Testament - The Formation of Damnation (2008, Nuclear Blast)

4 out of 5

This is Testament's first album in 9 years, and unlike a lot of their 80s thrashgenetor peers' recent output (....cough....Metallica ....cough.....), this record is nearly unequivically awesome. While I can't really speak for a lot of Testament's material (call me guilty of being a n00b, but I really only just started listening to them), this record is chock full of thoroughly solid melodic thrash underlying singer Chuck Billy's monstrous bellow, which at times calls to mind (modern touchstone here) Randy Blythe of Lamb of God or John Pettibone from Himsa - who Billy likely influenced when they were still little metalheads - but with a little more slice and a lot less bludgeon.

"Dangers of the Faithless" and "Persecuted Won't Forget" are songs that are bound to (at least in my mind), draw comparisons such as "James Hetfield singing for Megadeth," and, for anyone who ever loved both bands (and didn't take sides in the fight that ensued after Megadeth's Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica for being a drunken a$$h*l& before their first record ever came out), that couldn't be a more exciting thing, even if Testament stand completely on their own.

I hate to end on that, so let me say this: with as popular as thrash seems to be these days (both the goofy, party-hearty brand as well as the overtly-outraged "deep" brand), this record deserves to be at the forefront, and not just because these guys are the elder statesmen in a genre whose speed and trappings tend to favor the young (have you ever seen a chubby biker-looking dude with long, thinning hair wearing tight jeans?). It's also because The Formation of Damnation is a fast, brutal, and catchy record that is above all good.

=james

Opeth - Watershed (2008, Roadrunner Records)

3 out of 5

Opeth is a band that I used to make fun of, not for what they are or what kind of music they play, but rather, because of a kid that I knew that listened to them. And that's unfair. Because they're actually kind of good...sometimes....and this record is good....sometimes....

Watershed is Opeth's second record for Roadrunner, ninth overall, and first without longtime guitarist Peter Lindgren and drummer Martin Lopez, and I don't want to say it's apparent, because apparently frontman Mikael Akerfeldt has always been the primary songwriter, but there is something different happening here.

The record starts with "Coil," which sounds like a Medieval ballad, and not a very good one, before moving on to the first of the album's 7+ minute songs (6 of the 7 songs on the record are, actually), "Heir Apparent," which is definitely heavy, and has some great parts, but some, like the last 1 1/2 minutes, seemingly come out of nowhere. And, when you're writing a nearly 9 minute song, you want some coherence.

And speaking of nearly 9 minute songs, the next track, "Lotus Eater," is probably the best on the album, blending the band's progressive music-nerd sound with the cleanly sung/articulately growled vocals that they've steadily used more and more on each album. But, about the halfway mark, there's a full-on folk music breakdown that kills the pace of the song, even though it is followed up with an amazing carnival-funk from hell solo/interlude. But, from there, we go to "Burden," a big, slightly epic, slightly awesome and slightly boring, Jethro Tull-ish song (and I like Jethro Tull) that fades out to the sound of guitars being detuned while playing the same riff for a good minute, and "Porcelain Heart," despite starting with a doomy-riff and slo-mo blast beats (and re-visiting that riff throughout), ends up just being 60-75% dull tights-and-tunics folk. I know it seems like I'm hating on folk, which I don't, at all, it just feels completely out of place in this instance.

I want to like this record, I really do, because I really like some of it, and I even gave it plenty of chances, seeing how long it took me to get into their last record, Ghost Reveries, but when it comes down to it, this album isn't great, even if parts of it are.

=james

Children of Bodom - Blooddrunk (2008, Spinefarm/Fontana/Universal)

4 out of 5

Children of Bodom occupy an interesting place in metal: namely, Finland. See, Sweden's got its Death Metal and Norway has its Black Metal, but what does Finland have? HIM? Apocalyptica? Hanoi Rocks?

Sure, Finland has its own Metal scene, but nothing quite so overarching as an entire genre to its name like its Scandinavian brothers do.

So what do these Bodomian (Bodomish? Bodomite?) Children do? They create their own genre. Call it "sauna metal." Or don't. There really isn't anything about this that classifies as "sauna-ish," I just wanted to say that. I've been waiting all day.

Clearly influenced by Death, Black, Power, and Thrash, Children of Bodom prefer to just be called "Metal," and that's okay. Sounding like the heavy groove-based Thrash of Pantera and Lamb of God ("Blooddrunk," "LoBodomy") mixed with the choral-bell synthesizer sound of 70s horror movies (like Suspiria, The Exorcist, and Halloween), Blooddrunk is a great album, full of understated melody (most - if not all - is carried by the guitars and keyboards and not by the growly-scream vocals) and shredding guitar solos (are people these days writing with Guitar Hero in mind?).

At their most epic, COB can sound like Dimmu Borgir ("LoBodomy") and on the other end, as mentioned before, like Pantera and Lamb of God. "Tie My Rope," starts off like the boss music for a Mega Man game mixed with the Industrial throb of Nine Inch Nails before the Hardcore gang-vocals start at the end of each verse. In fact, a lot of the guitar solos on the record sound like the MIDI-fied Metal of the early 90s Super Nintendo game Rock And Roll Racing, but as that was a favorite game of mine, I'm not really complaining.

"Roadkill Morning" (a song about waking up and feeling like you've been run over by a truck) Thrashes like crazy before a Hardcore floor-punching breakdown played by Dimmu Borgir with the guttural roars of Killing Joke in the chorus before nearly a minute of soloing (in a 3 1/2 minute song). And the last track, a cover of "Ghost Riders in the Sky," comes across as a Viking call-to-arms. When the chorus hits, it's not hard to imagine a Great Hall filled with large, bearded men drinking beer or mead, singing along, and getting almost as much in their mouths as they are on themselves and each other.

One more thing must be mentioned, though, and that's this:

Apparently, some astute blogger noticed that COB frontman Alexi Laiho looks an awful lot like Avril Lavigne, and I'm not one to disagree. And with COB's history of covering songs by teen pop-tarts ("Hit Me Baby One More Time"), I wonder how long it will be before we see Children of Bodom's metalified cover of "Girlfriend"?

=james