Bolt Thrower - In Battle There Is No Law (1988)

For those of you who haven't heard of Bolt Thrower, they are a 5 piece Death Metal/Grindcore band from Coventry, England who formed in 1986. They consist of Karl Willetts (Vocals), Barry Thompson (Guitar), Gavin Ward (Guitar), Jo-Anne Bench (Bass), and Martin "Kiddie" Kearns (Drums). They originally got their name from a weapon used in the tabletop strategy game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. They are currently signed to Metal Blade Records.

In Battle There Is No Law is Bolt Thrower's first album, which was preceded by 4 demo albums and 1 EP. The album consists of 9 tracks which include "In Battle There Is No Law", "Challenge for Power", "Forgotten Existence", "Denial of Destiny", "Blind to Defeat", "Concession of Pain", "Attack in the Aftermath", "Psychological Warfare", and "Nuclear Annihilation". The album was recorded with most of their current line-up, except instead of Martin Kearns, they had Andrew Whale on the drums. The album overall is quite different from other Grindcore albums around this time (mainly, Napalm Death's album Scum), in that while Napalm Death was (and still is) fast paced and constantly spitting out the vocals at you, Bolt Thrower takes a slower approach to their tracks. They start slow and then progressively speed up (this is more evident on their later albums, mainly 1992's album "The IVth Crusade"). I'm still surprised that this album was released in 1988, as Karl sounds more and more like the modern day Death Metal bands, his growl is low and purposeful (if a growl can be that). The guitars on the album mix so well together as well. The drums were really loud (mainly the bass drum) but they didn't overpower the mix. The bass is extremely well done, and (little bit of a fact here) Jo-Anne Bench is one of the first female Death Metal musicians (not a screamer, but still a part of the Death Metal scene). The album just kicked ass.

Overall, an extremely well done first album in a time when the genre was first emerging. If you're into Napalm Death, Obituary, Unleashed, Benediction, Dismember, Grave, or Hail of Bullets, you should check out Bolt Thrower. The album was released on June 12, 1988 and is available on amazon (although not currently available) and iTunes.

Overall Rating: 4.4 out of 5.0

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Bolt Thrower's Website

Cannabis Corpse - Blunted at Birth (2006)

Cannabis Corpse, in case you haven't guessed already, is a 4 piece Death Metal band, that takes their name as a spoof off of Cannibal Corpse, though singing about marijuana. They formed in 2006 in Richmond, Virginia and are currently signed to Forcefield Records. Their current line-up is Andy "Weedgrinder" Horn (Vocals), Philip "Landphil" Hall (Guitar & Bass), Nick "Nikropolis" Poulos (Guitar), and Josh "HallHammer" Hall (Drums).

Cannabis Corpse's first album, 2006's Blunted at Birth (taking it's name as a spoof of Cannibal Corpse's 1991 album Butchered at Birth), consists of 7 tracks (all taking spoofs of Cannibal Corpse song names) which include "Blunted at Birth", "Staring Through My Eyes That Are Red", "Reefer Stashed Place", "Force Fed Shitty Grass", "I Cum Bud", "I Will Smoke You", and "When Weed Replaces Life". As a death metal album, this honestly was really well done. It had the good old deep growling sounds like the early works of Death, Cannibal Corpse, and even some sounding like Matt Heafy's screams from Trivium. The guitar work was excellently done, mainly because of Philip Hall (this is his side project, his original band is Municipal Waste). The sound quality on the record was poor, sounded badly recorded, then I read a little into it and found this quote "This recording was done entirely on a Boss BR 900 digital 8 track. I am definitely not a pro engineer, so if you don't like how it sounds, FUCK YOU!" LandPhil, Fall 2006. Other than the sound quality, not that bad of a record, was a bit on the shorter side of albums, but still a good album nonetheless.

