Warthur Opening with a synthesiser intro (Black Winds Rising) which takes on a rather melodramatic tone reminiscent of the soundtrack to a big budget fantasy movie, Wolfchant's Call of the Black Winds gets down to business properly on Stormwolves, and by the end of the album I'm still not sure what to make of them. There's mild folk influences and the odd sprinkling of synthesiser here and there to give the odd nod to symphonic metal, but on the whole I came away with the impression that the band were playing really rather ordinary death metal with the folk and symphonic influences tossed in to add flavour but not having any substantial effect on the baseline compositional approach, which is middle of the road death metal through and through. Still, I was very impressed by Lokhi's harsh vocals, since he has a very unique style which puts me in mind of some ancient wolf-demon's gutteral snarling and grumbling.

Warthur Borknagar's The Olden Domain sees them crafting an unusual variety of progressive black metal. The primary experiment here seems to be to inject more conventional metal sounds (both in terms of playing and singing) into a black metal do it, but the real trick is in managing to do that in a way which results in something which seems to be distinct from both metal traditions, rather than simply sounding like watered-down and weak black metal. With Garm's vocals in the picture the album sounds a lot like a foundational document along the way to Arcturus' glorious The Sham Mirrors. On the whole, a fascinating little album.

Warthur A continuous drone metal composition, Feedbacker comes across to me as a celebration of the guitar and all the wonderful things you can do with it. Set against long, glacial doom riffs, the band regularly break out into more varied guitar performances, ranging from post-rock strumming to almost traditional metal riffing to wailing, shrieking feedback. Overall, it's not going to be to everyone's taste, but personally I think it's an intriguing album which pulls off the trick all great ambinet works do in providing a piece of music which you can equally apply your full attention to or have running in the background to set a mood.

Warthur Darkspace cram their third album with more ambient black metal compositions more or less in a similar vein to those on their second album, though they tend to be uniformly 10 minutes or so in length with the exception of a shorter track and a couple of longer pieces at the end. A lot of the time when bands put out CDs crammed to capacity like this the end result can be disappointing, with a lack of editing resulting in an album which is overlong and guilty of containing filler. Not so Dark Space III; the band maintain a tremendously consistent quality across the entire album, and whilst their schtick does at points threaten to get a little samey, on the whole this is another fascinating journey through the black metal void.

Warthur Wolves In the Throne Room's latest album expresses the band's mystical shamanic environmentalist message via a fusion of howling, furious, misanthropic black metal with spiritual, contemplative music. The Aaron Weaver's use of synthesisers in these compositions is distinct from Varg Vikernes' tinkerings in Burzum, a project whose metal side seems to have been an influence on the band (despite the Weaver brothers coming from precisely the opposite side of the political spectrum to Varg); whereas Burzum's synthesiser use drew inspiration from ambient music, here the synths are used to put the listener in mind of choirs and church organs and the like. Equally, occasional outbreaks of acoustic guitar and female vocals show a mild folk music influence on the album.

The general concept seems to be of natural wildernesses as being sacred spaces in their own right, and by and large the album is very successful at getting the idea across, with the slow closer Prayer of Transcendence somehow managing to transform black metal from a cold, angry, misanthropic hellstorm into something more contemplative and, well, transcendent. Purists may sneer, but there's little doubt in my mind that Wolves are presenting a profoundly different and novel take on the genre with this album, and it certainly inspires me to check out more of their work. Combining the musical approach of Burzum or Darkthrone with the aesthetic and spiritual stance of, say, the early Tyrannosaurus Rex albums or Devendra Banhart really shouldn't work as well as this.

Warthur Saviour Machine's debut album is an intriguing blend of gothic rock in the tradition of Sisters of Mercy and Fields of the Nephilim - most apparent in Eric Clayton's amazing vocals - with gothic metal and some prog rock influences. (In particular, it reminds me a lot at points of some of the gothier moments of neo-prog, and some passages seem to prefigure the work of bands like Arena.)

Sprinkle a few classic rock moments on the top and add a healthy dose of apocalyptic Christian mysticism and you have an interesting blend to say the least. Don't be put off by the fact that Saviour Machine are a Christian band who originally put this album out on a Christian music label; the band don't indulge in the crass and alienating preaching of other Christian groups, dividing their attentions between contemplations of their faith and terrifying prophecies of the end times.

