Review: Rotting Christ - Rituals

Rotting Christ has been in the business since 1987 and is an extreme metal institution. The greek band released a magnificent 6 LP live album with "Lucifer over Athens" last year so the expectations for Rituals are very high.

Quick Facts:

• Artist: Rotting Christ
• Album: Rituals
• Version: 2LP, black, 45rpm, limited to 750 copies - Discogs Link
• Label: Season of Mist
• Found at: jpc.de

Rotting Christ recorded Rituals as DevaSoundz Studios in Athens, a small studio specializing in extreme music. Rituals is their second album recorded at DevaSoundz after Κατά Τον Δαίμονα Εαυτού. Septic Flesh (Titan) and oriental black metal band Melechesch (Enki) are among the other bands who used this studio in the past for parts of their album releases. Mastering took place at Jens Bogren's Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, an institution in the rock/metal world. Among their customers are greats like Dark Tranquillity, Arch Enemy, Paradise Lost, Opeth and many more. So it can be expected that the mastering is great. The vinyl was pressed by the usual suspect, Optimal Media Gmbh.

Track list:
01 - In Nomine Dei Nostri
02 - Ze Nigar
03 - Elthe Kyrie
04 - Apage Satana
05 - Les Litanies de Satan (Les Fleurs du mal)
06 - For a voice like Thunder
07 - Konx om pax
08 - Devadevam
09 - Tou Thanatou
10 - The four Horsemen
11 - Lok'tag Ogar

Gatefold/Cover Art/Record
The Cover was shot by photographer Ester Segarra who is known for her industrial/music photography. She has worked with Electric Wizard, Watain or Paradise Lost in the past. You can check out her work at e-segarra.com. The gatefold is pretty thick and the overall quality is again very good. The inner folding is raised a bit so it is pretty much impossible for the record sleeves to get stuck in there. On the inner gatefold you find the lyrics on the left side. Unfortunately the font is not perfect as some are quite hard to read. Furthermore they (obviously) included  the greek lyrics for songs like "Thou Thanatou". The right part of the inner gatefold consists of two thirds artwork and one third thank you notes. The back contains the tracklist. While the cover is exclusively using black and white colors and the inner gatefold only adds some sublte darker red, the tracklist on the back uses a very dark grey for the album sides (very hard to read) and shiny red for the tracks. The effect may be appealing to some, but it seems very misplaced. The record itself is plain black with a black/red sticker. Once again Rotting Christ manages to release a high quality gatefold.

The music:
The sound quality is once again amazing - nothing else to say about this.

It's no coincidence that the thank you notes take up so mach space on the gatefold on this 45rpm record. Rotting Christ worked with a lot of guest musicians on this album. Ranging from orchestral background to bagpipes, guitar solo and vocals by well known musicians Vorph (Samael) or Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost). The guest parts seem well placed and take nothing away from the usual Rotting Christ sound. Guest vocalists often provide only additional vocals (In nomine dei nostri, Elthe Kyrie, Devadevam) or recitations (For a voice like thunder). Only on Les litanies de satan Vorph of Samael takes over. The different songs are are rich in variety and thus create a fantastic listening experience. You might have to listen to this album a couple of times to finally discover and appreciate all the nuances. Despite all the variety, it does not feel like random songs strung together.

Conclusion - tl:dr:
Rotting Christ's 2LP version of Rituals stands out because of the high quality gatefold and amazing sound quality. A worthy successor for "Lucifer over Athens". 9/10 - Heavily recommended.

Don't forget to like us on facebook if you want to get notifications about new posts.

Review: Conan - Revengeance

I have been listening to all kinds of doom metal lately and came across Conan when browsing for upcoming vinyl releases. Caveman battle doom. An interesting enough description to give them a try.

Quick Facts:

• Artist: Conan - www.hailconan.com/
• Album: Revengeance - released on January 29, 2016
• Version: Limited Edition, black vinyl - Discogs Link
• Label: Napalm Records
• Found at: amazon.de for 18,99 €

Revengeance was recorded at Skyhammer Studios in the south of Liverpool where "Electric Wizard" recorded their recent live album "Time to Die"and was pressed at Optimal Media in germany - one of the largest pressing plants in europe. Optimal Media has been in the business for 26 years. What made me very excited is their choice of James Plotkin for the mastering. Plotikin is specialized in more extreme metal and has workied with greats like Sunn O))) or Earth. Revengenace was released on 180 orange/black splatter vinyl (300 copies), 180g silver vinyl (200 copies) and black vinyl. The black vinyl version is also labeled as strictly limited but numbers were not made public, so this may just be due to marketing. 

