2024 Anniversary Series 064: Suffocation – Souls to Deny

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

It would seem that 2004 was a bit of a comeback year for some bands; we’ve just seen the re-emergence of Death Angel and now brutal death metal titans and kings of New York death metal Suffocation were to return after 6 years to give us ‘Souls to Deny’. They hadn’t been together since 1998’s ‘Despise the Sun’ EP, and it was another sign that perhaps 2004 was the year where extremity returned to metal after its chart flirtations. But Suffocation are a band who were genre definers, sub genre creators and all round legends of death metal, would their oldest of old school approach to brutality still feel important in 2004, or was it going to be a struggle to recover their position?

Of course it wasn’t a fucking issue. ‘Souls to Deny’ is an album that you instantly recognise as Suffocation, that tight brutality and technicality was their trademark and now was their siren song back to our world. The guitar work is an intricate and crushing as always, executed with the kind of “how are they doing that” style Suffocation have always given us. I mean seriously, how do you sound this monolithic and still impress with technical skills? There have been brutal death metal bands who have tried for decades to match that peerless Frank Mullen guttural and no one makes it sound just as good. ‘Souls to Deny’ is a frantic record, a frenzied riddle of blastbeats, stop start riffing, crushing low end brutality and razor sharp lead guitar work. ‘Surgery of Impalement’ became an instant DM classic on release, and I think one of the reasons that this record felt so right was that Suffocation hadn’t changed their sound or approach from their earliest material. They got their sound perfected on ‘Effigy of the Forgotten’, and then continued to refine it over the following records. It meant that they could pretty much just pick up where they left off in 1998 and still be as revered.

Frank Mullen may have retired by 2024, but albums like this just reassert his position as one of the kings of death metal vocals, and Suffocation have continued to rip album after album of ludicrous quality over the intervening years. Death metal was marching back to the fore in 2004, coming for those innocent little maggots who had gotten the merest sliver of it in Slipknot and thought, fuck this heavy heavy shit is for me. I was one of these kids. Well, you’ve been given a number of great records in death metal in 2004 already, and ‘Souls to Deny’ is, ahem, undeniably one of the 2000s best death metal records.

https://www.facebook.com/suffocation

2024 Anniversary Series 063: Death Angel – The Art of Dying

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

Ah, the comeback record. A real risk at times for a legendary band with a legendary discography to attempt, especially in a genre that was as ‘uncool’ as thrash was in the early 2000s. We were a few years behind the thrash revival of 05/06/07, but seeds had been planted by 2004 and Death Angel were to become a bigger part than anyone could have guessed. Reforming in 2001 as a supposed one off for the Thrash of the Titans festival fundraiser to help Chuck Billy’s cancer battle, they enjoyed themselves so much that it became permanent. The classic lineup aren’t all still there now, but this was the same one that had recorded some all time gems of thrash, except Gus Pepa. But that first album back, expectations are super high and you’re back in a style that hasn’t really been seen properly for years? All we could do was cross our fingers.

‘The Art of Dying’ was the result of this reunion, an album that is possibly more important for what it meant to the scene and the band than what the music was like. This was a real underground legend coming back to life, a band who most of us had only the chance to experience on old CDs (my ‘Act III’ one has been abused at this point), and whose early work had informed so much of thrash’s more technical side. Their youthful enthusiam and tight knit comradery (all were related by blood in their original incarnation, and then drummer Andy Galeon was only 15 when ‘The Ultra-Violence’ came out) gave their first three records a real energy, a real sense of exuberance and the quality was maddeningly good. ‘The Art of Dying’ had no chance to be as good as those, but as a thrash record in a world that NEEDED thrash records, it was really good. ‘The Art of Dying’ became a pillar, alongside ‘Tempo of the Damned’ and maybe even ‘The System Has Failed’ on which old school thrash could come back to life in the next few years. I mean, just listen to the old school gallop of opener ‘Thrown to the Wolves’, the Motörhead-esque ‘Land of Blood’ and the essence of ‘proper’ thrash comes roaring back to you. Municipal Waste. Gama Bomb. Toxic Holocaust. Evile. Bonded by Blood; they all owe Death Angel a great deal, and this record was a concept proof that thrash can be very much alive in 2004 and beyond.

