Natural Born Chaos, Soilwork’s 2002 release, was the band’s most commercially successful album to date. And, no wonder — the band, while remaining heavy, began dabbling in nu-metal circles, breeding aggression with pop sensibility. In that respect, Soilwork’s fifth album, Figure Number Five, is a logical progression.

While brutal verses still reign supreme, the choruses contain more singing and harmonies than ever. When combined with musical breakdowns, light keyboards, and the lost art of guitar solos, many of Five’s tracks take a radio format without being particularly radio friendly.

After wading through the predictable “Rejection Roll” and the keybord-heavy “Overload,” the album begins to come into its own on track three, the title track. Soilwork proves that when they want to rock, they can. The heavy parts are definitely heavy, as proven on “Figure Number Five”. On later tracks however, the keyboards and layered vocals get a little thick, sometimes to the point where when you hit the chorus you feel as though you’ve shifted into a completely different song — only to shift back songs once the chorus is over.

Songs like “Cranking the Sirens,” “The Mindmaker,” and “Downfall 24” show the band’s best side by blasting ahead at full speed. More often than not however, the band drifts ever closer toward the cleaner side of metal.

Figure Number Five is to Soilwork what the black album was to Metallica. Five is probably the most accessable and fan-friendly album Soilwork has recorded to date. As is the eternal gamble with evolving bands, it remains to be seen whether the band will gain more fans than they lose with their shift to a more accessable sound.

Tracks:
01. Rejection Role
02. Overload
03. Figure Number Five
04. Strangler
05. Light the Torch
06. Departure Plan
07. Cranking the Sirens
08. Brickwalker
09. The Mindmaker
10. Distortion Sleep
11. Downfall 24

As far as urban legends go, the story of how System of a Down’s latest album leaked to the internet is a pretty good one. After the Toxicity sessions wrapped up, the band ended up with close to 30 songs recorded. The strongest ones made up the album, but the remaining songs were shelved, to be used at a later date. According to the rumor, vocalist Serj Tankian slipped a copy of the tracks to a few fans at a California show on CD-R, which is how the unreleased tracks supposedly hit the internet. The band’s camp has since strongly denied that this ever happened, and instead claims that “hackers (may have) broke into computers in the studio and pilfered the material.” A much more likely scenario is one where an unscrupulous engineer, janitor, or friend of the band ended up with the tracks on CD-R and eventually leaked them online.

Regardless how, soon over a dozen new System of a Down tracks were floating around on every file sharing program known to man, and the band was forced to react. After finishing mixing and mastering 16 tracks, Steal This Album, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the entire internet debaucle was released in November of 2002, barely a year after Toxicity, their sophomore release, hit stores.

The tracks that appear here don’t sound like outtakes or throw away tracks to me. In fact, I think you could throw these tracks together with the Toxicity tracks, jumble ’em all up, and divide ’em into two CDs randomly and no one would notice. There’s no big themes, formulas, or sounds that seperate these tracks. It’s just more of the same — which is great for those of us who like SoaD, and bad for those who don’t.

“Chic n Stu” starts of the madness with Serj screaming out pizza toppings at the top of his lungs. “Innervision” contains SoaD’s trademark bouncy guitar riffing over huge vocal choruses. “Bubbles” reminded me of “Sugar”, changing volume and guitar sounds on a whim. “Highway Song” and “Fuck the System” both attack the establishment in typical System fashion. “Ego Brain” and “Mr. Jack” are both more straight forward rockers, with most of the band’s trademark gimmicks pulled out (although there would be no confusing these with any other band). Describing SoaD’s songs are like talking about a bag of jellybeans. “There’s a red one, a blue one, a purple one, a kinda deformed orange one …” You either like jellybeans or you don’t. You get the idea.

For what’s little more than a compilation of songs that the band has been working on over the past five years, Steal This Album fits together pretty well. There’s a few tunes that stick out and slow the momentum down a bit (“Roulette”, a Serj-crafted acoustic track, for one), but for the most part the disc feels like a genuine studio effort, and that’s not bad for a bunch of songs intended to be “b-sides and soundtracks”.

