Darkane – Demonic Art
Nuclear Blast Records

(4/5)

What do you get when you take a little bit of Black metal, a pinch of Extreme metal, and a healthy portion of Thrash metal and mash it all up into one album? You get Demonic Art by Darkane! This being my first experience with Darkane, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect the first time I put this album in, but I was certainly blown away by what came blaring through my speakers. This album is so intense and extreme, I can’t believe it can be contained within it’s case! I believe this is a particularly intense album because of the way Peter Wildoer (drums/lyrics) put in personal conflicts into the lyrics and every member of Darkane was pushing the limits while firing on all cylinders. With all of the incredible musicianship and lyrics put together with the powerful vocals of Jens Broman, there is no way that Darkane can be ignored any longer by anyone in the far stretches of the Metal world. This being the band’s fifth studio album, they have a solid arsenal of music to back them up, but I believe Demonic Art is the album that will solidify Darkane as an unstoppable force. To prove this, I suggest listening to the tracks “Absolution” (Track 4), “Demonic Art” (Track 3/Title track), and “Sole Survivor” (Track 8). This is only a quarter of the album, but it shows just how powerful this band truly is. Overall, this album is a great album and is one I suggest for your Metal arsenal. With it’s mix of Metal styles, it is sure to be a strong ally to battle against any and all false Metal out there!

Enslaved – Vertebrae
Nuclear Blast Records

(3.5/5)

Norway’s own Extreme metal band Enslaved is still alive and kickin’ in 2008 and they have released another album! The new album is entitled Vertebrae and it definitely proves why this 17 year old band is still around. Although Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson have both grown up quite a bit since they formed Enslaved back in 1991, they are still hangin’ in there and are still making Metal the Norwegian way. Even though I’m not a huge Extreme metal fan and this is the first Enslaved album I’ve heard, I definitely have to say I like it. The biggest downfall for me is the growled vocals, but apparently someone likes them since the band is still around, so I can’t argue too much with the results. I don’t really hate the growling here, they’re just not my favorite growled vocals. Getting past that, I do really like the clean sung vocals and the music quality is definitely worth listening to, so the pros outweigh the cons here. When looking into the technical aspects of the album, it’s hard to really pinpoint any tracks that stand out over the others, but the lyrical quality is certainly worth mentioning. Some of the lyrics obviously have deeper meanings while some are “surface level” lyrics that have a bit of a fantasy style to them. The combination of lyric styles is really interesting and adds that much more to the overall quality of the album. All in all, I would recommend this album to any Metal fans out there looking for more good music coming from Norway in the Extreme metal genre.

Pycroptic – (Ob)Servant
Nuclear Blast Records

(4/5)

With their extreme mix of Death metal, Extreme metal, and Black metal, Tasmanian Technical Death metal band Psycroptic has released one of the elite Metal records of 2008 entitled Ob(Servant). This album has an incredible overall sound that presents utter brutality mixed with groove and pure intensity. Before listening to this album, I had never heard the term Technical Death metal used, but it certainly has its advantages to anyone who likes the Metal styles listed above. One thing I love is the insane speed of the double bass by Dave Haley throughout the album. I though I had heard fast double bass with Black metal bands like Dimmu Borgir, but I believe that Dave Haley has truly raised the bar for double bass speed in my book. Another great aspect of this band/album is Jason Peppiatt’s vocals. He mixes things up a lot by switching between growls, screams, and yells. Overall, I can say he got a great sound for the album. As far as everyone else goes, Joe Haley really holds up his end even though he is the only guitarist as Cameron Grant successfully fills in the rest of the sound. As an overall unit, this bands sound is extremely tight on this album. As an overall album, I was a bit sketchy with the sound at first, but after giving it a good listen, I can hardly stop listening to it! I really have no favorite tracks, but I do like the ones like “Initiate” (Track 9), “A Calculated Effort” (Track 2), and “Removing the Common Bond” (Track 5) that each measure 6:00 or longer. “Initiate” is the longest at 8:01 and it seems to go through the most musical “movements”. All in all, I suggest Ob(Servant) to fans of Extreme metal and Death metal as well as anyone looking for great brutality in a Metal album!