Forgotten Tomb : "We Owe You Nothing"

This band from Italy has changed greatly over the years. The went from being an almost depressive black metal band to a doomy sludge band and now to thrashy grooved death metal. This is their 9th album so something would be wrong if it was not as dialed in production wise as it is. In fact the sharper distortion of the crisp production leads you to believer these riffs  owe as much to Pantera in places as the do Celtic Frost. There is a groove that is hard to deny or to not bang our head to. There is almost more of an Obituary like feeling to the raw gargled aggression of "Second Chances". The difference being the darker dissonance that comes from once being a black metal band that these guys have yet to shake.It feels more like death metal than black metal when they speed up in a few sections here and there.

"Sabotuer" doesn't demand my attention as fervently as the first two songs had. The guitar sounds more up front with a current of double bass babbling like a brook beneath it. There is a more polished thrash bass sound to the rumble heading into "Abandon Everything". The vocals hold more punk in their snarl than blackness. The guitar tone is pretty interesting. The solo like single note run is a well placed bridge. As far as being a composition goes this song has more to sink your ears into than the previous song. The mid paced "Longing For Decay" has the most melodic elements so far. The riffs are really interesting and the dynamics remind me of their earlier work.

The last song is more of a instrumental piece that feels like an outro than a song in the way they have presented songs to us up to this point in the album. So while it's while played , but otherwise nothing special I am going to ignore it for the purpose of this review. As a whole it feels like the songwriting on this album is more concise and more sticks to my ears so I am going to give this album a 9, who knows if I listen to it more, but for fans of the band this is another one in the win column for those of you keeping score at home.

Aborym : "Shifting Negative"

The album title might refer to the direction the Italian band wanted the reviews for this album to go in. I love the post-industrial rock from the 90s. As cheesy as bands like God Lives Underwater got, I still liked it at the time, so when I hear something like this it re-kindles those memories. The problem here is you might remember these guys as being a black metal band. You might remember them being more on the experimental side. This album is not black metal...at all. So while I can appreciate the groove and textures in the opening song, if you are attached to what thee guys used to sound like then you are going to have a reaction not unlike the one had by many when the last Morbid Angel came out.

There is a Nine Inch Nails like sound to the piano sprinkled into "Precarious" , that might remind you of "Something I can Never Have" . The vocals are hushed almost in a whisper. This seems like it would have fir better later in the album as it is a little too atmospheric and kinda kills the chance to build momentum. "Decadence in a Nutshell" sounds like it should have been on Alice Cooper's "Brutal Planet " album. The first glimpse of harsher vocals crops up after this , but comes across more like Strapping Young Lad. It amounts to a pretty decent song , not one I would keep on constant replay, but I paid attention when I heard it.

There is an odd marriage of blast beats and the current level of Nine Inch Nails worship on "Slipping Through the Cracks", but some how avoids sounding like total nu-metal. "You Can't Handle the Truth" has a slower more powerful intro. It feels more like a Ministry song putting us back in the zip code of actual industrial. There was more thought put into the arrangement of "For a Better Past" , it seemed like a pretty decent balance of these sometimes contrasting elements. There is more of that pop like expand and contract dynamic that built it's bandwagon off of "the Downward Spiral" in the 90s on "Tragedies" which doesn't wow me , but doesn't suck either. I also like how things get darker on "Going Places", but chances are if you do not like solo  Rob Zombie you are not going to like this either. It closes with "Big H" which is a little more rock n roll. Some of the winks to Nine Inch Nails in the closing moments of this song are pretty obvious, but there are worse ways to go. I'll give this album an 8 as it is a fitting tribute to an era of music I love and if you are going to decide to transition out of black metal into something more mainstream this is the way to do it.

Grime : "Circle of Molesters"

Straight outta Italy this sludge ridden grind-core band is nasty like Eyehategod smoking meth with Graves At Sea while being run over by a tank. Their screamer sounds like he is on the verge of losing both his mind and his voice. Once again these guys have the benefit of taking you by storm on the first song just out of sheer heaviness and then you are asking can you write songs or just make noise when it's time to hear the rest of the album. It slows down to an almost doom lumber and lower vocals roar in ,but the lack of melody makes me think these guys better pulls out some tricks before long or this is all going to sound the same. There is more of a death metal oppression in the onslaught of "Decay in Hades". It is full chug ahead that is hammered into you skull. The slow some of the punches creating a very effective shift in tempo. The guitar sound is easily as dense as Disma's.

There is a steam roller groove to "Sulphorous Dreams" it shifts momentum while maintaing the same level of venom to its temper tantrum.The accelerate back into a more death metal pace and then rein the chug back in.It's pretty impressive if you just need to keep beating your self in the temples with a hammer when you put you head phones on. "Acclerating Transition" lives up to my prediction and comes across like an extention of the previous song. Sure, the riff is mean , but the rule here is mean riffs alone does not make a good song. With "Salvation Come From Below" it is obvious we have moved onto another song. The fuzz out...I'm guessing bass here , but every thing is tuned so low it is hard to tell. The hit you with same intensity and the screamed vocals at this point all sound the same , kinda like rap where it is just hitting the beat at different times. The lyrics are brutal I am sure but you can not make out a single word even when you listen closely. The lower growls double up toward the end when the double bass picks it up into more of a death metal tempo.

The close out the album with "Orgiastic Rite" which is a new song but more of the same old they have been beating you with for the rest of the album. Granted it's the last song so they have to go out with a bang, but like you learned in the movie "This is Spinal Tap" when you are at ten where else is there to go. The answer is nowhere. So the heaviness that blew your mind on the first song, has numbed you out once we reach the close.They might be at a ten when it comes to heaviness, but I'll give this album a 6.5, you can round it up if all you need is something heavy as fuck.

4.2