TOP 16 ALBUMS: The Sour 16 (July 2017)

Olde

Yes, it is that time again O ye lover of riffs, “THE SOUR 16” returns.  You know the drill by now, each month you the reader are unwittingly compiling a list of the top 16 records of the month, covering all genres of metal.  Is it not a chart, in which reviewers or contributors extol their opinion about their favourite music.  To put it simply, “THE SOUR 16” are the records that have been trending the most at THE SLUDGELORD Headquarters.

The results are compiled based on the amount of page views the reviews have received and are then calibrated into the list below.  All reviews can be viewed by clicking the artwork and we have included album streams wherever possible. (Total views since their publication are highlighted in the red)

16). Entrails - “World Inferno” (370)

I can't find any fault with this album from intense opener to epic closer of “The Blood Breed”, the band don't put a foot wrong. This is raging death metal, plain and simple

15). Viscera/// - “3: Release Yourself Through Desperate Rituals” (373)

"If one were forced to classify the band’s current sound, post-metal might be the safest category, but even that vaguely defined subgenre does not quite do the band justice, as it fails to mention the strains of psychedelia, black metal, hardcore, death metal and the band’s grind roots to are still very present in VISCERA///

14). Eternal Black - "Bleed The Days" (374)

The sheer weight of the riffs will indeed threaten to pull you under, as they deliver just the right amount of menace to go with the fuzz. There is a hefty dose of soul in the music here, along with a pervading blackness.

13). Norska - "Too Many Winters" (393)

“Too Many Winters” is a captivating collection of powerful doom steeped in Norska’s unorthodox and compelling personality.

12). Cloud Rat/Disrotted - "Split LP" (413)

This is an awe-inspiring release from two incredible bands who can seemingly do no wrong at the moment and continue to deliver an embarrassment of heavy riches in 2017.

11). Goatwhore - "Vengeful Ascension" (458)

“Forsaken” jumps out of your speakers and down your throat and suffocates and entertains the listener in the best way possible. There’s nothing quite like what this band can deliver – the riffs, vocals and drumming is first class and unique

10). God Dethroned - ‘The World Ablaze’ (466)

If you’re a longtime fan like me, this album is everything you’d want and then some. ‘The World Ablaze’ is all of the best elements of the God Dethroned’s entire discography amalgamated into a single album.

9). God Root - "Salt and Rot" (518)

God Root have managed to craft one of the most ambitious, progressive, and emotionally harrowing offerings of 2017.  The cosmic journey of “Salt and Rot” is one that will leave you shaken to your fleeting, human core.

8). Voivod - "RRRÖÖÖAAARRR", "Killing Technology", "Dimension Hatröss" (Reissues) (534)

7). Wounded Giant - "Vae Victis" (581)

there are moments of majestic riffing and an impressive amount of variation on offer

6). Owlcrusher - "Owlcrusher" (697)

With three tracks spread across 45 minutes, each song embraces sprawl and space: the reverb heavy drum tone pounds like the pulse of a leviathan.  The low end guitar tone crackles with fuzz, while the bass rumbles so menacingly that, with the right sound system, you may get your guts churning like you’ve just been forced to smoke a whole pack of unfiltered cigarettes – you’ve got the cold sweats, your insides feel poisoned, and you’re probably gonna puke, but god damn it you’re hooked

5). Destroyer of Light - "Chamber of Horrors" (719)

I will have to say that this album falls into an epic category for its great compositions, the honest heart involved in creating such a journey of ebb and flow, the range of emotion that continues what true music is about; music that continues what early St. Vitus and Trouble were doing, but DoL are creating it their own way.

4). Cirith Ungol- "King of the Dead"(Ultimate Edition) (724)

It's a very engaging listen, 33 years on and is an absolute must have for any fan of doom- or anyone looking at how the genre started to really form into something (along with the work of Vitus, Trouble et al).  An essential album and a worthy reissue. Enrich your record collection and your life by buying it!

3). Melvins - "A Walk With Love & Death"(727)

On “A Walk with Love and Death”, the Melvins do both things that their cultish fans love about them, and do them both damn well.

2). Venomous Maximus - "No Warning" (731)

In some places on the album, those qualities are phrased in the same ways that fans have come to expect, and so admirably, but in other spots on “No Warning”, Venomous Maximus explore new ways to do that which they’ve always done: create infectiously and wonderfully diabolical music.

1). Olde - "Temple" (866)

Olde’s “Temple” is doom metal done the way it should be. It is well-crafted, forward-thinking, and a contender for one of the best records of the year.

A big thank you as always to our amazing writers, your dedication knows no boundaries and for that I am truly grateful.  July 2017’s “SOUR 16” features reviews by:  Richard Maw, Daniel Jackson, Charlie Butler, Ben Fitts, Mark Ambrose, Mark Tremblay, Jay Hampshire, Jack Taylor & Eric Crowe.

