You may remember that some time ago CroOZza wrote a little piece on a Canadian formation named Karkaos. They delivered this immensely intense piece of Melodic Death Metal, with elements of darkness, Folk and pirate atmospheres, as well as a bunch of other stuff. Stuff’s definitely cool!

Anyway, one thing led to another and before we knew it we got into contact with Veronica Rodriguez, lead singer in the band, who got some of her band mates to agree to do an interview with us. That’ll follow in a bit, but first let’s present you with a brief overview of the band’s history, to give you some perspective.

Yes! Part 2 of the most important list in the whole wide world of Metal. The list of best albums I have reviewed all year. You can’t possibly get a more complete overview of what happened in the Metallic world, anywhere.

Seriously though, this is just a list. My own little list of fifteen albums that struck a special chord with me this year. But then again, I do hear a fuckload of Metal over the course of a year and the fact that these fifteen stood out as the top albums does make them a little special, don’t you think? Hence they are albums that I highly recommend you to listen to, and buy when you can get your grubby hands on them and have no more fuckin’ debts to pay off.

To be honest, had I made a Best-of-2011 list myself and had I published this, as many others, in early December, Karkaos wouldn’t have been on it. But since I stumbled across their video for The Tempest, and immediately got the EP as well, they’ve secured their place on it. However, because I really don’t feel like actually making such a list, it’ll remain a purely hypothetical achievement. Still, I’d like to emphasize that this band has impressed me!

Karkaos is a young group from Montreal, Canada founded only two years ago. With their EP In Burning Skies, released late October, the band released its first output. The music video to The Tempest appeared already in September, but didn’t make it to my screen until just now. But from there it didn’t take long to grab me.

So, after our recent announcement of the list of lists, today marks the first part of three of our list. We’ll start with a grouping of six albums. Albums that are ‘good’, to such an extent that they should really be in any Metalhead’s collection.

These first six are in no particular order. In fact, to express this, I’ve put them in alphabetical order based on band name – and so actually they are in a particular order, but it has nothing to do with how high I would rank each.

By the way, to cover my ass, my list entries may not necessarily match up 100% with the grading given or the reviews themselves. The reason is time. Sometimes hearing something the first few times can be an amazing experience, but as time passes and you hear something more often, the experience wears off. Obviously a review should incorporate this possibility, but the simple truth is you can never be completely right or accurate. And tastes and preferences shift, in my case quite heavily over the course of this year.

So, what this list captures is longevity. An album’s capability to continue to capture its listener. In that sense, these are all albums that will stay interesting. Albums that need to be taken out of your huge motherfuckin’ album rack regularly or from time to time, because they will keep on tickling pleasure bones.

Returning with their second offering after a hiatus, and 8^th in total, Greek Atmospheric Death Metal band Septicflesh have taken a reversed songwriting approach in The Great Mass, and formed the classical foundations before applying the bludgeoning Metal. What results is a neurotic mix of the two which some may consider watered down, and others an innovative approach that certainly beats other recent attempts.

To get an idea of the insanity within this album, take We, The Gods and Lovecraft’s Death from Communion and multiply. The opening track, The Vampire From Nazareth, is a perfect example of this, akin to a symphonic Behemoth that combines an ethereal female vocal and Anton’s own harsh grunt, which has now morphed into a Nergal tribute, while Benardo overpowers most other instruments with his blistering drum patterns.

Earlier this week I re-discovered a band from my home state Tennessee. I first discovered them nearly two years ago at a fantastic site known as Death Metal Baboon. Back then visitor SludgeGod suggested them and, now, for a second time, I’m glad he did.

Destroy Destroy Destroy is the band in question and they’ve been making Scandinavian flavored symphonic Melodeath with loads of power metal influence since 2003. They have released an EP and two full-lengths. That second full-length, released in ’09, is wonderfully titled Battle Sluts and is the source of our sounds.

And here we are again, after roughly a month, back to you with some material from Enid’s Munsalvaesche! As you can probably remember, we had some problems with Aural Music, who didn’t want us to upload materiel from the then unreleased album. “No problem.” we said, “We’ll simply get back to you in a month.” And that’s one promise kept.

I’ve got two videos for you, one of Red Knight and one of Condwiramurs, two songs I mentioned in my review. Furthermore, I have nothing more to say about this. If you want to read more click the link above to the review.

If you look past the fact that a lot of the symphonic elements sound like they’re coming from a 64-bit Nintendo, you’ll find that The Monary Memoirs is actually an incredibly delicious piece of neck-breaking brutality. And once the guitars, bass, drums and dual vocals kick in, those symphonics fall to the background – though stay an integral component – and nothing or no one is ever going to notice they’re not by the hand of Mozart himself.

Having listened to this band a bunch of time but lacking the time to do this review, I’ve each time more and more started to love their stuff. Scorned Deity, from Detroit, Michigan, have recently released The Monarchy Memoirs, which is their debut full-length. It contains thirteen tracks of what the band call ”Vinter Metal” – is that German for Winter Metal? How that characterizes their music I’m unsure of, but what I can tell you is that The Monarchy Memoirs features bucket loads of epicness in a cold yet warm environment.

Whenever I think of Tasmania, the little island near the ass of Australia, I primarily think of the Tasmanian Devil, a very ‘Metal’ animal which only lives on that island. That beast should be enough to make Tasmania a force to be reckoned with in the metal world. However, the only metal band from that area I’ve ever seen is today’s Astral Winter. Although the cover of their debut Winter Enthroned made me think they were from some arctic region, they seem to be chilling out in the sun all the time down south.

Josh Young is the sole member behind this band and he dropped us a line exactly two months ago. Since then, the link to his Facebook page has moved around quite a while on my desktop, being clicked once in a while, without really being properly looked at. Today however, I found enough courage to click through to the Astral Winter youtube channel to hear some. And I was in for a very pleasant surprise.

Yesterday marked what must have been one of the most enjoyable days in my whole fuckin’ life, I shit you not. I haven’t had such a good time in years and the smile on my face was both ridiculous and terrifying. Similarly, the ache in my upper neck muscles I’m currently experiencing is ridiculous and excruciating. All attributed to the efforts of Septic Flesh, As I Lay Dying and Amon Amarth, each in its bigger or smaller share.