Tracklist:

1.Throne of Fire - 04:31

2.Thunderhoof - 09:38

3.Wrath Gauntlet - 08:39

4.Revengeance - 06:10

5.Every Man Is an Enemy - 06:46

6.Earthenguard - 11:44

Gatefold/Cover Art/Record
Responsible for the amazing artwork is Anthony J. Roberts who did album art for Conan in the past. He is also responsible for the cover of Grand Magus - Triumph and Power. I strongly recommend to check out his work on his webpage www.blackmindseye.org. The gatefold material is standard quality. I have seen better quality but also worse. The record sleeve is plain black but anti-static. One of Roberts artworks is printed on both sides of the inner sleeves with the lyrics, additional information on the record and thank you notes on the right side. The back of the gatefold and the cover make up one picture when unfolded too. The record is plain black and pretty heavy with three songs on each side. I love the looks of the whole gatefold. It is definitely a standout in my collection. If I had to find a problem with this gatefold I'd say the font they used for the lyrics and the tracklist on the back looks a bit off.

The music:

The name is not a gimmick. Conan is angry, Conan is furious and definitely my go-to soundtrack for being chased by a horde of angry barbarians swinging their warhammers. The opener "Throne of Fire" sets a nice pace for the album before "Thunderhoof" crushes your bones in a groundshaking stampede. This is classic Conan only improved by the addition of Rich Lewis on the drums. All the little changes like adding the rather contrasting backing vocals of Chris Fielding really pay off. And with "Thunderhoof" and "Revengeance" they finally managed to create some songs recognition value. The lyrics are what you'd expect of a caveman/barbarian... rather basic. That's no problem at all as it fits perfectly in the whole theme of the band, their music and this album. More than three words in a verse are the exception, not the rule. "Revengeance" is a great album and Conan a great band and they definitely did a big step forward to stand out of the nearly endless pool of doom/sludge bands but are not quite there yet. Definitely not a mistake if you give this band a chance. 7.5/10.

Up next: Review of Rotting Christ - Rituals, a new design and some tips on vinyl related websites.

Don't forget to like us on facebook if you want to get notifications about new posts.

Review: Negură Bunget - Tău

First of all: In my last review I said that Bloody Hammers cover art reminded me of 70s horror movies. As it turned out they used the poster of the 1957 horror movie the Undead. (IMDB Link).

Negură Bunget - Tău
It took me 10 years and an awesome concert to fully appreciate Negură Bunget and their music. I first came across them in the early 2000s, forgot about them and rediscovered them every few years. After an awesome gig at Paganfest in 2011 their material has made it into my playlist.  As soon as "Tău" popped up on my recommendations I had buy a copy just to see how they sound on a good setup.


















Quick Facts:

• Artist: Negură Bunget - www.negurabunget.com
• Album: Tău - released on February 27, 2015
• Version: Limited Edition, 180g Vinyl - Discogs Link 
• Label: Lupus Lounge (a sublabel of Prophecy Records)
• Found at: amazon.de for 22,99 €

Quality/artwork:
I am impressed by the quality of the whole record. The gatefold is pretty thick with a slightly glossy finish. It definitely feels better in my hands than other gatefolds. And they got the crease line right so there's no way for the record sleeves to get stuck which is a big plus. The record comes with a generic record sleeve and optionally a printed sleeve with lyrics. It's up to you which one you use. As the generic sleeve is plain white paper and not anti-static it does not matter. Included is also a glossy poster of the band which seems a bit off compared to the rest of the album art.
The artwork is in line with Negură Bunget's themes and videos: Nature. It's quite minimalistic. A full picture on the front with just the album title disguised in runelike writing, a panorama picture in the inner gatefold and a full picture on the back with just little information like tracklist, band, label etc. on it. The design of the gatefold definitely stands out between my more colorful records.

The sound/music:
The sound quality is great. The record I own is being advertised as incl. special vinyl mastering. While I am not keen on those adwords this usually means that they used a high quality master. You are able to distinguish the various instruments they used. This is great for music which easily may create a wall of sound.
Fitting Negură Bunget into a specific genre is nearly impossible. This is apparent on Discogs as every release is labeled differently. They are clearly influenced by black metal but use pagan, folk avantgarde and ambient elements too. Some wag even categorized Tău as easy listening. Well, it's not. The album is definitely more appealing to the masses than their past releases which I find great. Negură Bunget perfects their usual contrast rich play on Tău. Atmospheric tunes, harsh black metal and folk parts seemlessly string together. There are however differences to the past albums. First of all, Tău is more experimental in the choice of instruments in the folk parts and surprisingly keyboard heavy (for Negură Bunget standards). This is a blessing in disguise. The experimental parts work great sometimes and feels a bit forced and overused the other time. With music relying so much on atmosphere this can really ruin a song. When I heard the track "Tarim Vilhovnicesc" I was very surprised to hear a familiar voice. Sakis Tolis of Rotting Christ (vocals on "Tarim Vilhovnicesc") and Rune Eriksen (ex-Mayhem, guitar on "Impodobeala Timpului) appear as guest musicians on the album. This album is not a masterpiece like "Om" and it's different compared to their older releases. Not surprising with all the lineup changes in the past. It seems as if the band is trying out various new elements and while some work great some fail. Does this make Tău a bad album? No, the music is still Negură Bunget, they still manage to create that special atmosphere and it is still an album I listen to regularly. Die hard fans of the old stuff may be disappointed but with the changes made they surely manage to reach a wider audience. I am really looking forward to any new material as I am really curious about the direction the band is heading with their next albums.

