So yeah, the evening of Monday November 7^th started with a huge fuckin’ disappointment: Omnium Gatherum. Not that they didn’t play well, I just wouldn’t know. Because I fuckin’ missed them. Because I was an hour fuckin’ late at the venue, The Garage, on Highbury Corner! Why was I an hour late for the band I wanted to see that night, the band I came for in the first place? Well not because I was a sloth and looked on my watch too late before I left! It was because the Neckbreaker’s Ball tour site stated the show would kick off at 5:45 pm, while in reality the show commenced at 4:45 pm.

Today’s post features two new bands that do Melodeath with a light Power Metal angle of attack in the style of Mercenary or Tracedawn. And because the former released a new record this year, that we haven’t yet featured, we’ve got a shot of that as well.

When you see the release date of this album, August 25^th 2008, you could say ”better late than never”. But, if you’re a bit of a regular reader, you may know that The Baboon wasn’t even a splash of semen yet in 2008 and so we couldn’t have reviewed it in time unless we made use of some fuckin’ time warping equipment or something. So, instead we’d like to say ”it may be slightly senior, it’ll still get it up fast!”

The band responsible for Mirror Faced Mentality is called Scamp and they’re Danish. To be exact, they hail from Århus, which is on the bit of Denmark that’s connected to the erst of Europe as well as the second largest city in Denmark. At current the band is made up of four dudes, called Mikael Rise (vocals and didgeridoo – yes, you read that right, didgeridoo), Morten Christensen (drums), Kristian Bruun (guitars) and Martin Dalmark (bass). At the time Mirror Faced Mentality was recorded the latter wasn’t in yet, but a dude named Mads Christensen (guitars and bass) was.

See that cover to the right? No idea what kind of sick scene its depicting, but I was half expecting some of the most acid, cruel, Satanic, blood-drinking Sludge-Doom-Black Metal on the planet. You know, like being ear-raped by a screeching witch with her long-nailed claws attempting to scratch out your brain through your left ear. Well, it’s not so!

Instead, Deus Otiosus – which means ‘idle god’ and is a theological concept describing a creator-god that has completely pulled his hands of the pile of shit that his creation has become – delivers what it calls ”twisted Death Metal from the ruins of Copenhagen, Denmark”. I’ve been there recently – if you can still call last November recently – and didn’t perceive it to be a ruin, but other than that they’re pretty much right. Though, come to think of it, I certainly would have highlighted the thick fuckin’ Thrash sounds the band is outputting.

A package arrived the other day, from Scandinavia. It was a small package, like a thick envelope, but still it said “100 Knives Inside”. I reckon customs must have looked at it with a curious eye, until they found there was a CD inside, not a pile of blades.

Because, 100 Knives Inside is a band, a Danish band to be exact, that has been in operation since 2006 and yielding the fruits of two EPs so far. The band consists of Martin Jensen (bass), Nikolaj Lauszus (drums), Thomas Hoff (guitars), Zalan Khattak (guitars) and Simon Jakobsen (vox), and they produce a Deathcorian form of Progressive Death Metal. Moral Fabrication is their latest accomplishment; the five-track EP was self-released in 2010. And it’s a profi sounding motherfucker!

It’s been fuckin’ centuries since we last featured some Thrash Metal. Not because we don’t like the stuff, but because we didn’t come across anything of quality. Over a month ago, our friend Islander over at No Clean Singing changed that, by featuring a Danish Thrash Metal outfit named Essence that has recently released its debut album Lost in Violence. We saw the vid he enclosed in his post and immediately ordered the album, even before the song finished.

Unfortunately the album took a fair while to get to us, and when it finally did we still had a crapload of other material to cover. That’s our excuse for why we’re only reviewing the album now.

I don’t usually order material as impulsively as I did this one, but the vid Islander had in his post was so incredibly convincing that I just couldn’t resist. It could’ve meant I bought a total shit fuck, apart from one song, but I guess I got luckily here – that or I just have a really good ear for quality. Lost in Violence is a Thrash Metal masterpiece, hovering way above the rest of the genre. I’ll tell you why after the jump.

Annoyingly in the good way! Today we’ll focus our attention to a band that I’ve heard of numerous times before, but which I could never be arsed to look into. Never thought I’d like them. The reason is their name: Raunchy. It just sounds cheesy and raunchy, and fit for a shitty alternative Rock band intending to score cheaply, instead of aiming to make good music. In fact, judging from the few songs that I’ve heard of their previous releases, that may just be what they’ve been.

So I guess part of that name association I made is true: Raunchy doesn’t make the most complex sort of music, but in all fairness – and I hate to admit it – their latest album doesn’t seem to be bad. From what I’ve heard, it’s like a mixture of Mnemic’s mechanical Industrial Metal tunes with some heavy Rock spiced up with a synth job. Features harsh vocals, but also a lot of cleanly sung parts. Wearing my moderate Industrial hat today, I can actually quite enjoy it, despite that I know it’s actually a bit wrong and I’m not supposed to like clean vocals. The Gods of Metal forbid it. Well, I guess I don’t take shit from no one, even if I know for once I should!

On Tuesday the 23^rd of November – sorry for the delay – I made a four hour trip to Darmstadt – near Frankfurt – to be a live witness of the concerts of Threat Signal, Raunchy, Sybreed, M.A.N. and In Cold Blood. With a load of luck I managed to get there in time, because the trains had some extreme delays once again.

Before you wonder: I would have happily added some proof pictures to the post, but for some fuckin’ reason my mobile’s camera decided not to function that night. I have added some videos though, including some of the actual concert – with abominable sound quality, but giving a great indication of the intensity of the shows – uploaded by other concertgoers!

A couple of weeks ago I reported I went on a trip to Denmark’s capital of Copenhagen. While I was away I put up a short post featuring my favorite Danish Metal band, Mnemic. As you most likely know, their game is Industrial Death Metal with lots of groovy rhythms, mixed clean and growled vocals and an catchy melodies where appropriate. I also took advantage of being in the band’s home country and bought their new album – released quite a lot earlier in 2010, but I was just slow to get my hands on it – Sons of the System.

That album has been playing in my car’s stereo for a week and a half now. That’s longer than average for an album to be reviewed and the reason for that is simple: I like it!

As made obvious by the post’s title, this contribution of mine is about my favorite of genres again. I’d like to introduce three bands to you, one of which we’ve had before here – so it’s not really an introduction but a reintroduction, but let’s not get technical – namely Eventide. But I’ll start off with the other two, the ones we haven’t had before yet.