Behemoth - Demigod Review, by Rugter

Ahhh, Behemoth… The band that got me into death metal alongside with Dark Tranquillity. The difference is, this one is brutal as hell (I mean it). Nergal’s vocal delivery sounds like an army of demons, and that can already give you an idea of the kind of music they play. The riffs are intense, the drumming is too damn good (Inferno is one of the best drummers ever, in my opinion), the bass doesn’t stand out that much but it’s still great. With that, it's quite clear that their style isn't for the weak. Demigod is heavier than any of their other albums before, and it's quite possibly the peak of blackened death metal. Behemoth have kept a high standard of quality since Satanica, but this album blows every of their other attempts far away.

But all that aside, let's get into the review.

From the moment the opener Sculpting The Throne Ov Seth starts, you'll notice they mean business: Opening with a great classic guitar intro, and then all hell breaks loose when the distortion enters. First the heavy guitar riff, then the drums enter full force and the bass seems M.I.A., not unlike the rest of the album. And then comes Nergal with some really insane vocal performance. Because of the many layers of vocals, it's really hard to understand what he is saying, yet it also accomplishes what it wishes: The many vocal layers make Nergal sound like a true devil. The song doesn't lose speed at any point, it is always at full force, specially the drumming. The solo is also quite great. This song definitely sums up the album as a whole.
The next track, Demigod is yet another highlight. Opening with some horns that sound like a calling to arms, you know already what to expect. After that intro, the distortion enters and the total chaos starts. The riffs in this song are quite amazing, both guitars are used perfectly for an awesome effect. Another relentless song this is. There's also a little "HAIL. SATAN." thrown in by 2:57. And the heaviness doesn't stop with the next track. Conquer All, one of the singles of this album, is not as good as the first two tracks, yet it packs a punch. The riffs are awesome, some great changes in pace too. The chorus of this song is definitely cool, fast and powerful. The solo in this song is one of Nergal's best, even though one would like it to be a bit longer. The outro is another great point in this song, it's quite memorable. [/b]The Nephilm Rising[/b] is another aggressive song, if you didn't already know. A bit slower than the last 3, but that doesn't mean much. There's also something similar to a radio talk in some parts of the song. And for a few seconds, Nergal uses non-layered vocals. Still sounds really evil. Another great solo. Some classic guitar thrown in at the end, and it sounds macabre. That makes it yet another solid song. 
Towards Babylon is another good song, but it might as well be the weakest of the album. The riffs aren't as memorable as the other songs, and the solo isn't as good as the last 2 songs. Fast and evil, but doesn't match the quality imposed by the first 4 tracks. Still, it is a really good song.
You though it was evil and psychotic sounding up to now? The most evil song in the whole album, Before The Æons Came has a cool evil intro, and then it gets to Nergal's most pissed off, downright evil performance. The riffs backing him up are fast and fit well with the anger in his vocals. This song is meant to be played at hell's lobby, that's for sure. The low point is that it is the shortest song of the album, but hey, I don't know if such an angry song could be able to last longer or if the listener wouldn't go crazy.
Mysterium Coniunctionis (Hermanubis) keeps the heaviness going, and you can say the album shows no signs of stopping. Creepy effect at the begging takes form and goes all heavy. The riffs are amazing as always, but another notable thing in this song is that Nergal's voice goes more black metal-ish than the rest. I personally didn't like it much, but it was still a very good song.
Xul is another heavy song, yet again with a kinda creepy intro, and pummeling into submission after that. Nothing really special in this song asides from the intro, it's just heavy as heck. The solos are cool, to say at the least, specially the one at the beginning. A good song, but nothing really special.
Of course, the heaviness would follow, and it does show in Slaves Shall Serve, a really fast track. Nergal opens screaming something extremely hard to understand (even by the standards of this album), and then the insanity begins. The drumming stands out here: Simply put, it's insane. Inferno shows his skills as a drummer here. The rest of the band aren't slouches either: They keep up with the pace of the drums perfectly. The song end with Nergal screaming "Slaves shall serve!" many times before finally snapping and screaming with all his strenght "SLAVES. SHALL. ****ING SERVE!!!". Another standout song.
After that craziness, you wouldn't expect a mid-paced song. Precisely what you get. The Reign ov Shemu-Hor opens with a kinda slow intro, sounds like something that would fit with an enormous evil army taking over some place or something. A little acoustic passage and Nergal enters. The song is slow compared to the rest, yet it sounds heavier. This 8:26 beast could be a hard listen at first, yet it's worth it. The solos throughout are masterful. By 7:50 it starts getting slower, the instruments start fading and the song finishes with a ringing note. And so, one of the heaviest albums of later years comes to an end. And what an end it is. After this, if you're not used to the heaviness, you will.