I’m not holding them solely responsible, but it cannot be much of a coincidence that the thrash revival started not long after Death Angel resurfaced, especially considering how many of them were aiming to sound like prime Death Angel. ‘The Art of Dying’ may have been slightly early, but it was certainly an opening salvo to a genre reinvigoration that they would help spearhead in influence as well as actual contributions. It would take four years for the follow up, but ‘Killing Season’ gave us ‘Sonic Beatdown’ so that was worth the wait too! ‘The Art of Dying’ gave us all a reminder in 2004 that the records we all grew up on were proper thrash, and the style still fucking ruled.

https://www.facebook.com/deathangel

2024 Anniversary Series 062: Atrocity – Atlantis

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

Germany’s Atrocity are a bit of a chameleonic beast. I first discovered them thanks to a free mp3 download of ‘Gods of Nations’ on a website somewhere about twenty years ago (yes, websites used to do that and I discovered many bands through such things. Relapse was great for it and so were Century Media). I thought it was Century Media, but apparently it was Napalm Records that released this so maybe it was a magazine CD… Anyway, a free mp3 gave me my first taste of German death metal/gothic metal and it really pulled me in. Then there was ‘Cold Black Days’ and that was me gone. We’ve said it before about the AS; some records are here purely for my childhood nostalgia and this is a definite contender.

‘Reich of Phenomena’ is a really punishing start to the record, channeling the band’s death metal roots but putting a definite dose of gothic atmosphere into it. When you know that Atrocity’s lineup also doubles as the lineup for Leaves Eyes, German gothic metal stalwarts, that makes a lot of sense. There is a lot of gothic atmosphere permeating throughout ‘Atlantis’, something that we hadn’t heard in death metal since the earliest days of Paradise Lost and even some of Tiamet’s transitionary work. It is a sound that you didn’t see a huge amount of in the early 2000s, which gave them an opportunity with the likes of the goth pop metal ‘Cold Black Days’, which is just insanely catchy. Everything about ‘Atlantis’ was a draw to 18 year old me, the mixing of styles between earworm goth metal tunes and chugging brutality (‘Atlantean Empire’), the mythical themes and the grandiosity of it all. I was hooked and much, much later in life I have come to appreciate much more elements in it than I had even noticed at the beginning. The swooning orchestral moments of ‘Clash of the Titans’, the bulldozing start of ‘Apocalypse’ that reminds me of Vader, it all works to make ‘Atlantis’ an intriguingly unique proposition after all this time.

I had never experienced anything like Atrocity when I first heard this record. I was drawn in by ‘Cold Black Days’ and ‘Gods of Nations’, two songs that I would say are now further down the list of favourite tracks on this record. It is always the first bands and records that you like when discovering new genres and music as a youngling that stick with you, and while ‘Atlantis’ would probably never be counted as an all time classic, it has stuck with me for 20 years and is somehting I still listen to for that warm nostalgic feeling for my late teens. But it is also a bit of a hidden gem, lurking in the European underground from the early 00s that sounds a lot bigger than its peers. Seek it out for a treat.

https://www.facebook.com/AtrocityOfficial

2024 Anniversary Series 061: Aborted – The Necrotic Manifesto

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

Aborted have been one of those bands that everyone who likes death metal likes, but you don’t always hear their name mentioned when people go down the ‘best ever’ death metal lists. Probably unfairly, because other than perhaps their sound changing somewhat in the mid 00s, they’ve been a remarkably consistent fountain of brutality ever since their ‘Purity of Perversion’ debut. Formerly a gurgling brutal death metal band, by 2014’s ‘The Necrotic Manifesto’ they had morphed into a sleeker but no less brutal deathgrind act, and were onto album number eight of a career that seemed to be going from strength to strength.

