A release co-masterminded by two independent labels – Russia’s Symbol of Domination and Costa Rica’s Cavan (the latter still very much in its fledgling stages) – ‘Bringers of Delusion’ brings together tracks from two Central American underground metal bands. Both from Costa Rica, Assailant and Ubiquitous Realities appear at different ends of the heavy spectrum, thus making this disc very much an experience of two halves.
Tag Archives: metal
SAXON – Wacken Festival, Germany 4/8/2016
Saxon are no strangers to the Wacken Open Air Festival. The metal titans have played Germany’s biggest metal festival several times – now into double figures – and have been an almost permanent fixture since 2001.
2016 saw the band returning yet again, this time in support of their twenty first studio album ‘Battering Ram’, released in October 2015.
IRON MAIDEN – No Prayer For The Dying
As the 1990s dawned and Iron Maiden entered their second decade as recording artists, their eighth studio album presented the band’s first real misfire. Sure, 1981’s ‘Killers’ may have used of a lot of leftover material but it had a lot of heart, but ‘No Prayer For The Dying’ (released in October 1990) is the first Maiden release that could be considered bad. Maybe that’s harsh. To put it another way: it is one of those albums which sounds solid enough at first, but dig a little deeper and repeated listens show it to be generally unremarkable. And obviously, compared to Maiden’s previous heights – following a decade where the band could barely put a foot wrong – that’s not so good. Since its predecessor ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’ offered especially memorable material in ‘Infinite Dreams’, ‘Can I Play With Madness’ and ‘The Evil That Men Do’, it didn’t seem like too much of a leap of faith to expect ‘No Prayer…’ to deliver a similar standard of goods, but most of the album sounds genuinely flat by comparison with any of its forebears.
ASCENT – Don’t Stop When You Walk Through The Hell
Female fronted death metal bands are an interesting phenomenon. For years, the extreme metal subgenre was pretty much exclusively a male domain, but after Angela Gossow joined Arch Enemy and gained worldwide renown for growls that could match the very best, it appeared to shift the tide, with many other bands set to follow suit. From Landmine Marathon featuring the amazing Grace Perry, to Sweden’s 6th Awakening, through Poland’s Enter Chaos and beyond, the rising profile of women within death metal became worldwide and, obviously, is something to be applauded. On their 2016 long player ‘Don’t Stop When You Walk Through The Hell’, Russian death practitioners Ascent prove more than capable of going toe-to-toe with some of the genre’s finest.
THE EYES OF DESOLATION – Awake In Dead EP
Taking elements of gothic metal, a touch of doom and a pinch of black metal on their 2016 release ‘Awake In Dead’ Costa Rica’s Eyes of Desolation whip up a dark storm that’s powerful and unsettling, yet more accessible than many metal bands veering on the extreme side. Between them, not only can they play very well, but also understand that a strong melody – even one that’s oppressively dark – can go a very long way with regard to not only enticing people to listen, but also keeping their attention and inviting those all-important repeat listens. In terms of dark, gothic metal sounds, this EP has all you’d hope for…and more.