Album Review: HELLWITCH

Annihilational Intercention

Reviewed By: Jim Harrison

Score: 9.5

Floridian thrash pioneers Hellwitch will release their new album Annihilational Intercention June 30, 2023 (physical release) on Listenable Records. They started back in 1984 hailing from Gainesville, Florida and have pushed the boundaries of blackened thrash metal to the extreme. Founding vocalist/guitarist and frontman Pat Ranieri leads the charge with a voice full of character that gives Hellwitch their distinctive sound. Coupled with guitarist J.P Brown and drummer Brian Wilson whose talents really showcase how musically talented this band is plus the album artwork is awesome.

I have to start off with the last track on this album as I have a cool connection to it from my early youth. ‘Torture Chamber’, from Transgressive Sentience demo in 1986 ended up on a thrash compilation called Thrash Metal Attack in 1987. I had a friend who used to vacation every summer for a couple of weeks in Florida who brought this back and I copied it. This was our favourite track on this compilation and it reminded us of early Metallica, every time I hear this song it brings me back to my high school days. This album breaks an early thrash metal sound, bringing it forward and making it totally relevant.

The album starts with a killer track ‘Solipsistic Immortality’ that could easily fit on any Slayer album. This is a heavy track that starts the album off with a bang! ‘Delegated Disruption’ begins with a fantastic drum beat then the guitars rip in, Pats vocals are awesome producing a classic thrash sound. Track three ‘Megalopalypytic Confine’ sounds like we were heading into a Deep Purple beat then it changes direction, fast and furious.

Next is a short instrumental when we slide into the track ‘Hellwitch’, my favourite track on the album. This is thrash, old school thrash. Whoever said metal is dead in 2023 needs to listen to this song it gives me goosebumps, it’s that good. ‘Epochal Cessation’ follows another classic thrash recipe leading into what I thought was a slower track ‘Anthorpophagie’, the longest song on the album. When this song hits the two minute mark it takes off. This is more of a blackened thrash song that sounds like it has a bit of an Overkill influence adding their own stamp on it. The next song ‘At Rest’, continues the assault. I would love to see this track live. The energy from this track would fill a venue with absolute mayhem. There will be a cover of Sweet Home Alabama on the vinyl version release only, that I can’t wait to hear.

The cover art is fantastic and was created by Khaos Dictator Design and captures the essence of this album.

What I love about Hellwitch is the honesty of their craft and they stay true to their roots. For any metal fans looking for a killer album that takes no prisoners check this out. I highly recommend this album.

ALBUM REVIEW: NIGHT LEGION

Fight or Fall

Review Score: 8.5

Reviewed by: Billy Klare

Night Legion are back with their Sophomore release titled “Fight or Fall” due out June 30, 2023 on Massacre Records. The Night Legion website describes their sound as “Razor sharp power metal to make your ears bleed – In the best possible way”. Pretty accurate but I also hear plenty of traditional heavy metal components as well. There are two new band members since the first album back in 2017 with the incredibly capable Louie Gorgievski on vocals and Col Higginson on guitar. The album contains 9 tracks clocking in just under forty minutes in length.

New vocalist Louie shines throughout the entire album with a beautiful soaring melodic voice in the style of a Bruce Dickinson, Tim Owens or even Michael Kiske at times, but still fully retains his own originality (he notes Bruce Dickinson as his favorite singer / primary influence). It appears he’s only done guest album contributions or singing on other artist solo albums but he definitely deserves to fully front a band in my opinion. His melodic and powerful vocals are a perfect match for Night Legion and their underlying song writing approach.

Guitarists Stu Marshall and Col Higginson are successful delivering plenty of hook laden riffs that form the base of each song but the solo work especially stands out. The solos are often very emotive with plenty of feeling vs. just playing super fast like the standard power metal formula (but don’t get me wrong, Stu can absolutely shred!). Glenn Williams bass is well positioned in the mix, he contributes a number of interesting bass lines that come to the forefront of many tracks. Clay T provides the thundering drumming driving the overall pace of each track. Unlike many power metal bands, Night Legion doesn’t rely keyboards.

The songwriting is very memorable with plenty of melodic anthem driven choruses that will surely have you singing along & raising your fists in the air. The songs successfully slow down at the right moment with dramatic interludes that make the faster components far more impactful. Many of the tracks border on traditional heavy metal and power metal to my ears with a few surprises along the way. The only minor critique I would note is the overall construction of the combined songs is not overly original or ground breaking but Night Legion are very effective operating in their lane.

The album is bookended by the two longest songs both exceeding the five minute mark. The opening track is the epic “The Hounds of Baskerville’ that takes the listener on a multi-paced journey led by a super addictive chorus, powerful vocals and shredding guitar work (also the common thread applying to most of the album tracks). Songs like “Babylon Burns”, “Soaring into the Black”, “Harvest of Sin” and the title track “Fight or Fall” show the entire band firing on all cylinders in full galloping power metal mode – I love these tracks! Next is “At World’s End” with one of the most addictive chorus melodies I’ve heard in a while, talk about an ear worm you won’t soon forget. The closing song “The Hand of Death” was a pleasant surprise with the guys slowing things down showing more of a gritty / heavy side almost bordering on Doom Metal at times.

