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Krisiun – Southern Storm

Ξ May 14th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Album Reviews |

I finally have managed to get a hold of ‘Southern Storm’, the latest album from Brazilian death metal titans Krisiun. I first got into the band when I heard ‘Vicious Wrath’ from their previous effort, 2006’s ‘AssassiNation’, and heard a promo version of this CD last year. I finally got it cheap on Play.com, only 4.99, what a deal.

This is an album designed to destroy crowds at gigs. Plain and simply, this album contains so many brutal riffing segments that it makes your head spin. Wailing guitars crash into melodic solos, which in turn melt into thunderous chug sections (‘Sentenced Morning’) or just rocket off into earth quaking blast fests (‘Twisting Sights’). Krisiun have always been about the blast; they don’t try to overwhelm you with too many melodies or technical passages, they just stay true to their death metal roots and insist on slaying everyone in their way.

Vocally the band is standard fare, but personally its nice to hear a death metal vocalist who doesn’t try to pig squeal or scream these days. Alex Camargo rarely gets above a low growl, but there’s a strength behind his vocals that hooks you in, plus a good standard of clarity in them too. He sounds particularly malignant and menacing on brooding masterpiece ‘Minotaur’. Lyrically he stays close to topics like Satanism, darkness and anti-Christianity, all your standard fare for this sort of music but he delivers it with a certain raw threat that adds to the theme.

The main flaw in this album is, surprisingly, the Sepultura cover. Yes, Brazilian death metal titans playing a classic of Brazilian death metal should have been golden, but they picked the wrong song. ‘Refuse/Resist’ is a good cover, it’s well executed and there is a certain magic to it but why not something more suited to Krisiun’s sound like ‘Beneath the Remains’ or ‘Dead Embryonic Cells’? To be honest its a pretty small gripe, and when compared with the quality of the rest of the record, I mean come on, how many bad covers have you heard in your life? It’s not bad, not at all, but it could have been better. Track highlights are the face melting opener ‘Slaying Steel’, the rumbling, atmospheric ‘Massacre Under the Sun’ and the all conquering closer ‘Whore of the Unlight’, which refuses to let the album finish with anything less than full on rage.

When you get this record, and I truly suggest you do, you will hold in your hand one of the best death metal records of the past few years. Krisiun’s level of playing skill is excellent, their riffing is dense and powerful, the blast is intense and sometimes relentless and the vocal delivery as brutal as they come. ‘Southern Storm’ is probably the best description this album could ever get, buy it and submit yourself to the barrage. Essential.

Razor of Occam – Homage to Martyrs

Ξ May 14th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Album Reviews |

Razor of Occam are an Australian blackened thrash band that have recently released this, ‘Homage to Martyrs’, a potent metal beast of an album. Their name refers to Occam’s Razor, which is a scientific principle that all things equal, the most simple explanation (theory) for something is likely to be the correct one. Ironically, this is exactly how they pursue their brand of raging blackened thrash, reigning in some of the more dramatic elements of peers such as Melechesh or Absu and replacing them with full blown energy.

‘Homage to Martyrs’ was, to begin with anyway, similar in sound to Melechesh’s last album ‘Emissaries’, with less complex arrangements and Eastern flourishes, but appears to be playing to the same audience. However, they don’t let up with the visceral attack for the entire 33 minute length of the album; no instrumental passages, no acoustic interludes or intros, just full blown war on the senses. The riffs switch between grooving thrash riffs and spiralling solos, and blasting black metal riffing. Opener ‘Altar of Corruption’ is pure headbanging fodder, and seems to be the bastard child of Absu and early Kreator. Epic closer ‘Shadow of the Cross’ boasts a full 3 guitar solos while barrelling through some excellent thrash and groove riffs, while tracks like ‘Bite of Dogmata’ and ‘Heat of Battle’ show the more black metal side of the band. ‘Pattern on the Stone’ slows procedures only slightly but loses none of its presence, and the excellent soloing opening of ‘Flame Bearers’ is a guitarist’s dream.

Razor of Occam have been lucky here. Too often combining black and thrash metals can stunt both the atmosphere or speed of those genres, and can fail to meet expectations. ”Homage to Martyrs’ doesn’t do that. At no point does it feel that the menacing black metal atmosphere has faded behind grooving riffs, nor the impact of some simply excellent thrash riffing stunted by a concentration on black metal atmospherics. Razor of Occam have produced quite a potent album here, its just unfortunate that its so short. Longer tracks like ‘Shadow of the Cross’ show that the band are capable of producing longer material, hopefully they’ll lean that way for the next record, because they’ve made a good start here.