Amon Amarth: The Pursuit Of Vikings: 25 Years In The Eye Of The Storm (Metal Blade Records) [Paul H]
Few bands cross the divide between death metal and the mainstream like Sweden’s Amon Amarth. Formed in 1992, the band have faithfully followed the Swedish melodic death metal sound, combining artillery shelling drumming, savage riffs and bludgeoning bass with melody and hooks that appeal to thousands of metalheads across the globe. The band has moved from clubs to festival headliners and put in enormous amounts of hard work, blood, sweat and tears to get to the top of their own mountain. In 2017 the band headlined the Summer Breeze Festival in Germany and this live album accompanies their DVD which charts the band’s history and development. It’s a similar set to that which saw the band destroy the Friday night at Bloodstock 2017, crammed full of the classic Amon Amarth tracks that we all know and love.
When listening to this a couple of things are clear. 1) Amon Amarth are a bloody good live band, their hard and fast riffs driving each track forward 2) They have a formula which works and they rarely stray from it 3) they have some magnificent songs – Cry Of The Blackbird, Death In Fire; Runes To My Memory and Twilight Of The Thunder God never get boring and 4) Johan Hegg has made his growling roar go far further than it should have. They may be a little cheesy for the elitists, with their epic songs probably a little too sweet to stomach, but I’ll stand by the fact that I’ve never left an Amon Amarth gig with anything other than a smile on my face. This album captures the band at their best, full of confidence and battering all who dare to stand in their path. If you can listen to Destroyer of the Universe and tell me that this isn’t utterly fantastic, then you are an absolute arse. This is magnificent stuff from a band who every metalhead should respect. 8/10
Pale Divine: Pale Divine (Shadow Kingdom Records) [Paul H]
Pale Divine are a trio from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania who play some fantastic doom filled metal on the inevitable subjects of death, religion and misery. This is their fifth album, having hit their debut way back in 2001. Full of crashing, mountainous Sabbath style riffs with typical harrowing vocals that we’ve come to expect for this genre. The eight-minute slab So Low, a menacing beast of a track, is so broad that you’d be forgiven for thinking the band is at the very least a four piece. Ron McGinnis produces massive bass lines that tremble the earth, Greg Diener’s echoing vocals chill the marrow, whilst his fuzzy distorted guitar reverberates around the room; the track accelerates as it reaches its climax and whilst the Sabbath/Sleep/Trouble influences are evident, there is enough here to avoid it being a mere copy. In fact, the whole album is just huge; the retro sound works superbly with evil riffs on tracks such as Curse The Shadows with its Children Of The Grave breakdown, opener Spinning Wheel which has Iommi written all over it or the closing Ship Of Fools. This is one hell of an album that is most definitely worthy of a listen. 8/10
A Pale Horse Named Death: When The World Becomes Undone (Long Branch Records - 2019) [Paul S]
A Pale Horse Named Death are a 5 piece from New York City, this is their third album coming 5 years after Lay My Soul To Rest. There is an elephant in the room with this album, which we might as well deal with straight away; Type O Negative. A Pale Horse Named Death have two former members of Type O Negative in their lineup in Sal Abruscato and John Kelly. So, do they sound like Type O Negative? Of course they do, but as they were in Type O, I’d feel a little disingenuous criticising them for that. The overall sound on this album is about 70% T.O.N. and the rest is early nineties grunge, particularly in the vocals as Sal Abruscato doesn’t try to do a Pete Steele impersonation.
So, slightly grungy gothic metal. The similarity to Type O Negative is in some places quite blatant. On at least 2 songs I have been able to compare to particular songs. Love The One You Hate is so similar to Christian Woman, at one point I started singing along with the wrong lyrics! Dreams Of The End is very similar to Type O Negatives cover of Summer Breeze. The Type O Negative feel goes right through the album, but it is more of a feel rather than anything specific (except on the 2 songs I’ve mentioned). Vultures has a very dark and heavy feel to it, taking the sound closer to doom than gothic metal, which gives the band a bit more of their own identity. Another track that gives the band a little more originality is the track Splinters, where the verse section has very sparse clean guitars, which combined with the way the vocals are handled give the track an individual feel. The vocals have that grungy feel that reminds me of Alice In Chains.