In fact, the concluding song Jesus Christ includes lyrics like "You are the reason for the wars that plague the land" and "You are the shattered dream that frightens us to burn", suggesting that the group have a far from uncritical attitude to religion, and in particular seem to question whether some of the manifestations of Christianity are a reflection of God's will or an example of precisely the sort of thing Jesus preached against. It's this thoughtful approach to their religion which makes Saviour Machine's lyrical approach so interesting - whilst I don't personally share their worldview, it is at least a stance which is rooted in questioning and contemplation rather than dogmatism and intolerance.

Between this, the startling imagery in Legion, and the band's mysterious and spooky stage presence, it's no wonder that the more socially conservative side of the Christian music scene turned against them - in fact, the album wasn't originally released in America precisely because of this backlash. If you are in the market for a safe, wholesome Christian band who sing songs reaffirming and promoting culturally conservative values, then you're in absolutely the wrong place here - but if the idea of progressive gothic metal with theologically literate and intelligent lyrical themes floats your boat, the album's perfect for you, and if like me you don't care one way or another what the band's religious viewpoint is provided that the music is good then you're in luck too.

Warthur Refining the approach of their first album and spreading it out over epic tracks, Darkspace's second album finds them hooking up their spacey style of ambient black metal with the sprawling compositional structures of classic ambient artists such as Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Brian Eno. At points verging on blackened doom metal with its crushingly slow riffs, the album also features more artful use of sound effects, with the final track Dark 2.10 tapering off into a long sequence of space noises. On the whole, the album is reminiscent of a shooting star - it begins in tranquility, then there's a chaotic, roaring, firey thing passing across view, and then you're left with the cold emptiness of space again. Another very good example of ambient black metal.

Warthur Alongside the early Darkthrone releases, Dissection's The Somberlain is one of the earliest albums to combine the misanthropic assault and atmosphere of the second wave of black metal with the technical pyrotechnics often associated with death metal. With brilliant performances and impeccable production, it was one of the albums which proved that, despite the sneering of critics, black metal wasn't just about people who could barely play their instruments recording their music with a gratingly lo-fi approach (not that there's anything wrong with that). And even better, it still sounds as fresh and transgressive today as it did then - perhaps more so, knowing the future antics some of the band members would get up to.

Warthur Deathspell Omega's second concept album surrounding their philosophical contemplation of Satanic metaphysics is a real treat for those who don't mind (or positively enjoy) a little Satan in their metal and are interested in experimental black metal formats which stretch the boundaries of the genre. As well as including some intriguing quiet moments between its eruptions of black metal fury, the album is also significantly more varied than many avant-black metal albums when it comes to the actual rocking out - at points they create a chaotic wall of noise, but there's moments where almost traditional metal riffing will break out unexpectedly here and there. A complex and fascinating album.

Warthur The first Darkspace album is an ambient metal piece which essentially operates on two levels - on one level, you have the conventional metal instrumentation churning out a rumbling wall of guitar noise, and on the other level (usually in parallel with the other one) you have curious ambient effects overlaid with bizarre, alien screams and atmospheric samples (often from 2001: A Space Odyssey). The overall effect is something like the sort of ambient black metal approached by Burzum - but without the sort of incoherent rage and barely-restrained hatred that characterises Burzum's work, replacing it with a sense of cool, spacey detachment and dissociation. I wouldn't call it a classic, but it's a very interesting experimental black metal piece which certainly makes me want to hear the rest of this band's work.

Warthur If you look at the lyrics to Burzum's second post-jail album, and listen to Varg's tormented delivery, then you might be fooled into thinking that this account of a person's introspective self-searching might be the result of Varg finally beginning to feel some remorse for his various misdeeds. Of course, if you've read any recent interview with him you'll know that isn't the case at all, but even if he's still a shitty dude, at least he makes some really great music and doesn't try to use it to really push his agenda.

Once again, the electronic influences of earlier Burzum albums are more or less albsent; the concluding track is instead some sort of eerie folk piece which I believe might be performed on traditional instruments. Showing a bit more flair and originality than Belus, Fallen is Varg finally gathering momentum again; let's just hope this prolific run of albums he's one doesn't end like the last one.