TRACK PREMIERE: Demon Eye deliver a hard charger of epic proportions with "Dying For It"

DEMON EYEare back with their third offering and another dose of their own blend of Heavy Classic Rock, Proto Metal and Traditional Doom!

The new album "Prophecies and Lies" was recorded by Mike Dean of CORROSION OF CONFORMITYin the band's hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, and displays a strong musical progression with mighty riffs, haunting melodies and fist-raising anthems. DEMON EYE are bringing vintage heavy darkness for modern times and current day evils, giving their listeners dynamic songs to empower them against all adversaries.  With the release date of 11 August 2017 just over a week away, today were serving  another sonic brew from the album entitled “Dying For It”,  a hard charger with a bit of Voivod dissonance meets classic Dio. You can check it out in full below. Preorders are available here

Band info: facebook  || bandcamp

ALBUM REVIEW: Voivod - "RRRÖÖÖAAARRR", "Killing Technology", "Dimension Hatröss" (Reissues)

By: Mark Ambrose

Album Type:Full-length

Date Released:May 5, 2017

Label: Noise Records

RRRÖÖÖAAARRR – track listing

1. Korgüll the Exterminator, 2. Fuck Off and Die, 3. Slaughter in a Grave, 4. Ripping Headaches

5. Horror, 6. Thrashing Rage, 7. Helldriver, 8. Build Your Weapons, 9. To the Death!

Disc 2: Spectrum ’86 – No Speed Limits Weekend – Live in Montreal, October 1986

1. Korgüll the Exterminator, 2. Ripping Headaches, 3. Blower, 4. Fuck Off and Die

5. Tornado, 6. Iron Gang, 7. War and Pain, 8. Warriors of Ice, 9. Nuclear War

10. Overreaction, 11. Helldriver, 12. Ravenous Medicine, 13. Voivod, 14. Thrashing Rage

Killing Technology – track listing

1. Killing Technology, 2. Overreaction, 3. Tornado, 4. Too Scared to Scream, 5. Forgotten in Space

6. Ravenous Medicine, 7. Order of the Blackguards, 8. This is Not an Exercise, 9. Cockroaches

Disc 2: Spectrum ’87 – Live in Montreal, September 1987

1. Killing Technology, 2. Overreaction, 3. Ravenous Medicine, 4. Tornado

5. Korgüll the Exterminator, 6. Ripping Headaches, 7. Blower, 8. Live for Violence

9. Tribal Convictions, 10. Order of the Blackguards, 11. Cockroaches, 12. To the Death!, 13. Voivod

14. Batman

Dimension Hatröss – track listing

1. Experiment, 2. Tribal Convictions, 3. Chaosmöngers, 4. Technocratic Manipulators, 5. Macrosolutions

Megaproblems, 6. Brain Scan, 7. Psychic Vacuum, 8. Cosmic Drama, 9. Batman

Disc 2: Spectrum ’88 – A Flawless Structure – Live in Montreal, December 21^st 1988

1. Overreaction, 2. Experiment, 3. Tribal Convictions, 4. Chaosmöngers, 5. Ravenous Medicine

6. Korgüll the Exterminator, 7. Technocratic Manipulators, 8. Macrosolutions to Megaproblems,

9. War and Pain Medley, 10. Brain Scan, 11. Psychic Vacuum, 12. Order of the Blackguards

13. Holiday in Cambodia, 14. Batman

The Review

For at least a decade, since the remastered re-release of 1984’s debut album “War and Pain”, Voivod fans have clamored for the long-promised follow-up reissues/expansions of the key “Noise Records Era” triumvirate of thrash-speed-prog-punk-industrial madness from Quebec’s cornerstone quartet of metal.  This desire to “plumb the vaults”, as it were, was only exacerbated by the untimely death of guitar wizard Denis D’Amour in 2005.  D’Amour, better known as Piggy, left enough material to cut twoadditional albums: “Katorz” (2006) and “Infini” (2009).  Remarkably, the band has continued to perform and produce new albums, though not at D’Amour’s breakneck pace.  In that time, performers as disparate as Dave Grohl, Vektor, and Ryan Adams have espoused the legacy of Voivod, arguably raising the profile far beyond what D’Amour would have expected in his lifetime.