System of a Down fans should definitely steal, er, buy this album. As with most bands with established fan bases and unique sounds, there’s not much here to win new fans or turn old ones away.

Tracks:
01. Chic n Stu
02. Innervision
03. Bubbles
04. Boom!
05. Nuguns
06. A.D.D. (American Dream Denial)
07. Mr. Jack
08. I-E-A-I-A-I-O
09. 36
10. Pictures
11. Highway Song
12. Fuck The System
13. Ego Brain
14. Thetawaves
15. Roulette
16. Streamline

In the 80s, Hair Metal was as much about the costumes as it was the music. Motley Crue, Poison and Whitesnake all rocked back in the day, but none of them would have ever been caught dead on stage without mile-high hair, a pound of makeup, and one or more items of clothing made of either leather or spandex. Bands like Guns and Roses, Megadeth and Metallica shied away from clothing gimmicks. They wore black t-shirts and blue jeans and rocked without dressing up in womens clothing. If there were any doubt that playing dress up was a fad, grunge came along and made wearing, well, whatever you were wearing at the time in vogue. Flannel shirts and cargo shorts replaced leather jackets and feather boas, and that was the end of that. In the early 90s, most of us looked back and said, what were we thinking? Its supposed to be all about the MUSIC, man!

Thats why I really want to dislike Slipknot; I mean, really, really, really. Costumes went out with Hair Metal, God rest its soul, and for a band to base so much of its success on their costumes makes me inherently want to dislike them. But I cant. Not after watching Slipknots Disasterpieces DVD. Do I want to be known as a maggot (how Slipknot refers to their fans)? No. Am I secretly one now? Maybe.

Disasterpieces was filmed in London in February of 2002 after their second album Iowa had just gone platinum. The band was excited about playing, the crowd was excited about seeing them, and that excitement carries over onto the DVD something that often gets lost in the conversion from big stage to small screen.

The first disc of the dual-disc package includes the entire concert performance. Nine members on-stage or not, Slipknot sounds incredibly tight, and the audio mix is awesome. There are several camera angles to choose from if youre in to that sort of thing. The band members even wear cameras on their heads so you can jam along playing air guitar and pretend like youre on stage with the band (not that cool cats like us would ever do such a thing, right?). Along with all the footage, several times throughout the program viewers also get clips of backstage footage autograph signings, backstage wackyness, pre-show jitters, and more. The second disc includes the bands complete music video collection (videography?) and a few other extras.

I hadnt heard much of Slipknot (intentionally avoiding them) until tracks from their third album Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses began infiltrating air waves. Unfortunately this DVD predates that album, so I wasnt familiar with any of the songs on the DVD (sans the popular Christmastime ditty, People = Shit). Still, the bands earlier work is heavier and catchier than I had expected, and despite all the theatrics they musics not bad. I dont know why I had such an aversion to this band; KISS, Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson and even Rob Zombie did it all before and I like them.

When I rented Disasterpieces I expected to see a bunch of guys standing around in makeup. Instead, what I found was a group of guys who obviously love what they do and have tightly honed their craft. Who knows, maybe itll make a maggot out of you, too.

No matter how heavy or brutal a band claims to be, Slayer is the yardstick to which they shall all be measured. It is doubtful that any band will ever be able to take the “evil” crown away from Slayer. It’s like no matter how old you get, you can never kick your dad’s ass. So I guess in reality Slayer is like your dad — if your dad was actually the Dark Lord of the Netherworld.

Christ Illusion reunites former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo with original members Tom Araya, Kerry King, and Jeff Hanneman, reforming the band’s original lineup responsible for such albums as Hell Awaits, Reign in Blood, South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss. This is the first time in sixteen years that Lombardo has recorded with the band, and his presence appears to have pulled the group together tighter than ever before.

