Archive for May, 2009

Place of Skulls – Nailed

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Back in the day, Place of Skull’s album Nailed would have just filed under “heavy”. With now even sub-genres having labels, I suppose “doom” is a more appropriate tag — although “Sabbath-like” would probably suffice for most listeners. The band is often compared to Spirit Caravan and The Obsessed, so if that sounds like your bag-o-groove, you’re in the right place.

This three piece outfit headed by Victor Griffin (ex-Pentagram and Death Row) has put together one of the thickest sounding albums of the year. Even though the musical style sounds like it belongs in the 70’s, the production is very current and top notch — clear, clean, thick, and loud. The advantage of having a three piece is that, when properly mixed, each of the instruments have their own distinct range. That is evident here, as at most any given time each of the instruments can be heard seperately and independently of the others.

The guitars are fuzzy, bassy, and thick. The bass guitar does double duty, tying the drums and guitars together. The drums provide a rock steady backbeat, hold everything together nicely, and have a lot of little fills throughout to keep listeners interested. Nothing moves at a rabbit’s pace here — I’m more reminded of trying to run through a swimming pool. Slow, laborious, deliberate work.

Listeners should know whether or not they’ll like the album within the first 20 seconds or so, as the dirty opening riff of “The Fall” sets the pace for the entire album. Reminiscent of Corrosion of Conformity but slower, “The Fall” explores ideas about life and death: “(I long to understand/what the Creator has done for man/can our feeble minds comprehend?/we started to die when we began)”. The rest of the album covers equally deep ground. The album also contains a heavy cover of The Animals’ “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”.

Man’s Ruin Records was set to present this masterpiece to the world. Instead, they folded, and the band is now being distributed by Southern Lord. I don’t have much more to say other than if you like slowed down, fuzzed out rock, this is probably the best example I’ve heard of the genre to date. Place of Skulls are currently on tour with Spirit Caravan, a show not to be missed for fans of the genre.

Tracks:
01. The Fall
02. Never Die
03. Dead
04. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
05. Feeling Of Dread
06. Untitled
07. Love She Gave
08. Return
09. Song Of Soloman

Pentagram – Turn to Stone

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Turn to Stone is a compilation consisting of material from the band Pentagram, spanning the band’s ten year run with Peaceville Records from 1985 to 1994.

For those not familiar with Pentagram’s sound, they basically sound like early Sabbath. Well, not basically; exactly. Throw Ozzy’s voice over half of these tracks and they would fit perfectly on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath or Paranoid — not that the singer doesn’t occasionally tip his voice in the Oz’s direction anyway.

Seemingly simple and fuzzed-out guitar riffs are chained together to create five minute slices of doom. The bass doesn’t stray far from its backbone duties, following the drums almost religiously. And if the instruments’ sounds make up half of the band’s comparisons to Black Sabbath, the song structures themselves complete the circle. Riff, rock, palm mute, repeat. Doom 101 here, and while the recording quality between songs varies, the formula rarely does.

Completing the classic doom-vibe are the lyrics. “On endless nights my need to roam/I’ve come to desecrate your bones/As maggots crawl amongst your flesh/You’re soon to meet the truth of death…” Uh-huh. Songs like “The Ghoul”, “Bride of Evil” and “Vampire Love” keep the band’s horror roots in check, while “Wartime” and “Burning Saviour” tackle other mandatory doomish topics such as war and religion.

Production values differ depending on the era the songs were pulled from. The older tracks sound like they may have actually used bathroom reverb on the vocals (“Go sing in the shower dude, it’ll sound groovy!”). “Re-released” doesn’t mean “re-mastered” here, kids. But then again, my guess is the average Pentagram fan is still wearing a jean jacket with a big patch on the back with big big 70’s moustache to match, and won’t hear the difference between the tracks over the bubbling of his bong water. “Live Free & Burn”, the last track on the disc, is one of the best sounding — by turning the fuzz and the echo slightly down, the up-tempo track receives a crisper (and more professional) sound.

If you were planning on selling your soul to the Devil for some undiscovered mid-seventies Black Sabbath tracks to be discovered and released, save yourself an eternity in hell and pick up Turn To Stone instead.

