To me Goat Horns sounds like a folk/pop black metal party hoedown. People who apply a similar description to NeChrist are only focusing on superficial characteristics of the music.

Next to the ‘known’ Black metal bands, such as Antestor and Crimson Moonlight, with clear production and a good line-up, there is a Black metal movement that strives for a dark and raw sound. Good production is seen as inferior to bad production, and one-man projects are common. This movement’s sound could be described as Old School Black metal, though they often refer to themselves as Unblack metal. I’ll go with the term Unblack here. Elgibbor is one of these bands, hailing from Poland. Actually, Elgibbor is a one-man project: guitars, synths, bass and drumcomputer are all done by Fire. Though an unknown guestmusician does the female clean vocals. Unlike many Unblack metal bands/projects, Elgibbor doesn’t strive for simple songs and bad production, Elgibbor is about its dark (and ‘grim’) atmosphere. Not about top-speed and unnatural fast drums, but rather slow and doomy songs. He definitaly succeeds at this. With the exception of the song Awesome God, which most of you’ll already know as a gospel or pop song (Michael W. Smith). Well, he made a Black metal version of it, with mainly female clean vocals. Sounds pretty nice, I always like metal versions of gospel songs, partly becayse of its fun. Yet it’s clearly the least dark song on this album. After Awesome God come some Polish songs, of which Miecz Nad Leviatanem nicely starts with acoustic guitars, synths and talking vocals. The CD ends with the English song Shadow of Death, which starts calmly with pianos, followed by a slow and dark song typical for this CD.
Overall a decent CD, although I’m more fond of good production, but for fans of Unblack: I could definitaly recommend this CD.

hells_unicorn's latest review for Sabbath's "The Dio Years" has me quite confused.

http://www.metal-archives.com/review.ph ... 4817#29518

He first starts off by saying this:

"Being someone who has made it a point to own everything with RJD and Sabbath’s names on it, there would naturally be little reason for me to bother spending anything more than a few dollars on a best of album unless I was able to get some rarities to go with it."

He later justifies the second part, but the first part basically says that he's a fan of Dio-era Sabbath's work.

Later on at the end of the review, he says this:

"This is the only Dio era Sabbath release that is essential, if for no other reason in that the new songs on here blow everything that this band has done since 1994 completely out of the water."

This is the only Dio-era Sabbath that is essential? This compilation with three new songs because these new songs blow everything an aging, non-Dio Sabbath has done since 1994? I'm sure h_u has heard Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, but THIS is the only essential Dio-era Sabbath?

He gave Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules BOTH a 100%. Are those not essential? Perhaps h_u made a mistake in his review.

Tee hee, OzzyHassan.

Anyone with any kind of blood relation to anything from Pakistan is so unmetal that his hemoglogin contains aluminum instead of iron, it seems.

Anyone with any kind of blood relation to anything from Pakistan is so unmetal that his hemoglogin contains aluminum instead of iron, it seems.

Aluminum is metal!! But i guess hemoglogin is not where it belongs.

yes, but I think that it's far less solid...