Lyrically the band covers familiar ground: war, politics, and Little Nicky’s dad, Satan. On songs like Skeleton Christ, Jihad and Black Serenade the band blasts hard, with song structures falling somewhere between Reign in Blood and God Hates Us All. The style feels a little “nu”, but the brutality is familiar.

Everything that made Slayer “Slayer” is here, and anyone accusing them of mellowing in their old age will get the band’s answer through the multiple chants of “Hail Satan!” and “666” that appear throughout the disc. Hanneman and King’s fretwork chug as heavy as ever, and Lombardo’s drumming feels updated and fresh.

Christ Illusion is the band’s best work in a decade and a half, and proves that the evil ones can still rock twice as hard as kids half their age.

01. Flesh Storm
02. Catalyst
03. Eyes Of The Insane
04. Jihad
05. Skeleton Christ
06. Consfearacy
07. Catatonic
08. Black Serenade
09. Cult
10. Supremist

SkinKrawl’s new self-titled five song EP is about as far from either of those two bands as one can get. More along the lines of a cross between Pantera and Vision of Disorder, SkinKrawl delivers the most brutal attack of metalcore I’ve heard in quite a while.

The tuned down aggression expodes in your face within seconds of the album’s opening track, Self-Inflicted, and never lets up. Each song on the album has several riffs and tempo changes that tie them together – these guys do NOT sound like beginning song writers, that’s for sure. The songs are held together with a serious metalcore backbone, with short bursts of death metal and melodic moments strung throughout to change things up.

Usually bands of this genre write fairly simple “chorus/verse/chorus” songs, but SkinKrawl spends most of their time mixing things up – and they pull it off well. “Nothing Left” starts building as a metal sounding song, meanders off into a death/thrash section that eventually drops the listener off into a heavy, doom-ish riff. Somehow, it all works.

I feel like I need to take a moment and talk about the amazing production of this CD.
As a part-time studio dabbler, take it from me, the sound here is great. The drums set the sonic boundaries of the CD with deep thick kick drums and crisp, clear cymbals. The bass is perfectly balanced, with just enough volume and tone to be in the forefront and not disapper in the background. Any fan of palm-mutes and barre chords will love SkinKrawl’s fretwork – no solos here! The vocals cover the entire spectrum, from yelling, to singing, and back to screaming. And two words for everyone out there – “NO RAPPING”, which makes me give any band one thumbs up right off the bat.

The only unfortunate thing about the band is that there’s at least one more SkinKrawl. While this one is located at SkinKrawl.NET, there’s already one at the .COM address – bad news for one of them.

While most new metal bands come out sounding like bad nu-metal clones, SkinKrawl conveys true emotion through their music. Hard, heavy, punchy metal music that’s enough to make your skin cra … nah, the joke’s just too obvious.

Tracks:
01. Self-Inflicted
02. Once Again
03. Don’t Look
04. Nothing Left
05. Looking Glass

In 1987, Napalm Death’s album Scum did two things: it defined a genre (Grindcore) and it introduced the world to the blast beat. And, for the past seventeen years, the majority of death metal bands have been simply re-recording that album. There’s been little innovation, little creativity, and very little effort to analyze those early death metal albums and determine just what it was that made them so heavy, other than simply laying down blazingly fast single string riffs over blast beats. Bands heard that musical forumla combined with lyrics and artwork about death, and an army of copycats were born. At least half of the death metal bands out there today might as well call themselves Napalm Death tribute bands.

But not if you’re Chris Barnes. First with Cannibal Corpse and now with Six Feet Under, Barnes has continued to churn out brutal and original music. On Bringer of Blood, he carries on the tradition without using a single blast beat.

Even before the music ramps up, Barnes’ pitch-shifted vocals on “Sick in the Head” let you know Six Feet Under is serious. Throughout the chorus, Barnes chants “dead to me, you’re dead to me” repeatedly before screaming “oh my fucking God!” in his patented high-screech voice.

