"Still in the Sphere" is an EP release by French death/progressive metal act Supuration. The EP was released through French label Reincarnate in 1994. Supuration have existed under a couple of different monickers since 1987 but settled on Supuration in 1990 and released a couple of minor releases in the early 90s before releasing their 1993 debut full-length studio album "The Cube". After releasing "The Cube" Supuration recorded and released a 1994 soundtrack demo (only available through the Supuration fanclub) for the French film "Jacques le Fataliste", but they also worked on the music featured on "Still in the Sphere".

"Still in the Sphere" features five tracks and a total playing time of 27:39 minutes. So it´s a mini-album length release rather than an EP length release. Four tracks are new originals which are exclusive to this release and the closing track is a cover of "Shout" by Tears For Fears. Supuration already turned things on their head on "The Cube", where they produced a pretty unique sounding progressive death metal album, and naturally they continue that trend on "Still in the Sphere". The death metal elements have been scaled back a bit, although lead vocalist/guitarist Ludovic Loez still performs death metal growls. He also sings a lot of clean vocal parts too though, so the two vocal styles are pretty evenly distributed on this release.

The songwriting is quite intriguing and Supuration continue to come up with interesting and unconventional ideas. Not everything works wonders and the relatively weak sounding production job isn´t a positive either. But "Still in the Sphere" is still overall a quality release from a very unique act, which Supuration can be proud of. It´s a varied and dynamic release featuring a subdued death metal element, and otherwise leans more towards progressive metal. Not progressive metal like Dream Theater or Fates Warning, but more just an unconventional type of metal. The original material is of a good quality and the odd futuristic sounding doom/death metal cover of "Shout" is actually pretty great too. It´s definitely not a one to one interpretation of the original song and Supuration deserve praise for that. A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.

"Immense Intense Suspense" is the debut full-length studio album by Dutch death/doom metal act Phlebotomized. The album was released through Cyber Music in September 1994. It follows the release of the 1993 "Preach Eternal Gospels" EP and there has been one significant lineup change since the release of the EP as lead vocalist Barry Schuyer has been replaced by Dennis Geestman. Phlebotomized are therefore still a septet including a keyboard player and a violinist in addition to two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, and a lead vocalist.

Stylistically they are in the more death metal oriented and brutal end of the death/doom metal scale. They often play faster parts too, and this is by no means your regular My Dying Bride/Paradise Lost clone, although the slow paced sections featuring violin point in the direction of the former. Phlebotomized are a pretty adventurous and creative act and it wouldn´t be wrong to call their music progressive in nature. The songs feature many shifts in pace and a lot of different sections. The atmosphere is gloomy and mournful all the way though. This is not a happy release. It´s dark, grim, and brutal, and it´s only the keyboards and the violin layered sections, which point in another direction and which provide the band´s music with an extra epic dimension. That Phlebotomized happen to write and play some really effectul, brutal, and heavy old school death metal too is just one part of their sound which works well.

The change on the lead vocalist spot doesn´t affect Phlebotomized´s sound much, as Geestman is just as convincing, powerful, and brutal a growling vocalist as Schuyer was. He even adds the occasional (and rare) clean vocal moment which is great for the variation of the album. The clean vocals are delivered in either a showgaze type vocal style or a goth rock ditto. No high pitched epic singing here, but more a subtle monotone/dreamy clean vocal performance, although closing track "Gone" hints at a slightly more regular melodic rock voice performance.

"Immense Intense Suspense" features a well sounding production job, which suits the material well. The keyboards are sometimes placed a little high in the mix and the clean vocals are placed pretty low, but other than that it´s a powerful, raw, and detailed sound production. Upon conclusion it´s one of the more unique sounding death/doom metal albums from the early- to mid-90s. Calling it progressive death/doom metal isn´t always true because of the brutal old school death metal sections and higher pace, but evaluated overall that´s probably still the best description of the content of "Immense Intense Suspense". A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

"Angel Rat" is the sixth full-length studio album by Canadian progressive metal act Voivod. The album was released through Mechanic/MCA Records in November 1991. It´s the successor to "Nothingface" from October 1989, which was the band´s most commercially successful release up until then (and still is). Although Voivod shot a promotional video for "Clouds in My House", "Angel Rat" did not receive the same amount of praise and wasn´t as commercially successful as "Nothingface". It was the last Voivod album to feature the original quartet lineup, as bassist Jean-Yves Thériault (Blacky) recorded his parts for "Angel Rat", but exited Voivod before the release of the album. Voivod brought in prolific producer Terry Brown (Rush, Queenrÿche...etc.), who is responsible for producing, mixing, and engineering "Angel Rat".

When "Panorama" kicks in just after the short intro track ("Shortwave Intro"), it´s immedately apparent that Voivod have changed a lot since "Nothingface". Although "Angel Rat" is certainly a well performed release, all the most odd dissonant chords and time-signature changes are gone and instead Voivod present the listener with a melodic heavy rock/metal style. It´s still unmistakably the sound of Voivod with Denis Bélanger´s distinct sounding punkish vocals in front, but "Angel Rat" is a decidedly more melodic and straight forward release than anything Voivod had released up until then. "Nothingface" featured melodic moments but those melodic moments were woven into an odd dissonant and rhythmically challenging sound, which ultimately sounds very little like the music featured on "Angel Rat". Denis D-Amour still produce some pretty unconventional sounding riffs, which provide the album with a lot of identity and his at times futuristic sounding lead work is also a great asset.