Up next: Review of Conan - Revengeance

Don't forget to like us on facebook if you want to get notifications about new posts.

Review: Bloody Hammers - Under Satan's Sun

Im my last post I said that I will do some changes on how I am going to reviews. As some of you suggested (and I'm still amazed that people I don't know read this blog) I will organize my posts a little more. I'll keep the introduction and the quick facts (this time including webpage of the band and discogs link to the version I am going to review). I dropped the track lists as it was completely unnecessary. If possible I will add a sentence or two about the mastering of the record if I am able to get some reliable information. Furthermore, I am going to review the quality of the gatefold/sleeves/records, the extras (if any), the artwork and finally the music. I am going to embed a youtube video or bandcamp link from official sources so you guys can listen to a song or two without leaving the page. Still not sure if I want to embed the music on the top so you can listen to it while reading or at the bottom so you can listen to the stuff afterwards. Any suggestions are very welcome. So enough of that - let's talk about music.

There's something to Bloody Hammers music I cannot pinpoint exactly. I came across Bloody Hammers on Spotify a couple of years ago. I think I played the song "Say goodbye to the Sun" on repeat on some occasions. There's something to Anders Magna's voice I really like. Combined with the slow, doomy elements the sound creates a rather soothing mood for me. Even more impressive is, that Bloody Hammers consist of only two people. They have released an album a year since they formed in 2012. Their Self Titled debut has been on my vinyl target list for quite some while and I think I'll get it in the next few weeks. I haven't bought into their following release Spiritual Relics. It could not recreate that special mood the first album was able to inflict in me. So I found it especially intriguing to reveiew Under Satan's Sun just to see what kind of direction Bloody Hammers are going.

Quick Facts:

• Artist: Bloody Hammers - www.bloodyhammers.com/
• Album: Under Satan's Sun - released on May 30, 2014
• Version: Limited Edition, 180g Vinyl - Discogs Link
• Label: Napalm Records
• Found: at www.nuclearblast.de for only 12,90 € (Winter Sale)

Quality/artwork:

The skull, the cape, the coffin, the girl, the writing - everything on the cover basically screams 70s horror movie. If you google 70s horror movie posters you will see what I mean. The material of the gatefold is simple, no gloss or any extra. The left sleeve is glued shut, and I dislike it. Whoever produced this messed up quite a bit. There are a few openings, which is no biggie but the sleeve is quite wobbly due to being glued together badly. The back is nothing special, just prominently featuring the tracks on each side. I like what they did with the inner gatefold. On the left you find the lyrics. This is something I dislike a lot on many many records. They either leave out the lyrics entirely or include them as a one page inlay which is prone to get damaged (I am looking at you Mastodon!). The right side features Anders Magna (vocals/bass/guitar/drums) and Devallia (organ/keyboards), some b/w promo pics and the thank you notes. The actual sleeve holding the record is an anti-static paper sleeve. Nothing special but way better than other sleeves used in newer pressings. The record itself is 180g vinyl. It makes no difference in quality - it only feels better when holding the record in your hands. The print on the record is a picture of a woman in a goat/devils mask in front of some landscape with a typrical filter effect applied. Reminds me a lot of the cover of their debut album and I'm pretty sure that is no coincidence. This actually reminds me of the prints on older records I own. The color scheme is a deciation from the all the other colors used which seems a bit odd. Included in this edition is a very small poster of a a live gig in black and white.

