Kalmah – 12 Gauge (2010) Review 8.8/10

Something new just arrived from the swamp.  Kalmah’s sixth studio album, 12 Gauge, is here. The melodies are instantly catchy, the aggression is there, the guitars sound thick, and the singing is just as intense as ever. If there is one thing Kalmah is it’s consistent.

If you are new to Kalmah (where have you been?), these Finnish swamp lords play a technical breed of melodic death metal.  You can also hear a little black metal influence here and there, particularly in some of the vocals from Pekka Kokko and some of the more aggressive guitar lines.

I have this friend who doesn’t really listen to metal (he is still stuck on grunge) and the last few times he has stopped by I’ve been listening to Kalmah. Each time he asked, “What is this, some kind of video game death metal?”

The hooks are so strong and catchy that they sometimes do sound like something that would work in a video game. Mario would be so much cooler if he rocked out to Kalmah.

Let’s analyze for a moment: On their first few albums the sound was epic and aggressive. It was slightly raw despite the prominent keyboards. The songs were catchy but the hooks weren’t as defined as they were on their last album, For the Revolution. To me, 12 Gauge brings back some of the older Kalmah style and mixes it with the new sound. It’s epic and aggressive while featuring amazing riffing and catchy melodies. I also like that this music does not insulting the listener by being predictable or watered down. It’s Kalmah all the way through.

They do love to use the keyboard (as usual). Their keyboarding is always there to add depth and thicken the already catchy melodies. One of the beauties of it is that it never overpowers the guitars or weakens the sound. This is one of the few melodic death metal bands that can tear your head off.

I don’t think this is their best work to date. There are better songs on just about every Kalmah album to date. We do have some amazing songs here and an album worthy of the “Kalmah” name. I believe someone mentioned that they knew about Kalmah but never really looked into them. This is a good place to start and after you “get it”, go back and explore their older material. Thank me later.

8.8/10

Rotting Christ – AEALO (2010) Review 8/10

Rotting Christ’s latest effort, AEALO, is meant to be taken as a whole, as an experience, or single piece of art. This is supposed to be what a soldier goes through in battle. Read more

New Kalmah Album Released Today in Japan (Europe on March 3)

Kalmah has a new album out today in Japan.  It will be released in Europe on March 3rd. I hate when they stagger the release dates. It makes no sense. The album will be online today.

The album is called 12 Gauge and it is filled with close to 43 minutes of their of blackened melodic death metal!

Here is a random video from their studio:

Finntroll – Nifelvind (2010) Review 8.9/10

There be trolls about. Finntroll is back with another frolic through the darker parts of the Finnish forest. Nifelvind is a lot more fun than their last album, Ur Jordens Djup.

In Ur Jordens Djup, Finntroll really reached a dark point in their music. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean that their music much more diabolical and sinister. It was like a rainy day filled with necromancy. The sound is much the same in Nifelvind. It’s still dark and somewhat evil sounding, but this time it’s more darkly mischievous than sinister.  I can definitely drink ale to this.

They have introduced some new instruments on this album. I am loving the sound of the xylophone on some of the tracks. It brings to mind images of trolls dancing about in torch-lit caves. There is also some banjo on this album. I would rate this as one of the “folkier” Finntroll albums just because there are a lot of acoustic instruments and a bit less keyboard than one is used to.

As for the production and performances… The production is nearly perfect. It seems hard not to find a well produced album these days. The performances are quite good as well. The guitar is just as complicated as it needs to be. The effects and folk instruments are all well placed. I especially like the background vocals. We hear chanting and even some epic choruses.

I do prefer some of the more upbeat Finntroll albums like Nattfödd, but I am really enjoying this trip through the darker parts of the forest.

8.9/10

Line-up:
Vreth – Vocals
Routa – Guitars
Skrymer – Guitars
Tundra – Bass
Trollhorn – Keyboards
Beast Dominator – Drums

1. Vindfärd / Människopesten 05:36
2. Eliytres 03:46
3. Fiskarens Fiende 03:47
4. Trollhammaren 03:33
5. Nattfödd 04:51
6. Ursvamp 02:03
7. Marknadsvisan 02:00
8. Det Iskalla Trollblodet 03:54
9. Grottans Barn 04:37
10. Rök 02:23
Total playing time 36:30

February has Been an Epic Month

Eluveitie, Rotting Christ, Borknagar, Finntroll, Dark Tranquillity, Martriden, Burzum, Kawir, Whispered, Embryo, Shaolin Death Squad, De Profundis, Scythia, Daysend, Throes of Dawn, Jack Slater, Ov Hell, Nydvind, and Immolation have all released CD’s.

I’ll try to give you a one or two sentense preview of each one: Read more

Martriden – Encounter The Monolith (2010) Review 9.8/10

Martriden came out of nowhere (Montana) in 2006 with a self produced album that sounded about as clean as any death metal album I’d heard before. The album will filled with awesome riffing and the tracks rocked. Some of my old “Logan’s Inbox” videos used their riffs as intro music (I sent them a Read more

2010 – Best of the New Year (So Far)

2010 is getting off to one hell of a start. January was pure insanity. Here are the ones to look for (IMO):

Ihsahn – After

Mother of God. This album is amazing. Vegard Sverre Tveitan keeps getting better. Now he is on an eight string guitar and the music is just madness.

