I had never heard of this guy before, and was in for the worst when I put on this album, which is his third so far, but boy was I in for a surprise. First of all the songs themselves. They are a very heterogeneous mix of covers from a whole score of artists, ranging from Leonard Cohen over Garth Brooks, Iron Maiden, and many others.
If you know your history a bit, you might know that when Hitler came to power in Germany in the mid-thirties, he and his Nazi-party, banned a whole lot of books and art, because of their contents or looks, or because the artists were deemed as being pacifist, communist for instance. My guess is, had Hitler still lived today, he would have done the same with this album.
This band surely does not need any introduction anymore. It’s them who made the whole Black Metal scene more accessible to an ignorant audience, with both positive and negative aspects in consequence. My personal opinion – no, I won’t go deeper into this subject. Let’s say that, despite the catchiness and commercial aspects, this band created a handful of acceptable compositions in mean time, especially during the earlier years. Lots of pulp too, unfortunately, but – no, I promised myself to censure…
There are a couple of (German) bands with the moniker Todgeweiht, but this one deals with the duo from Thuringia, Grimwald and BluothArn. They started more than a decade ago, but didn’t release but two demos (one was even never officially distributed) as well as one full album. That album, called Pestilenz, was initially supposed to be part of a split with Winternight, nowadays known as Wintarnaht.
Magnum is one of those dinosaurs, a band that seems to have existed forever and ever, and keeps on releasing new albums, although some of the members are close to the normal retiring age, and some, like vocalist Bob Catley have already passed the normal retiring age.
My first acquaintance with Belarussian act Exegutor was when I heard the Dive Sessions EP, the band’s first release via Satanath Records (review updated on September 21st 2014, by the way, so check it out). Apparently they did release an album before, Cure For Dull, but I still haven’t had the opportunity to check that one out.
Jean Beauvois is probably best known for his work with Crown Of Thorns, but he also played in Voodoo X and even in the Plasmatics, a punkband that was fronted by Wendy O. Williams. Besides that he has also some solo work, as well as playing, producing and writing for and with countless other artists.
In case you want some additional information about this solo-outfit of NitroAtmosphericum’s label owner SiN, I’d like to refer to the reviews I did for Wyrm Of Melancholy and Atenvx, on November 11th 2014 and December 1st 2014 respectively.
I was sort of pissed off when I received this album. It has nothing to do with ‘not liking’ the sh*t, because I was sure I would appreciate this material. The reason for that ‘liking’ was the demonstrational recording Demo MMXI, which I did review somewhere in Spring 2014 (check the site on the March 5th 2014 update). But apparently ZOM did release some of this material too on vinyl and I was not aware of that. What a [censorship]!!! So you can imagine my frustration.
Since Xtreem Music did climb up to the ultimate top of the worldwide (Death) Metal scene since a couple of years (I can list up some hands full of fabulous albums that have been released by this Spanish label in 2013 and 2014), I am always excited when I receive or buy a new album via this label of David ‘Rotten’ Gonzalez. This time it’s Swedish combo Dråp I am referring to: not the defunct Black Metal commando, but a Grind / Crust / Hardcore four-man army from the northern city of Sundsvall.
