All of a sudden my favorite cutout bin in town was reduced to two copies of The Mirror Has Two Faces soundtrack, a Best of collection of O’Town’s self-titled debut, and a few more pop rock albums I had never heard about. Since then, the store has been slowly building that bin back up to its former robustness. Until then, rejoice on some heavy cheapies I’ve amassed over the last few months.

South Carolina’s (Myrtle Beach to be more precise) The Classic Struggle display great technique and flawless dynamics. Their potent hybrid of hardcore and melodic death metal has just the right accents in just the right places, so it’s easy to feel affected. Yet for all its impressive aural professionalism, their 2005 debut album Feel Like Hell (Metal Blade/Ironclad) sounds a little too much like one too many bands. The record was produced by the band and engineered, mixed and mastered by Jamie King and the collaboration has certainly paid off. Feel Like Hell sounds powerful and round, its sound keeps a respectable distance from the former rawness of early hardcore and early death metal and on the understandable growl of Tim Zlinksy the band has a confident mike man. Everything is there. Yet, The Classic Struggle are going to need to push each other a little harder if they truly want to become a real player in the game. We’ve heard these riffs flex and change in this exact way so many times before I am quite sure every melodic death metal fan owns a record that sounds just like Feel Like Hell.

The following band called it quits in May 2006. Apparently once the band became no fun the decision was made. Respect to that. Invocation of Nehek issued its self-titled debut and only album in 2004 through Prosthetic Records and is a much more enjoyable affair than The Classic Struggle’s. To kick off the ass kissing the band has a little something going on beyond the conventionalities they dwell in (hardcore and melodic death metal just like The Classic Struggle); one, drummer Eliot Geller is a monster, if no one has snatched him since this band broke up, please hurry. Two, Invocation of Nehek give free reins to some truly progressive musical moments with each member venturing on their own for a few seconds. The spontaneity of the approach is refreshing to say the least.  The extremity of their music is never lost, and better yet, the band’s musicality is always present. True, they were a couple of steps away from being totally generic, but they weren’t.

At one point there were two copies of this one floating around. It wasn’t until the second week in a row that I stumbled upon it that I decided to give it a chance. The second copy stayed in the bin for three more weeks. Iceland has given us a couple of musical mavericks (Bjork and Sigur Rós to cite two of the most emblematic), but in the metal camp the cold country has remained surprisingly quiet. Changer (pictured above) hailed from the capital of Reykjavik and formed back in 1999 and unfortunately broke up in 2007 after ‘uncontrollable internal circumstances’, which in this case means that the members of Changer did not know what musical direction to take next. I may have suggested that they continue on the same path they were going because their Breed the Lies EP (Inconsistency, 2006) contains some pretty fucking lethal and solid death metal. It’s all neatly organized, with clean riffs and a guttural voice and the pace of these four cuts is akin to that of Viking metal kings Amon Amarth, by that I mean fast but not speed metal fast. Apparently it was named one of the top 20 Icelandic albums of 2006. By who? Fuck knows. In addition to Breed the Lies, Changer had a couple of demos, one full-length (2004’s Scenes) and one EP (2001’s Inconsistency) out.

I remember the first time I heard Pitchshifter’s “Underachiever” out of 1996’s Infontainment?. I thought it was a great song with an even greater video, but I didn’t know shit back then. I was a total fool. I paid $0.99 for the band’s last effort Deviant (MCA, 2000) and that sounds about right. This Nottingham quintet played industrial metal that sounded kind of cool when they were broke and their music sounded cheap, but once Pitchshifter built the word ‘as the Earache band with the potential to make it n the big leagues’, got signed by a major and saw a decent budget funding its recordings it all went to shit. Deviant is blander than a warm marshmallow and has aged more tragically than Liz taylor’s cutis. Industrial metal fans could love this, but I find it dull as a butter knife and generic like the Great Value brand. Boring.

Satanic duo Crimson Moon hail from sunny San Diego, CA and formed back in 1994. Following the recording of two demos (‘94’s self-titled and ‘95’s Into the Nocturnal Forest) the band released their debut full-length titled To Embrace the Vampyric Blood (Abyss Productions, 1996) which contains some very lo fi and quite plain orchestral black metal. The record kicks off with an intro titled “The Dirge of the Apocalypse” which is actually a tad too long (about five minutes of hushed vocals, wolves’ moaning, church bells and cool sounding organ a la Goblin) and the record follows suit with a sub standard take on cultish black metal. The band was comprised of Vampir Scorpios who handled bass, vocals, war drums and ‘summoning’ and Nocturnal Overlord who played the guitars, synthesizer, drum programming and ‘evocations’.  This dynamic duo’s intent is to ‘enshroud the listener and induce the non symmetrical gravity that is known as the ripping of the soul’ whether they achieve that or not remains to be seen. I have no idea what they mean. Crimson Moon has gone through a few line up changes with a split between Vampir and Nocturnal; both of whom claim ownership of the name. Apparently, plans for a third album are currently up in the air. Not sure who is helming that though.

More black metal was pointed my way and this time around from the sometimes colder weather of Michigan.  As the story goes, back in 1992 vocalist/guitarist of black death metal metal band Masochist Tchort decided to form his own atmospheric black metal band without the help from his band members and Wind of the Black Mountains was born. Sing Thou Unholy Servants (Moribund, 1998) was his debut album and up front displays Tchort’s fascination with both Satan and naked women. A deeper look into the insert actually shows him nailing some black metal blonde doggy style. In some parts Wind of the Black Mountains downplays the whole atmospheric/ambient side of the band with the bulk of the duration displaying a very old school take on death metal. Take away all the aspirations of ‘ambience’ and some of these songs sound like Venom (“An Autumn Evening” for instance), but time and time again Wind of the Black Mountains reverts to some pretty eerie tempos (“Black Goat”), female operatic vocals, folksy acoustic guitars and necro vocals. Tchort then added members to the band but unfortunately died in March of 2006 of what’s been ruled a suicide overdose. Longtime member Nybras now holds the reins of the band.

Had I noticed that two dudes from this band were sporting ties I wouldn’t have spent my $0.99, but the cardboard wrap blocked me. I got this album because the band’s moniker Anterrabae is actually kind of cool.  Shakedown Tonight (Triple Crown, 2004) is this Long Island band’s debut and features all the typical traits of a metalcore band. The dynamics are there and for the most part the band stays away from the much dreaded breakdowns, but it’s not like they are totally absent.  The interplay between raspy vocals and clean vocals is quite annoying but when vocalist Neal Carter concentrates on the extreme side of his approach he is fucking boring and when he concentrates in his melodic singing he is even more boring. Those that deeply dig Long Island hardcore and love dual vocals could fall for this instantly. As for me, can I get my money back?

I actually paid $3.99 for the next one, but I figured since it was truly old I might as well dish out the hard cash. Plus, Nasty Savage hailed from Tampa, FL and were amongst the first to be signed to Metal Blade records. Their self-titled debut came out through that label back in 1985 right after one of their songs was included in the sixth installment of the label’s compilation series Metal Massacre. Penetration Point (Rotten, 1989) was the band’s last effort and features their trademark early trash metal sound. It was recorded in the famous Morrisound Studios and was produced by the band along with studio owner Jim Morris. The record has aged gracefully, mostly because the musicianship is top notch and the songs possess pretty similar structures to old Metallica and Megadeth, but without the immediate memorability. Nasty Savage broke up in 1989.