2012’s ‘Global Flatline’ seemed to get Aborted back into gear after the critically disappointing ‘Strychnine 213’, and ‘The Necrotic Manifesto’ was a continuation of that quality. If you’ve been familiar with Aborted over the years, you’ll recognise their sound immediately; surgical and sleep but always writing with a crazed, frenzied energy. You’ve got plenty of sinister samples, and boatloads of rampaging deathgrind, but not everything here is just pain-by-numbers brutality. ‘An Enumeration of Cadavers’ has some sinister, slower sections and a killer solo, while ‘Die Verzweiflung’ also doesn’t stick to that classic Aborted playbook of full speed devastation, instead taking the slower and more Immolation seasick sway route. The band seemed much more confident in executing their ideas here, and they feel like they’ve grown to be a true successor to Carcass, even though the Drab Four had made a comeback the year before. Aborted’s sound has taken a lot from ‘Necroticism’, but with a grinding ferocity in modern times. Vocalist Sven de Caluwé, the only remaining original member in 2024, is as charismatic and versatile as ever, his growling is clearer than previous work and his switch to a snarling scream feels as effortless as ever. We even get a wee nod back to their debut with ‘Purity of Pervision’, a track that ripples with old school death metal energy.

An almost thirty year career in creating death metal albums of intense, guttural brutality has made Aborted one of the more underappreciated yet respected bands in the genre, and albums like ‘The Necrotic Manifesto’ are the answer if anyone ever asks “well, why them?” A maniacal yet streamlined brutality has been Aborted’s style for the past decade or so since this record came out, and it seems like this was where that sound came together perfectly. Sure, some of their earlier work is more famous and revered, but as much as some fans want it, we can’t just rehash ‘Goremageddon’ over and over. Also, in a world that was slowly beginning to be more dominated by American brutality, it is always good to see European death metal outside of the usual Swedish and Polish scenes killing it. A great example of how modern death metal was really shaped by bands like Aborted, Decapitated and Black Dahlia Murder.

https://www.facebook.com/Abortedofficial

2024 Anniversary Series 060: Clutch – Blast Tyrant

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

‘Blast Tyrant’ was the sixth full length record from Maryland stoner rock kings Clutch, but the first to really give the band a big push into the mainstream, with a Bam Margera produced video for ‘The Mob Goes Wild’ just at the time the Jackass crew were hitting their peak cultural zeitgeist. If you’d been following them before this, you knew that the elevation was a mere formality, as Clutch had been one of hard rock’s most consistent hidden gems since 1993, but this was really where the world got to experience the full force of Neil Fallon and co’s full on stoner boogie in prime form.

It is Fallon’s lyrical style and charismatic voice that always drew me into Clutch’s world from the very start. When you’ve got an album with lines like “Born with a moustache and a supernova, tossed off the cliffs of Dover, washed up on a faraway shore in the arms of the daughter of the buffalo” and “Don’t worry, it’s just stigmata, pass me a napkin and don’t you dare tell my mother”, you’re always going to catch an eye in a world of nu-metal’s ever more self loathing and childish bullshit. Fallon’s throaty swagger and enthralling sermons of doomy, bluesy rock have always helped Clutch be a step above the rest. It helps that his vocals come above some of rock’s most intoxicating groove-laden songs, and ‘Blast Tyrant’ has so many of them. ‘Worm Drink’, ‘Profits of Doom’ and especially ‘Promoter (of Earthbound Causes)’ are possessed of an unearthly rump shaking righteousness, and you can see where so many of the modern stoner rock scene has taken cues from Clutch. They made rock groovy and funky again, but not in a trite way. You’d have to be dead to not find yourself nodding your head and swaying to this record. It also featured the first acoustic forays of the band too, and when it was reissued in 2011 we got a good few acoustic versions of some of these tracks. If Fallon’s voice is suited for anything more than groove-laden rockers, it might be the dark country, smoky backroom bar vibes of tracks like ‘The Regulator’ or the mesmerising ‘Ghost’.

