Reviews by markjazz

For me this compilation was a great buy because I love this group but I only own one of their albums. There's a lot of tracks I haven't heard in a while and some I've never heard at all. Also, I haven't seen any of the videos in ages so when I saw this three disc set for $20 it was an easy buy. I love the artwork too. Reminds me of a more depressed version of those shirts your grandparents would buy you. Wolves and mountains rule!

This is one release I'll probably never get sick of. I've even sold it and rebought it because I missed it so much. It has four things good going for it. 1) The vocals are awesome. They're clean yet harsh and compliment the music perfectly. 2) The guitar is heavy as hell! 3) The drums are deep and although fairly simple for certain songs they're dialed right in and if you have a good stereo your gonna feel each kick drum. 4) The bass is awesome! It's clear and heavy and it has some of the best bass lines in metal music to this day.

One could say the writting of the music on this album is fairly simple. There's a few tracks on here where the variation doesn't change a whole lot, like Lava, The Fall and Brick Windows, for example, but those happen to be my three favourite tracks on the album. Maybe that's its charm, nothing to complicated. Just straight forward fucking metal! Then we have the cover song Lay Lady Lay, which is probably one of the best cover songs in metal! It's the perfect blend of heavy guitar and acoustic guitar all mixed in one great track. There isn't a hole lof of industrial on this album but I guess it fits in that genre of industrial/metal and it's one of the better picks for the genre too. Glad I own it and this time I'm keeping it for good this time!

My first DEATH album and I'm glad I got a chance to scoop this up. I was just browsing around at HMV and I saw this for $15. Didn't even think twice and bought it. I have the original album at a 4/5 and it's my 2nd favorite album by them but this double disc reissue almost gets a 5/5 from me. I love the insert and all the bonus tracks but they probably could have made it just one full 80 minute CD as Disc one is just 38 minutes. But whatever, it's a great treat for sure and I enjoy the instrumentals a ton. One never gets to hear instrumental death metal tracks often.

To me, this is the bands strongest release since Midian and contains some of my favorite tracks from them, like The Death of Love and Honey and Sulphur. Death of Love is perhaps one of the greatest tragic love songs ever written, imo, about how Gilles de Rais lost his mind after Joan of Arch died (which was what happened). The concept about a forgotten French serial killer is awesome, and that always tickles me right where I itch. Dani must have done his research well because the lyrics are awesome and I know he was thinking about Gilles de Rais before because he's mentioned in the track Lord Abortion on the Midian album.

The bonus disc is not to bad either but the The Love of Death (Remix) is more in the German type industrial/metal genre and is pretty crappy with it's "Ja, ja, ja" type music. However the demo of this track is pretty damn good. The album artwork is much better than the original album too. Some of the artwork in the insert is fantastic as well! Glad to see these guys doing so well after all these years and this release was worth every penny.

This album was a surprise liking for me. It was recommend to me by a metal chick that loves this group so I bought it and needless to say I like it a lot. I knew they weren't full on brutal death metal, which is what I was into, so I was worried I wouldn't like it. It's kind of a return to old school metal in a way but mixed with modern day metal techniques and I love the quick key pad notes in some of the songs too. Gives them that extra kick! This isn't 100% my type of metal but I like it because it's different and I'm glad I own it as this album got me to buy the one that followed, which I also liked about the same. The metal is fast and everything is tight with this group. As far as debut metal albums goes this one has to be up there with one of the best. I think anyway. It sounds like this group had released 5 albums before this one.

I like the fact the songs are long, for the most part, because it gives the listener more time to obsorb the music and the message that the band is trying to get across. Of course, this only works if you like the music. A great thing about this album, and maybe the group, is that the vocals are good. There's sometimes two seperate vocals in the tracks, like in Red Light in My Eyes, Pt 1, which works well if done right. In the Shadows is my favourite on here. I personaly love this track a lot and the melodic nature of it. It's a perfect example of this groups style. It's so sad sounding and yet uplifting at the same time. As it ends it just melts my brain and heart sometimes. I'd put this track on any metal compilation for sure.

This is my favourite CC album of all time and in my Top 10 Death Metal albums as well. It kicks ass on so many levels and the production on this is some of the best I've heard out of any death metal album. The big factor being that I can hear Alex Webster's bass so much in this album and that's so important because he is by far the best bass player in death metal. Hammer Smashed Face, to me, is the most perfect death metal track I've ever heard. I will never get sick of it. I can see why it's a lot of peoples favourite. The riffs are tight, the drumming is crazy and even the 10 second bass solo at the start is awesome. Not even CC themselves have been able to top this track and no one can really explain why it's so good, not even the band. There isn't a song I don't like on here and another awesome track with good riffs is Necropedophile. I play it just as much as Hammer Smashed Face.