Ihsahn is Read more

Karlahan – A Portrait of Life (2009) Review: 10/10

Has anyone ever came up to you and said “Hey, wanna listen to some epicly symphonic thrashing melodic blackened orchestral folk-ish death metal?”. Well, with Karlahan, that is indeed the band that was used in the scenario mentioned.

Karlahan is a fairly new band being formed in 2006, and their debut album “A Portrait of Life” came to my eyes over at the Northern Warriors blog, and I decided to look into their music a little further. I had only seen a few comments saying that this album was perfect and great and so on, so I decided to see what made this so great… After hearing it, I decided it needed a proper review, ASAP.

The first line on the CD for the opening symphonic track was “The sounds you are about to experience were designed specifically to create a feeling of euphoria.” Now of course my first thought was that it would probably be a sort of lackluster slow paced opening intro… I was wrong. I closed my eyes about thirty seconds of the way in and just felt plain relaxed and limp in my chair, it was possibly one of the greatest symphonic pieces I have ever heard in my entire life. It made me wonder why this band had never come to my attention long before I found out about this album.

As the opening closed and it came on to the second track, all that energy I built up from relaxing turned into a big ass grin at the sound this band had. It wasn’t exactly pure black metal, thrash, symphonic, or anything of the sort. They incorporated a whole array of different styles in this CD. Not just the CD, but just a SONG. From trippy haunting solos that at the same time blend into the atmosphere and mix with everything else perfectly. Throughout the entire CD, Karlahan show true versatility working with different styles and sounds and bringing them together to create possibly some of the greatest metal ever made. (Purely opinion on that one, but DAMN it’s good.)

The men behind all of this great music is full of names you may not know now, but certainly enough in time you will. The line up right now consists of :

Toni Gonzalez – Vocals
Guillem Rejon – Guitar and Vocals
Jordi Bolibar – Guitar and Backing Vocals
Sergi Nuez – Bass
Aleix Valverde – Drums and Backing Vocals

I would say this album is probably one of the greatest listens I’ve had in a long while and I will be looking forward to their next album, and I wish the best to the band, hoping they get all the credit they deserve for this wonderful album. Normally I don’t really take people seriously when something is rated like this, but I really am seriously about to give this album a 10/10. This is a great show of talent and musicianship from a new band.

10/10

Keep it Metal User Manual

Here is how this place works (I am tired so this is gonna be messy).

Most of the site is controlled through he black bar across the top. You can register, edit your profile, and compose blogs here. Be sure to fill our your profile, upload an avatar, and click around a bit.

If you want to write a blog, review, article, etc. there are rules.

• If it’s not about metal it doesn’t go on the main page. You can discuss it in the forum.
• Use tags!
• Users are not allowed to use the “Keep it Metal” categories (“Official News/ Blog” and Official Review”). Those categories are not for the community.
• Use any other categories that apply.
• If you want your article to show on the main page be sure to select the “Community” category.

Comments and blogs are synced to the forum. If you like the forum better you can just live there.

Rules:

• No trolling. This is not gameriot. I will ban. If you want to be funny, play the pic war.
• No porn, no illegal stuff (links to torrents, etc.)
• If you don’t have anything to say, don’t. We don’t needs posts that say, “stfu,” and nothing else.
• No alternate accounts.
• No threats.
• Sig may be 800px x 120px, no larger.
• Keep It Metal

If you want your avatar to show up in the forum you have to actually go into the forum and edit your profile. You will need to copy the image location from your avatar on the wordpress site and paste it into your profile on the forum. It’s kinda stupid and we will fix this soon.

If you want to create a wiki article you need to write a normal blog article and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page. You will see options to turn your post into a wiki page. If your post is a wiki page the h2 tags will be headers in the table of contents and the h3 will be sub-headers.

Now… let me know if there are bugs.

Windir

Windir Photos

Genre(s)

Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, Viking Metal, Folk Metal

Members

• Terje “Valfar” Bakken – Vocals, Accordion (Formerly also Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, up to “Arntor”) (R.I.P. January 14, 2004)
• Jørn “Steingrim” Holen – Drums (1994-2004) (Vreid, Cor Scorpii, Ulcus)
• Stian “Strom” Bakketeig – Guitar (2001-2004) (Cor Scorpii, Ulcus, Mistur)
• Sture Dingsøyr – Guitar (also Vocals on “SognaMetal”) (2001-2004) (Vreid, Ulcus, Finnugor)
• Jarle “Hvà ll” KvÃ¥le – Bass (2001-2004) (Vreid, Ulcus)
• Gaute “Righ” Refsnes – Keyboards (2001-2004) (Cor Scorpii, Ulcus)

Lyrical Theme(s)

History, Vikings, War, Misanthropy, Myths

Samples (Videos)