Tracks:
01. Petrified
02. Wartime
03. All Your Sins
04. Frustration
05. Burning Saviour
06. Sinister
07. Bride Of Evil
08. When The Screams Come
09. Relentless
10. Vampire Love
11. Evil Seed
12. The Ghoul
13. Wolf’s Blood
14. Madman
15. 20 Buck Spin
16. Death Row
17. Live Free & Burn

Pantera – Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys’ Vulgar Hits

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Remember when bands used to just break up and go away? Not anymore my friend, thanks to the Internet. Now every time a band breaks up the band members end up running to the internet, running their mouths and looking like high school girls in the back locker room. “Oh my GOD did you hear what Phil said?” “Dimebag is like TOTALLY wasting his time with Pantera.” “Is Pantera still together? Please check yes or no.”

Pantera, for all intents and purposes, is dead. And as we all know, the split-second a band is dead it’s time for the record label to rush out a greatest hits package to capitalize on the free publicity. And so, without even enough time for the corpse to get cool, Elektra presents to you one of the dumbest named albums ever, Far Beyond the Great Southern Cowboys’ Vulgar Hits.

“While fans of the band have already heard this material, it’s a good compilation for those who want to get into the band.” I used that line in my Alice in Chains greatest hits review, I used it in my Nirvana greatest hits review, and instead of coming up with some big witty review, I’ll use it again here.

With a sixteen song album covering five studio albums and several soundtrack singles, Pantera does a decent job of covering most (but not all) of the bases here. Cowboys From Hell is represented by only two songs, for example — the title track, and “Cemetary Gates”, with “Domination” and “Psycho Holiday” conspicuously missing. Likewise, “Mouth for War”, “Walk”, and “This Love” make it to the disc via Vulgar Display of Power, but “Fucking Hostile”, the band’s theme song, didn’t make the cut. And so on and so forth. A couple of cover tunes (“Cat Scratch Fever”, “Hole In The Sky”) and a couple of soundtrack tracks round out the lineup.

Following Metallica’s trend, the Pantera greatest hits cd comes with a DVD, containing 10 Pantera videos. The good news is, hey, it’s a free DVD with 10 music videos on it. The bad news is all of these except one appear on Pantera’s 3 Vulgar Videos From Hell DVD, which also contains the video for “Planet Caravan” (not found here).

If you already own all the Pantera albums and the DVDs, move along. There’s nothing new to see here. If you’re looking for a Pantera best of CD and DON’T have a DVD player, I’d go with Pantera: 101 Live over this. If you’re a Pantera fan who doesn’t have the DVDs and is a completest, this is the disc for you.

Tracklist:
01. Cowboys From Hell
02. Cemetery Gates
03. Mouth For War
04. Walk
05. This Love
06. I’m Broken
07. Becoming
08. 5 Minutes Alone
09. Planet Caravan
10. Drag The Waters
11. Where You Come From (Live)
12. Cat Scratch Fever
13. Revolution Is My Name
14. I’ll Cast A Shadow
15. Goddamn Electric
16. Hole In The Sky

Ozzy Osbourne – Live at Budokan

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

We’re looking to fill a new position here at Review-O-Matic. We’re looking for someone to just review new Ozzy Osbourne related material. With all the new stuff related to their new television show combined with a newly-found nationwide love for the Prince of Evil, it should be at least a part-time position that could work into something full time. The benifits suck and there’s no pay. Apply within.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll go ahead and review Ozzy’s latest offering, Live At Budokan.

You know, I consider myself a semi-Ozzy fan. I could take him or leave him. I respect him for his older work more than I enjoy his newer stuff. Respectively, I’ve purchased most of his earlier albums and downloaded most of the later ones. I respect the ol’ codger and like the rest of America, I’ve begun to feel sorry for him after watching the first season of “The Osbournes” on MTV.

Sorry, got sidetracked. Anyway, as a “casual” Ozzy fan, I’ve purchased the following Ozzy live albums over the years: Beast in the Darkness, Just Say Ozzy, Tribute (double live album), Speak of the Devil (double live album), and Live & Loud (double live album). That’s five live Ozzy albums, three of them doubles. That doesn’t even count the live Sabbath stuff I have.

You can probably see where all this is heading. Ozzy Osbourne’s Live At Budokan is yet another live Ozzy album. The show was recorded on February 5th of this year with Ozzy’s current lineup and set list. A little over a fourth of the songs (31%, Mr. Math!) are “newer” material. Songs like “Junkie” and “Gets Me Through” spice up the set list a bit — that is, if you like Ozzy’s newer material, which I don’t. The nine remaining tracks are Ozzy classics. “Crazy Train”, “Bark at the Moon”, and “Paranoid” all appear, along with other Ozzy staples.

