Tag Archives: Peaceville Records

Black Metal, Genre, Song Reviews

Mayhem – The Freezing Moon: Live In Leipzig (Song Review)

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“I remember it was here I died”

Mayhem’s The Freezing Moon (or just Freezing Moon depending on which version you’re listening to) is one of the monumental classics of black metal. The opening E minor chord alone is the definitive example of the epic, frosty, and evil feeling the genre should evoke. There are a number of superb versions of this track but the most seminal version has to be this one from Live In Leipzig. Recorded crudely on a ghetto-blaster from a 1990 club gig in East Germany, by the time Live In Leipzig was officially released in 1993 the band’s Swedish frontman Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin had committed suicide. At the time, this recording was one of the few available that featured his vocals. And the subsequent events surrounding the Norwegian band only added to its stature as a landmark recording. No song on the album lives up that stature more than The Freezing Moon: Dead’s introduction “when it’s cold and when it’s dark, the freezing moon can obsess you” is iconic; the raw and primitive sound puts you right in the audience; the band’s thunderous performance and Dead’s gravelly vocals are powerful and committed; and Euronymous delivers an incredible take of the track’s grippingly uneasy and unforgettable guitar solo. It’s an essential and thrilling metal document. Like Dead said… it’s cold, and it’s dark. And it will obsess you.

Doom Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews

My Dying Bride – The Cry Of Mankind (Song Review)

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“You can’t expect to see him and survive”

On The Cry Of Mankind, Yorkshire’s My Dying Bride take an extremely simple but eerie guitar motif and build a monumentally dark, symphonic beast of a song out of it. It’s a masterpiece that manages to remain refined and elegant while still filling you with existential dread. And, as if the song proper wasn’t already crushing enough, The Cry Of Mankind‘s final minutes just let that six-note motif run on. But this time overlaying it with a haunting choir and the bellow of a foghorn so unsettling and otherworldly it feels like the last thing you might ever hear.

Black Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews

Darkthrone – Blacksmith Of The North (Keep That Ancient Fire) (Song Review)

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“Sound of iron, hard at work”

You want riffs. And they don’t get much better than the angular, thrashy guitar intro that kicks off Darkthrone’s Blacksmith Of The North (Keep That Ancient Fire). Taken from 2008’s Dark Thrones And Black Flags, it’s easily one of my Top 10 favourite riffs since the turn of the millennium and I love the frost-bitten, crusty sound and Nocturno Culto’s echoing, gravelly vocals. It’s a flaming triumph and a cool, apt title for a band that has kept the ancient fire burning, hammering out quality metal with impressive regularity to this day.

Album Reviews, Doom Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal

Anathema – Alternative 4 (Album Review)

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Anathema – Alternative 4 (Peaceville Records – 1998)

Anathema’s Alternative 4 hits a sweet spot between the doom-laden metal of their early days and the uplifting self-help rock of their final ones. Frontman Vincent Cavanagh finds his voice amidst beautiful layers of instruments but the album also has an edgy, urban darkness. It’s like vicariously experiencing the emotions of someone’s most profoundly drunken bender: from rip-roaringly jubilant to extremely fighty to having a big cry. Alternative 4 is a very British masterpiece of maudlin, metropolitan metal: one of the most unique and intoxicating albums I’ve ever heard.

Black Metal, Genre, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Dødheimsgard – Tankespinnerens Smerte (Song Review)

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“Where everything feels damn good”

Now we’re into the second half of 2023, I thought I’d share a track from my favourite album of the year so far. Here’s Tankespinnerens Smerte from Black Medium Current, the new album from Norwegian weirdos Dødheimsgard. It’s atmospheric black metal that blasts off with layered grandeur and a captivating mix of croaks and croons from DHG frontman Vicotnik. Then it heads off, brilliantly, into an eclectic mix of quiet, sinister and ominously discordant sections and also features the most blissful, uplifting vocal hook I’ve heard in ages. If anyone thinks they can release better music than this before the year is through, they avant-garde a chance!