Forget all the fancy sub-genre descriptions applying to heavy metal, “Fight or Fall” is simply heavy metal done right. The album is enjoyable on first listen and gets better with additional plays as the musical hooks sink in. All traditional metal and power metal fans should dig this new material. Check out the two singles already available for “The Hounds of Baskerville” & “Soaring into Black”, both are representative of what to expect on the full album. Production is clean and top notch further adding to the overall quality of this release. Highly recommended, I plan to get a copy for my personal collection.

Track Listing

The Hounds of Baskerville
Babylon Burns
Soaring into the Black
Fight or Fall
At World’s End
Beyond the Crimson Dawn
Harvest of Sin
The Enemy
The Hand of Death

Line-Up

Louie Gorgievski – Vocals
Stu Marshall – Lead Guitar
Col Higginson – Guitar
Glenn Williams – Bass Guitar
Clay T – Drums

THIS IS ARMAGEDDON! The Mighty IMMORTAL Delivers Their First One-Man Band Album, With The Slightly Frosty War Against All!

Review By: Jason Deaville

Rating: 7.0

Well, this is a tough one, my fellow Nordic black metal connoisseurs. Yeah, the above-pictured album cover from the legendary Immortal (their tenth album) sports all the requisite ice-covered mountain-y kitsch one can easily find adorning most black metal albums of this ilk, with none of the elements feeling particularly out of place. Unfortunately, the one thing that truly does feel out of place is that logo. Let me explain.

The last album, 2018’s Northern Chaos Gods, was an exceptional entry into post-Abbath era Immortal. With the crab-walking one’s departure, it was now up to Demonaz (Harald Nævdal) to ensure the legacy lived on. To his credit, he took every nuance and convention from the previous nine albums and continued in the classic Immortal idiom rather than redefine what had long been defined. This feat can’t be understated, as Demonaz – who already had defined himself outside of Immortal with his self-titled solo project from several years ago – could have taken this thing in any direction he so wished. The slate was clean with Abbath out of the picture. He chose to remain trve and the fans rejoiced!

It’s been five years since Northern Chaos Gods, and my how times have changed. In that time, we’ve seen the exit of long-time Immortal drummer, Horgh. This now leaves Demonaz as the sole member of the now one-man band, apart from session work by Ice Dale (Enslaved, Demonaz, Malignant Eternal) on bass and Kevin Kvåle (Gaahls Wyrd) on drums. Of note, Ice Dale also provided session work for Demonaz’s solo album, March Of The North.

Judging by the title track, War Against All starts off promising enough. The song unleashes a torrent of frigid Immortal blastbeats, encasing everything within earshot in ice. Demonaz‘s vocals exude an intensity that was never quite found on previous Immortal albums. His pitch is actually quite diverse, ranging from a sharp screech to some epic lower register howls that takes the song into some very cool realms. The song doesn’t let up from start to finish and sets what I was hoping would be a precedent for the rest of the album.

The second track, ‘Thunders Of Darkness’ starts in much the same way as the first, but quickly takes a turn into familiar territory, more specifically territories charted in Demonaz’s solo project, which is rife with Bathory influence. This influence seems to have carried over to many of the songs found on War Against All. In fact, heading into the third song, ‘War God’, one can absolutely hear the Quorothon influence at its most pronounced, with its main riff a plodding, mid-paced banger that could have easily lived on Blood, Fire, Death era Bathory. This is also equally true for the fifth track of the album, ‘No Sun’.

If the Bathory influence weren’t enough – and still on the topic of the song ‘No Sun’- we are also treated to sneak peeks of another legendary black metal band. Mayhem. This one was a surprise to me. Now, I can’t be absolutely certain, but I believe this is the first time I have heard anything remotely Mayhem-like on an Immortal album. The homage is as clear as day once the dissonant riffing kicks in about midway through the song. This approach can also be heard on the album’s finest moment, fittingly titled ‘Immortal’. This is the one moment of the album where things sound decidedly askew, recalling some of the crazy, off-kilter riffage of Inquisition. Very cool indeed.

While we are on the topic of no sun, did anyone else notice, and I hate to call it this, laziness, of some of the song titles? We have back-to-back tracks with essentially the same theme: ‘No Sun’ and ‘Return To Cold’. We get it, Demonaz, you love a nice cup of hot chocolate and fluffy pajamas on a cold winter’s night. How black metal of you.

Now, none of the above is meant to sound scathing or detract anyone from listening to War Against All. It is a good album in its own right, it’s just not the album I expected to hear from a band well into the third decade of their career. War Against All, in my honest opinion, would have made a great follow-up to Demonaz‘s 2011 solo album, which we are all still waiting for.