Is the disc bad? No, but I just feel like I’ve heard it before. And before that. And before that. Live At Budokan is being released next Tuesday on CD, VHS, and DVD. If you’re wanting to see the head-biting mad man in concert, who knows, the DVD might turn out to be pretty good. As far as the CD goes however, there’s not much reason to rebuy another Ozzy live disc.

01. I Don’t Know
02. That I Ever Had
03. Believer
04. Junkie
05. Mr. Crowley
06. Gets Me Through
07. No More Tears
08. I Don’t Want To Change The World
09. Road To Nowhere
10. Crazy Train
11. Mama I’m Coming Home
12. Bark at the Moon
13. Paranoid

Ovo / Kknall – Split

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Review-o-Matic (and I assume the thousands of other websites like it) gets review submissions from all over the world, literally. Last week, a CD showed up in my mailbox. The return receipt was marked Italy. Inside the envelope was a mini CD with a hand drawn cover and the words “Ovo” and “Kknall” on it. Through the wonders of Google I was able to determine that this apparently came from an Italian label named “Bar La Muerte”, and is a 3 song split between the bands Ovo and KK Nall. Ovo described themselves as “improv noise freak travellers” on the label’s website, last updated in February of 2003.

I’m not sure who did which song and what is what on this three song split, but it really doesn’t matter. I’ve received a few other CDs from “Bar La Muerte” in the past and despite being based in Italy, this label has managed to circumvent all language barriers by releasing what equates to noise in any country.

Track number one sounds like someone hooked a microphone up to an Atari and took a piss on it. Honestly — the whole thing just sounds like computer equipment malfunctioning. It reminded me of when R2-D2 got shot by the Jawas in Star Wars, but less musical. At two minutes into the track it sounds like someone got the high score because things start going wild and for a minute I thought I was going to have to insert another quarter to continue.

Track two contains a drum sample that is so distorted you might think that your speakers are broken — and hey, don’t blame me if they are AFTER listening to this. Or maybe they’re not broken, maybe they committed suicide. Lucky them. This track sounds like someone learning to use a synthesiser for the first time and just turned the distortion up to 10 and turned on every single option at once.

Track three must be by the other band, because instead of annoying keyboards, this time we get annoying guitars. This “song” consists of two riffs that sound like someone just grabbed the neck of a guitar with their entire fist and strummed as fast as they could for a minute or two, and ends with a slower riff that is repeated for a minute and a half. The whole thing sounds like it was recorded from the room next to wherever the band was performing.

If you are a fax machine or a modem then you might like listening to the first band. If you like bands that sound like 12-year-olds with more distortion than talent, you might like the second. I didn’t like either.

Overkill – Wrecking Everything

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

2004 marks Overkill’s 20th year as a band together, and has released almost as many albums. Wrecking Everything is a live album that looks back on what was, what is, and what may never be again. Shortly after releasing Wrecking Everything, lead singer Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth suffered a stroke. Hopefully this won’t mean the end of the band, but if it does, you can rest assured that this album documents one of the best unsung metal acts of our time.

Despite never quite hitting the big time, Overkill attacks every song at every show like they’re number one — a fact that shows through on Wrecking Everything. “Thunderhead”, the second track on the disc, burns with more ferocity than anything I’ve heard recently. The energy continues right through to “Overkill”, the last track of the album.

The power of the band’s performance is equally conveyed through the disc’s brilliant production. I could not tell if there were overdubs or not, but if not, Overkill sounds damn good live. This CD does a good job of keeping that “live” sound without sacrificing quality. Songs like “I Hate” and “Deny the Cross” really come to live, and sound better here than they did on the band’s albums from the 80’s.

Wrecking Everything is a nice sampler dish, covering everything from very early to very recent Overkill. The only conspicuously missing track is “Hello From The Gutter”, the band’s big breakthrough single from 1988’s Under The Influence. Fans looking for that track (as well as nine additional ones) will want to check out the DVD version, of Wrecking Everything, which not only expands the show from 70 minutes to 120 minutes, but also contains a 90 minute documentary on the band as well. Great stuff from a great band.

01. Necroshine
02. Thunderhead
03. Evil Never Dies
04. Deny the Cross
05. I Hate
06. Shred
07. Bleed Me
08. Long Time Dyin’
09. It Lives
10. Battle
11. Years of Decay
12. In Union We Stand
13. Overkill

Otep – House of Secrets

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

First things first.