Death Metal, Doom Metal, Genre, Song Reviews

Autopsy – In The Grip Of Winter: EP Version (Song Review)

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“Put your legs in the flames”

This is one winter wonderland you won’t be walking in. Autopsy’s In The Grip Of Winter is one of my absolute favourite death metal tracks. It’s a tale of arctic demise, perfectly expressed with (impending) doom metal swagger, panic-stricken death metal hammering and blizzardy guitar solos. It’s brilliant stuff and one of the tracks I always spin the minute I feel a chill in the air. There’s an even frostier version of this on the Mental Funeral album but this earlier version (from 1991’s Retribution For The Dead EP) emphasises the doom with its humongous, fat sound. But, no matter which version you hear, In The Grip Of Winter is a stone cold classic.

Album Reviews, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Genre

Anathema – Serenades (Album Review)

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Anathema – Serenades (1993)

Anathema closed out their career with an album called The Optimist but back in their early days they were pessimistic purveyors of purest woe. Their 1993 debut album Serenades is growling, grinding doom: all funeral drapes, dead loved-ones and weeping willows. It puts a smile on my face though cause I love misery-guts metal and this is a great album to wallow in. The Cathedral-esque Sweet Tears is top drawer and Sleepless‘ goth melody makes it an early favourite of the band’s career. Even the more forgettable tracks like Under A Veil (Of Black Lace) have their share of cool riffs and moreishly sorrowful harmonies. Avant-garde interludes and French lady voices keep things interesting and varied. The 23 minutes of ambient wallpaper music at the end is a bit try-hard and the why/cry lyrics have a naiveté that would persist throughout the band’s career. But these minor quibbles are nothing to get sad about. Serenades is an impressive debut from a band with plenty of reasons to be optimistic.

Classic Rock, Doom Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews

Pentagram – Relentless (Song Review)

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“Take you to hell and won’t say hello”

Pentagram were formed in 1971 and are renowned as early doom pioneers but nearly 15 years passed before the cult US band was able to rise from the underground and put out their first album. It was worth the wait. The 1985 self-released debut was originally just called Pentagram but in 1993 it was reissued by Peaceville Records and renamed Relentless after this awesome track. Relentless was penned by charismatic guitarist Victor Griffin and has a walloping tone and simple, strident riff that fully lives up to the promise of the song’s title. The lyrics are a bit clunky but endearingly catchy and they’re a good vehicle for the ‘Ram’s wayward frontman Bobby Liebling to strut his swaggering, streetwise stuff. But the real joy here is the riffin’ of Griffin. His electric axe is gonna knock you on your back.

Album Reviews, Black Metal, Death Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Thrash Metal

Akercocke – Renaissance In Extremis (Album Review)

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It’s been ten long years since Akercocke’s reign of progressive death metal terror reached a thrilling and diabolical climax with Antichrist. Although the band has lain dormant for much of the intervening decade, a vibrant scene has grown in their wake: superb “ex-Akercocke” bands like Voices, The Antichrist Imperium and Shrines forming a growing family tree that has been the source of much of my favourite music of recent years. But despite my huge love of the related bands, I’ve had a growing longing for an Ak comeback and here they are with their new album Renaissance In Extremis, the most highly-anticipated and exciting release of 2017.

Given that they reached peak Satan-worship on Antichrist, it is unsurprising that the ever-evolving British band has taken up new themes. This is a more personal and emotional Akercocke that combines topics of depression, grief and suicide with rampaging positivity and self-improvement. Complex structures and varied moods evoke the subject matter. The shimmering and colourful guitar textures would make Queensrÿche and Rush proud and it’s all given an energetic kick up the arse with an array of wonderful tech thrash riffing in tracks like Disappear and Insentience. And tracks like Unbound By Sin and First To Leave The Funeral find the band’s black/death malevolence of old is still intact.

Band photos by Tina Korhonen © 2017, all rights reserved.

The whole band performs with distinction, sounding sophisticated and polished but also raw and live. The riffs and guitar solos are sublime throughout: the guitar duo of Jason Mendonça and Paul Scanlan combine old and new metal styles with wonderful flair. It’s also especially good to hear Mendonça’s uniquely charismatic and varied vocals again. A couple of wobbly-pitched moments only add to the crazed, natural feel and Jason leads from the front like few extreme metal frontmen can.

There’s very little to quibble about here and this is a superb comeback album overflowing with originality and creativity. Progressive in the proper sense of the word, Akercocke have created another unique album to add to their discography. And one that has enough variety and maturity that many fans of classic metal fare may find it a gateway into a more extreme musical world. For those of us that already reside in that world, Akercocke’s Renaissance In Extremis is a joyous and welcome return, wholly deserving of the most diabolical and infernal praise.