Clutch should have been too weird, too esoteric and odd for the mainstream music world to embrace them, with their throwback grooves and Fallon’s lyrical conundrums. But we’ve got to a point now where their style has been permeating into rock and stoner bands for long enough that they struck a Billboard Hard Rock number one in 2016, and have consistently charted highly ever since this record. My own history with the band started with ‘From Beale Street to Oblivion’, still my personal favourite (I got to hear ‘The Devil & Me’, sitting at the bar in the Hard Rock Cafe on Beale Street, Memphis in 2009 and it ranks high in my lifetime musical highlights) but ‘Blast Tyrant’ and ‘Pure Rock Fury’ are close behind. A singularly brilliant band who sound like no one else, and never will.

https://www.facebook.com/Clutchband

2024 Anniversary Series 055: Saxon – Crusader

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

We featured Saxon only just last year on the AS on their classic ‘Power and the Glory’ record, and they are back already on another! Well, that was Saxon for you, the band who released two records in 1980 and just couldn’t slow down apparently. A different time with a different breed of metallers. Well, ‘Crusader’ was the follow up, a record that continued to forge the Saxon legend but yet move it slightly further away from the NWOBHM movement they spearheaded in the early 80s into a more epic heavy metal sound. More commercial? It could probably be argued but then again, who didn’t at this time?

The title track is an all time heavy metal classic, sowing seeds of power metal’s birth for decades to come. If you’ve heard any striding, proud power metal or trad metal slow burner in the last 30 years, ‘Crusader’ is almost certainly an influence on it. You can see it in any number of European power metal bands particularly the likes of Hammerfall, Edguy and Grave Digger, but I’m sure there’s so many more. Could this be the beginning of historical epics creeping into metal’s lyrical themes as well? Saxon and Iron Maiden were ahead of the curve on that one too. Maiden took into a more high concept direction, whereas Saxon were still a little undecided about where to go next. Their galloping biker anthems had mellowed a little, but they’d never really taken that next step the way Maiden had into grandiose epics. You’ve still got classic street metal anthems like ‘A Little Bit of What You Fancy’ but some of the more commercially focused songs didn’t really work out as well (‘Do It All For You’ is a power ballad but not really the kind that worked). When you look at Saxon today, you see a well oiled group of heavy metal veterans who know what their wheelhouse is and have the confidence and reputation to give us great record after great record, but in the mid 80s it seemed that they were struggling to find that identity in a changing musical landscape. What they had been doing was starting to become big, but Saxon didn’t seem to know quite what to do, stick with it or commercialise their sound.

With forty years of retrospection, and the knowledge that Saxon are still here and are now respected genre legends and pioneers, with a range of influence that starts at the very grassroots of the whole metal scene, we can look back at ‘Crusader’ as a very good, if not classic record in the pantheon of heavy metal. It has plenty of classic Saxon cuts, and I have a huge soft spot for it, but it’ll probably be down the list of ‘best Saxon albums’. And that’s absolutely OK.

https://www.facebook.com/SaxonOfficial

 

2024 Anniversary Series 059: Finntroll – Nattfödd

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

As we saw previously with Enisferum’s ‘Iron’ record, 2004 was the year when Finnish folk metal took the world by storm and really reinvigorated and defined a genre that had mostly quietened off in the late 90s. Finntroll’s ‘Nattfödd’ is the next entry in that defining year, coming mere days after ‘Iron’ and now celebrating a twenty year anniversary as one of the genre’s essential puzzle pieces.

When we talk about Finntroll’s place in the evolution of folk metal, and particularly Finnish folk metal, they bring the grimness. Perhaps not in bouncing folk metal classic ‘Trollhammaren’, for which most people who know Finntroll will probably know them because of this song, but their work has always had a very blackened edge to it ever since their ‘Midnattens Widunder’ debut. While Korpiklaani are the drinking song, Ensiferum are the battle hymn, Moonsorrow are the ancient epic, Finntroll are the grim ode to the darker parts of folk. The tales of death and darkness. In fact, when you listen to much of Finntroll’s work, the folk elements are blended so seamlessly into their black metal approach at times that sometimes you don’t even see them coming; see the jaunty sections of ‘Vindfärd/Människöpesten’ in perfect synch with the growls and cold melodic guitar. The folk metal parts of their sound almost feel like a maddening frenzy, keeping up with the black metal savagery in their own traditional format. At times, unsettlingly upbeat folk melodies kitter across deep growls and icy tremolos in a dichotomy of beauty. It’s unsettlingly because it feels like you should be embracing the dark, but you can’t help but bop your head to the likes of ‘Fiskarens Fiende’ and ‘Det Iskalla Trollblod’. Insidious to the end.