Overall, this was an interesting album to listen to. At first, I thought it was going to be Stoner Metal (just by the name of the band, the album, the songs, you get the idea), and was expecting it to have long, kind of mellow tempos. Instead it hit me with blast beats from nowhere and caught me off guard, and I would recommend this album for people who are fans of Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Deicide, Immolation, Incantation, Grave, Monstrosity, Death, and old school Death Metal in general. The album was released on December 19, 2006 and is available on amazon and itunes, so go and pick it up.

Overall Rating 4.0 out of 5

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Cannabis Corpse's Website

Annotations of an Autopsy - II: The Reign of Darkness (2010)

For those of you who haven't heard of AOAA, they're a 5 piece death metal band (earlier works could be considered more deathcore than anything else) from Lowestoft, England which formed in 2006. They consist of Steve "Sewer Mouth" Regan (Vocals), Jamie "Chinstrap" Sweeney (Guitar), Sam Dawkins (Guitar), Nath Applegate (Bass), and Brad Merry (Drums). They are currently signed to Nuclear Blast and Siege of Amida, previous works were signed to This City is Burning Records (2007's Welcome to Sludge City EP, currently out of print), and Ferret Records (2008's Before the Throne of Infection, their first full-length album). And now onto the review.

II: The Reign of Darkness contains 11 tracks. The album starts off with the intro track "And So It Begins...", which starts off with what appears to be a beating heart and other ambient noises. As the track progresses, it gets, what can best be described as metal being sharpened, while a recording of a broadcast message plays and an air raid siren goes off. This begins to set the mood of the album as sort of a post-apocalyptic take over (thus the album title "The Reign of Darkness"). The track then goes silent for a split second before the broadcasted message states "We're Doomed!" and then kicks off into the cd with a quick 2 second blast of drums starting off the track "In Snakes I Bathe", which leads to "Born Dead", "Bone Crown" (Featuring guest vocalist Erik Rutan, most famous for his work with Morbid Angel), "Emptiness", "Catastrophic Hybridization", "VII: The Horror, The Destruction...", "Impale the Sun", "Portrait of Souls", "Cryogenica", and ends with "Into the Black Slumber". Throughout the album, the tracks vary from subject to subject, as AOAA's lyrical styles mostly deal with subjects such as Gore, Death, and Sodomy, but it all holds together throughly. Certain tracks stick out as almost anthems, mainly "Bone Crown" as it starts and ends with Steve Regan chanting "I Am Hell" with the feeling that there is a large mob chanting with him. The album also contains what is rarely seen in death metal, that being the instrumental track, in this case it being "VII: The Horror, The Destruction..." which feels as though it's been influenced by Mastodon (mainly the song "Battle at Sea" from their EP "Lifesblood"), and it really holds up with the rest of the album. There was only one thing I didn't like about the album and that was the track "Into the Black Slumber". The track starts off sounding like there's a rain storm taking place. Normally I would start to think of Raining Blood and automatically go "SLAYER!!!!!" but alas, it was not so. After the raining, the track gets a sort of groove going, with the effect of thunder in the background. There's some pretty fast and technical drumming throughout the track, which I love in a song, the downside of the song for myself is in the ending. The track itself is 8:26 in length, yet the song itself starts at 20 seconds and ends at 6:24, you might be wondering at this point "what about the other 2:30?", like I said before, all omnious rain effects, it just seems drawn out.

Overall though, a solid performance throughout, would definitely reccommend it. If you're a fan of bands such as Whitechapel, Between the Buried and Me (Steve Regan's growls sound like a combination of Phil Bozeman and Tommy Giles Rogers), Job for a Cowboy, Suicide Silence, and even Cannibal Corpse, you might want to check Annotations of an Autopsy out. If you're looking for a copy of the album, it was released on January 18th, 2010 in the UK and was released worldwide on February 9, 2010, you can purchase the album on amazon (link at the end) or check out itunes as they're on there as well.

Overall rating: 4.2 out of 5

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Annotation of an Autopsy's Website