The vocals, while prominent, are not the only source of the band’s heavyness. Thick, muddy chords fill the low end and mingle with the bass, while the drums hold the songs together instead of threatening to run off and leave them. Bringer of Blood is full of songs, not just “recorded moments of noise where everyone happened to play their instruments at the same time.” The tracks have intros, verses and choruses — some of which you can even sing (or at least growl) along to.

While many of the songs (“Murdered in the Basement”, “When Skin Turns Blue”, and “Escape from the Grave” for examples) cover familiar lyrical ground, a few of the tracks venture out into more political avenues; particularly on “Amerika the Brutal”, in which Barnes comments, “Fake president, I’m not here to do your dirty work. Alone I think I’m fighting this losing battle, worth dying? No war! Amerika the brutual!” It gives Six Feet Under an entirely new dimension of heavy. Unfortunately, as quickly as it enters, it exits — on “My Hatred” (the next track on the album), Barnes presents his “cure for your Christian disease”, which involves choking on crosses …

Death metal purists will probably snub Bringer of Blood, an album which not only doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, it doesn’t even try to use them. By shedding the usual musical cliches found in death metal, Six Feet Under continues to crush with their own style of music. While lyrically the majority of the album deals with murder, being murdered, and buckets of gore, Barnes appears to be testing the water for other lyrical subjects.

Heavy, and listenable.

Through a friend of a friend I recently caught wind of Siva, a relatively new female-fronted metal/rock band here in Oklahoma City. Whenever I hear about a metal band with a female vocalist my first thought is usually the same: is this a gimmick, or are these guys for real?

Turns out, Siva is for real — very real. In fact, Siva’s three-song demo (simply titled “The Demo”) contains three well-crafted songs that sound better than most of the demos I’ve heard this year, songs that could easily hold their own on the radio right now.

Siva’s heavy but not too heavy, falling well within the limits of rock radio stations. Musically the band could easily be grouped in with bands like Disturbed, Drowning Pool, Mudvayne and Evanescence. Within the confines of radio-friendly song lengths (hoving around the four-minute mark), the then-foursome/now-fivesome have managed to pack plenty of interesting hooks into each of the demo’s three songs. Each of the songs show comprehension of musical dynamics, building up before rocking out. As for the CD’s production … I don’t know what Siva paid for it, but it was worth it. The CD sounds fantastic; sonically it’s one of the best demo mixes I’ve ever ever heard.

Vocalist Bridgette Oliver is icing on the band’s cake. Her vocal style fits perfectly here, teasing listeners with her soft whispers and then attacking them with her full range. Through her clear vocals Oliver channels Evanescence’s Amy Lee, though those passages are broken up with flashes of screams and growls. The end result is a female vocalist that adds to instead of detracting from what the band is trying to accomplish.

Siva’s three-song demo sounds less like a demo and more like a sampler CD from an established act. These guys (and gal) rock and I can’t wait to hear more from them.

On the web:

Web: http://www.siva-addiction.com
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/sivaaddiction

Sinergy’s third album, Suicide By My Side, is the kind of progressive/power metal I like — balls out, 100 mph, straight forward metal with no slowing down and no ballads in sight. It reminds me of Dream Theater without the long piano parts, or a more aggressive version of Hammerfall.

“I Spit On Your Grave” sets the pace for the entire album. With over a million kick drums in the first three minutes (yes, I counted them, there’s over one million in there) and at least that many different guitar notes, there’s no doubting these guys are masters of their craft. Kimberly Goss (ex-Dimmu Borgir) shows off her pipes as well, hitting harmonies and belting out notes to make any 80s metal gods jealous. Speaking of harmonies, Laiho and Latvala pull off plenty of their own guitar harmonies as well, starting in “The Sin Trade” and working their way throughout the album.

Sinergy has certainly matured on their third album. Tracks like “Passage To The Fourth World” and “Me, Myself, My Enemy” truly show the band’s talent. Haters of smart rock, progressive rock, or power metal need not apply. Those who truly appreciate instrument mastery and complex rhythms, patterns, and harmonies will most appreciate Suicide By My Side. With haunting cover artwork and ten complex songs, consumers will definitely get their money’s worth here. And, for those not convinced, samples of five of the ten songs are available in MP3 format from the band’s website.