Otep’s House of Secrets kicks complete and total ass.

Dealing with both internal and external issues this time around, Otep has delivered yet another explosive album. Otep’s website is filled with their views on the upcoming election and links to upcoming Rock the Vote performances, so it should come as no surprise that Otep is “less than pleased” with the current state of the union. Otep manages to turn their anger into delicious aggression on House of Secrets, the sophomore follow-up to the band’s debut album, Sevas Tra.

“Warhead” (VIDEO) kicks off the band’s war on the war on terrorism. “The King of Lies is alive/Look around, look inside”. But just because Otep is a chick doesn’t mean this is going to be a peaceful protest. “Warhead” sets the heavy pace for the entire album (heavy in the Headbanger’s Ball sense of the word). Joey Jordison (Slipknot) provides drums on this track as well as five others, and fits perfectly with this style of music.

Gone is most of the rapping that the band seemed to be dabbling in. The majority of the tracks on House of Secrets are straight forward metal. None of these songs would seem out of place on a Slipknot or Chimaira album. There are a few “poetry readings” over music that eventually develop into songs. It’s all part of the band’s performance, and it works here. On “Nein”, for example, the band switches between spoken poetry and musical performance. It’s art mixed with metal, but it’s not over the top. It works.

Tracks like “Sepsis”, “Hooks and Splinters”, “Warhead” and the title track should be enough to sell a few fans tickets to Ozzfest this year. Otep’s House of Secrets was a pleasant surprise — it’s heavy when it wants to be and gives listeners enough breaks in between the blasts to stop and smell the anger.

01. Requiem
02. Warhead
03. Buried Alive
04. Sepsis
05. House of Secrets
06. Hooks and Splinters
07. Gutter
08. Autopsy Song
09. Suicide Trees
10. Nein
11. Self-made
12. Shattered Pieces

Osbourne Family Album, The

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Everything we’ve seen so far has just been pebbles, faint rumblings, mere hints of the marketing landslide that’s about to bury us. A few Osbourne Family posters here and a couple of T-shirts there capitalizing on the surprise success of MTV’s latest reality show are nothing compared to the onslaught of action figures, clothes, lunch boxes, yo-yo’s, CDs, DVDs, and everything else America’s “first family of evil” has planned for us.

The first item being offered up to tide us over until season two starts is the official soundtrack for the television show, titled The Osbourne Family Album. The album contains several of the family’s favorite songs, as well as some Ozzy Osbourne classics. The songs are linked together by sound samples taken directly from the television show.

The disc opens with Pat Boone’s rendition of “Crazy Train,” which originally appeared on his CD of heavy metal cover tunes and is also the theme for the television show. Other tracks on the album include The

Kinks’ “You really Got Me”, System of a Down’s “Snowblind”, John Lennon’s “Imagine”, The Cars’ “Drive”, Starsailor’s “Good Souls”, Dillusion’s “Mirror Image”, Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”, and Chevelle’s “Family System”. The promo material touts “unreleased material from Starsailor and Dillusion”, but to tell you the truth I wouldn’t know the difference between released and unreleased material from those two bands.

Included are some short explanations as to why the songs were picked, for those who are curious. Nothing too in-depth is given; John Lennon’s “Imagine” says “Ozzy and Sharon fell in love to this song while they were dating.” Nothing Earth shattering to be found here. The Cars’ “Drive” was “a personal favorite of Aimee Osbourne when she was younger”, and Dillision’s “Mirror Image” is “an act that Jack [Osbourne] is currently working to develop.” Sounds a bit self-serving to me, but hey. Not my soundtrack.

The other musical tracks on the disc come from the Osbournes themselves. Ozzy tracks include “Dreamer”, “Mama I’m Coming Home”, “Paranoid”, and “Crazy Train”. The final Osbourne track is daughter Kelly’s rendition of Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” with Incubus backing the pink-haired one. The vocals don’t sound as bad or as distorted as they do on the radio bootleg of the song that made the internet rounds last month — either that was a slightly different mix, or somewhere during the “CD to radio to mp3 to Internet to My Computer” process, something got lost.