As for the records themselves, what else can be said for Voivod’s early output in 2017?  For one, this is the sound, the feel, the overall aesthetic of a band enmeshed in creative unity.  In the lengthy essays accompanying each album, D’Amour’s surviving band mates explain their remarkable commitment to collaboration: Away took a year off to hone his drumming ability before the recording of “War and Pain”, while developing the visual elements of band.  Snake, presented with Away’s artwork and Piggy’s compositions, crafted lyrics that distinguished Voivod’s unique brand of obliquely political, dystopic storytelling.  Blacky, meanwhile, worked extensively with Piggy to create complimentary riffs that, especially when reviewing the live tracks and videos, illustrate the remarkable sonic fullness of the band, despite lacking a live rhythm guitarist.  With these four elements operating at the top of their respective games, it’s still remarkable that in the span of three years, Voivodcreated a trio of albums that thrash harder than 90% of thrash acts today.

“RRRÖÖÖAAARRR”, the “pure” thrash record, is a step up from their Metal Blade debut production wise, though the band laments the subpar bass tracking, due to a last minute robbery of the recording space.  This may be a case of artistic perfectionism, as the dynamics on display are as crisp as any I’ve heard recently.  Thankfully, none of these reissues suffer from the massive compression of some others from the same era, eschewing the excessive volume tinkering and allowing the original recording to mostly stand on its own merits.  And over the course of its nine tracks, “RRRÖÖÖAAARRR”proves why it won over early skeptics – from the first minute, it just fucking rips.  Sure, Snake’s vocal attack is idiosyncratic at times, but as a veteran performance artist, he sells every verse with a punk’s intensity.  Away may still be imitating Motörhead, but the propulsive energy is undeniable.  And Piggy’s chaotic riffs on homemade guitars and effects pedals stand up to any of his contemporaries’ technical precision. 

If “RRRÖÖÖAAARRR” was the reiteration of Voivod’splace among the cutting edge of thrash, “Killing Technology” is the anarcho-punk speed metal hybrid that cemented their reputation as genre defying tech wizards.  Now a road hardened machine, the band was expanding their musical tastes, and it shows: while the metal spirit remains, there are definitely more hardcore and punk influences on display.  Piggy’s riffs are sometimes minimalist, creating tonal soundscapes before erupting into technical acrobatics.  Away continues to hammer out double-bass marathons, but also shifts on a dime throughout, verging on jazz polyrhythms in classics like “Tornado”, “Order of the Blackguards”, and the explosive title track.  Snake sounds even better, embracing production to slide into different characters.  And ok, the bass really does sound better than on “RRRÖÖÖAAARRR”.

“Dimension Hatröss” is, without a doubt, a full on prog metal masterpiece.  While the earlier albums were arguably conceptually unified, for the first time Voivodcrafted a true concept album around their band “mascot”, Korgüll, who travels through a universe created by a particle accelerator.  With their avatar charting new territories, Voivodwas spiritually freed – incorporating industrial elements, fusing thrash shredding with propulsive hardcore riffs, and all the while Snake blossomed into the singer/storyteller/actor he’d always verged on becoming in the earlier records.  Perhaps the most remarkable element of “Hatröss” is the relative economy of songwriting; each song hovers around 5 minutes, but doles out concentrated prog power that most bands can’t equal in multi-part “epics”.  Plus, they’re actually catchy!  “Chaosmongers”would feel at home in a punk compilation, albeit with the most technically skilled punkers you’d ever encountered.  Like a perfect short story collection, each track is stellar on its own, but together spells out a terrifying vision of extradimensional nightmare exploration that’s as exhilarating as you can imagine.  Plus, the Batman cover really rips.

Along with the original albums, these Noise Records deluxe 2 CD/1 DVD editions of “RRRÖÖÖAAARRR”, “Killing Technology”, and “Dimension Hatröss” include hours of supplementary tracks, video, and bonus materials.  All the live video content is, not surprisingly, very raw stuff, mostly captured on camcorder, while the live CD audio varies between competent and pretty good bootleg quality.  In all, each DVD contains at least 5 hours of video footage, culled from each album’s respective tour, plus live demos that most diehards have already traded with other Voivod completists.  Perhaps the most interesting “bonus content,” for a visual obsessive like me, are the slideshows of Langevin’s artwork, a key component to this era of the band.  It’s easy to see how the disturbing, Heavy Metal inspired pieces Langevin was producing could help Snake craft such evocative lyrics, and inspire Piggy and Blacky’s discordant, broken tech songwriting.

At the purely musical level, the bonus discs increased my admiration for Blacky’s bass-as-rhythm-guitar style, and Piggy’s ability to balance both rhythm and impeccable lead, nearly simultaneously.  As a testament of a version of Voivod that many of us have never seen, however, these archives are invaluable.  There’s undeniable exuberance and showmanship even in the dingiest punk clubs (some remarkably sparsely attended), while the increasing ferocity of the band’s following is evident from tour to tour; Voivod was infectious in a way few can comprehend, relying largely on word of mouth and a relentless pace of output and live performance.  In what can be seen now as a disastrous precursor, the band was sidelined after “Dimension Hatröss”, as D’Amour has his first terrifying encounter with cancer, from which he would eventually recover.  