Mamma mia, what luxurious shit has filled the Romanian megastores in the last time? Nothing else than the notorious Altar from my country. Since this album has lyrics written in Romanian language, it is (or was?) my duty to listen and fully comprehend their non-potential.
Altar have been renowned mostly for their first album, The Last Warning. Last Warning was nothing but a decent thrash album with occassional hardcore bursts. Sort of Sepultura in their Roots and the rest era, maybe more of Chaos AD. As years passed, Altar did gain more and more respect in the supposedly metal and increasingly hardcore scene, but in a country like Romania, even by putting a single riff in a whole crappy disco synth number, people would classify it as metal. Anyway, Atitudine (which brings to my unpleased mind the image of a band trying hard to copy the Sepulturean concepts like attitude and dictatorshit or fuck the government and the whole country except those who swallow our loads of "revolt thrash attack") is an all-out hardcore panorama of mediocrity and hilariously "rebel" songs.
The lyrics were the first thing to strike me with a baseball bat, since I saw these boys live at the MTV Romanian Awards, singing with the ragga-rap sensation fag of my country Pacha Man. They were singing as I translate: "Have a good time in Romania/Stupidity was invented here." Yeah, I agreed with the idea of idiocy being invented at MTV suckage awards. But taking it seriously, this is a quite perfect attempt at sounding like a band of yelling kids throwing shit just for the sake of "attitude". The entire album is in the same "protest" vein, so don't expect lyrical masterpieces on this.
The music is guaranteed to put an insomniac to sleep. The rhythms are very simple and could be played by rookie standards (except metal fans that get wowed when the imbecile behind the drumkit starts hitting the pedal once in every second), absolutely no thrash here. Some tracks get almost danceable like a Bomfuck MCs hymn would, with processed drums and other goodies. The riffs are mainly "heavy" and "menacing" power chords, and there is no musical extreme ability involved, hitting the low chords with poor bass.
Yeah, these vocals DO suck. The bitchass in this band is almost 30 year old and he is surpassed flawlessly by a 60-year vocalist of Iris. I think that if Britney Spears smoked more, she would sound exactly like this guy. Andy Toast is nothing but a hardcore growler and also a bad one, trying to force down the notes.
The general aspects:
Vocals? Spare my precious time, I must go squirting the daisies with my nose.
Guitars? Haha, that's where Jeanette comes in.
Drums? My regret for the Alzheimeresque monkey behind is indescribable.
Bass? What the fuck is that.
The album? A worthless acquisition, chock full of idiotic gangsta thrash word plays, boring riffs and monotonous putrescence of a contagious bunch of boneheads, said to be "one of the most valuable rock bands of Romania". Oh, and a cover that would impress Michael Jackson if he were a boxer. Fuck off.

1. This isn’t a Black Sabbath album, therefore complaining about a lack of heaviness is ridiculous. Why would Iommi release a solo album and write material in keeping with traditional Sabbath doom work outs?

Oh, and if you want to make a blues-metal album? Just listen closely to this album. Maybe Metallica should of done some research before they made Load.

My response to this album probably isn't too different from most people's; the opening riff of Kingslayer comes on and it sounds sweet; huge riff and some manliest-man-ever vocals from whoever's singing. You'll start nodding or pumping your fist, "Yeah, this is real metal!" or something like that. That song ends, and before you know it- almost against your will, you're at the end of the album and wondering where the rest went.

I've been following Xerath for a long time now, from their humble origins, to them getting signed to Candlelight, and them now releasing their first full length album. Obviously for me as a long-time stakeholder, bla bla bla

It's a real shame that both of the covers are absolutely boring and not really worth listening to. In the end, both bands offer up one good song.

Hands of a Killer and Price of Beauty follow essentially the same format as Unanswered (Loud booming guitars that don’t actually play anything decipherable, and lots of pretentious breakdowns, most likely used to compensate for their lack of real songwriting ability).

How the fuck is a breakdown pretentious?

I guess you could have some breakdown in 7/32 that also uses a bunch of jazz chords instead of power chords, but even that's stretching it.

http://www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=238086
A Disapointing Collaboration - 80%
80 points for a disapointing collaboration?

40% are crap, but still a rating of 80 points ... I do not get it.

Well, in conclusion I scored this at a 53 because I'm a HOMOSEXUAL

Di’Anno has a terrible range when compared to Dickinson, but his singing is clear, raucous, and more personal than Rob’s

This is why I'd vote for a rule that prevents people from reviewing albums that are older than they are themselves.

Controversial for the sake of being controversial. This is why I'd vote for a rule that prevents people from reviewing albums that are older than they are themselves.

I'd be screwed

Controversial for the sake of being controversial. This is why I'd vote for a rule that prevents people from reviewing albums that are older than they are themselves.

Ouch, there goes all of my Ozzy era Black Sabbath reviews and any hope of every reviewing any of Rush's, Thin Lizzy's or Rainbow's really important albums.

Rob who? Rob Rock? Rob Roy? Robbie Williams? Maybe it's Halford but I don't think we're quite on first name terms yet.