Between each track lies a short sample from the television show. The samples include Ozzy’s discussion about Pat Boone, Ozzy’s lectures to his kids, Kelly’s speech about the valet guy farting in her car, Ozzy throwing the piece of wood through the neighbor’s window, Ozzy ranting about the dogs pissing on his carpet, Ozzy’s rant about “bubbles” and being the “Prince of fuckin’ Darkness”, and the Osbournes’ conversation about Ozzy’s viagra experiments, among others. Two versions of the album are being sold, one for all ages and one for adults; the all ages version has the samples bleeped just like the television show. The adult version does not.

The Prince of fuckin’ Darkness (along with the Princess of fuckin’ Marketing) have put together a cute little package that tries to capture the excitement and surprise of the hit television show. The problem is, there’s nothing new here. Even casual fans of the show have heard most of the sound clips included within. I would guess that most people who enjoy The Kinks, System of a Down, John Lennon or Ozzy Osbourne already own these songs on CD. I guess if you’re dying to have Kelly Osbourne’s version of “Papa Don’t Preach” or some bands that Jack Osbourne is developing on CD, this album is for you.

My guess is that with the huge Osbourne marketing landslide we’re about to experience combined with the relatively few number of Kelly Osbourne fans in the world, this CD should be readily available in either a bargin bin or used CD store near you within three months. If you must own this album, I’d wait 90 days.

01. Crazy Train – (Pat Boone/Theme from TV Show)
02. Dreamer – Ozzy Osbourne
03. Papa Don’t Preach – Kelly Osbourne
04. Paranoid – Black Sabbath
05. You Really Got Me – The Kinks
06. Snowblind – System Of A Down
07. Imagine – John Lennon
08. Drive – The Cars
09. Good Souls (Remix) – Starsailor
10. Mirror Image – Dillusion
11. Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton
12. Mama I’m Coming Home – Ozzy Osbourne
13. Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne
14. Family System – Chevelle (Bonus Track)

Orgy – Punk Statik Paranoia

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Punk Statik Paranoia is Orgy’s third album and the first in four years. Orgy’s last major plink on the global soundscape was “Blue Monday”, a cover of New Order’s classic song from the 80’s. Candyass came and went, as did 2000’s Vapor Transmission.

Overall, I like Punk Statik Paranoia. Orgy has done a good job of maintaining their overall style and personality while presenting new music. The electronic influence is still prevalent with lots of ambient noise filling the tracks, but they never forget the fact that guitar is the focus. Many of the songs kick off with synthesized intros, but when the six-strings kick in you are reminded that this is rock music featuring keyboards, not the other way around. I absolutely love Orgy’s guitar sound. It’s heavy, low, bassy, and processed. The drums are also excellently mixed, adding to the rock ambience.

Punk Statik Paranoia is a bit slower and mellower in places than Orgy’s previous releases, but I’m okay with it. They’ve got a great sound, interesting song arrangements, and I can understand what they’re saying. That’s more than I can say for half the albums I hear these days. It’s a bit more mature than their previous releases, and the band has learned you don’t have to go full speed all the time — of course, when they do (like on “Beautiful Disgrace” and “Ashamed”) it just makes the album that much tastier.

Organ Donor – The Ultra Violent

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

“Welcome to the mind of the Ultra Violent – A deranged and sick individual with no regard for the helpless victims he encounters. He stalks his prey with deadly precision, creeping through the shadows unseen and silent, waiting sometimes for several days to attack. And then, with sudden fury and deadly quickness, he descends upon his victims, cutting and slicing with the skill of a highly qualified surgeon. In a despicable act of carnage he would harvest the organs and sell them on the Internet. ‘Cuz to him, you’re nothing but an ORGAN DONOR.”

And thus begins Organ Donor’s debut album, The Ultra Violent. Organ Donor is a California based band who has put together a loose concept album which revolves around the before mentioned serial killer. Three of the band members, (Falcon, Hipp, and Juice), laid down some killer tracks in their California-based studio. Once the music was completed they hooked up with Jim Gillette (former lead singer of Nitro) to lay down the vocals. Now, you younger readers are probably wondering, “who the Hell was Nitro?” and you old schoolers who remember Nitro are probably thinking, “Oh NO …” Nitro, for the record, was one of the cheesiest hair metal bands of the 1980’s. While basically every part of their gig was over the top, the band become known for two things — one was Michael Angelo’s outrageous guitar playing, much of which was done on his four-necked custom X shaped guitar, and the other was Jim Gillette’s seven octave voice, which was infamous for blowing speakers and shattering glass during their live shows. Unfortunately for them, Nitro wasn’t known for being that good, and the band soon disappeared from the face of the Earth. If you only know three things about Jim Gillette, know the following: 1, he was the former lead singer of Nitro, 2, he is the current lead singer of Organ Donor, 3, he has been married to Lita Ford for the past seven years. Go Jim!

