot of attention to lyrics and the ones on this album had some very interesting topics. They’re about the difficulties in the music business, the touring stress, love lost and alcoholism. The latter is the theme of the aforementioned song Vices to which I could relate to in some parts.

All in all I can safely say that Challenger is probably not an album that you’ll like from the get go but which needs some time to settle in your head first…if you give it a chance. But even if you don’t, I’m sure you’ll end up finding the one or the other interesting riff or breakdown here and there. Be sure to check out the band’s Facebook page as well as the video to my favorite song below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I8cVlZDOT4]

Speedwolf – Ride With Death


To all fans of Speed Metal and/or Motörhead, look no further! Speedwolf hail from Denver, Colorado and released a low profile single and Split with Hookers before turning into the greatest Motörhead tribute band ever. No seriously! Listen to those vocals! Give that guy a bottle of Jack a day and in 5 years he will have his Lemmy perfected.

This is their first Full Length release, but they just released a Split single with Nekrofilth (I did not get my copy yet, but will review it as soon as I get it). I am not familiar with their earlier releases but all the songs can be found on the album so I doubt that they changed drastically. This band worships the heck out of mid 80s era Motörhead and do a damn fine job at bringing that sound to us mere mortals.

My favorite era of Motörhead is the speed fueled Orgasmatron era and that is exactly where Speedwolf (err…Speedwölf?) pick it up. Just listen to a song like Never Twice and tell me you do not see Lemmy singing this. I dare you! They are the best Speed/Thrash/Punk/Noise combo I have heard recently.

Now, just mentioning the Motörhead influence would not be fair. This band does not sound cheap at any moment. Many of the riffs sound like something Metallica would have recorded on Kill ‘em All. The riffs are actually the greatest thing about the band. They come up with tons of fast and catchy riffs. A lot of bands playing a similar style just rehash generic riffs or only have a handful of good ones, Speedwolf are the complete opposite. They sound like Motörhead from a parallel universe, a “what if Lemmy decided to sound like Metallica back in ’83” band. And the result is fascinating! It just is one of those albums you wanna listen to when driving around at night, or sneak into a party and blast at full volume once you fought your way through a bunch of uptight “I listen to every type of music but your type” posers. This album slays, ’nuff said.

Now before you rush out to howl at the Speedwolf, perfect…this is not. The vocals do get a bit repetitive at times. Especially towards the middle, but the band manages to get your attention again towards the end. Funnily enough it is Death Ripper, the only track on the album with a different vocalist, that reels you back in. Not that the song is great, but those different vocals catch your attention and you suddenly just pay more attention again. After that the album picks up again and some of my favorite songs (The Reaper, Ride With Death) are up. And as with every great album it is over before you get up to turn it off.

A special mention to all vinyl freaks: The Gatefold LP is housed in a nice glossy sleeve and comes with a Poster. Die Hards might want to shell out a few more bucks for the “Ultra” clear version.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBn0dmRKs-E]

Trash Monday XXIV


Everyone knows those videos with white background and so-called musicians, that are on at least 17 different sorts of drugs when shooting it, and use a melody that every blockhead knows from his childhood. Well here is one you might haven’t known yet.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBdLsNNT064]

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon


I am pretty sure that, even if you aren’t into short “horror” movies, you probably know the one I am going to write about today. Although the flick is from 2008, I still remember that I got into it pretty late and I think it was Eric (again?) who showed it to me maybe 2 years ago. I am talking about The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon.

With this brilliant no budget flick, Richard Gale succeeds in doing a jocular and sapid parody of horror flick clichés and creates a unique and utterly humorous Monty-Python-ish story. An absolute classic, seldom seen!

Director, producer and writer Gale presents us a high image quality flick, well functioning Final Cut special effects and a solid, sarcastic storyboard character (Ginosaji). As I don’t know much about Gale’s other works, I can’t write about his workflow or ideology of doing flicks. But when I found out that he isn’t only responsible for directing, financing and writing, but also did the camera and cutting work in combination with the incredibly well-chosen locations, I’ve got the strong urge that this guy is a perfectionist.

