Where my prejudice about Norwegian Metal makes me expect all Metal from Norway is Black Metal, I’ve got a similar – and equally fucked-up – rule of thumb about Sweden. It’s either Old-school Death Metal type of stuff or Melodeath that they produce there. Absolute rubbish of course and the examples are numerous. Still, it’s a bit of a default thing to expect I guess.

Today we add another entry to our list of examples that counter that coarse generalization: Humanity’s Last Breath. They’re a five-piece from the city of Helsingborg, where I know also Soilwork is from. A typical line-up of two guitars, a bass, some bongos and a voice, these guys produce something undeniably brutal and aggressive, often a shit storm of blasts and chugs, but also often melodic and harmonious. That is what I pulled from the band’s latest release, which was sent out into the world in early 2011 as their second EP since forming in 2009.

The big moment! The top four of albums I’ve reviewed this year. If you’ve missed what came before this, these four were preceded by eleven other albums in Part 1 and Part 2 of this list. Today’s four are the absolute cream of the crop.

As you’ll read on, there’s one thing you might notice: Finland’s the winner. Each and every single band in this top 4 hails out of the most Metal nation on the planet. Something I only just discovered myself. I think the Finnish are to Metal what American are to hamburgers. What Germans are to cars. And what Dutchmen are to drugs and prostitutes.

Anyfuck, I can make this a long and boring speech up front, like they do with most award shows, but I think everyone would just prefer to fuckin’ get going with this! After all, it’s Christmas Eve tonight and I’m sure you’ll want to get back to spinning Metal albums sitting under the Christmas tree.

Hey motherfuckers! I’m back from the living dead! Because that’s what I’ve been best described as over the past two weeks. Making fairly long working days of on average 16 hours and with peaks up to 20 hours turns you into a gibbering type of flesh monkey and with 80 meg Excel models crashing your computer all the time, your forehead soon turns into a bloody mess from all the headbutting the wall. I wasn’t looking too fresh.

But thankfully there was plenty of time to soak in fuckloads of Metal – at least when I wasn’t punching my laptop in the face. Just no time to write about all these fuckloads. Next to the deep-toned instrumental by Christian Olde Wolbers, one of the very few things I was able to churn out earlier, one of the most important songs to have pulled me through these weeks is Chimaira’s Year of the Snake. Every time I played the bastard its boundless energy and contained aggression breaking loose brought exactly that up in my inner being and it kept me rolling.

And so I must share!

We paired up two bands with names starting with T today. Not the only similarity, as both bands will also deliver us a juicy portion of melodic Death-Thrash to enjoy. Next to T.A.N.K from France, we’ve also got Trendkill Method, not the first contribution from Latvia on this site, but after Frailty, long ago, definitely the first in a very long time.

[Our new team addition, 'Danimal or Buffalo' from New Zealand - which means you can call him a kiwi - drops in today with his second album review, after he first reviewed Dawn of the Sociopath of Portugal's Echidna. He stays in Portugal for now, as he continues with a influence-rich piece of Groove Metal by We Are Killing Ourselves, a.k.a. W.A.K.O. Very much worth your time!]

Yet again Portugal surprises me. We Are Killing Ourselves have produced a bone cruncher of an album, titled The Road of Awareness. This album surprised me with all sorts of elements shining through, from slow crunching chug Metalcore style to fast palm mutes and big sounding lead solos. It all passes by in a matter of seconds.

[Today marks a special day, as it’s the day at which our new guest writer ‘Danimal or Buffalo’ drops in his first album review. He took care of the latest work of Portugal’s Echidna for us, and might I say he’s been particularly adept at describing what he hears. I’ve listened to some of the album and can say nothing else that he’s spot on! Welcome aboard DoB!]

Well let’s just start off by saying what a pleasant surprise it was to get this in my inbox! Echidna was great from the moment I pressed play till the moment the album ended. Hailing from Portugal, comes raw fast crunching chug with plenty string bends in tune perfectly and executed brilliantly. Dawn of the Sociopath is the follow-up to the band’s highly acclaimed 2008 debut album, Insidious Awakening. From what I have read, the band spent three years putting this album together and that definitely has been time well spent.

They say good things take time and this is proof. It seems as if they have poured their blood, sweat and tears into this recording and it has paid off well, with the lead guitarist really grabbing me the most.

Guess what, been looking about a bit and it turns out Mastodon is playing The Wiltern the day after Asking Alexandria. If you like both – and you’ve got cash – you can turn it into a nice long music-rich weekend in LA or something. In support for Mastodon are The Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang. Not the least of Metal! You can get the Mastodon tickets here.

And finally, because we never like to not give you something to listen to, here’s the track Curl of the Burl from Mastodon’s The Hunter album, a little something for those that missed the full The Hunter album stream we covered the other day. The track’s music video was recently published on YT, so this may be new to others too.

From Germany today, Incise. The five-piece from Trier recently released its debut record From the Crypt They Rise. I’m hearing all kinds of stuff, but it’s mostly got this crunchy, this inherent loudness that is so characteristic of Old-school Death. But it isn’t that.

So, if it’s not Old-school Death, what is it?! Truth is, I don’t know for sure. It definitely falls under the broad moniker of Death Metal of course, but then what. I don’t really think it matters to be honest, but what it reminds me of most is Kataklysm and the likes. You do the math from there.

By the way, there are free goodies – very good goodies in fact – at the end of this review, so make sure you check inside and follow the link we’ll give you!

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.

“Of all the first-time-out-of-the-country concerts you could’ve gone to, you HAD to pick Brazilian Thrash in Norway”, a friend of mine exclaimed. And while it seems an odd match-up, Oslo did seem the most logical place for legendary Thrash Metallers Sepultura to close their European tour for their latest album Kairos. Norway is renowned as one of the Metal Meccas, and a band over 20 years old must pay homage every so often to the country.