Another place this grungy feel comes in is on the track Lay With The Wicked. This is a great track that has some very interesting things going on with the vocals, it also has a great chorus and a pacing that feels relaxed, and calm. As an old Type O Negative fan, I’ve really enjoyed this album. I genuinely don’t think this is any sort of cash in, as this is half of Type O (who were a real band, not just Pete Steele with some session musicians) you have to expect some similarities. I’d recommend this to anyone who was a fan of Type O, but also to anyone who was a big fan of early nineties rock and metal. This is a very solid album, definitely worth a listen. 7/10
Beth Blade & The Beautiful Disasters: Show Me Your Teeth (Self Released - 2019) [Matt]
So the second album from Cardiff based Beth Blade & The Beautiful Disasters sees them exploring more of the Halestorm sound that they brought on the debut album, however here they have also dipped their toes into other rock n roll styles all wrapped in the slickness learned touring with names like Black Star Riders, Tyketto, Y&T and Kiss (as part of the Kiss Kruise). Led by the gritty, melodic vocals and punchy riffs of the eponymous Beth, tracks like Give It All You Got come directly from the Paul Stanley sing-along songbook with it's poppy chorus and big solo section.
Elsewhere the title track has the Halestorm guts, On And On has that BSR/Lizzy dual harmony groove, yes there's a ballad called Crazy but mostly there's plenty of hard rocking that builds on the foundation of their debut, with glam stomp of 1974 and the hard bitten Jack And Coke being two of the best picks. Everything has been honed by the almost relentless touring schedule and it's led to the improved their writing for this record, it's not a more mature (proper hard rock isn't) but the songs are a little more arena baiting, build to be played in front of thousands not hundreds. 7/10
A Pale Horse Named Death: When The World Becomes Undone (Long Branch Records - 2019) [Paul S]
A Pale Horse Named Death are a 5 piece from New York City, this is their third album coming 5 years after Lay My Soul To Rest. There is an elephant in the room with this album, which we might as well deal with straight away; Type O Negative. A Pale Horse Named Death have two former members of Type O Negative in their lineup in Sal Abruscato and John Kelly. So, do they sound like Type O Negative? Of course they do, but as they were in Type O, I’d feel a little disingenuous criticising them for that. The overall sound on this album is about 70% T.O.N. and the rest is early nineties grunge, particularly in the vocals as Sal Abruscato doesn’t try to do a Pete Steele impersonation.
So, slightly grungy gothic metal. The similarity to Type O Negative is in some places quite blatant. On at least 2 songs I have been able to compare to particular songs. Love The One You Hate is so similar to Christian Woman, at one point I started singing along with the wrong lyrics! Dreams Of The End is very similar to Type O Negatives cover of Summer Breeze. The Type O Negative feel goes right through the album, but it is more of a feel rather than anything specific (except on the 2 songs I’ve mentioned). Vultures has a very dark and heavy feel to it, taking the sound closer to doom than gothic metal, which gives the band a bit more of their own identity. Another track that gives the band a little more originality is the track Splinters, where the verse section has very sparse clean guitars, which combined with the way the vocals are handled give the track an individual feel. The vocals have that grungy feel that reminds me of Alice In Chains.
Another place this grungy feel comes in is on the track Lay With The Wicked. This is a great track that has some very interesting things going on with the vocals, it also has a great chorus and a pacing that feels relaxed, and calm. As an old Type O Negative fan, I’ve really enjoyed this album. I genuinely don’t think this is any sort of cash in, as this is half of Type O (who were a real band, not just Pete Steele with some session musicians) you have to expect some similarities. I’d recommend this to anyone who was a fan of Type O, but also to anyone who was a big fan of early nineties rock and metal. This is a very solid album, definitely worth a listen. 7/10
Beth Blade & The Beautiful Disasters: Show Me Your Teeth (Self Released - 2019) [Matt]
So the second album from Cardiff based Beth Blade & The Beautiful Disasters sees them exploring more of the Halestorm sound that they brought on the debut album, however here they have also dipped their toes into other rock n roll styles all wrapped in the slickness learned touring with names like Black Star Riders, Tyketto, Y&T and Kiss (as part of the Kiss Kruise). Led by the gritty, melodic vocals and punchy riffs of the eponymous Beth, tracks like Give It All You Got come directly from the Paul Stanley sing-along songbook with it's poppy chorus and big solo section.
Elsewhere the title track has the Halestorm guts, On And On has that BSR/Lizzy dual harmony groove, yes there's a ballad called Crazy but mostly there's plenty of hard rocking that builds on the foundation of their debut, with glam stomp of 1974 and the hard bitten Jack And Coke being two of the best picks. Everything has been honed by the almost relentless touring schedule and it's led to the improved their writing for this record, it's not a more mature (proper hard rock isn't) but the songs are a little more arena baiting, build to be played in front of thousands not hundreds. 7/10
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