Sinergy is currently on the road opening for King Diamond, touring in South Korea, Istanbul and Russia, with US dates planned soon.

Tracks:
01. I Spit On Your Grave
02. The Sin Trade
03. Violated
04. Me, Myself, My Enemy
05. Written In Stone
06. Nowhere For No One
07. Passage To The Fourth World
08. Shadow Island
09. Suicide By My Side
10. Remembrance

I can only assume that the first half of the word Revolusongs refers to the word “revolution” or “revolutionary.” Unfortunately, this album is neither. The boys from Brazil make their return to the public eye with this eight-song EP of fun but mostly unmoving covers.

The album kicks off with Hellhammer’s “Messiah”. Those not familiar with Hellhammer would most likely think this to be an original Sep’ tune. All the classic Sepultura trademark sounds are here — loud crashing rides, a loose snare, and that fierce, bassy Sepultura guitar sound. “So far, so good,” I thought to myself.

Insert sound of tires screeching to a halt here.

On track two, a cover of Massive Attack’s “Angel”, everything changes. The drums are now heavily gated and compressed, giving them an intentional drum machine sound. The guitars are low and clean for the majority of the song — even when cranked up, they remain mostly undistorted. And then there’s Derrick Green. I enjoyed “Messiah” so much that I didn’t take much time to examine the vocals. It wasn’t until track two where Green loses his growl and begins singing where the difference really became apparent.

With Massive Attack out of their system, I thought the boys might be ready to rock — but no, instead they drift into a version of Public Enemy’s “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos”. What the fuck? I really tried to give the band the benefit of the doubt by listening to the entire song. The first part is done in nu-metal style, with one guitar chunking and the other riffing over a sampled loop and a drum machine. During the middle section of the song, the guitars drop out and are replaced by an actual scratching DJ (DJ Zé Gonzales), and Green’s grunting style of rap is replaced by actual Spanish rap (rapper Sabotage). The only good thing I can think of to say about this song is some sort of racial peace is gained by bringing blacks, whites, and Mexicans together to all hate this song equally. I feel like throwing the CD away just from this one song and disassembling my CD player and scrubbing the insides with Mr. Clean, that’s how bad it is.

The next four tracks on Sepultura’s collection of “strange bands to cover” include Devo’s “Mongoloid”, Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song”, U2’s “Bullet the Blue Sky”, and Exodus’ “Piranha”. “Mongoloid” is mangled, “Mountain Song” is too fast, and “Bullet the Blue Sky” is too serious. “Piranha” is the only one with any bite, and the South American boys had to pull out a track almost twenty years old to get any momentum going. Too bad it’s at the end of the album and not the beginning.

The CDs untitled “hidden” track is 70 seconds long. The track begins with the opening riffs of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, and then switches to “Fight Fire With Fire”. The “Fight Fire With Fire” clip might just be the tightest 30 seconds on the disc. Unfortunately, they’re hidden behind the 40 worst. The “Enter Sandman” clip is so sloppy, so off time, and so off key for a song that every twelve year old knows how to play.

So, here’s my theory. I think that Sepultura is so tired of every review in the past six years reading, “Derrick sucks; bring back Max!” that they thought they would take the heat off of Green by releasing an EP where the entire disc sucks. The bloodhounds would be thrown off. Reviewers, comfortable with their “bring back Max” rants would suddenly have their game thrown off. “Green sucks … but so do these songs! Does not compute! Max couldn’t have saved this! DOES NOT COMPUTE!” Maybe the band’s plan was to try and make their upcoming May 2003 release look great by having it compared to this one. If so, then the guys are doing a great job.

