Skneepa - "Demo"

The Tale Of A Scary Singer (5/10) We are an unsigned thrash/groove/hardcore metal band from a small town called Hexham, twenty miles West of Newcastle, England. We take our name from the ancient Greek adjective meaning "As drunk as a Lord", pronounced with a silent 'k' (we reckon). (F.Y.I - Spelled differently, and pronounced 'pur', it also means "clit" in Icelandic (Cheers, Eli Roth)). We grew up together listening to Pantera, Metallica, Maiden ... and so many others, and found Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage and Slipknot (again, to mention but a few) along the way. Now we're all grown up, and we've got something we'd like you to hear. If you like it, let it show. Thanks to all for listening. P.S. SIGN US!! We're young, fit and keen, and the music is mean. .... You can download all our tunes for free from ..Skneepa Bandcamp.. or from our ..last.fm page. Chapter 01. Pop Song Growling is a very difficult technique. What a pity the majority of death metal acts are not aware of this simple fact. Because of its extremity, it is very easy to cross the border between brutality and self-parody. Skneepa crosses this border on each track, but most notably on this one, what is very unfortunate, because if not for this funny croak, it would be a really cool thrash/death metal piece. Chapter 02. Parallell Nice metal piece. The pitiful growling is less intrusive on this one, so the result is bearable (but could have been great). Chapter 03. Broken Glass Dear singer - never, I repeat, NEVER try to sing a ballad again. Satan forbid. Your "clear" singing is more scary than your pitiful growling. A dull melody and annoying banging on hi-hats in the background don't spoil this track much more in these circumstances. Chapter 04. This World Is Mine Very fine, disturbing and energetic duel between the left and the right stereo channels in the beginning of the track is soon wasted because of... Anybody wanna guess? Right. Here comes the funny croaking again. Ouch! All this very solid work of the rest of the band throughout the track destroyed by the vocalist. What a pity. The moral of this story: Replace the singer, guys, or send him on a singing (and growling) course or something.

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Abralcor - "Abralcor" [EP]

Primeval chaos unleashed (10/10) Beware! By clicking on "Play" you are letting primeval chaos to enter your room. It will struck you like a ten ton hammer, with powerful guitars, machine gun drums, angry growling and totally crazy ideas. Ideas such as combining death metal with samples from French soap opera (or something like that). The first track "Nympho Man" starts with samples of arguing couple with some "elevator music" playing in the background. And then we hear a crack of a whip, followed by a scream. And the guitar arrives. These songs sound so fresh, so unorthodox, these guys play with such a power and lack of respect for any rules that I was immediately sold. This is great - and I want more! If you still don't believe these guys are totally crazy, see their cover of some eurodance shit by Haddaway. As you see, they mixed their cover with the original video showing Haddaway and his dancers. 8-0 I don't know what they usually smoke, but it has to be strong. If you still want more, you'll find other songs on their Myspace profile. Enjoy.

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Mesentery - "Behind Windows"

Producer kills the death metal star (7/10) Mesentery is Death Metal like Six feet under, Bolt Thrower, Heaven Shall Burn, Cataract with a mid tempo invasion with smashing riffs. For more details go to: www.mesentery.com.nu This album is better than the debut Jamendo album on every aspect except the most sucking one - production. When you listen to it on a good equipment, it sounds as if mikes were on the outside of the recording studio, while the band played somewhere in the basement. The sound is muffled and unselective. Just terrible. If not for this issue, I'd give 8 or even 9 points out of 10. It's generic death metal, but the melodies are good, the band is full of energy, even drums are OK this time. They even changed the cover artist and you can look at it without getting sick. In fact the cover is exceptionally good for a death metal album, as it breaks this stupid notion that a heavy metal cover art has to be full of monsters, warriors, profanity, blood, gore and "scary" lettering. Well done. But everybody with sensitive ears may consider skipping this one, because of bad production. (What?! Metal heads with good hearing? Come on!). ;-P

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Mesentery - "Blood Rain"

Nice death metal (7/10) Mesentery is Death Metal like Six feet under, Bolt Thrower, Heaven Shall Burn, Cataract with a mid tempo invasion with smashing riffs. For more details go to: www.mesentery.com.nu Nice death metal - not a masterpiece, but highly listenable generic work. It is very melodic, without losing heaviness. Growling is not overused like on so many death metal albums - you can even sometimes recognize the words! ;-) There are some cons, of course. First of all, production sucks - the mix is flat, without any space. The sound could also be better. And the drums are quite bad - for example, check out these hi-hats in the beginning of the first track - yuck! Fortunately, when the other instruments join in, drums melt in the background and stop being annoying, if only one doesn't try too hard to listen to them. So the key to this recording is to enjoy the pure power of melodic death metal, without analyzing too much (see all these 10/10 reviews). By the way - the designer of the cover art should be nailed to the cross for his/her crimes against the good taste (it has nothing to do with the naked female but rather with the picture being totally kitschy).

Royalty-free music for professional licensing [Artist's Myspace]