A quicky that I came across when I was surfing YouTube the other day. As is usually the case I haven’t the slightest idea how I came to them anymore, but I did like what I heard and so saved it up for now.

The band is called Infinite Tales and they’re from a place called Kyyiv, a.k.a. Kiev, a.k.a. the capital, in the Ukraine. Infinite Tales came to be in 2007 and has release an EP, single and one full-length, entitled Only the Beginning, so far. The song I discovered is from that album and it’s called Running Away.

If you’ve heard some Polish Metal in your life, you might agree to my rather coarse generalization that these guys are good at stuff with small amounts of melody and large amounts of pummeling groove. Music without unnecessary add-ons. They don’t do “nice” there, just punch-in-the-face Metal.

Well, something or someone called MAS Music Art released a full record full of Polish underground Metal adhering to just that principle. No fewer than 22 tracks and nearly an hour and a half of material that will in particular keep the Death Metal purist well satisfied, including a song by Devil’s Note. That’s not to say all tracks are Death Metal in the strict sense of the word – we’ll discuss some exceptions after the jump – but the majority definitely is.

And guess what! There’s good news! ” You can download, share, burn, trash, and even use this compilation in the most peculiar and perverted ways if you so desire.” That means we’ll show you where to grab this action-packed baby after the jump!

The Old Dead Tree is exactly what it says it is: dead. The Gothic Metal band from France split up in 2009 due to internal and musical differences after having existed since 1997. So, don’t expect soon-to-be-released new albums or songs. Instead, you may actually have difficulties getting your hands on a copy of their material if you decide you want to.

But that’s just a lame excuse not to write about a band. Rather, we’ll trust you’ll be able to find yourself a copy if you really need one and introduce you to this late band. Thanks to Thomas for dumpin’ the link to this band.

There are a couple of you guys that keep us supplied with bands to write about via the Dump a Link! page. Sometimes it’s also used to keep us sharp. Like when Amorphis released a new album at the end of May and it’s July and our shit-filled noses didn’t pick up on its scent. Thanks Rufio for giving us a kick in the ass!

The album in question is called The Beginning of Times and came out through Nuclear Blast. It contains twelve songs combining into nearly an hour of the Finnish band’s Gothicy, Doomy Melometal. Nothing your mom wouldn’t like.

Reviewers tend to review material that is new, or at least relatively so. It’s kinda how the music industry works. Or whatever other industry you consider really. If it’s new it has to be sold. Once stuff gets old it goes on discount and nobody cares much anymore. But I don’t mind breaking that rule if it’s for a good cause. What we’ve got today isn’t new, or even relatively new, unless, perhaps, when you’re a billion years old and you’re balder than a Baboon’s arse.

Fall of the Leafe last released an album in 2007, which they titled Aerolithe. About two months ago we wrote a brief issue of our “Rockin’ Out with” series about them. That discovery triggered me to order the album. It took a century and a half to get here, because obviously it’s kinda obscure outside of Finland, the band’s home ground, especially in a Lady-Gaga-loving nation like The Netherlands. It got here eventually though, and it’s every bit as satisfying as I had hoped.

It’s been a while since Rocked Out properly. If you come here often, you’ll know what this series is about. If you don’t, it’s about recognizing Metal’s roots in Rock and respecting the quality music that’s being made in that genre. Of course there’s a lot of shit being made in Rock – as there is in Metal – but what we’re focusing on is the stuff that’s worth to waste your eardrums on.

Today we’ve got a Finnish band, called Fall of the Leafe, suggested to us by Rufio. Unfortunately I had to learn this band is no longer together. They existed between 1996 and 2007 and then each went his way. Vocalist Tuomas Tuominen for example ended up with The Man-Eating Tree. Earlier, he also contributed the clean vocals on Noumena’s 2005 Absence album.

[Editorial note: Just when you think Metalland has output its last lists at least until the end of 2011, you get another. Our regular visitor and contributor of great suggestions of bands for us to write about, Rufio, has been working on his own little list of favorite albums of the past decade. I know for a fact that he spent a lot of time and care in preparing this list, and I wholeheartedly agree on many of his inclusions, which also includes a couple of bands you might not have thought of at the first insight. In short, a proper list, with many bands that you should be checkin’ out if you haven’t listened to them already!

I started this process back in early February and likely should have been finished about a month sooner, but analyzing all of my Metal meticulously took a bit of a toll. Anyways, as the title suggests this is a list of my favorite albums from the past decade. Originally the list was around 25 albums that was then whittled to 20. I’ve been juggling those back and forth for some time, with a few being outright eliminated under an “obvious” clause so I could shed light on a few other gems.

The remaining choices will be in a list of 10 with 5 honorable mentions. The list is in no set order, but there will be a top 3. The top 3 will be talked about at length with two songs, the other 7 will have a few sentences with one song attached to them.

Read on past the jump.

One year ago today the Metal world was rocked by the loss of Peter Steele, best known as the frontman of Type O Negative, though he was also their bassist and composed the majority of their music aswell. Peter was 48 when he left us of heart failure, ironically, after a period of sobriety and improved health. I’d like to present a couple of music videos in his honor and memory. Even if you aren’t a Type O Negative fan, please, take a moment to remember a fallen brother in Metal.

Just as I had very nearly worked my way through all the countless band suggestions and review requests that found a place to live in my inbox, our former fellow writer motig, from Israel, completely and utterly spammed my e-mail address with new links and suggestions. High quality suggestions too, though generally on Metal’s softer, or at least more accessible, side. We’ll be posting many of his suggestions in the time – probably months – to come and we’ll start today.

With Ava Inferi, as the title may have given away if you took the trouble to read it. Ava Inferi is from Portugal, and has been producing a blend of Doom and Gothic Metal since 2005, resulting in four full-length albums to date, of which the last one came out less than a month ago. We’ve got some stuff off that today, but also something of their second album, The Silhouette (2007).

With this edition of Rockin’ Out I offer you some Finnish Gothic Rock by way of The 69 Eyes. Imagine if Type O Negative had a Glam influenced Gothic sound. If that sounds like something you can dig and/or you like videos with hot vampire chicks check this out.