Revolusongs, Sepultura’s version of the Garage Days Revisited EP, would’ve been better left in the garage. While everything here works great as a B-Side, little of it succeeds as stand alone material. Purists be damned, I can honestly say for the first time that Derrick Green is not the worst part of this CD; the songs are. Since Blabbermouth gave this EP 7/10, I’ll use the three points they didn’t use and drop a more honest 3/10 on it.

01. Messiah
02. Angel
03. Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
04. Mongoloid
05. Mountain Song
06. Bullet The Blue Sky
07. Piranha

Every review of Sepultura’s first post-Max Cavalera album, Against, either began or ended by mentioning the fact that the band would never be the same again without Max. I swore that I would not fall into the same trap. Then, I heard the new album.

And so, to Sepultura, I say, drop whatever tribal sticks and stones you’ve gathered to make pseudo Brazilian music with, and run, don’t walk, to the nearest payphone. Call Max, and offer him all the rainforests in the southern hemisphere to rejoin your whithered shell of a band.

Was that too strong?

Sepultura’s Nation, slated for a March 21st release date, goes out of it’s way to prove what the last album already made painfully obvious – that the band will never be the same again without Max.

That being said, Nation isn’t half bad, it’s just not Sepultura. I got all the way through to the album by telling myself that this wasn’t Sepultura, but rather a really good Sepultura cover band. It just happens to be a cover band that three of the four original members are in. The whole album feels like an “A” student in school turning in a “C” paper.

Guitarist Andreas Kisser said about this album, “… we looked at this record where we were as a band, where the world was at the end of the millennium. It felt like a revolution starting for us. At its core, that’s what Nation is.” Uh, didn’t I hear that before, about an album called Roots?

Where the band suffers most post-Max is musically. There are no problems in the backbone of the band, with the drums actually excelling in several songs. Derrick Green’s vocals are passable – while you can say “it’s not Max,” he passes as a growler. The biggest problem with the music are the guitars. Kisser is a rhythm guitarist, plain and simple. If he records ten tracks, then whoopee, you’ve got ten tracks of rhythm guitar. The lead string work never jumps out and grabs you. Actually, not much
on the disc does.

Following the rules laid down by Rootsand Against, much of Nationspends a lot of it’s time talking about the political problems of Brazil, and paying homage to the native sounds of Brazil, so if you didn’t get enough of it over the last few Sepultura and Soulfly albums, here’s some more of it.

There are a few rallying songs included on the disc, including “Sepulnation,” and “One Man Army.” There are also plenty of collaborations – unfortunately, most of them don’t work well. Jello Biafra sings vocals on “Polotricks,” but to be able to hear and understand him they’ve turned down the music and slowed everything down.

Near the end I thought that maybe the album could have been saved by one good rebellion anthem at the end, but instead we’re treated to two songs which could put me asleep even if I were standing in a mosh pit. The next to the last song is “Water,” a slow, wimpy song that could easily pass for a Pearl Jam song (and one of their slow ones, at that). The last song on the disc is “Valtio,” a collaboration with Apocalyptica (yes, those piece of crap cello players who cover, among other things, Metallica tunes). Yawn. Wake me up when the revolution’s over.

You know, the rumor on the street is that David Lee Roth is getting back together with Van Halen. That means, according to my sources, that Hell has officially frozen over. That means it’s not too late guys! I’m sure Igor still has his brother’s phone number, give him a call! Make up! Do it for your country! Wait, that’s Brazil. Do it for OUR country!

I’m not a Derrick Green hater. Hell, I’m not particularly a Max Cavalera lover – I don’t even like Soulfly that much. I don’t like peanut butter and chocolate separately either, but I’m a pretty big Reese’s fan.

Folks, we’ve already seen Sepultura’s Master of Puppets, so to speak.

01. Sepulnation
02. Border Wars
03. Revolt
04. One Man Army
05. Vox Populi
06. The Ways Of Faith
07. Uma Cura
08. Who Must Die
09. Saga
10. Tribe To A Nation
11. Polotricks
12. Human Cause
13. Reject
14. Water
15. Valtio