They would go on to push the genre even further with the major label releases “Nothingface” and “Angel Rat”(which could use the same type of loving reissues), but still mostly headline the club and theater circuit, perhaps too abstract for the metal masses of the early 90s, but also victims of bad luck.  Blacky would leave the band and they would hopscotch among indie labels before D’Amour’s death from colon cancer at the age of 45 – which would spell certain doom for 99% of other bands.  And yet, here we are, with Voivod touring, still receiving raves for their current output, and we’ve been presented an embarrassment of riches that serve as testament to a band and a guitarist whose statures only seem to increase with each passing decade.  That is, perhaps, the most unlikely triumph of this trio of albums: exceptional dedication, artistic integrity, and solidarity are timeless.  Dimensional displacement, war, apathy, cancer – all are subsumed in the power of undeniable artistic triumph.  Voivod cannot be killed.  Now crank it up or Fuck Off and Die!

Band info: facebook

VIDEO PREMIERE: Antithetical Swiss post-metal conglomerate Palmer deliver "Divergent"

Palmer- a band persistently forging their sound towards perfection for the last 16 years. This Swiss quartet is no typical four-four time metal combo straight off the rack. Palmer’s sound oscillates somewhere between post-metal and prog-rock with spherical timbres. This band works intuitively and without restraints and their creations reflect an energy of immediate presence.

Their new album ‘Surrounding The Void’contains 9 songs that boast originality. Inspired by di­fferent niches from the world of extreme metal, prog-rock, jazz and ambient sounds, Palmer have always followed their own distinct path, continually looking towards the future and pursuing their own individual Soundscape. ‘Surrounding The Void’ reflects Palmer’stypical aspects such as tension, relief and extreme dynamics. These core aspects are immediately apparent on the new album and seem even more mature and distinct.

‘Surrounding The Void’ is due for world wide release on 24^th February 2017 through Czar of Bullets and you can check out the brilliant new video for “Divergent” below.  If you’re a fans of Gojira, Knut, Tool, Mastodon, Voivod, Isis set a soundtrack of Philip K Dick movie, then this is the band for you.  For the record, this album slays.  Be sure to buy/preorder the album here

Band info: official|| facebook

REVIEW: Watchtower - “Concepts of Math: Book One” (EP)

By Theron Moore 

Album Type: EP
Date Released: 07/10/2016
Label: Prosthetic Records

The guitars crunch, the vocals bite, and the band chemistry shines through on each song, almost as if they know what each other’s gonna do before they do it. A near perfect record, which for Watchtower, is pretty much par for the course.

“Concepts of Math: Book One” CD//DD//LP Track Listing

1). M-Theory Overture (3:38)
2). Arguments Against Design (4:12)

3). Technology Inaction (6:20)

4). The Size Of Matter (4:51)

5). Mathematica Calculis (9:54)

The Review:

A new Watchtower record?  Well, please, don’t mind if I do!  “Concepts of Math:  Book One” combines Watchtower’srecent digital only release with a brand new song – “Mathematica Calculis.” 

There’s so much hard rock / metallic precision with songs on “Concepts…”it’s almost like watching surgery from an observational booth, or, watching engineers and architects create schematics.  This is the record Dream Theater wishes it could make, because it rides that jammin’ line of just enough rock to satisfy the metal heads and just enough noodly, technicality to satiate the prog heads.  Watchtower nail geometric rock n’ roll with a calculus bullseye, right on target.  And by god they do. Every time.

My complaint:  The record is only five songs.  Yeah, I know this is a combo release but Watchtowerneeds a new full length, a proper full length.  The first song, “M Theory Overture,” is an instrumental, and although I generally don’t connect with instrumentals, this one’s laser perfect.  The second song “Arguments Against Design” bring vocals into the mix and this is where it gets interesting.  Will the vocals take away from the mechanized (in a good way) machinations of how on point the band is musically?  Answer:  No.

The vocals complement the music and give it that well deserved metal bite it screams out for.  Again, this is where Dream Theater fails and Watchtowersucceeds.  Watchtower isn’t afraid to bring the rock and find a way to properly inject just enough metal to not throw off the delicate balance of each song. And balance is crucial with prog. 

Go too much in one direction, or the other, and you risk either losing the audience or ruining the song.  Doesn’t happen here.  Watchtower gets it.  They understand the art as well as the science required to achieve this.  The guitars crunch, the vocals bite, and the band chemistry shines through on each song, almost as if they know what each other’s gonna do before they do it. A near perfect record, which for Watchtower, is pretty much par for the course.  You need to check this out…

“Concepts of Math: Book One”is available here

Band info: facebook

FFO: Voivod, Vektor, Spastic Ink, Blotted Science