What I like most about The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is also probably something why a lot of people do not like it at all. Like I already said, the shorty is very Monty-Python-esque and abuses the same joke again and again and again (and again and again and again…), and it seems that at some point the movie drifts in completely boredom but Gale is very clever and by the exaggerated re-using (of the same joke) he manages to go beyond the point of annoyance and fell into hilarious ingenuity.

This is a must see!!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VDvgL58h_Y]


For All Those Sleeping – Outspoken


For All Those Sleeping from Minnesota is yet another band that doesn’t seem very well known in Europe, and I don’t really get why that’s the case. In 2010 they released their debut album Cross Your Fingers which had a very pop punk-ish feel to it and which I thoroughly enjoyed. Even though some people might argue that it was rather generic in the musical department I can’t really claim the opposite but the whole record was kind of a concept album which featured zombie inspired lyrics and it had quite a few musical highlights to it.

But it doesn’t really matter how you feel about their first endeavor since their newest record Outspoken, in my opinion, tops it in every single way. But let me backtrack a little here: in late April F.A.T.S. released the first single Mark My Words off of it…which left me with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth since I was rather underwhelmed. Fast forward two or three weeks to where they released the second preview song Once A Liar (Always A Fake) and I can tell you that by this point I was positively stoked for the release of the album.

When I finally got my hands on the full release I was greeted by one of the coolest intros in recent times (as well as a pretty cool artwork) and from there on I was completely immersed into the album. The first thing that struck me was the change in the quality of the production in comparison to their first record: the drums sound richer yet not overproduced, the guitars are sharper and heavier, and the vocals are even fuller than previously.

Lyrically the album deals with more general or generic, depending on your point of view, themes such as teenage angst, love and love lost. Yet they seemed a bit better thought through than the ones on the predecessor and feature more sing-along parts which luckily don’t strike me as too cheesy as is sometimes the case with metalcore songs. In the musical department they also added certain small touches, like violins and more dominant keyboard parts, which spice things up nicely.

All in all, I can only say that the Outspoken 40 minutes have not disappointed me, even though two of the twelve songs are a bit weaker than the rest. Ironically, the first single actually grew on me since it fits nicely into the album as a whole but the strongest song, to me, is by far Follow My Voice and I hope to experience the band live in the near future so I can go nuts to it.

Be sure to check to check out their Facebook page for more information and give my favorite song off the record a listen.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAPbYqCiU3Q]

Sektemtum – Aut Caesar, Aut Nihil


Formed in 2009 and including members as well as former members of such illustrous bands as Mütiilation, Ad Hominem, Arkhon Infaustus, Hell Militia, Gestapo 666 and Zoldier Noiz, Sektemtum, according to the band, stands for “the gathering, the sect, the twilight circle, the end and the beginning”, while the title stands for “either Caesar or nothing”, or more generally “all or nothing”.

The album starts slow, a simple Rock ‘n Roll riff paired with a few bends, not too far removed from the beginning of Darkthrone‘s Rust, off the misunderstood and underappreciated Hate Them album. The first shock are the vocals. Is this really Meyna’ch? He has never sounded this clean, yet at no moment does he not sound menacing. The music is very riff-based, which is also a departure from Mütiilation or other past bands. Meyna’ch loves traditional Metal, many pictures show him wearing Motörhead shirts, and he seems to fully embrace it here. Even with that in mind the simplicity of the music still comes as a surprise. Even more so if one keeps in mind who Meyna’ch is and what his last ouputs like Mütiilation, Hell Militia and Gestapo 666 sounded like.

Every song has a chorus or random vocal lines that stick with you, I found myself humming the opening riff for days, forcing me to listen to the album on a daily basis.

Many riffs are rooted in traditional Heavy Metal, solos can also be heard throughout the 10 songs and overall the structures are very traditional. Each song shows strong musicianship, not surprising at all, yet worth a mention. The production is very clean and warm, far removed for early Mütiilation.

