Sonne Adam - Doctrines of Dark Devotion (2012)

Supremely mighty and covered in cobwebs!

Sonne Adam stands atop the lifeless bodies of Incantation clones piled high unto the heavens, readying their assault upon the hated race.

I wasn't terribly fond of the band's debut full length, 'Transformation' but for some reason decided to check this out anyways and I consider myself lucky that I had. This is ancient and rotting death metal at its absolute finest! Seriously evil stuff that more than reminds me of Embrace of Thorns stellar sophomore LP, 'Atonement Ritual'.

The vocals here are nice and hateful. The kind that I do not hear enough in this type of death metal. They're either the ultra-faggy black metal type or the low, whisper-ishness employed by many a Craig Pillard clone. This guy is more along the lines of first album Deicide or even Covenant era David Vincent. Nice hateful bellows. Not too low and definitely not the homo rasp preferred by the "blackened" crowd.

The riffs themselves lean towards the ancient, doomy side of the fence. Kind of like a cross between old Celtic Frost and Golgotha era Incantation. Though they give off a funeral vibe they never quite dive off into the abyss of doom metal. I know when death metal sounds this evil all of the black metal fags try and claim it as their own. Nope. This is straight up evil fucking death metal to the fullest! No homosexual black metal faggotry here folks.

As long as the band stays along this course I will remain on board and thus far cannot wait to hear what comes next.

Best to Worst: Electric Wizard

Dopethrone (2000)

The pinnacle, without a doubt. Dopethrone is the Wizard at their fuzziest best. EW took everything that Sabbath and Sleep had previously done, covered it in dirt and resurrected it beneath a neon twilight shrouded in dope-smoke.

Each song here has its own identity. Nothing ever gets monotonous, even when plodding along at a zombie's pace. This was the band at the height of their powers.

We Live (2004)

Even though the original trio of Greening, Oborn and Bagshaw had by this time disbanded, We Live, in my own humble opinion, is just about as mighty as the band's penultimate expression, Dopethrone. If anything, the songs here are actually HEAVIER! Opener 'Eko Eko Azarak' is drenched in evil and hypnotic psychedelia and is the perfect opener to this behemoth of an album. Easily the band's "doomiest".

Supercoven (1998)

The song Supercoven is easily among the greatest tracks written by the Wizard. If it weren't for the fact that this is only an 'ep', Supercoven may have been higher on the list. Nevertheless, this was the perfect lead-in for the band's superior Dopethrone LP.

Time to Die (2014)

After some thought I decided to give this a higher ranking than Come My Fanatics which, while being a thoroughly enjoyable album, can get on the monotonous side of things at times. Time to Die, however, is stylistically divvied up enough to keep one's interest straight through. It's also has a bit of a "greatest hits" feel to it as it seems to compile all eras of the Wizard's career. Most importantly, it brings back the fuzzy warmth of the band's late '90's material along with a healthy dose of morbid psychedelia. Future classic, I'm sure.

Come My Fanatics (1997)

As good as this album is I also can't shake the notion that it is merely a primer for what's to come (Dopethrone). Don't get me wrong, now, there are some straight classic tracks here (Doomantia, Ivixor B/Phase Inducer, Wizard in Black, etc..) yet I do not feel that the band had quite mastered their sound as there are many times here where the fuzz seems to overtake the riffage and things begin to get a bit blurry. Despite its flaws, however, this is without a doubt one of the band's best.

Let Us Prey (2002)

Perhaps the band were simply taxed and had exhausted their creative juices by the time the writing process for this album came 'round as the majority of it sounds a bit tired. Master of Alchemy, however, is alone worth the price of admission and without question one of the band's best songs. Mother of Serpents (found on the digi re-release) is also one of my favorite Wizard tracks with its nod to early, pre-Darkside era Floyd.

Not a terrible album but for the Wizard's standards you can tell they were slippin' a bit.

Witchcult Today (2007)

Though We Live was the first album to come out after the split of the initial trio of musicians that brought us Come My Fanatics and Dopethrone, this is the album, in my opinion, where the real change in sound began to take form. Although I dig a few of the tracks here, particularly Torquemada '71, I can't say that I'm terribly fond of this album, either.

