Three years since Bloodlust ripped the ears off your head, the LA rap metallers led by Ice T and Ernie C are back with album number seven, and it is as ferocious as previous work. Opening with the massive riff heavy Carnivore, a metaphorical punch back against veganism, it’s immediately clear that the band remain as angry and aggressive as on earlier albums. It’s a brutal introduction and a reminder that this is a band who can mix it with the ugliest, nastiest around. Body Count maintain their rage against the police and the shoot first policy which continues to claim lives on Point The Finger, the ferocity level off the chart with the inclusion of Power Trip’s Riley Gale. Bum-Rush follows, a driving, blistering song that simply demands mosh pits with its infectious groove.
Following the cover of Reign In Blood on Bloodlust, Body Count pay homage to Lemmy with a riotously raw version of Ace Of Spades. Little needs to be said except that the band nail it. Another Level is next, another explosive track with Hatebreed’s Jamie Jasta adding his dulcet tones to possible the most measured song on the album.
Social commentary is an essential component of a Body Count release and Colors-2020 is as spiky as they come, brooding and menacing. No Remorse sees Ice -T spitting in a vitriolic verbal attack about honest speaking. “Everything I do is thought out, If I hurt you, you had it coming” possibly the lightest line. “I refuse to apologise, fuck you, I refuse to apologise” he snarls. No Remorse is ironically followed a tribute to the rapper, activist and entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle, gunned down in LA in March 2019. With sentiment that echoes the Skindred song Saying It Now; When I’m Gone urges the expression of love to come now and not after death and features a fabulous performance from Amy Lee whose soaring vocals add a completely different dimension to the track. This blistering album concludes with the savage thrasher The Hate Is Real, a fiery beast which rails against the continued racism that plagues the USA. Once again, the snarling animal that is Body Count have produced the goods. 8/10
My Dying Bride: The Ghost Of Orion (Nuclear Blast) [Paul Hutchings]
“We’ve had everything thrown at us, but we’ve managed to come out the other side smelling like roses. It proves that the challenges, for which there are many, of being in a band can be overcome. We overcame everything!” The words of Aaron Stainthorpe, vocalist with My Dying Bride, the doom-metal legends as their follow up to 2015’s Feel The Misery is here at last. This is an album that few felt would ever emerge as the band rightly put family first and lost members on the eve of recording. To the delight of all who worship this unique British band, they regrouped, recruited ex-Paradise Lost drummer Jeff Singer and live guitarist Neil Blanchett. The result is stunning. The Ghost Of Orion, written solely by guitarist Andrew Craighan, continues the deep, dark and melancholic style of the band’s previous releases.
Within seconds of opening track Your Broken Shore, with its desolate haunting feel the gloom descends, although there is a joy in simply hearing the band in full stride. Shaun McGowan’s violin, a staple of the band’s sound resonates throughout the album, adding to the crushing atmosphere. There is however, a new, potentially more open sound to My Dying Bride, accessible to those who may have avoided the band on previous occasions. To Outlive The Gods for example, limits the death growls and expands some of the previously hidden melody. Tired Of Tears captures the feelings of the past few years and The Solace (featuring Lindy-Fay Hella of Wardruna) is captivating.
Stainthorpe’s death growls explode with savagery on The Long Black Land, the central pillar of the release and at over ten minutes in length, one of the many highlights on an album that will be vying for the top ten in December. Having overcome substantial challenges, My Dying Bride are back, and The Ghost Of Orion is a fantastic addition to a catalogue that stretches back nearly three decades. Listen, absorb and welcome the melancholy. 9/10
I love a bit of Power Metal, me. I remember seeing a documentary where a proponent of the genre indicated that the best of its type was to be found playing somewhere in a big field in the middle of Europe, with 20,000 drunk people singing along to a chorus that they had only just heard for the first time a second ago (and not in their native language). Victor Smolski’s current project (and this is full album outing number 4), doesn’t quite fit fully into that pool, but that’s OK, because personally I prefer it when the genre is more technically proficient and varied, as well as having nice harmonies to sing along to. This album doesn’t disappoint technically, verging almost on the symphonic just without so much emphasis on the keyboards (they are there but intermittently).
