Hello friends. Welcome to another edition of Staff Infections, your monthly glimpse into the listening habits of your pals at Last Rites. August is the last full month of summer for us Northern hemisphere folks, and so my advice to you would be to live it up while you can, before hurricane season and election season compete for the greatest potential disaster.
On to the music: This time around we have no runners-up for album of the month, only three albums appeared on multiple playlists, and they each had two appearances a piece, resulting in a three-way tie for first place. Featured in this tri-folded victory are a couple new albums in the realms of black / thrash and death metal, and an album that I suppose must be called a progressive metal classic, despite the fact that doing so makes me feel old. First up we have the debut full-length Toba, from Chile’s Mayhemic. As is typical of Chilean bands, Mayhemic’s music is ferocious and old-school-leaning, but your pal and mine, Ryan Tysinger, has the full report for you right here. Next, we have the first album in eight years from Czech death metal quintet Brutally Deceased, Chasms. While we as-of-yet have no review for Chasms, I can inform you that Brutally Deceased’s heart is still very much in Stockholm. Finally, we have Mastodon with what might be considered its breakthrough album, 2004’s Leviathan. As luck would have it Last Rites has been around so long, we have a review of this legendary album in the archives, from legendary former Last Rites / Metal Review contributor, Mr. Chris Sesssions. Reviews are subjective endeavors, of course, but it’s hard to argue that ol’ Chris didn’t hit the nail on the head with this one.
For our group discussion this month, what is a then-new album that you thought was destined to be a classic, that fulfilled that promise, and / or, conversely, what is an album that you thought was destined for great acclaim, but never really clicked with the masses. Myself, I rarely get in on the ground floor of anything, so it’s difficult for me to claim any great prescience about a particular album, but I did pick up Down’s N.O.L.A. on the day of its release, and I thought it was pretty hot shit. Decades later it is still pretty well regarded, even by some people who ordinarily can’t stand Phil Anselmo. On the flip side, I thought Dawnbringer’s Into the Lair of the Sun God was going to blow the band up pretty big, in the context of underground metal, at least. However, it seems I may have overestimated general metal public’s appetite for trad-metal concept albums in 2012. Dawnbringer packed it in after one more full-length album. I still think Sun God is a great album, though, and, if you would like to read about it, our man Dan has a review right here. I don’t want to sweeten the pot too much, but there are Star Trek references.
That’s about it for this month. Be sure to listen to the staff-curated Spotify playlist below, and share your own playlist in the comments. See you all next month.
- Zach Duvall
Napalm Death – The Earache Peel Sessions
Misery Index – Traitors
Swans – Filth
Repugnancy – Vile Ancient Transfiguration
Scald – Ancient Doom Metal
Kiss It Goodbye – She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not - Andrew Edmunds
Nasum – Helvete
Massacra – Enjoy The Violence
Solicitor – Spectral Devastation
Exorbitant Prices Must Diminish – For A Limited Time
Sick/Tired – Whip Hand Paranoia
Napalm Death – Time Waits For No Slave - Ryan Tysinger
Nile – Black Seeds of Vengeance
Dødskvad – Krønike III
Deceased – Children of the Morgue
Mayhemic – Toba
Morbius – The Shades Below
Melechesh – Sphinx - Captain
Metallica – Ride the Lightning
Metallica – Master of Puppets
High On Fire – Cometh the Storm
Aphelion – Reaperdawn
Alice In Chains – Dirt
Steve Turre – Sanyas - Danhammer Obstkrieg
Senyawa – Vajranala
Brutally Deceased – Chasms
Abrams – Blue City
Mastodon – Leviathan
Xylitol – Anemones
Kessoncoda – Outerstate - Josh Heath
Mayhemic – Toba
Paradise Lost – Gothic
Skepticism – Stormcrowfleet
Skinless – Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead
Fulci – Duck Face Killings
Freeways – Dark Sky Sanctuary - Isaac Hams
Negura Bunget – Om
Dordeduh – Har
Hammers of Misfortune – The Locust Years
The Mars Volta – Amputechture
Altar of Plagues – Teethed Glory and Injury
Transit Method – Othervoid - Jeremy Morse
Death – The Sound of Perseverance
Death – Symbolic
Diskord – Bipolarities
Magister Templi – Lucifer Leviathan Logos
Wormed – Omegon
Cianide – Death, Doom and Destruction - Spencer Hotz
Nile – The Underworld Awaits Us All
Concrete Winds – Concrete Winds
Brutally Deceased – Chasms
Lamb of God – Ashes of the Wake
Mastodon – Leviathan
Slipknot – Slipknot
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Brodequin – Harbinger of Woe
Upon Stone – Dead Mother Moon
Tenue – Arcos, Bóvedas, Pórticos
Obscene – Agony & Wounds
Dismember – Where Ironcrosses Grow
In Solitude – Sister
Wow lots of great throwbacks on these lists…altar of plagues, lamb of god, mastodon, death, mars Volta…must be something in the air—
Enslaved- riitiir
Enslaved- ruun
Enslaved- axioma ethica odini (still can’t believe how this album blows me away)
Enslaved- isa
Opeth- deliverance (also that new single they put out)
As far as an album I thought would launch a band into space—Epigone by Wilderun is an incredible album that I really figured people would be jamming on but they seem to have flown a bit under the radar and I can’t figure out why
Black Pyramid – The Paths of Time are Vast
Chapel of Disease – Echoes of Light
Orange Goblin – Science Not Fiction
Denis Pauna – Ride the Lightning Death Metal Style
Triptykon – Melana Chasmata
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield
Hail Spirit Noir – Fossil Gardens
Obsequiae – The Palms of Sorrowed Kings
Portrait – The Host
Seka Aleksić – Bioskop
Aquilus – Bellum II
Huntsmen – The Dry Land
200 Stab Wounds – Manual Manic Procedures
Cryptic Hatred – Internal Torment
Iron Maiden- Somewhere in Time
Death – Spiritual Healing
The Darkness – Permission to Land
Raven – All For One
I never assume because I really dig something, it’s going to blow up…I remember being blown away by Blood Incantation – Starspawn when it came out, but not expecting them to become a huge band
Same for me–blown away by that album Starspawn. Must’ve listened to it 100 times when it came out.
Vile Rites – Senescence
Paganizer – Beyond the Macabre
Skeletal Remains – Fragments of the Ageless
Disguised Malignancy – Entering the Gateways
Lamentations – Passion of Depression
Dark Traquillity – Atoma
An album I thought would be a classic and it fulfilled that promise: Metal Church’s first album “Metal Church”. Still love it as much as when I first heard it in the mid-80s. I’d rank it in my top ten heavy metal records of all time (a true “desert island record”).