At times Meyna’ch sounds like Attila, humming, whining, cursing, screaming his way through the songs, and Mayhem is the only comparison that comes to mind. No, I am not comparing this album to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, yet many elements are the same. The clean sound, the drums being allover the place, the Attila-esque vocals, the traditional elements.

This album, while being clearly rooted in Black Metal, has a lot to offer to fans of different genres as well as to those who just love intelligent music. The album has a natural flow, each song goes nicely into the other and no song seems out of place, yet eery song adds a different element to the whole picture.

I can only hope that the band will carry on, Sektemtum stir things up a bit with music that will piss off elitist Metalheads living in the past or scared of experimentation. The message is very clear to me, they do not care and they do what they want, and that in itself is the essence of Black Metal. It all comes down to the music and in the end it should not matter if this is Trve and Kvlt, it just is great music.

The video for the titletrack also deserves a special mention. Remember the Prodigy video for the song Smack my bitch up? Sektemtum made the sequel and, again, show how serious they are by poking fun at themselves showing a gay porn being filmed with the “receiver” wearing a Mütiilation shirt.

Be sure to check out their Facebook page as well as the afore-mentionned clip below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=karDU2TpDT0]

Trash Monday XXIII


I’m a 90s kid, and in my early years I mostly watched German TV. I remember back in the mid-90s when VIVA had its big success there was this cute girl singing something about Satellites and stuff…of course I’m talking about Blümchen. A few months later she released the song Boomerang which, as an eight or nine year old kid, I enjoyed quite a bit and as it usually is with people as they tend to get older I became nostalgic many years later and went looking for the song on YouTube, and that’s where I stumbled upon this jewel: an English version of the song. I’m sure she was trying to emulate Nena‘s (mild?) success with her 99 Red Balloons but failed miserably. Enjoy this jewel of all that was the nineties.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWqYEsN0EHQ]

Sleepers’ Guilt – Sleepers’ Guilt


Sleepers’ Guilt are a rather fresh band from Luxembourg who released their self-titled debut EP at the end of March 2012. Even though the quartet was only formed in 2011, it consists of experienced musicians from the now defunct bands Ophidian, Clean State and I Spy Apocalypse.

I’ll start this review with a very unusual and for the end consumer unimportant thing: the digital press kit that was given to me was very nicely put together and featured the songs, the entire booklet in very high quality, some promo pictures as well as an info sheet. And from the latter I’ll actually quote a sentence before I dive into the actual review since it describes their style perfectly: “they play modern melodic metal with a progressive touch and clean vocals, without losing the aggressiveness and trying to create their own sound and their own approach towards making music.”

The first thing that struck me as a listener was the remarkably clean and yet powerful production. Since this EP is entirely self-produced in a private studio in Luxembourg I was blown away by the tight guitar sound and the very organic drum sound. The vocals are also very intelligible and are perfectly mixed into the instrumental surroundings.

The six song EP is all throughout accompanied by piano play and the one or the other synthesizer which gives the ensemble somewhat of a symphonic undertone, as is tradition in the melodic metal genre. However it isn’t too blatant and thus doesn’t distract you at all from the, in some parts, very interesting riffs nor does it sound kitschy. The riffs are actually the part that impress me the most on this record, there are some real neckbreakers on here that I’m sure will motivate many people at home and mostly at shows to headbang enthusiastically.

Lyrically, the EP is mainly sociocritical and definitely a nice read. There is however one thing that heavily bothers me on a personal level: the singer’s voice. This is obviously very subjective but I’m just not a fan of this type of voices, no matter how flawless the performance. It’s what I like to call the “Dream Theater Paradox”: instrumentally to my liking but ruined by the singing. Don’t get me wrong: the vocalist does a great job and in some parts reminds me a bit of the singer of Sabaton but except for a ten second part towards the middle of the last song Raven’s Fight where he (almost) growls it just doesn’t appeal to me.

In conclusion I can definitely recommend giving the EP a chance if you are either open-minded about vocals or if you are into melodic metal. Personally I’ll try to check them out live at the next best opportunity to make up my mind. For more information about their tour dates and possibilities where you can buy their EP, check out their Facebook page and make sure to give the song below a listen.