Warthur The latest Electric Wizard album doesn't quite scratch the doom metal riff for me. The production seems a little off and the riffs this time around seem significantly less heavy - at points in danger of dropping out of doom metal territory altogether and turning into alt-rock stuff. The subject matter is the same old territory for the band, but the execution just doesn't gel so well, which is particularly surprising since the previous two Electric Wizard Mk. II albums had so successfully salvaged the band's sound. Hardcore Wizard fans will enjoy it but to be honest I can't listen to it all the way through without wanting to just turn it off and put Dopethrone on again instead.

Warthur Cradle of Filth's Darkly, Darkly Venus Aversa is a concept album about dark, gothic Goddess worship with S&M overtones. You might be thinking "Wait, that's kind of what all of their albums are about", and you'd be 100% right; and along with what is for them quite an unimaginative concept (seriously, how many songs does Dani Filth need to write about how dominant women make him hot?) we have a fairly unimaginative musical backing from the Filth this time. With phoned-in melodic/symphonic black metal licks and a new raspy vocal delivery for Dani which doesn't quite work, this album is just a dull chore to listen to.

Warthur Dimmu Borgir's sound is a fragile thing; when it's good, it's great, but it only needs to be nudged a tad out of place for it to leave me completely cold. That's the case with Abrahadabra, which comes across as a symphonic black metal by the numbers album with the inclusion of an orchestra serving little purpose beyond padding out the album a little. The lukewarm material and business-as-usual sound masks the broadening lyrical basis of the songs, which develop beyond the usual blah blah Satan blah black metal rants of past albums; it's just a shame that this hasn't been accompanied by a similar level of musical growth.

Warthur Atheist's comeback album Jupiter finds the band injecting the death metal back into their sound to an extent not heard since Piece of Time, with the jazz motifs of Unquestionable Presence or Elements serving the metal rather than existing in their own space. On the whole, it's a good and enjoyable listen, even though the technical death metal world has moved on since the band's glory days; my major criticism of the album is that after the first few songs it begins to feel a bit samey, something which was never the case on their earlier albums; a few quieter spots or the inclusion of moments where the jazz outweighs the death metal, as on their previous two albums, might have gone a long way to keeping things varied here.

Warthur Disperse's debut album presents a mildly spacey brand of prog metal reminiscent of the work on Porcupine Tree's recent album, with influences from the heavier side of the neo-prog scene for flavour. It presents good performances and is well-produced, but at the same time it feels a little cheesy and artificial to me; Rafal Biernacki's vocals aren't really to my taste, and the band don't really offer very much in the way of really compelling musical motifs beyond those they borrow from their influences. It's a good, enjoyable debut album, but it could be a lot better, though on balance I think Disperse have as good a chance to grow musically as anyone.

Warthur The first four Burzum albums should have made Varg Vikernes one of the most critically acclaimed and widely appreciated figures in metal - but between his utterly pointless campaign of arson and murder of Euronymous, his outright stupid embrace and promotion of far-right politics from jail, and the recording of two horrible albums on cheap jailhouse keyboards, it seems as though Varg spent the better part of his decade trying to obliterate what reputation he'd built up.

However, on leaving jail in 2009 Varg seems intent on salvaging his artistic reputation. Despite still issuing nasty diatribes on his website which make it clear that he's still a reprehensible human being, Vikernes seems intent on keeping his politics out of his music, his albums since his release having focused purely on retellings of Norse theology (as on Belus) and highly abstract emotional musings (as on Fallen).

But is Belus any good? Well, yes it is. Reclaiming some of the material from the Casio albums and putting it into the metal context it had always cried out for, the album shies away from the electronic dabblings of Filosofem in favour of raw, dirty black metal noise. Not that the recording quality itself is raw - this is Burzum with decent production values at last, and interestingly the music still seems vibrant and exciting even without the lo-fi aesthetic of the early albums. In fact, it feels fresher than ever before, with the shoegaze-like wall of guitar noise tapping into experimental currents in modern black metal. It's like the old devil's never been away after all.