And so my review comes to an end. I hope you enjoyed it reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you think you're hardcore and can stand heavy music, or just like some real heavy ****, then give this a shot, you will possibly enjoy it.

Song ratings:
Sculpting The Throne Ov Seth: 5/5
Demigod: 5/5
Conquer All: 4.5/5
The Nephilm Rising: 5/5
Towards Babylon: 3.5/5
Before The Æons Came: 4/5
Mysterium Coniunctionis (Hermanubis): 3.75/5
Xul: 3/5
Slaves Shall Serve: 5/5
The Reign Ov Shemu-Hor: 4.5/5

ohGr - Devils In My Details Listening Party

The Party:

Last night(October 4th) was easily one of the best and most memorable nights I have had in a long time. Why was it so good? The reason of course was the CD listening party I had attended, for ohGr's newest album titled Devils in my Details or DIMD for short, which is due to be released on November 5th in the US. During this party I was able to hear the album multiple times, experienced several on the spot music improvs, and was able to chat with my fellow members of Litany, and most importantly the band itself! Both Ogre and Mark Walk were in attendance, although Ogre was the more talkative one. He spent several hours chatting with the fans, and answering our sometimes dumb questions. Ogre came across as an extremely friendly and patient guy, and it was great that he decided to stick around so long. Many questions were asked and answered during the course of the night, including a few that I threw out there myself.

The Album:

DIMD has far exceeded even MY high expectations, and sounded more than a little surprising in it's tone and mood. While 2003's SunnyPsyOp gave us a glimpse of a darker Ohgr, DIMD steps that up even more. Horror film actor Bill Moseley even appears on the album, to offer some excellent narration! At this point, I may go so far as to say this is my new pick for album of the year, and just an amazing album in general.

The Improvs:

The band also performed several on the spot improvs,often at times we weren't expecting. While I could be mistaken, I think I even heard them mention me in one of them! Some of my fellow party goers made some recordings of these jams, although I would have to see which ones.


The Chat:

Many of the other members of Litany forums were in attendance, and they were a joy to talk with as usual. The topics discussed ranged from band-related, to concerts, to rum, and seemingly a billion other things!


The Questions:

Ogre graciously took the time to answer as many of our questions as possible, and was happy to have most of my personal questions resolved. Here are the things I found out:

- There are 2 new albums of unreleased material in the works, titled Dsides and Dfault. Where Dsides is made up of music created during the same period as DMID, Dfault will be made up of material from all the way back in the mid 1990's.

- They are trying to get ahold of the original version of WELT from American Records, for a possible future release.

- The only confirmed touring member so far is long-time collaborator and band friend Bill Morrison on Bass

- When questioned about Mutual Mortuary, it sounds like he has no plans to release this music in the near future, if ever. This was a longshot question to begin with, but I felt like asking.

The Results:

Text to come

Pretty. Odd. Review, by The Liztress

Pretty. Odd.
Panic at the Disco
Fueled By Ramen

This is the second album released by Panic at the Disco. It came out on March 25, 2008 and falls under the Alternative rock, Baroque pop, and psychedelic rock genres. Consisting of 15 songs on it's track (and 3 extra bonus tracks which are remixes of songs on the main tracklist), each song has a different sound to it. In fact, the album sounds a lot different from the first one A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. Some fans looked at this as a bad thing becuase they loved the unique beats Fever had and were afraid of the band changing how they sound but PatD make We're So Straving available on their website and MySpace page before the release date, a song that addressed their concerned fans, saying "You don't have to worry..." I know a lot of people aren't a fan of their music and they have been labeled as an emo band, but I think this album is well performed and is, by far, a cut above their first album. I also don't consider them to be emo as they don't sing about things I would stereotype emo bands to sing. Its light sounds and catchy beats are good for those who like music that was done by bands like the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles were an inspiration for the group. It's a little hard for me to really say how I feel about this album and why I think everyone should listen to it because of how different people's tastes are. I love this album and the band. I do think everyone should at least listen to some of their songs, especially if you were a fan of the Beatles. If I was to give this album a rating, I'd go with 4/5.