So anyway, enough of Nitro and back to Organ Donor. The Ultra Violent rocks! Now remember, the Flack man still very much enjoys 80’s and 90’s metal, and this sounds a lot like that, so my definition of rocking might be a little different than yours. I sent a few tracks to Sick Royale to listen to. I mentioned comparisons to Nuclear Assault and MOD, and he mentioned Overkill, so think in that realm. It’s good straight forward metal, nothing more and nothing less.

Hipp’s guitar sounds are thick with lots of palm muting and chunka-chunka’s. Falcon’s bass has a GREAT sound, one of the better overall bass sounds I’ve heard recently in fact. Finally, someone turned the “tone” knob back up a bit so the bass isn’t completely lost within the low end guitars. Juice’s drums are strong and provide a solid backbone to build the songs on. A few guests appear on the album as well, including Lita Ford, Michael Angelo, and T.R. Austin providing guitar solos, and David Ezrin (Lita Ford) standing in on keyboards. For the most part these work, (Ford’s solo is soulfull and effective), but Michael Angelo’s 100 mph fretwork comes off as graffiti on top of an already finished piece of art. The biggest question on everyone’s mind is, however, how are Gillette’s vocals?

Surprisingly, quite good! Many of Gillette’s vocals from Nitro would make listeners wonder if they were listing to a metal band, an opera, or a chipmunk writhing in pain. Every Nitro song was like, “I swear to GOD I can sing higher than you, don’t you believe me? HERE, I’ll do it AGAIN!” Gillette seems to have outgrown the need to prove to listeners that he has more available octaves than Mariah Carey, and it has improved his delivery 1000%. You can still tell that Gillette has a lot of talent and control over his voice, but this lower range is much more fitting to this style of music. There are still heavily layered choruses and plenty of vocal effects here and there, but the difference this time around is that his voice adds to the songs instead of detracting from them a’la Nitro.

The Ultra Violent reminds me a lot of Alice Cooper’s Raise Your Fist and Yell album — it’s a light hearted album about murder and death. None of the album’s ten tracks stray too far from the radio-friendly four minute mark, and even considering the album’s subject material I doubt there’s anything here that couldn’t get radio play. “Organ Donor”, one of the better songs on the album, is written from the killer’s perspective and really shows off Gillette’s vocals without him showing off. “The Ultra Violent” is another strong track, (until the end, when Angelo throws up his solo all over the place, continuing for 30 seconds after the song’s over). “Bone Saw” slows down to a grindy pace, and “Six Feet Deep” picks it back up with a galluping double bass riff. “Breathless” shines due to Lita Ford’s solos and chunky style, but the end of the song, (a minute of people shouting “Breathless” over and over), drags a bit. “Hypnotized” is another catchy crunchy riff with some electronica mixed in (nothing too drastic) that rocks. “Guilty” was probably my least favorite track on the disc, due to its thin mix and Gillette’s excessive layering. It sounds almost like a pitch shifter. “Bed of Nails” picks the pace back up with some stop and start chunkiness and heavy riffage, and then it’s off to “Last Rites,” another up tempo rocker. The disc closes with “My Fist”, a strange combination of guitars, harmonies, keyboards, almost tribal like drums, and a closing speech that I’ll let you hear for yourself.

If you’re waiting to hear Organ Donor on your local radio station or searching MTV for them, you might as well give up now. They don’t have a DJ and they’re not 15 years old so any chance for financial success is pretty well shot. However, If you’re into straight forward heavy metal, definitely spend the $10 on the band’s website and become an Organ Donor. I’m glad to be a member of the club.

Tracks:
01. Organ Donor
02. The Ultra Violent
03. Bone Saw
04. Six Feet Deep
05. Breathless
06. Hypnotized
07. Guilty
08. Bed of Nails
09. Last Rites
10. My Fist

By the way, the band’s website is designed and run by Hipp (guitarist), and the band is both very fan and Internet friendly, so be sure to drop by and tell them that Flack from Review-O-Matic sent you. There are lots of pictures, background, and audio samples to be found online there.