Still going strong today, with a strong back catalogue of releases, Finntroll are one of folk metal’s great reliabilities. You want a great folk metal album but one that is laced with a blackened edge? this is the band for you. ‘Nattfödd’ was a release that may have given them their most famous song, but also helped to popularise and define blackened folk metal in a stronger way, and that has been greatly influential down the years. Finntroll are that campfire party band but one where everyone has eaten the wrong wild mushrooms and are now on a dark terrifying trip through the forest, cackling manically as nymphs and goblins lurk just beyond our reach, waiting for us to fall asleep. A titan of folk metal, and legends of the blackened folk metal genre, Finntroll are as important as all of their brethren. Also, ‘Trollhammaren’ is legitimately a contender for greatest folk metal song ever written; take that from someone who has seen it live in front of 12,000 people in a forest in the mountains.

https://www.facebook.com/officialfinntroll

2024 Anniversary Series 058: Triptykon – Melana Chasmata

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

This is the first album to appear in the Anniversary Series that I actually reviewed when it was new, in the infancy of the site, a decade ago. Another reason why ‘Melana Chasmata’, the second (and last to date) record from Triptykon deserves to be here! The work of Tom G. Warrior post-Celtic Frost has been superlative, casting a long and dark shadow over everything since 2010’s ‘Eparistera Daimones’ struck out with pure darkness. Every death/doom record for the past 15 years owes a huge amount to this trinity of records, from ‘Monotheist’ to ‘Melana Chasmata’, and it has been a decade since we received this final piece. Hopefully not the ‘final’ final piece though.

That guitar tones hurts, every time it comes rolling across massive doomy landscapes or churning, grinding its way through faster paced material, Tom’s guitar is singing its fateful riff hymnal. The opener ‘Tree of Suffocating Souls’ is faster than anything on Triptykon’s debut and more in your face, bringing back memories of classic Celtic Frost or maybe more specifically the opening of ‘Progeny’ from ‘Monotheist’. ‘Breathing’ has that same thrashy chug, taking you back to 1984 but with 2014’s production values. There was definitely a bigger push towards doomy darkness and gothic grandeur, however, on ‘Melana Chasmata’, with tracks like ‘Altar of Deceit’ and the gloomy gothic beauty of ‘Aurorae’ showing you that this new direction of tectonic songwriting that began on ‘Monotheist’ was the obvious direction. For the man who helped create and define extreme metal, Tom G.Warrior knows his way around a devastating riff or twelve but also the importance of innovation, of exploring the muse and listening to its direction. Those clean vocals will haunt you forever, especially on ‘Demon Pact’, a terrifying realisation of atmosphere and horror.

The second record from Triptykon doesn’t hit quite as hard as the debut, maybe because we were ready this time for what was coming. But it doesn’t stop it being a modern classic, probably the best of the two, the epitome of heaviness, one of metal’s most signature creators giving us yet more of his dark vision. Tom G. Warrior has given us much more than we deserve as fans, and the influence of his work will live on for decades. If you’ve heard anything death/doom or doom related in the last decade that has that apocalyptic tone and classic ‘URGH’ vocal, then you have albums like this to thank for it. A legacy of extreme metal pioneering has led to this, a magnum opus, and a pure expression of what metal is all about.

https://www.facebook.com/triptykonofficial

2024 Anniversary Series 057: Fear Factory – Archetype

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

I had very little context of Fear Factory when 2004’s ‘Archetype’ came out, other than watching the video for ‘Linchpin’ on Kerrang numerous times and being amazed that a band could actually sound that mechanical. So when I first saw ‘Cyberwaste’, the lead single from the band’s sixth full length (or fifth, depending on your feelings about ‘Concrete’), I was blown away. ‘Archetype’ was the band’s first record without founding guitarist Dino Cazares, and thus began a modern legacy of lineup weirdness and records that could hit or miss.