Witchcult saw the band going in a more, dare I say "polished" direction what with a clearer sound and almost painfully catchier songs. The band was shedding much of the fuzz and grime of old and even though nobody really seemed to notice I could tell right away that something was amiss.

Black Masses (2010)

Black Masses is the crustier sibling of Witchcult Today. The simpler more "mainstream" sounding tracks are still there though this time they all seem to be covered in shit. I mean that in the best way possible!

There are actually a few more tracks on here that I like in comparison to Witchcult even though I somehow prefer that album over this. Don't ask.

Black Masses also continues the tradition of rehashing riffs that began on Witchcult.

Electric Wizard (1995)

Easily the most "traditional" sounding doom album put out by the Wizard. I'm not a big fan of the guitar sound as I've always preferred the band's fuzzier tone. For me, Mountains of Mars is the standout track here with its morbid psychedelia getting into my head and filling it with images of decades past, desert tapestries and the smell of dopesmoke.

Electric Wizard - Time to Die (2014)

All right, so it's that time again, finally, and the question is... have they lived up to the hype? I'm gonna have to say yes. The most important thing here is that the band has returned to the sound of old. Let me be clear here... the 'sound' is a return. NOT the riffs themselves. Many (not all) of the riffs here are reminiscent of the past few Wizard outings but drenched in the familiar fuzz of the band's seminal duo, Come my Fanatics and Dopethrone. There's a lot of echo going on , vocally, which is an old trick as well that had sort of dwindled a bit through the years.

Even though I had mentioned previously that the riffing is closer to the 'Witchcult/Black Masses' side of the fence there are more than a few songs here that see the band actually moving forward for a change. Obviously Electric Wizard isn't incorporating the song structures of Yes into the equation. I mean, we are talking about doom metal here, but the riffing style is definitely moving on from the stylistic slump the band had been in for a bit, and thank goodness for that. I would've been highly disappointed if this had turned out to be yet another 'Witchcult' retread such as Black Masses essentially was.

Aside from a couple of tracks the songs here are not as heavy as you would think. No, they're not bad, by any stretch but it's obvious the band were going for something else. Almost like a '60's pop/doom hybrid. Don't fret though, this is still very much the Wizard starring as the Wizard and everything is in order as one would hope.

Though I'm not terribly jazzed about the cover art (which I really haven't been since 'We Live' except for the LP version of Black Masses) I will say that it is extremely similar to the original cover for 'Come my Fanatics' which ultimately serves to bring everything going on here full circle.

I for one was a bit on the fence with Witchcult Today and I had all but written the band off after Black Masses which, to me, is easily the weakest Electric Wizard album to date. I am happy to say that 'Time to Die' has finally broken the pattern of sterility. To sum it all up, if someone were to tell me that this was the missing album that was supposed to have been released after 'Let Us Prey' I would have believed them without hesitation. It's still early in the game and I'm sure the songs will only further grow on me in time but for now I am thoroughly content.

Therion - Symphony Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas (1993)

I'll never forget hearing this album for the first time. I was on my way back from Phoenix Records in Waturbury, CT (R.I.P.) and I had just picked this up along with Mortician's 'Mortal Massacre' and Cannibal Corpse's 'The Bleeding' which had just come out. It took me about one whole minute to realize that something was terribly wrong. The Therion I had known and loved had officially undergone a sex-change operation and busted out of the closet clad in pink boas and wielding purple dildos. I was mortified.

The greatest offense committed here by FAR are the vocals. Prior to this release Cristofer Johnsson was easily one of my favorite growlers. His Celtic Frost inspired "ooh's" are perhaps even greater and more powerful than the master himself, Tom Warrior. Seriously! On this album, however, I don't know WHAT the fuck happened. Apparently the bottom gave out because these are just fucking weak, and it's not like my Man was all of a sudden channeling Thom Yorke or something, I mean these are still death metal vocals but they sound like they were delivered by someone who dropped by the studio after a full week of being throatfucked by nigger savages. I was shocked.

Musically, this sounds like the next logical step downward from the band's last album 'Beyond Sanctorum'. I wouldn't say that it's a straight up nosedive but it certainly aint no improvement either. Crissy'fur and company had basically strapped on their tights and were venturing further into that chasm otherwise known as the butthole of metal -aka- symphonic metal. The catch being that they weren't terribly good at it during this time so anything that may otherwise have been salvageable just sounds downright awkward or bland. This trait would reach a fever pitch on the band's next two albums (Lepaca Klifoth and Theli) before they reached the black belt level of symphonic faggery.