Warthur Triptykon is Tom Warrior's furious vengeance for the end of Celtic Frost - an affair over which he still held some bitterness at the time this album came out, if interviews of the time were anything to go by. Still, it hasn't put good old Tom off his musical vision any - if anything, this album continues the work begun on Monotheist in weaving together the three major traditions of extreme metal (death, black and doom) into a cohesive whole, an aim which the opening track Goetia accomplishes perfectly. Then, somehow, even though it shouldn't be possiblem, the subsequent tracks go even further than that.

Hellhammer was derided as a joke at the time and is still an acquired taste now; Celtic Frost baffled critics but redefined extreme metal. Triptykon, finally, sees Tom Warrior getting some respect - and it might just blow the world apart with its raw evil.

Warthur The second Dethklok album finds Brendon Small continuing his laser-accurate tribute to extreme metal. Actually, whilst the first Dethalbum's songs mainly presented a fairly accessible brand of extreme metal, on Dethalbum II Small mixes up both more accessible numbers and substantially more complex material, broadening the range of the project considerably. There's a few points where the joke seems on the verge of wearing thin - did we really need a sequel to Murmaider? - but otherwise the Dethklok schtick continues unabated across the entire album and another entertaining melodic death metal opus is produced by a band of cartoon dudes from a flash-animated Adult Swim series. Don't you love the 21st Century?

Warthur Immortal used to have a fairly brisk release schedule, so fans may have had reason to be concerned when it took seven years for All Shall Fall to finally emerge. Luckily, it seems that the delay wasn't the result of the band struggling to produce decent material; in fact, they've clearly spent their time honing their craft and polishing these songs until they glitter, intent on producing the absolute best album they can. I'd rather have one All Shall Fall than three to five lesser albums; it's a thrashy black metal masterpiece which showcases Immortal hitting a new level of technical mastery. Superb.

Warthur I was very impressed when 3 Inches of Blood took on a few select themes from extreme metal when working on Fire Up the Blades, resulting in a sort of blackened traditional metal which I thought was genuinely original and interesting. It's disappointing, then, that on Here Waits Thy Doom they chose to play it safe and retreat to traditional metal territory - to my ears it even sounds as though Cam Pipes is reigning in his shrieking vocals a little. For a band which to this point had always managed to be about a little more than the mere indulgence of nostalgia, I expect better.

Warthur Death Magic Doom mixes up the grim atmosphere and Rob Lowe vocals of King of the Grey Islands with the uncharacteristically bouncy and jubilant tone of the band's self-titled album, creating an album with some monstrously chunky riffs but at the same time feels like it lacks focus compared to earlier efforts by the band. I'm inclined to agree with Time Signature that the album almost seems even more Sabbath-influenced than ever before, with If I Ever Die in particular resembling Tony Iommi's work with Sabbath. On the whole, the release of any new Candlemass album is cause for doom metal fans to sit up and take notice and this is no different.

Warthur Pest returns to the vocal spot and Infernus once again becomes the band's primary composer as Gorgoroth emerges from the devastating feud between Infernus on the one hand and King ov Hell and Gaahl on the other. It's not an earthshakingly original album or a major departure from Gorgorth's usual style, but then again it didn't have to be; what was called for at the time was simply an album which proved that Gorgoroth could still raise a black metal cacophony and spit evil lyrics at the listener. This it does; as usual, the lyrics are extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to decipher, but the song titles at least seem to suggest a response to the Gaahl/King ov Hell-led era of Gorgoroth ("Building a Man" has to be some kind of take on "Carving a Giant", right?"); either way, all that really matters with Gorgoroth is that they sound furious and they certainly are that here.

Warthur Following the mild catastrophe which was Eat Me Drink Me, Manson made a fumbling effort on The High End of Low to get back to his roots, though this usually involved uselessly regurgitating the shallow surface motifs of his glory days whilst still pursuing the lukewarm gothy indie rock of the preceding album. Not that there's anything wrong with gothy indie rock - but there's plenty wrong with the way Manson does it, especially when he uses it to continue down this horrible downward spiral of his into becoming a total parody of himself. Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon, in particular, sounds more like a parody of a Marilyn Manson song than the real deal; unfortunately, the real deal is precisely what it is.