 The music:
I could not find any info on the mastering on my usual source (stevehoffman.tv). Since the band is offering losless .flac files via bandcamp it can be assumed that they did use a high quality master. Furthermore, I rarely read anything negative about Napalm Records releases. To my untrained ear this is definitely an album you can listen to at lower volume without loosing any of it's groove. Now the good thing first. Under Satan's Sun is back to the style on their debut album. It's catchy and a pleasure to listen to but not on the same level as the self titled debut. It is still a great album though. The opener "The town that dreaded sundown" is surprisingly straightforward rock with less occult/doom elements but sets the mood for what is about to come. I caught myself quite often nodding my head to the music. "Death does us part" - the second video release of the album, is quite a tricky song to me. It manages to catch the spirit of the first album but on the other hand some parts remind me of bloody HIM. This is maybe my only issue with the album. While most songs are great, I got the feeling I've listened to this before. "Welcome to the horror show" - the first video they released on youtube - could be covered by Marilyn Manson and noone would notice it's not his work. Again, this does not make the song a bad one, it just shows the obvious influences on the album.

Under Satan's Sun is the perfect record to listen to without paying much attention. The songs do not require much attention. The song structures are pretty straightforward with catchy refrains and well constructed bridges. The lyrics are as straightforward as the song structures. Nothing much left for your imagination here and nothing to read between the lines. This is what makes this abum so enjoyable, you can turn off your brain and pretty much enjoy it. Definitely the tunes I'd drunkenly dance to with my eyes closed at 4 a.m. in a metal club. My favorite song is definitely the namegiving "Under Satan's Sun". It reminds me a lot of their very first album. To me, the B side of the record is way better than the first one. While "Spearfinger" is the only track from Side A I'd put in a playlist I would put everyone on the other side in there.

To summarize: Bloody Hammers have gone back to the sound of the first album and created a very good but not great third album. I is definitely way better than "Spiritual Relics". If you're a fan of occult/psychadelic/doom metal give it a try.

Up next: Review: Negură Bunget - Tău

Don't forget to like us on facebook if you want to get notifications about new posts.

Going vintage part II: The arrival

Now I was in the posession of a vintage Dual 1219 turntable and I did not even  know if it worked or not. The seller claimed it was in working, still pretty fishy considering the low price. Since I was not able to get the turntable myself it was not possible to test it in advance. Considering how little I paid for it, it was well worth the risk. On first inspection the turntable seemed in okay condition. No dents on the body, a working, though not original dust cover, a body mod to fit the dust cover and surprisingly two din cables to attach to the amplifier. To finally be able to listen to my records on this beauty I needed a couple of things: test the turntable, buy an amp and some din to cinch adapters.

When I plugged the power cord into the outlet and switched the turntable on I could hear the motor working but the platter did not move. Coincidently, I had read about this issue a week ago on the dual board. To fix this, I had to remove the platter. There are a lot of instructions to be found online on how to do these things. Fortunatley, I only had to clean the idler and roughen up the edges a little bit to make it work. Furthermore, the speed control was stuck. Trying to force it to move may actually damage the turntable even though it's built like a tank. I had to remove the turntable from the body to be able to access the inner mechanics. Removing the resinified oil and applying some lubricant fixed the issue instantly. The armilft was non-functional. Fixing this would be possible but had no priority. The automatic was working horizontally but due to the broken armlift not vertically. So I had to operate the turntable manually. I removed the cartridge and the needle to clean the contacts and tried to remove as much resin as possible from the inner mechanics. This would allow me to at least test this beauty, but I still needed an amp.

I found a used Denon PMR-925 amplifier from a local seller for 70 bucks. I did not do much research on other models, it was cheap, has a phono input, was in good condition and had favorable reviews. All I had to do was to buy the din to cinch adapters. Since there are two din cables attached to the turntable I bought to. And in the end it was the right choice, Went to my local electronics store to buy the din to cinch adapters to be ready to go. With everything attached, I put on a random record and there it was... a muffled sound... no bass even with the bass turned to max. So back to the internet I was, looking for information on this issue. If you want to call me an idiot - please do so. Seems I only forgot to attach the grounding to the amp. As soon as I did I got blown away.

The difference between my old stereo and this turntable plus amp was huge. Even with the same lousy speakers I was able to get much better sound. And surprisingly, even on low volume it still sounded great in stereo. I decided to attach my old tweeters as well. On the denon amp you are able to turn on/off the speaker pairs seperately. On some records it was great enhancement and on some the quality suffered. Still... I was as happy as I could be. I decided to test the Dual 1219 for a month or two before deciding if I wanted to repair (or in this case: let repair) the turntable.

Thanks to www.vinylengine.com and www.dual-board.de I was able to get the Dual 1219 to working conditions. So If you don't know these websites - go check them out.

And If you fancy, give us a like on facebook with the bloody annoying like button below. Still working to find another way to do so.

Up next:
A review of Bloody Hammer's - Under the Satan's Sun including some hopefully pleasant changes to how I conduct my highly subjective reviews.