Metallica - My Apocalypse Review

Metallica - My Apocalypse
by LoC

So if you haven't heard, Metallica put up the complete song "My Apocalypse" for streamed listening, and I listened to the song twice yesterday and will share my thoughts on it. The first thing I would like to state is that it was surprisingly kinda okay. The song was definitely more metal oriented than anything Metallica has done in a long time, although it still can't touch any of the 80's albums. James Hetfield's vocals are better than on St. Anger, but they are still pretty terrible. He seems to be TRYING to sound like he used to, but he ruined his vocals on the black album tour as you may have heard, and well...he still hasn't recovered and it's painfully obvious. The song is fairly fast paced and almost thrashy, but only in a shallow surface kind of way. This song is no classic, but it's also completely listenable which is more than I could say for St. Anger. Any Metallica fans should give this song a listen and see what you think, but don't expect any kind of new classic here. Regardless of flaws, this song is better than anything Metallica has done in well over a decade. Stream it from Metallica's site and see what you think, but it looks like Metallica's newest album may not be entirely terrible after all.

Ulver - Shadows Of The Sun Review, by LoC

Ulver - Shadows Of The Sun
Review By LoC

Ulver has never been a band to repeat themselves, even back in their Black Metal phase. This of course continued into their Electronic/Avant-garde phase, with no 2 albums sounding alike, and quite often sounding very different from eachother. Ulver's Shadows Of The Sun continues this trend, and offers listeners an intimate and intensely dark piece of art and music.

This album is quite possibly the darkest one Ulver has done since their Black Metal days, and maybe even darker in some ways. To get a picture of this album, you should imagine yourself in a dark candle-lit room during a rainy night. For even better effect, play this record in said conditions, and you will be blown away. Shadows Of The Sun is as depressing as any Doom Metal album you are likely to hear, but also oddly uplifting in parts.

The music is much more minimal and focused than the often schizophrenic pieces found on 2005's Blood Inside, and the entire album works together to form a cohesive whole.

Picking a standout song or 2 is difficult, as they all are excellent in their own right. Special mention must be made of their cover of Black Sabbath's Solitude which actually outdoes the Sabbath original, while also fitting in seamlessly with the overall mood of this album.

Garm's vocals are as strong and passionate as ever, and Shadows contains some of his strongest performances to date.

Do not go into this album expecting anything like Blood Inside or even anything else by Ulver. To understand the beauty of Shadows Of The Sun, you may need to give this album a number of listens before you can fully appreciate it. This is one of Ulver's best albums ever, and just a beautiful piece of work in general.

Flight of the Conchords, only to last one more season?

Well the news isn't a fact as of yet, but the guys are expressing the idea of ending the show after season 2. Bret McKenzie saying "It would be a fitting end to the series." Both Bret McKenzie, and Jemaine Clement expressed that they were tired of working on the show, especially now that their new season has to deal with all new material, which means it'll be a long work process. They never expected the rock star status, since they are considered a comedy act rather than anything else. It also wasn't easy getting used to all the popularity. In New Zealand they were just a band trying to do their thing, here in the states, they've become uneasy of all of the stardom. Fans really showed their love for FotC, one woman even came on stage to touch Jemaine. I guess you could say FotC are big with the ladies, especially when an unknown fan in the audience screams to the guys "take off your pants".

Anyways the possibility of the show ending after season 2 is still there. Plus this doesn't mean the end of FotC. They could bring out more albums, and possibly go their separate ways into music, movies and television Jemaine Clement will be starring in Gentlemen Broncos, directed by Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess. The film is about a Science fiction writer who steals a book idea from a fan. And Bret still has the The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra of which he created a while back. Plus he has Video Kid, and I'd love to see him bringing out another Video Kid album.

As for a season 3, lets hope. I think a better fitting end, would be to make a feature length film. Why not? Sex and the City did it and so did The X-Files. Anyways I just hope that they reconsider. The idea of a season 3, or even 4 is just awesome.

To check out the article of which this news showed up in, check out WTF! and read up on the front page: http://www.whatthefolk.net/index.htm