One thing I cannot take away from this album is the stellar artwork from iconic go-to Swede, Kristian (Necrolord) Whalin.

Jokes aside, I actually do not mind this album all that much. Therion was such a huge favorite of mine early in their career that, for many years, I did my best to brush aside any notion that I may have had that they had utterly "lost it". Even though their next album would see them spiralling further on down the rabbit-hole, I do consider that to be their very last "decent" release.

Cannibal Corpse - Skeletal Domain (2014)

Somewhere along the way Cannibal Corpse got stuck in the rut of releasing albums that all sound the same, one after another. Sure, not each note is the same, yada yada, but basically since 'Vile', shit, basically since The Neck took over the mic CC's stuck with the same formula and aside from their mounting technical prowess nothing's really changed all that much since 1996.

After reading a couple of interview snippets where certain members of the band had indicated that this would be a more "evil" sounding record, I was fairly psyched. Could Cannibal Corpse truly be venturing fourth into uncharted territory? Not quite. When I hear the phrase 'evil death metal' I tend to think of bands like Incantation and Immolation. Coffin Texts, etc. I'm not sure what part of this album the band considered "evil sounding" but I assure you that this is yet another run o' the mill Cannibal Corpse offering. If you're really that into what the band is doing then by all means, knock yourself out. I promise that Cannibal will not let you down this time 'round and in all likelihood, EVER, but for those of you who were hoping that they perhaps added a few new instruments to their arsenal of torture, well, you might want to keep it movin'.

Honestly, Cannibal Corpse did sound evil once upon a time in their career and that was way back in the early '90's during a time when they were more prone to write tremolo laden odes to shredded cunts and maggot filled assholes. Even though they could never have been accused of being a satanic themed band, their older material (Butchered at Birth, Tomb of the Mutilated) had a pretty good grasp on the evil vibe that bands like Immolation and Incantation based their careers around. Somewhere along the way, though, CC began to advance, technically, and that's when all of the weirdo-isms of their sound got kicked to the curb and forgotten, not to mention that Corpsegrinder honestly doesn't do a whole lot for me, vocally. Sure, his diction is among the best but there's always been something "diet" to me about the sound of his voice. It never sounded monstrous enough for a band called Cannibal Corpse. On Skeletal Domain it's yet another case of business as usual. Nothing different. More of the same. Again, if you're into the same album being cloned 30 times, then boom, there you go, but for those of you hoping for a change, fuhgetabahtit. Even the album cover, which at first glance seems to be a bit of a change is really just another plain old rendering from trusty ol' Vince Locke. Same ol', same ol'.

Therion - Beyond Sanctorum (1992)

This is one of those albums that sounded SO much better when I first heard it over twenty years ago. Now mind you, I don't think that it sucks by any means and back when Therion were a bona-fide death metal band they were easily one of my favorites but looking back I can pin-point with a fair amount of accuracy all of the signs that reveal a band that was waiting to come crashing, full bore, out of the closet.

It's weird because even though this is their sophomore album there are plenty of moments that feel as though this would have came out first. Moments that feel are somewhat regressed. Also, many of the symphonic elements (that were just beginning to barely emerge here) just sound downright inept. Laughably so. I mean, you'd have thought that Cristofer Johnsson had employed the talents of some brain-damaged amputee who had in their possession a Casiotone 501 with a remedial understanding of the instrument to boot.

On the positive side, this is the last album to feature Johnsson at his bestial best in terms of vocal delivery. Sure, the next few albums feature what one may consider to be death metal vocals but they are horrendously regressed and inept sounding. Like a tired muppet after a solid week of homosexual gang-rape.

For the most part the riffs here are akin to those found on 'Of Darkness', though hardly anything here possesses the catchiness and memorability of that album. Suffice to say, even though there;s nothing rampantly technical about this album, there is no shortage of directionless meandering.

Again, by no means do I think this album sucks or anything even close to that, but hearing this album many years after the fact, flaws can be easily traced and it is without a doubt the very last "straight up" death metal album the band would write and release.