Warthur World Painted Blood sees Slayer consolidating the impressive musical gains made on Christ Illusion, with the reformed classic lineup that made that album such a success going from strength to strength. Finally balancing their classic thrash approach with the angry punk influences which have often bubbled under the surface in their music, the band produce an album which might not redefine the rules of thrash metal in the same way their absolute best releases did, but at the very least keeps the thrash flame alive and will appeal to any fan of their classic run of albums from their debut to Seasons In the Abyss.

Warthur On God Is Good Om finally reach a more nuanced delivery of the spiritual music the project is inspired by - finally, the band's meditation music side has caught up to its doom metal chops. At points on here their compositions remind me of the music of Popol Vuh, who also made a point of combining spiritual music from varied cultures with a more modern musical style (Krautrock in Popol Vuh's case, doom metal in Om's case). I find Om's albums to be rather variable, but the accomplishment shown on God is Good makes me expect even greater things from the band in the future - assuming the reformation of Sleep doesn't put Om on hold for good.

Warthur Thy Catafalque's fourth album is a bizarre black metal mutant which constantly surprises the listener with the range of genres the band manage to cram into it - there's folk, space rock, ambient moments and more as well as some vicious metal outbursts to be enjoyed here. I'm particularly impressed with the way the band are able to explore all these different styles without the album becoming unfocused, and also the way the album is constantly in transition; just when you think you've got a handle on what they're doing at any particular point, the compositions start incorporating little twists that build up to move the soundscape in an entirely different direction. I'll have to listen to more of these guys.

Warthur The technical, experimental metal subgenres have come a long way since Cynic's debut album, and the band may have been dormant for well over a decade before reforming, but if Traced In Air feels like it's lagging a little bit behind the cutting edge, it's only half a step behind. Once again, as on Focus, Cynic prove themselves to be masters of blending death metal riffage and masterful technical intricacies, and even if the sort of technical death metal they, Atheist, and Death pioneered back in the day isn't quite so shocking and avant-garde any more, it's still a hell of a lot of fun to listen to.

Warthur For the first moment or so of album opener Clouds it almost sounds as though Enslaved have gone full-blown New Age with this release, with gently tinkling keyboards suggesting an ambient trip through gentle, relaxing soundscapes. The album offers nothing of the sort, of course: within seconds, the ugly, raw guitar assault bubbling under the surface has burst forth. A little more diversified in sound than the preceding Ruun, there's points where Enslaved unashamedly rock out, throwing in traditional heavy metal riffs to their now-expected amalgam of spacey progressive metal and frosty viking black metal. On the whole, it's another success from one of the most enduringly interesting bands of the Norwegian scene.

Warthur Although its followup (Friends of Hell) wasn't so impressive, Witchfinder General's debut album Death Penalty was both a major influence on the doom metal scene and a really entertaining listen in its own right. Resurrected, unfortunately, shows little sign of being either. Combining a poor vocal performance from Gary Martin with humdrum Sabbath mimicry with little to none of the creativity or NWOBHM embellishments evident on Death Penalty, the album is too mired in a retro sound to serve as anything other than a nostalgia piece, and it doesn't even work well as that since it doesn't really stand up to the band's original albums.

Warthur Whereas most post-metal bands look to the textures of bands such as Godspeed You Black Emperor or Mogwai for the post-rock side of their sound, Intronaut on Prehistoricism look more to jazzier and more complex groups such as Tortoise or the more math rock-inclined post-rock groups. This is a true asset, because it allows them to craft near-seamless transitions between these sections and the crushing jazz-influenced technical death metal that forms the other half of the whole. Overall, the album widens the horizons of both the post-metal and technical death metal genres and captures the band in very form indeed, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in progressive or technically complex metal.

Warthur To my ears, Godspeed On the Devil's Thunder sounds like a throwback to the sound of Cruelty and the Beast, which I suppose makes sense since you could see it as a spiritual sequel to the earlier album. Both pieces are concept albums based on extremely fanciful retellings of the lives of medieval nobles accused of serial murder, witchcraft and Satanism; Cruelty was about perennial black metal muse Countess Bathory, whilst Godspeed finds Cradle of Filth telling the tale of Gilles de Rais, former companion of Joan of Arc turned murderous pedophile.