Album Review: BLACK SABBATH

Live Evil (40th Anniversary Super Deluxe)

Review by: Jim Harrison

Rating: 10

Live Evil (40th Anniversary Super Deluxe) was released on June 2 by Rhino Warner Records as a 4-CD/4-LP box set with two versions of the acclaimed live album. The remastered version by Andy Pearce and a remix version by Wyn Davis. The set also includes a sixty page book with awesome photos, artwork and liner notes, a tour replica poster and a 1982 Mob Rules tour replica concert book.

This album was originally released in January of 1983 and was Black Sabbath’s first official live album recorded April 23-24, May12-13 in Seattle, Dallas and San Antonio during the Mob Rules tour. This album quickly gained momentum hitting both the UK Top 30 and the US Top 40 becoming one of the best live metal albums. As a young metal fan in the early 1980’s this was one of the first albums that I became familiar with not only Black Sabbath but Ronnie James Dio as well. The mix of both Ozzy and Dio eras of the track selection is awesome. Dio brings his own vocal magic to the whole album and Iommi, Butler and Appice showcase just how strong this band’s talent became by then.

The album starts with the intro E5150 and then rips right into Neon Knights. The classics N.I.B, Black Sabbath and War Pigs shine with Dio giving them a rebirth with his own vocal dynamics showing that he was up to the task of not wanting replicate but to put his own mark in these. Tracks, Children Of the Sea and Mob Rules mix in perfectly becoming classics in their own right cementing the fact that Dio was the perfect voice live for Sabbath in this new era. My two favourite tracks on this album are Heaven and Hell and The Sign Of the Southern Cross. Both tracks are two of my favourite Sabbath songs of all time. Appice’s drums that start Heaven and Hell just pound into Iommi’s guitar riff mixed with Butlers booming bass, and Dio’s crowd banter is legendary, I still remember the first time I heard this live. I wish this album was actually longer.

The remastered version sounds great and the remix version using the original analog tapes is fantastic bringing back the original magic with an updated sound. It’s not about improving this but making the experience that much better and they do a great job presenting that. Whenever there is a remix or rerelease of a monumental album like this my usual thoughts are what did they change? Did they give the album enough proper attention to attribute to keeping it true to the original? This was accomplished and with the added detail of the great packaging, including the book, poster and program adds to how special this is. This will be a hit with collectors and Sabbath enthusiasts as well as younger fans really showing off how awesome this live album is. This is a 10/10 experience and I highly recommend it.

Geezer Butler: Bass Guitar
Ronnie James Dio: Vocals
Tommy Iommi: Lead Guitar
Vinny Appice: Drums

INGESTED, DEVOURMENT, VOMIT FORTH, ORGANECTOMY, MENDACITY

June 2nd, 2023

Toronto, ON @ The Velvet Underground

Photos By: Kim Baarda

Words By: Jason Deaville

MENDACITY

Innisfil, Ontario brutal death metallers, Mendacity, started this warm, rainy Toronto night off with a set of solidly played, technically proficient slam. Crushing through songs from their previous two EPs (2013’s Immolation and 2019’s Coercion) the three-piece definitely got the early-arrivers pumped for what was to come of the night.

ORGANECTOMY

Christchurch New Zealand’s Organectomy should have been higher on this billing. They truly gave the most entertaining and energetic performance of the evening. Frontman Alex Paul was a monster, spitting unholy, crushing bars left, right, and center. Their set consisted mostly of tracks from 2022’s Nail Below Nail, a fantastic album that melds slamming brutal death metal with more traditional, old-school death metal. If you have a chance to catch these guys, do not miss out.

VOMIT FORTH

Up next was Connecticut extremists Vomit Forth, who gave perhaps the most traditional death metal-sounding performance of the night. Yes, this four-piece can crush craniums with pitriffs straight out of the book of slam, but there was a definite nod to early 90s death metal. Their set was a nice collection of songs from last year’s Seething Malevolence album, as well as tracks dating back to their post-pandemic EPs.

DEVOURMENT

Brutal death metal doesn’t get more extreme or perverse than Dallas, Texas legends Devourment. These guys basically wrote the rule book way back in the late 90s, and look where we are now. Slam would not be what it is today if not for the pioneering efforts of these hard-working, forward-thinking fellas. Tonight, Toronto was in for something special.

The first and most obvious observation was the absence of vocalist Ruben Rosas. In his place was Abominable Putridity frontman, Angel Ocha. I don’t think anyone in the crowd minded this change, as Ocha is a guttural monster, and definitely did the night’s collection of Devourment tracks justice.

A stunningly brutal set that left the sold-out house salivating for more.

INGESTED

Brutal deathcore merchants Ingested stormed the stage like the crazed English lunatics they are, and they didn’t let up until the very last note was played. There was hardly time to breathe as the guys breezed through tracks from their most recent album, 2022’s Ashes Lie Still.

Vocalist Sean Hynes has certainly perfected the charismatic frontman role, posturing and posing and brutalizing for the line of cameras all pointed in his direction.

At this point, Ingested could tour with anyone and still fit the bill. I would love to see them get on something a bit out of their comfort zone to showcase their brand of extremity to fans of metal who might not have ever listened to brutal slamming death metal. They could definitely be the gateway band for many.