There’s a solid rhythm pounding away there front and centre, overlaid with Smolski’s highly competent guitar work, and some nice dual vocal work from Jeannette Marchewka and Patrick Sühl. The convention in metal of twin vocalists is usually for either a mix of clean and dirty voices, or for the Avantasia approach of voices as characters singing dialogue, but Almanac just simply have two clean voices working together, and very well. Trackwise the album takes a few songs to get into its stride, and for me doesn’t really kick in until Soiled Existence, which ironically is one of the ones where the keyboard voices are there to create the more symphonic epic feel. Everything steps up a notch on this track – vocally the performances are stronger, and a third more dirty voice joins the mix, with a much catchier riffage, spot on solo and complex backbeat going on there. To be fair if every track had been like this, this would have been a straight ten points from me – and yes, this one is definitely the one for winning the crowd over in said field.
It doesn’t let up with Bought And Sold, which is another technically complex piece – mixing the pounding rhythms of the verse, to the more straight ahead singalong verses, bridged with some lovely guitar and vocal licks, and the lengthier Satisfied carries on in the same vein, and is clearly destined to be the epic part of any live show, and is as technically varied and proficient as anything on a Symphony X album. Where it loses points for me are the linking spoken word pieces at a couple of points mid album, which frankly just sound corny in this day and age, although I can see them working much better in a live context. Can’t Hold Me Back is more full on metal than symphonic, and helps vary the pace, which carries through to the nod-along album closer Like A Machine, which showcases just quite how good a guitar player Smolski is (both electric and Spanish) and overall illustrating a band with a lot of technical skill and enough variety to keep the listener interested. 9/10
Peter And The Test Tube Babies: Fuctifano (Arising Empire) [Simon Black]
OK, the title and cover alone deserves an 8/10 (although anyone outside of the UK probably won’t get the joke), but then these guys are no strangers to sardonic titleation (sic.) over the last four decades. This probably stems from the irony of having a Punk Pathetique band hailing from the posh East Sussex coast, but hey it works, illustrating perfectly why the USA completely missed the point of the British punk movement. After a gentle intro to lull you into a false sense of security with Liver’s Lament, this little gem bursts straight into your face with the topical Facebook Loser, which spends no time tearing a new arsehole into anyone who falls into that category with the full on punk treatment.
As you would expect from an old school punk band, this is an album full of short, sharp and witty little ditties strong on humour and eminently bop-able to, with an average run time of 2 ½ minutes per song. Notable highlights include the no doubt apt Cydrated, Ain’t Missing Her Yet, which is like the illegitimate love child of Chas And Dave and a punk ballad and single Queen of Fucking Everything. Then you get the payoff from that little intro, with a reprise, and some lyrics and a final laugh to see you out. As an album it’s rough and ready as you would expect, but then punk bands always sound a hell of a lot better live, but with the album you at least get the chance to hear the humour in the lyrics. Worth taking for a spin? Yes indeed. 8/10
As you would expect from an old school punk band, this is an album full of short, sharp and witty little ditties strong on humour and eminently bop-able to, with an average run time of 2 ½ minutes per song. Notable highlights include the no doubt apt Cydrated, Ain’t Missing Her Yet, which is like the illegitimate love child of Chas And Dave and a punk ballad and single Queen of Fucking Everything. Then you get the payoff from that little intro, with a reprise, and some lyrics and a final laugh to see you out. As an album it’s rough and ready as you would expect, but then punk bands always sound a hell of a lot better live, but with the album you at least get the chance to hear the humour in the lyrics. Worth taking for a spin? Yes indeed. 8/10
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