Hailing from Ireland, Primordial is one of our top 50 bands from all times and “Spirit The Earth Aflame” is one of our all-time favorite albums. When we heard that Metal Blade was releasing this timeless classic we got psyched about the possibility of some great bonus material on this version of the album (we currently have 2 other versions).

If you know who Primordial is, you probably worship this album as much as any other fan of the band and can skip till the next paragraph of this review. If you don’t know who the band is, then we must tell you that this band was one of the first to successfully combine Celtic/Folk influences with aggressive Black Metal elements, giving them a very dark and powerful sound that was unheard off back in the late 90’s and early 00’s.

Recently we have been bombarded by tons and tons of new Thrash Metal bands and it’s getting close to impossible to find any bands worth listening to. The Prophecy23 is yet another one of those Thrash bands that is aiming for a little piece of the pie. We must say that from the countless submissions we get, there is a great deal of quality behind this German band that we can’t seem to find anywhere else.

With a ‘traditional’ Thrash foundation, The Prophecy23 has pretty solid riffing and overall catchy songwriting that makes them quickly standout from all the uninspired cloned bands. The band does not get stuck in the whole ‘lets sound old-school’ approach and actually proposes some interesting changes in their music.

All the way from the UK, today we get on our review queue Ramesses latest crushing releases “Take the Curse”. While we are huge Doom Metal fans, we tend to go for the Death-Doom bands rather than the Sludge/Psychedelic Metal bands. Ramesses falls on the second category and while not our favorite band in the world, they do a great job in creating 10 solid tracks for this new release.

The problem most people might have about Sludge/Doom Metal is the lack of ‘originality’ and diversity than most bands present. We rather look at Sludge/Doom Metal releases from a perspective of effectiveness rather than originality or diversity, and Ramesses is a very effective band in our opinion. The band creates a very bleak and sometimes trippy atmosphere that not everybody pulls off these days.

Over the last few years we have noticed that the metal scene in the United States is finally deviating from the ‘commercially safe’ crap and it’s finally producing some kick ass bands like Allegaeon that makes you double check to see if they are indeed from the US. Hailing from Colorado, Allegaeon comes to take the US Melodic Death Metal crown in a heart beat.

Some people might say that there are still some fashion-core remains in this band’s music, and at some points they have some Black Dahlia Murder influences, but we see the bigger picture: a band trying to sound different than most American bands these days. Notice we say different and not original, since bands in Europe have been doing proper Melodic/Technical Death Metal for years and nobody seems to consider this a feat anymore.

When people usually tell me that X band sounds like Death, I usually chuckle and leave before I call that person ignorant and have a heated debate on how that band NOT even closely sounds like Death. Today somebody told me that Decrepit Birth sounded a bit like Death (musically), so I again chuckled and proceeded to end the conversation, however I had “Polarity” on my review queue so I decided to entertain this thought for a bit and have an open mind about this American band.

To my amazement, “It sounds like Death (the band)” is the best statement to describe Decrepit Birth and their monumental third full-length album “Polarity”. Featuring 11 songs of pure Death metal wizardry, I haven’t heard something as brilliant as this album in quite a while and haven’t enjoyed a (Technical/Progressive) Death Metal since the last Death albums. And since I was not a huge fan of Chuck Schuldiner’s terrible vocals, Decrepit Birth greatly improves over Death in this department.

Directly from Croatia today we have Stribog, a very impressive Folk/Pagan Metal band. The band’s first full-length album “U Okovima Vjecnosti” showcases a perfect balance of aggressive Metal sections and ethereal Folk passages that not every band can pull off so gracefully. There is no shortage of epic songs in this album that have high replay value.

Since the first song “Ancestral Skies Of Gold” you know you are for a special ethereal ride with the combination of Folk elements, melodic distorted guitars and angelic female vocals. The band’s songs vary between melodic Folk passages and very aggressive (but melodic) Black Metal-like sections, the intertwining of these two genres is done very well and most of the transitions in this release are done seamlessly.