Canada’s five-piece Death Metal outfit Blood Drunk are a hard bunch to gather info on. What we do know is that they don’t sound like the Children of Bodom album that shares their name, they have a female vocalist that can hang with the big boys and they have one album, titled Machine Made Flesh, that is available for free download at their Bandcamp page.

I actually got a press release of this, more than a month ago. It was well done, containing everything you need as a publisher and which pisses you of if you have to go look for when it’s not included. You know, links to all of the band’s social media pages, a proper-sized pic, links to YouTube videos. There’s nearly nothing left to do, except write the article.

And I reward this kind of care and attention by completely ignoring them for more than a month. What kind of goddamn turd of a human being am I?! Well, a smelly one. And a busy one.

I guess what matters is that I see what’s wrong with it and that I still post about them now. Because, what am I actually jabbering on about? It’s Beyond Creation, a Canadian Progressive / Technical Death Metal band. They hail from Montreal and have been together since 2005. It wasn’t until April of this year that their efforts came to fruition though, because that’s when they released their debut record The Aura.

The other day TNOTB had a post featuring Kittie’s new video for the song We are the Lamb from their just released album, I’ve Failed You. That song inspired me to listen to the iTunes previews of every song on the album. After two listens to each preview I bought the album. Now, I was a fan of their debut, Spit, when it came out in ’99, though partially ’cause of the novelty of a Metal band of teen girls. I don’t listen to Spit anymore but I do occasionally listen to the follow-up, Oracle. I sampled some tunes from their next three albums but didn’t find anything to convince me that Oracle wasn’t their best, until now.

The distinction between EP and album seems to get harder and harder to make these days. Even recently I have heard and reviewed EPs that were well over half an hour of music, while now I’m reviewing an “album” that’s only just over 26 minutes, spread out over seven songs. Yet still it goes for $9.99 on CDBaby – no clue if that’s Canadian or US dollars, but the difference is smaller than your penis anyway.

That would be our first and main criticism already, if we look at that price and the album’s quantity alone, this one’s a bit pricy for its offering. The only way it’s going to make up for that is by delivering excellent musical quality, a varied and original pallet, crisp production, hot slutty chicks on the cover, etc., etc. Well it does some of that, and some of it, it doesn’t.

When Zeke sent me the suggestion to check this out the other day, for a brief moment I thought I was dealing with the band Torchbearer, one of Christian Älvestam’s side affiliations. Instead I was dealing with a band called Ascariasis – which is a bitch to type – with a song called Torchbearer. Easy mistake.

Particularly when you hear this band’s music. The Canadian band of four – young ones too if that pic’s of any recent date – is yet to release its debut album – it’s scheduled for release this summer – but manages to put up something so majestic it could easily be mistaken for something Älvestam would attach his name to. Torchbearer is the single released ahead and makes for drool leaking from my lower lip as we speak in anticipation of the full record.

Quoting Zeke: “Death Metal + Djent = Sex?” No, it’s not. It’s orgasm, a four minute-long full-body orgasm. The walls in my room are a whole new kind of white.

A couple of weeks ago Canada’s Unleash the Archers released Demons of the Astrowaste, their second full-length of hybrid Power/Melodic Death Metal. After forming in 2008 they released their debut, Behold the Devastation, in 2009. Having heard and enjoyed that album several times, I was doubly impressed upon realising it was music from a band in it’s infancy. So when I found that there was new material from these guys, and gal, I had to check it out. I remain impressed.

I haven’t had the chance to listen to the whole new album yet, but let’s not have that stop us from sharing. If you like Power Metal and Melodic Death Metal and also enjoy a solid vocal performance from A Lady of Metal prepare to be entertained.

Xyphos are a recently formed Canadian bunch. The four-headed outfit first saw the light in 2009. Hard work followed, both in the form of their “impressive and forceful stage show” and recording a bunch of tracks. A four-track EP resulted at the beginning of May of this year.

Of course that’s not all I have to say in response to the band’s review request. Guitarist Ahmed sent me a promo pack about three weeks ago, or as he called it, an e-album. I listened to it, a couple of times now and I’ve formed an opinion. And guess what, it’s about to be shared!

[Yesterday saw the publication of the first part of Rufio’s list of best Metal albums of the decade 2000 to 2010. Today he’ll continue his discussion with the top 3 albums. This time the albums are ordered to rank. Moreover, because he likes ‘em so much, Rufio has picked two songs off each album for your Metallic entertainment.

To close off, Rufio has also included five albums that were at some point in the picture, but eventually didn’t make it in. Still, he considers these kick-ass and basically worth their price!]

The following three bands have been waiting on their deployment on my list for quite some time. Today though, the time has come to release them into the world. Warnings go out in particular to people living in Germany, Canada and Australia, where these monsters hold their habitat and where they can be seen live and in the wild regularly.

We featured a French band named Eyeless here over a year ago, but today we present you with one from Canada. This Eyeless formed in 2008 and self-released their first EP about this time last year. It’s an EP of five tracks, four progressive Death Metal songs and one laid back instrumental. This is quality music, excellent musicianship and song writing skills coupled with good production value. Let’s just say that for a band called Eyeless they certainly have a vision.