I´ll be honest here and say that my guess is that Voivod were trying to make a commercial release to see how far they could drive their career (which is of course fair and understandable). When you know what came after "Angel Rat" it´s obvious Voivod didn´t succeed and therefore returned to a less mainstream oriented style on the subsequent releases, and if "Angel Rat" was their attempt at achieving commercial success I´d say they miscalculated a few things. First of all very few of the tracks on "Angel Rat" are immediately catchy and memorable. Even after listening to the album many times over the years, there are still tracks on the album I can´t remember what sounds like before I listen to the album. That´s not a good condition if you want to sell albums. Secondly the sound production is a bit "off". It´s overall a decent quality sound production, but it´s like the instruments are a bit detached in the soundscape (especially the drums) and I have to say that I was surprised to learn that this is a Terry Brown production.

When that is said "Angel Rat" is still a good quality release and tracks like "Clouds in My House" and especially the brilliant "The Prow" can be viewed as highlights. Upon conclusion "Angel Rat" may be Voivod´s botched attempt at achieving commercial success but it´s also an interesting and unique album release in their discography. It suffers a bit from being bookended by two of Voivod´s strongest albums, but a 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved.

"Levels of Perception" is the tenth full-length studio album by Dutch death metal act Pestilence. The album was released through Agonia Records in April 2024. It features twelve re-recordings of tracks which have appeared on some of the band´s earlier releases. Not all preceding albums are represented (there are no re-recordings of tracks from "Malleus Maleficarum" (1988) or from "Spheres" (1994)), but all other Pestilence studio albums are represented with at least one track each...

...and the tracklist is up for debate. It seems a bit odd to me, why Pestilence would chose to re-record no less than four tracks from their last album "Exitivm". Re-recordings are usually done to show how a current version of a group plays older classic material, but it seems Pestilence had another vision with "Levels of Perception". "Consuming Impulse" (1989) and "Testimony of the Ancients" (1991) are represented by two tracks each (I guess they didn´t dare leave out "Out of the Body") but that´s the only pre-reformation material featured on "Levels of Perception". It´s not that Pestilence more current material isn´t decent, but it just seems a bit strange to re-record material from 2021 on a 2024 release.

When that is said, there are unfortunately much, much worse things to say about "Levels of Perception" which is through and through a horrible release. I can´t call it anything else than an abomination and a terrible misstep in the discography of Pestilence. The material is what it is, but the performances and some of the new arrangements are tame and uninspired. Honestly it almost made me cry listening to the re-recordings of "Twisted Truth" and "Out of the Body", which are two of my absolute favorite Pestilence tracks, both of which are butchered here (Patrick Mameli how could you?).

But the performances and the weak vocals from Mameli aren´t even the worst here...it´s the production values. The drums were recorded live at one studio in 2021 and everything else was overdubbed at other studios during the next couple of years. Many artists have made live recordings of drums in the studio and have gotten great results from it, but that can´t be said about the drums on "Levels of Perception", which sound like they were recorded at a rehearsal space (and not at a studio like they are) using an old fashioned four-track tape recorder. This is demo quality sound production values. And it´s not just the drums. The guitars feature an odd high end tone which is grating on the ears, Mameli´s voice is distorted and you can´t always make out the words he sings (which usually isn´t an issue on Pestilence albums), and the bass is completely disconnected from the rest of the instruments in the mix...and bass player Joost van der Graaf often sounds like he is playing another song than the rest of the members of the band.

A pretty harsh critique, which I´m not happy to deliver since Pestilence have long been some of my heroes, but I have to call it like I see it. Honesty and full disclosure. Pestilence have some work to do, to drag themselves back from this disaster. Their next album better be the best album they have released since reforming in 2008 or they may find themselves a fan or two short. You don´t come back from something like this without some careful consideration and reflection in terms of what went wrong, and what should we never do again...a 1.5 star (30%) rating is warranted. I´m tempted to give an even lower rating, but I´m trying to be fair and at least give Pestilence some sort of credit for existing, but there really isn´t much to give them credit for after listening to this album.

"No Life 'til Leather" is the first demo recording by US, California based thrash metal act Metallica. The demo was independently released in July 1982. It´s not actually the first demo recording by Metallica, but it´s the first demo by the band which was recorded at a professional recording studio and which was widely distributed. At this point the band consisted of James Hetfield (lead vocals, guitars), Lars Ulrich (drums), Dave Mustaine (guitars), and Ron McGovney (bass). Some of the latter cassette tape copies credit Cliff Burton for recording the bass, but Burton didn´t replace McGovney until after the recording sessions for "No Life 'til Leather".

"No Life 'til Leather" features seven tracks and a total playing time of 29:41 minutes. All tracks would be re-recorded and included on Metallica´s July 1983 debut full-length studio album "Kill 'Em All", although the Dave Mustaine penned "The Mechanix" was re-arranged and re-titled "The Four Horsemen". Some of the tracks appear in early and quite rough versions and especially James Hetfield´s vocals changed significantly between this demo and "Kill 'Em All". On "No Life 'til Leather" he audibly lacks confidence in his voice and he´s also obviously very young and not a natural singer, which makes for a few odd strained vocal moments. It´s a minor issue though as the raw energy and fiercely aggressive playing make up for that.

The demo features a well sounding production job, considering that it´s a demo release, and it´s no wonder that labels began to show interest in signing Metallica when they heard "No Life 'til Leather". Metallica can rightly be proud of what they produced here and upon conclusion "No Life 'til Leather" is a good quality demo from Metallica and a 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.