‘Archetype’ was a hit though, even with bassist Christian Wolbers stepping up the guitar role. His play style was obviously modelled on Cazares to get that Fear Factory sound down right, but his guitar work sounded warmer and richer than the mechanical, serrated chug that Dino specialised in. The result is that ‘Archetype’ is inimitably Fear Factory, and yet sounds very different to the other albums. That crisp, sleek metallic riffing has tempered in tone but not in execution. Like cold steel encased in warm flesh, tracks like ‘Drones’ and ‘Bonescraper’ possess this feeling in spades, while the melodic gallop of the title track and ‘Bite the Hand That Feeds’ are yet more reminders that Burton C Bell’s voice is one of the genre’s most potent weapons. He is on top form here, belting out guttural roars and beautiful clean vocals without effort. He’s always had an immediately recognisable tone, and it is as much of Fear Factory’s sound as Dino’s riffing. That’s why the band’s best records have featured them both, but ‘Archetype’ is a good argument for why their style and sound have always succeeded.

I love ‘Archetype’; partially because it was that first new record that came out when I’d first got into the band, partially because I think it has actually held up a lot over the past 20 years. Perhaps it is a nostalgia thing, perhaps not, but for me it stands close behind ‘Demanufacture’, ‘Obsolete’ and ‘Soul of a New Machine’ as one of the best Fear Factory records. One that suffered a more reactionary analysis in the moment, but over time has reinforced its quality.

https://www.facebook.com/fearfactory

2024 Anniversary Series 056: Dragonforce – Sonic Firestorm

Scribed by Sandre the Giant

After their debut full length came out just the year before, Dragonforce hit back immediately in 2004 to capitalise on their newfound popularity with ‘Sonic Firestorm’, their first turn in the direction of ‘extreme power metal’. This is where the speed began, the insane speed & epically catchy combination that turned Dragonforce into stars on their next album. to be fair, Guitar Hero probably helped there to, but Dragonforce were already proving before that that they were no flash in the pan novelty act.

Opener ‘My Spirit Will Go On’ is the perfect confluence point of their previous classic power metal sound, and the gradually ramping up of speed and technicality that was to come. It’s one of their all time classics, a song that got me into the band in the first place, and one to this day still grips me tightly in its ultra catchy fists. It’s what Dragonforce do better than almost anyone else, massive choruses, huge hooks and blinding speed and technicality. A genuine joy to experience, and while later on that technicality began to get a little ridiculous, on ‘Sonic Firestorm’ there is the perfect balance between crazed fretwork and anthemic metal bangers. I mean, the solos are all still utterly crazy, but when you have killer tracks like ‘Fury of the Storm’, power ballad extraordinaire ‘Dawn of a New World’ and my own favourite, ‘Soldiers of the Wasteland’, you’ll struggle to pull your fists down from the sky. You can see the influences of Stratovarius and Helloween coming through, and Dragonforce in turn would continue that tradition and influence the next generations of power metallers.

Dragonforce became a bit of a meme, a bit of a joke for a while there with the whole Guitar Hero thing and whether they have really suffered because of it, or reached a whole new level of fans is up to each person’s interpretation. For me, ‘Inhuman Rampage’ was the limit of their ‘extreme power metal’ philosophy and I had to take a little break from them. But I’ve never taken a break from ‘Sonic Firestorm’, an album for which there is no more apt title. Fiery, beautiful and unstoppably fast, this is the true prime of Dragonforce. The real pinnacle of their creativity and everything since has been trying to be as good as this, Sometimes they’ve matched it, sometimes not. But most bands would kill for one stunner in their discography like this. Most metal fans will probably try and be ‘too cool’ for Dragonforce. But no one can claim that this isn’t power metal perfection, even twenty years on.

https://www.facebook.com/dragonforce