Whilst it isn't an especially original piece, there are some improvements over the earlier album; the production is better, as are the performances, and the poetic lyrics are much less clumsy and verge on being genuinely clever at points. On the whole, it's the most entertaining Cradle of Filth album since Midian.

Warthur Backing away from Metal Black's attempt to recast the band as a proto-extreme metal group (which they never really were - it took other acts to take the raw, nearly-thrashy speed metal of their early albums and transform it into the black metal we know and love today), the delightfully unpretentious Hell provides a short sharp burst of raw and dirty thrash with a punky edge reminiscent of the first two Venom albums. La Rage does a reasonable job on the guitars, Cronos' vocals sound as pissed off as ever, and on the whole the band focus on doing what they've always done best - making a godawful racket and having a heap of fun doing it.

Warthur The metal-tinged post-rock trio Russian Circles presents another compelling collection of compositions on Station, which takes their music into somewhat bleaker territory than their debut album Enter; there's a bit more of an emphasis on harsh, minimalistic soundscapes this time around, which serves to add intriguing textures to the band's compositions.

I also think that on the whole they drift away from the metal side of the post-rock/post-metal divide they so ably straddled on the debut; it's still there, but they don't visit that territory quite so frequently this time around. This is in stark contrast to Cult of Luna, another band who had made a virtue of working in the borderline between the two sister subgenres, who at around the same time were taking a more distinctly metal direction. Either way, Russian Circles remain an interesting prospect.

Warthur The Sword's first album was a solid piece of throwback metal; the very capable followup, Gods of the Earth, is a crushing stoner metal classic which manages to sound simultaneously ancient and modern. On the one hand, the recording and compositional approach taken here clearly draws on both the bands and the general thematic moods of the 1970s metal scene, whilst on the other hand they are no longer out to merely mimic old bands but seem determined to carve out their own sound. Raucous, rowdy, and fast, this is almost outside of the doom metal category altogether were it not for a few slow and punishing riffs here and there. Recommended for any doom or stoner metal fans who like a big dose of proto-metal on the side.

Warthur The Slip finds Trent Reznor in an uncharacteristically bad mood - and why shouldn't it? Having finally untangled himself from the contract tangle he'd been caught up in ever since the Pretty Hate Machine era, and having won critical acclaimed and proved that he could do without a record company altogether with the superb Ghosts I-IV release, things were looking pretty bright at this point for him.

The Slip, I think, is meant to be an expression of that. The title is clearly meant to refer to how he gave the record companies "the slip" and escaped their clutches; on top of that, this is some of the most outright happy music Trent's ever put out. Sure, there's still his breathy, angsty vocals, but those beats don't lie: this is a bouncy NIN party album.

Apparently it was originally meant to be an EP but Reznor found himself on a creative roll and ended up making it a full-length; to be honest, I'd say that whilst it's a fun industrial dance album it's no Pretty Hate Machine, so perhaps a bit of editing back down to EP length might have been called for. To be honest, at this point I think it was pretty clear that Reznor's creativity was far more in tune with the ambient soundscapes of Ghosts than the pop-industrial of his past - and his critically acclaimed soundtrack work in collaboration with Atticus Ross since then for The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo rather bears that out. At the same time, I can't hold The Slip against Reznor too much, since he did at least release this as a free download.

Warthur Cult of Luna might have invented a cool story for their latest album (come on, you don't seriously believe that yarn about them just happening to stumble across the story in someone's diary do you?), but on the whole it seems to be business as usual for them on the musical front. A harder-edged and more clearly metal release than the preceding album, Eternal Kingdom does have its quieter moments - such as Ugin, which puts me in mind of Neil Young's avant-garde soundtrack to Dead Man - but on the whole the album presents a heavier, scarier incarnation of post-metal which might alienate fans of the band's more peaceful side but will probably win over most metal listeners.

Warthur Possibly my favourite Nine Inch Nails release, Ghosts I-IV finds Trent Reznor fully indulging a side of his music which had only surfaced as very occasional instrumental snippets on previous albums (aside from the Quake soundtrack). This fully instrumental ambient industrial album is essentially Reznor's answer to Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, immersed as it is in an experimental tradition which can be traced back by the attentive listener to the electronic delvings of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp back in the 1970s. (Fripp sideman Adrian Belew even appears on some tracks.) All the sonic genius of Reznor with none of the embarrassingly bad lyrics or insincere stabs at the mainstream? Yes, please!

