They’ve gone for the symphonic thing good and proper, even roping in the ubiquitous Simen Hastnaes for guest vocals on one track. Whether or not they’re doing that to add some authenticity to this most tinkling and difficult of black metals is open to debate. It’s probably the wise choice, given that a: they’re American and b: ten years too late. So it’s a good job that it’s a competent outing overall.

It still lacks the chill factor of the real thing. That got lost somewhere behind the squeaky clean, quantized drums and the layers of Roland orchestra patches. Still though, it remains hard to write off entirely. They come close to the Emperial sound on a great many occasions, referencing Arcturus as well with some of the spacier keyboards. Add in massive helpings of the aforementioned Limonic Art, and they have done well to produce a modern version of the same style.

How relevant this is to you will depend on how much you liked the original; I’m inclined to say it was of its time and place, and is probably best remembered there. This is good, well executed sympho-BM that most certainly does not disgrace itself. Held against the originals however, its obvious that the genius was all theirs.

3.2 / 5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 19/11/08

Please log onto www.metalcamp.com and go to the section that says “voting”, after doing so scroll down the band list and under the irish section click on “warpathire”.

Warpath are spreading their brutality across Europe in April 2009 on a European Tour with American grin kings Lividity and would love the chance to furthermore get their name out in front of a proper festival crowd such as Metal camp.

Please log on to vote for Warpath for metal camp 09 - it’ll only takes a minute of your time.Voting ends at the end of January so please get your votes in quick. Warpath also have a thier second full length album in pipelines for early 2009. They will keep you updated and will have regular updates as they come about! SUPPORT IRISH METAL!!”

BLOOD GORE FUCKIN WAR.

www.myspace.com/warpathire

www.underground-movement.net

Not for them the conveyor belt year on year release cycle. We’ve been waiting since 2003 for this, and it goes without saying that they’ve used the time wisely. There is certainly something wiser and older about the music of ‘Alloy’. While retaining the suffocatingly slow pace of the style, their dirge has taken on a new class. Those massive church organs dominate just as they rightly should, and never once sound hammy or overwrought. Skepticism have always made them their own, and the almost religious solemnity they bring to the band’s crushing doom is a rare treat still.

Album highlight ‘The Curtain’ shows the band at the peak of their creative powers. The reason is that it’s captured a feel that only the most perfect doom metal does - the vertigo, the delirium, the bittersweet nature of the suffering they’re giving sound to. It’s a rare feat, but I’m sure we can all think of one or two spectulars of the genre that achieve it, and sum up the whole godforsaken enterprise.

Individual tracks though must be more or less forgotten. You’re in this album for the long haul, and anything else wouldn’t be entering (enterring?) into the spirit of it. It’s one for walks, one for winter.  Hypnotic without being dreary, a powerful dirge that is never once boring, with it Skepticism have created an album more than worthy of their name. It’s a powerful thing in metal when you can pick up a cd by a band knowing only that much, yet knowing for certain that it will never disappoint. These Finns are in a league of their own within funeral doom, and they’ve showed that much over the years. ‘Alloy’ is an honest, poignant, heavy and evocative album - miss it at your peril.

4.6/5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 10/11/08

For many, ‘From Mars To Sirius’ was Gojira’s entry into the metal consciousness. It was rightly lauded as a forward-looking mix of extremity and taste, and it was always going to be hard for them to follow it. In essence, they’re slightly, subtly redefining their sound here. The choice of Logan Mader as producer speaks volumes, and you can hear his influence all over this. Roadrunner have looked Gojira up and down, seen that with a good scrub they could appeal to a vast amount of people, and done their darndest to make it happen.

The result is tracks like ‘Adoration For None’, which sounds as if band and producer sat around pondering the exact manner in which to sound like Pantera’s ‘Trendkill’, then as if by magic, did precisely that. It sticks out like a sore thumb on this album, and is hard to take as anything other than a deliberate concession. Maybe that’s being harsh, but the parallells are there to be heard. Elsewhere, ‘All The Tears’ sounds as if it was an outtake from Morbid Angel’s ‘Gateways To Annihilation’; again the band seem to have forgotten who they are and tried to be someone else. It’s a decent track, but it’s hardly Gojira.