The cover is the sickest, the music is the brutalest, and this was when the group was just getting to thier peak. Albums were starting to sell a lot, even with the kids parents trying to get them to not buy it. Some people may argue that this group tried too hard to be over the top but I think it's better than not trying at all.

Credits/ Notes:
Bass - Alex Webster
Drums - Paul Mazurkiewicz
Guitar - Bob Rusay (tracks 1-9), Jack Owen
Vocals, Lyrics By - Chris Barnes (tracks 1-9)
Vocals - George Fisher (track 10)

Recorded at Morrisound Recording - Tampa Florida, June 1 - 15 1992.

A disclaimer on the inlay card states: "Electronic Harmonizer was not used to create any vocals on Tomb Of The Mutilated"

"I Cum Blood" recorded live on the Death Metal Massacre 2000 Tour, Canada.

To me, this album gets a lot better after track #5 and I think it has a lot to do with the melodic vocals that are being sung in the first half of the album. I'm not really a big fan of high pitched nu-metal sounding vocals. If this album didn't have then it'd be at least a 4/5 but since I don't care for the first five tracks to much I have to keep the rating lower. Track five, The Final Absolution, is so average sounding too I almost hate it. However, this album, and the band, is friggn' brutal! I love how harsh it is and some of the harsh vocals are the best I've heard. Blazing fast drums and heavy as hell guitar riffs. Excellent stuff to piss someone off. I like driving listening to death metal but I honestly don't think I could listen to this in the car. I'd friggn' crash and then the paramedics would have to endure this music while they try and rescue me. Actually, that sounds like it'd be fun. Like most people have said, the last track, Castigation and Betrayal, is awesome and will most likely get you hooked on this band!

This is one of the best breakcore albums out there and it's mainly because of the use of stringed instruments that Aaron Funk taught himself to play prior to this release. I won't go track by track because I'd be repeating myself but what you'll hear on this release is some chilling modern classical music being played with some very heavy breakcore beats that rival anything Aphex Twin ever did. There's some vocal samples on Öngyilkos vasárnap, which are from the Billie Holiday track Gloomy Sunday, hence the name. It works very well though and as with the rest of the album it gives off a very creepy dark feel. One of my favorites on this double album. The string only tracks on here, like Felbomlasztott mentőkocsi are simply amazing and remind me of classic horror movie tracks. Just melts my brain hearing them. Overall this is one damn fine release and a must for any fan of this genre!

Here is some info:
The track titles are written in Hungarian, which translates:
Venetian Snares - Born Under A Bad Star
A1 - Unsuccessful
A2 - Unfortunate
A3 - Suicidal Sunday
B1 - Disintegrated Ambulance
B2 - Dawn
C1 - Lonely Pigeon
C2 - Second Pigeon
C3 - Jackass Bird
D1 - Credulous
D2 - Double-Cornered Movement
D3 - Nobody's Song

There was an interview about this album stating that it was made with Cubase SE and an old Mac. I've used Cubase before and how this guy managed to pull off such awesome music with it is beyond me. This album has two of my favourite tracks by him, those being Stoney Street and Easy Muffin. Like the whole album they're so chill and, of course, have a great jazz vide to them. There's been some comments about this album with people saying that it's too long and I'd have to agree. I think I've found myself listening to the whole thing abou half the time in just one sitting, but it is a good album overall and it's still my favourite from him. This is probably one of the Top 10 albums for the whole cataloge of the Ninja Tune label, imo.

BoC have not disappointed me yet and I very excited to get this new EP, especially when I heard it'd be on coloured vinyl, white. The opening track was an instant classic, with most fans, and kind of has two parts to it. There's the ambient opening and then the track falls nicely into the mellow IDM style that they do so well. There's a couple fillers in the EP, such as "Under The Coke Sign" but they don't distract from the release at all. The only negative thing about this EP is the last track, which is remixed by Odd Nosdam. I personally never heard of him myself but I didn't like this remix at all. It didn't even seem like it was the same track. Thankfully it was the last one and I can just simply pop up my needle and turn in back to side A to listen to Dayvan Cowboy again, and again, and again.