Warthur Pilgrimage finds Om chugging along in the same general style as they arrived at in Conference of the Birds, though this time they trim back the length of the tracks a little to provide more succinct pieces. It's another pleasant enough album, but whereas Conference of the Birds felt like a real artistic breakthrough on Pilgrimage the band seem to revert to treading water. It's a short album at only 32 minutes, but in that brief time they don't really do very much which they didn't accomplish better on Conference, and I honestly don't feel I need multiple albums in this very specific style unless the albums in question are of a transcendently brilliant quality.

Warthur Brendon Small's Metalocalypse cartoon might poke fun at some of the more buffoonish antics of musicians and bands, but every single episode drips with love for the genre, right down to the band names slipped in here and there in the background (like having a fast food outlet in one episode be called "Burzumburger"). I think that's why the Dethalbum succeeds so well at both being a hilarious parody of extreme metal and yet, at the same time, a really good melodic death metal album in its own right.

Any doubts about Small's ability to develop the snippets of Dethklok's music we hear in the episodes is dispelled with the opening track Murmaider, a song which is more crushingly heavy than many serious death metal bands are able to compose, and keeps going through a series of excellent tracks that don't let up until the end. I can take or leave the bonus disc, but then again I never let bonus tracks affect album scores anyway; on the whole, I have to give this one five stars.

Warthur There's points when listening to Riverside's Rapid Eye Movement where, if my attention wavers, I end up forgetting that I'm listening to a Riverside album and think I'm listening to late-period Porcupine Tree instead. Unfortunately, the big difference between this album and Porcupine Tree's excellent metal-influenced pieces - and, for that matter, Riverside's pretty decent debut - is that my attention *does* wander quite regularly during it. It's all very pleasantly done, but it seems to be going over territory which Steven Wilson and Riverside themselves have both covered more than adequately previously - and doing so without really doing anything compellingly interesting with it.

Warthur The Pax Cecilia's Blessed are the Bonds is one of those albums which sits right on the borderline between post-rock and post-metal, with moments of crushing, screaming fury and gentle, acoustic, almost folky sections co-existing within the band's compositions. A self-released piece which exists solely out of the performer's love of the music - they give it away for free on their website - it's actually extremely well produced, and you really wouldn't know it was recorded and produced entirely on the band's own resources. The fact that such an excellent and wonderful sound can be produced on people's own resources thanks to today's recording technologies is surely reason to have hope for the future - and what better soundtrack for that future than the Pax Cecilia?

Warthur The second incarnation of Electric Wizard really gets under steam on this fantastic little doom metal album. Once again, weed-addled ramblings about classic horror movies and pulp fiction are the order of the day, with the works of such luminaries as Hammer Horror and H.P. Lovecraft being honoured with songs, and once again Sabbath-derived doom metal is the musical style the band present us with. And once again, few bands come up with heavier or more compelling riffs to justify this bong-induced haze than Electric Wizard. It might not quite reach the standards of Dopethrone, but it gives me every reason to hope that the band will produce another five-star classic in the future, and is a more than entertaining enough album in its own right.

Warthur On Paradise Lost Symphony X hit on a fabulous new sound, a darker and grimmer variation on their progressive power metal approach which dials back the cheesier aspects of power metal substantially, even more so than on V. Substantially heavier than their preceding work, the album stands on a par with The New Mythology Suite in opening up new sonic possibilities in the band's music and expands their horizons, even at points bringing them close to the threshold of more extreme metal styles. For a band who previously often left me a little cold with their indulgence of the cheesier, lighter side of power metal, this is a substantial improvement indeed.

Warthur Reverend Bizarre's final album is presented in that most dangerous of formats: a 2CD double album with each CD crammed with over an hour of music. Few bands can sustain a consistent level of quality across the space of such a long album without letting filler slip in here and there, but Reverend Bizarre manage to pull it off; even better, their flirtation with shorter and more commercial song formats on Crush the Insects seems to have been dropped in favour of the epic approach of their debut album. (Ironically, this seems to have resulted in their greatest commercial success, with a 16 minute edit of the opening track hitting number 1 in the Finnish single charts!)