When the band regain their dignity and start being themselves again though, this album soars above its contemporaries. Album highlight ‘The Art Of Dying’, despite its silly title, is an absolute masterclass in powerful, driving, punishing underground metal that grows from Meshuggah-like mechanoid barbarity to the most exquisitely human closing motif. Even at ten minutes long, you never want that final riff to end. It’s utterly brilliant.

Similar praise can be handed to opener ‘Oroborus’, and most certainly to the album’s real singalong winner ‘A Sight To Behold’, during which their tree hugging tendencies meet gargantuan metal head on. It’s destined to be this album’s ‘Global Warming’, the highlight of their last.

Both sound and playing are incredible, with the kick drums in particular among the most powerful these ears have ever, ever heard. They sound like artillery fire - just enough click, but with an eminently satisfying thump in their bodyweight. Gradually, Gojira are channelling their live might to record.

Some parts of this album sound distinctly plodding, however. Plus, for all the talk of progression, it’s an audible fact that bands like She Said Destroy were playing music identical to this as long as three years ago - and almost as good as this as well. It’s hard to overlook the duller moments, purely because you know this band are capable of so much better. Were they rushed into this release before everyone forgot who they were again? Possibly: because while astounding in most places, the rest is hardly the sound of them at top flight.

If Gojira are to be the sound of modern mainstream metal in 2008, then good. Influences from both Machine Head and even Slipknot may have worked their way in, but it’s a small price to pay for a decent, hard working and honest underground band (and let’s not forget, a band posessed of real, massive talent) getting to be feted. You would surely choose this band over Children of Bodom, In Flames, or any other of the subsequent musical failures who crossed over to greener pastures. Gojira deserve it, and the best bits of this album should rightly have them at the top of the mainstream. Because that would be a triumph for the underground.

4.1/5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 09/11/08

MOURNING BELOVETH – DUST – DOUBLE GATEFOLD LP

Dust finally gets released at this year Cork Winterfest on the 19th of December. Pre-orders will be taken up until this date for the die hard edition at the special price of €20. The die hard comes with an A2 colour poster, small patch and large cigarette papers “Mourning Beloveth made me Smoke it”. After the release the remaining die hards will sell for €25 and the regular editions for €20. This is the first time any of their album will be released on vinyl.

MORPHOSIS – RISE OF THE BASTARD DIETIES – CD

Death Metal legends Morphosis have finally recorded their debut album entitled Rise of the Bastard Deities. The album was recorded in Trackmix Studios, Dublin between June and October 2008.Comprising of ten tracks and a running time of approx 30 minutes, it features five newly written songs and five re-worked versions of earlier material. The musical content is best described as modern brutal Death Metal with a strong old school influence.

SOL AXIS – TO MARK THE AGES – CD

This release is a collective of all the recorded Sol Axis tracks in existence for the first time available on CD. It not only contains the To Mark The Ages 10” tracks but also a re-mastered version of the extremely limited Sol Axis demo from 2004 as well as a previously unreleased track, two Bathory covers in tribute to Quorthon and alternative versions and is a comprehensive collection of everything Sol Axis put to tape to date.

FOR RUIN – T.B.C. - CD

For Ruin have completed a ten track pre-production demo of their second album which as yet remains untitled. The band says: “The new album is about 40 minutes of faster-than-before music with all the hooks, aggression and harmonies of before and will have a production to match the quality of the songs. There are two instrumental songs in there; one is in the vein of “December” while the other is probably the most aggressive For Ruin song written to date. Song writing duties are shared among the band this time around and some of the working song titles include “Deluge”, “In Suffering”, “Elysium” and “Recoil”. Recording is scheduled to begin on Jan 3 2009 in Cork with Alwyn Walker of Komodo Studios as the on-location producer for the album.

MOURNING BELOVETH / WRECK OF THE HESPERUS – THE WEEPING SONG / MISERY IS THE RIVER OF THE WORLD - 10”

A split releases with a little twist. Mourning Beloveth will cover Nick Cave’s “The Weeping Song” and Wreck Of The Hesperus will destroy Tom Waits’ “Misery is the River of the World”.

ABADDON INCARNATE – DARK CRUSADE – CD

Re-release of their second full length originally barely released through Spain’s Xtreme Music. The new version will come with totally new artwork and will feature some bonus material.

www.sentinelireland.com

A negative to the first question would leave any biopic half empty and feeling unfinished. With the second, yeah, you could use concert footage, but that kind of falls down when dealing with the most frustratingly inconsistent live band in their genre. The minds behind this dvd will have addressed both of these questions - so why they ploughed on regardless is a mystery.