This swansong for the band sees them at their most inventive - perhaps the most surprising feature being the use of synthesisers to add a Byzantine texture to the outro of Caesar Forever - and stands alongside the classic In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend as a monument to a brilliant and all too short-lived band.

Warthur Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's In Glorious Times finds the band in a slightly less theatrical mode than their preceding album, with the music seeming more real and immediate; if Of Natural History was a Vaudeville conception of avant-metal, this is more of a gritty and realistic movie soundtrack. Musically speaking, the band seem to be out to fuse the disturbing territories of Mr Bungle with the creepy chamber rock of Rock In Opposition legends Univers Zero, though the bizarre vocal approach is a 100% Sleepytime Gorilla original. Either way, the album is another successful experiment in balancing musical complexity and experimentation with way-out-there creepiness.

Warthur Ever since their transformation from a patchy black metal band into an intriguing black-about-the-edges death metal band, Behemoth have become one of the most consistent forces in metal. Whilst The Apostasy didn't blow me away to the same extent as some of their other albums, it's still a tremendously enjoyable (not to mention deliciously evil) death metal album which sees the band finding endless new ways to keep their same old themes fresh and new. It might not break that much in the way of new ground for the band, but if you've heard and enjoyed the albums leading up to it you'll be pleased to know they've lost none of their diabolic spark.

Warthur By and large I don't really enjoy Devin Townsend's material - which isn't to say it's bad, but it isn't really my thing. The major exception is Ziltoid the Omniscient, a prog metal alien invasion epic so ridiculously over the top that it can't help but win you over. An impressive multi-instrumentalist accomplishment by Townsend, the album sounds fantastic for a record assembled and completed by one performer; in particular, thanks to secret technology obtained from Meshuggah Townsend is able to program his drum machine brilliantly, creating a sound which is truly indistinguishable from a very technically accomplished human drummer.

As well as having a silly plot and over-the-top proggy song structures, the album also shows a clear love for heavy metal in all its forms - see, for instance, some of the vocals in Ziltoidia Attaxx!!!, which are clearly meant to be a homage to Rob Halford's legendary vocal performance on Judas Priests' Painkiller. Packed with little details like that, the album is a great listen for all fans of metal, particularly if - like Ziltoid - you are secretly a nerd.

Warthur With a new relationship and a spring in his step, Marilyn Manson found himself in a decidedly lovey-dovey mood when it came to recording Eat Me, Drink Me. This manifests in a significantly lessened emphasis on his industrial metal roots, a lot of romantic gothy flourishes, and - once you brush aside the overproduction and spooky effects - something which sounds awfully close to rather anonymous alternative rock as opposed to anything particularly Mansony. See, for instance, the lead single from the album Heart-Shaped Glasses, a tedious little number notably only for its excruciatingly embarrassing and egotistical music video.

I'm not going to do the rock snob misogynist thing and accuse Evan Rachel Wood of doing a Yoko Ono thing to Manson's music - it was already firmly on a downhill slide when she came onto the scene - but both the music video and the romantic slant of the album as a whole seem constructed to allow Manson the opportunity to brag about how he's dating a significantly younger woman. In other words, it's Manson going through a slightly early mid-life crisis in the most public way possible, and whilst that might make interesting material for a concept album, Manson really isn't the guy to do it. When you put on a Marilyn Manson album, you know exactly what you want - mildly transgressive but ultimately kind of harmless and irresistibly catchy poppy industrial metal. More or less every time Manson has tried to operate outside of that niche has resulted in embarrassment, and Eat Me Drink Me is no exception.

Warthur A lesser band than Candlemass would have botched this one. Few other groups could suffer the loss of a lead singer as legendary as Messiah Marcolin at an early stage in the recording sessions of an album, complete the album with a guest vocalist (even one as talented as Rob Lowe of Solitude Aeturnus), and have it come out sounding this good. As it is, Lowe seems to slip into the Candlemass groove almost immediately - no surprise, considering that Solitude Aeturnus work with a very similar aesthetic - and delivers some fantastic performances, particularly on the melancholic and megalomaniac rant of Emperor of the Void. All of a sudden, I can't imagine current-era Candlemass without him.