Everything Mayhem have released since 93 has been worth documenting. The ferocity of ‘Wolf’s Lair Abyss’, the convoluted mess that was its follow up, the ultra aggressive and almost fogotten ‘Chimera’ and of course the brilliant, uncompromising and twisted genius of ‘Ordo Ad Chao’.

But who cares about the albums? That’s not what will make a decent Mayhem DVD, and there’s no getting away from it. We want blood, intrugue, evil and the story of those heady days in all its chilling detail from the people responsible for it. Exactly what we already got in ‘Lords Of Chaos’, in other words.

By making itself an overview of Mayhem’s career then, this documentary concedes defeat from the beginning. The reason is that only a fifth of it is interesting in visual terms, as this tedious film predictably shows.

More effort could yet have rescued things. People, voices, insight and opinion for example. There is simply no sense in doing a Mayhem documentary without Hellhammer. Maniac as well is nowhere to be found. Blasphemer, though having quit as this was filmed, would have hardly been difficult to track down. What we have though is essentially an extended interview with Necrobutcher, cut with Atilla (who by his own admission was in Hungary when the shit really hit the fan) and a few other side players. Neither is one other prominent member of the Norse scene included.

The one impressive contribution that does make this film different is from former drummer Kjetil Manheim. Fantastically, he appears to have grown up and taken the whole thing with a pinch of salt, and provides the only memorable quotes of the film. The remainder is composed of exruciatingly poor third generation live footage, presumably taken from Youtube, set most uselessly of all to no actual Mayhem music. Well there is, but it’s covers on piano - the same problem that faced Nick Broomfield’s excellent ‘Kurt & Courtney’ biopic where the rights to Nirvana’s music were witheld. One may guess that the same thing happened here. Why else would the band’s own music not even be there?

The whole thing is appallingly amateur. The cameraman cannot keep his finger off the zoom, and it is intensely irritating to have the viewfinder correct itself in almost every shot. The chapter by chapter analysis flags awfully to the end, with the post DMDS albums dissected in the most cursory fashion, and no conclusion reached in any terms greater than that the band are Still Together and at their Best Ever. There’s no insight, no judgement, no nothing. The narrator sounds like she’s reading everything on Rohypnol, and the effects are so 70’s Hammer Horror that it’s not even funny.

Mayhem’s story is compelling. The personalities involved are intriguing, unhinged, unhappy and live on a permanent high wire even now. That this couldn’t have been more fully captured and analysed for posterity is a failure. Even calling this a documentary elevates it considerably above its station: it’s a couple of interviews on a handycam, dodgy and incomprehensible live footage and a shit voiceover. That’s it. I absolutely promise you that is the sum total of this rubbish enterprise.

One explanation was that it was rushed. You’d think if getting a better cast list involved waiting, then wait you would. The other is that the (otherwise talented) journalists involved just werent aware of what makes good and bad video. All I know is that reading ‘Lords Of Chaos’ still gives me the shivers, and even now paints a graphic, frightening and scary picture of that period in time and those wraith-like individuals. If this film succeeds in anything it’s in destroying that mystique utterly. The characters in Mayhem still have much to say - believe me - but none of it is even broached on these cameras.

1.2 / 5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 02/11/08

Perhaps though it is in here. Many Irish readers will remember bassist Aidrian Butler from his time in Mourning Beloveth. Many more will remember guitarist John Walker from none other than British stalwarts Cancer. The pair have hooked up to create Liquid Graveyeard, and in so doing, taken up the challenge of dark, individualistic death metal exactly where bands like Dominion and Atrox left off.

Everything about this demo is cool. Raquel’s vocals, though set deep (and sometimes too deep) within the mix, display at their best moments a venom that recalls Opera IX’s vocalatrix Cadaveria, with that delcious rasp. While she’s not hitting the multiple brilliances of Madder Mortem’s Agnete Kirkevaag just yet, one senses its a matter of time. The same can be said for the band. The rhythm section is huge, with a gutsy rumble preserved the whole way through.

More than anything, it is Liquid Graveyard’s riffing that really sets them apart. Sounding somewhat lateral and always strangely arrived at, they nonetheless lock down into straightforward rocking sections that flow superbly while retaining their thorough darkness. There’s nothing that can beat this. A band truly has it made when they manage to make arcane and uncomfortable notes actually course forward and rock - and one listen to ‘Antihead Grotesque’ will show you precisely how this is done.

This is an awesome demo, rough edges notwithstanding (the name for a start - stop sniggering at the back), but it has massive potential to the people out there that still crave their underground music to be just that. Dark, inventive, even a little magickal: the possibilities here are brilliant, and it will be tantalising to watch it develop.

- Ciaran Tracey ::: 29/10/08

They sound almost exactly like Dark Tranquillity around their ‘Haven’ and ‘Damage Done’ era, which longer toothed readers will remember as resembling something of a metal midlife crisis. Or, more simply, plain bland. Nonetheless, Omnium Gatherum pull out every production trick they can to try and inject life into the tracks - tones, swathes, keys, and even some clean-ish singing. It’s as clear as day though that they’re on a hiding to nothing. If the material isnt compelling in the first place, no amount of POD patches are going to make it any better.

It’s festival metal. Big, clunking, melodic and growly, destined to please devotees of the Amon Amarth school, but proving exasperatingly empty to the rest. Remember Arch Enemy before they got Angela Gossow? Johan Liiva used to come in for some serious stick for his dull, predictable vocals, and rightly so. Omnium Gatherum sound almost exactly the same, except they dont have an exciting guitarist to make it all bearable. In fact, they dont have an excting anything. And after having played it through six or seven times, I still dont even know what I’m listening to. It’s that lifeless.

1.4 / 5 - Ciaran Tracey ::: 29/10/08

But what is a telling fact is that the only time they’ve released music with such frequency as this was way back in the glory days of the mid-nineties. They’re obviously fired up, and thankfully this one delivers just about the best of what new Darkthrone represents. This is fucking fun from beginning to end.

Almost every song on Dark Thrones and Black Flags works as a microcosm of the larger whole. In each song the commanding croak of Nocturno cuts through strongly, usually either glorifying old school Metal or deriding Those of the Pose, being backed up by a liberal dose of totally simple riffs, but ones that just drip with character and catchiness. A love of all the vocal quirks of old school Metal is evident in the variations that are utilized in the singing department, in particular an amazingly accurate King Diamond tone on ‘Hanging out in Haiger’. Where do you even start with ‘Hiking Metal Punks’? Perhaps the most stupidly brilliant gang chorus of the year, before ending with the sort of epic galloping riff Desaster would have to raise a horn to out of sheer appreciation.

At the right moments, some sparse keyboard effects add a touch of ambience that recalls the hypnotic effect of their early Black Metal period. This is particularly well done during ‘Norway in September’. This serves to underline that the band doesn’t burn bridges per say, more that they’re just ploughing a different furrow in the same field. The drum clicks and gruff count-ins at the start of the songs and the howls of glee at the end underlines that this is a group very much at ease with what they’re putting out.

Those looking for artistic seriousness would do better to look elsewhere. Those appreciative of cheap beer and raising a claw to the moon on a pissed walk home from the pub will find more than ample enjoyment here. Drunkthrone…forever!

3.8 / 5 ::: Lorcan Archer 26/10/08

But things can change, and it’s a pleasure to report that the band have evidently realised that a band they must be, or they’re going nowhere. This weekends performace is a world away. Tight, focused, and sounding like a band who know what they want to play, it’s a decent performance that pleases nearly everyone watching.

Two elements stand out as worthy of particular praise. One, the vocalist. Though some cringey banter is there, he carries it off out of sheer audacity. He’s also clearly been studying Free videos in a effort to perfect that tight shirted, mic-stand tilting swagger and high squeal chic so redolent of 1969. Two, the drums. Though the band can at times appear jokey, it’s clear your man has it well under control at the back. Solid foundations with a few nicely placed embellishments - a real workhorse performance.

Though their contributions are solid, in particular the nicely detailed ‘Countdown To Extinction’ riffing, the rest of the band could look a little more into it. Noone’s going to break a bone, lads - put your elbows into it. There’s something most invigorating in seeing bands turn themselves round, and hopefully these cretins can turn in as good a performance on their upcoming cd as they have live today.

Change the daft name though, because the music deserves more now.

- Ciaran Tracey ::: 15/10/08