Mike SOS has another bunch of reviews for your reading pleasure.

AGAINST ME!
AMERICANS ABROAD!!! AGAINST ME!!! LIVE IN LONDON!!!
FAT WRECK
Dripping with punk rock energy, AMERICANS ABROAD!!! AGAINST ME!!! LIVE IN LONDON!!! puts your ass on the sticky club floor in the middle of group singalongs galore, as this live offering brilliantly captures this Gainesville, Florida foursome's true essence. Appropriately titled for an album recorded at The Mean Fiddler in London, Against Me! justifies their carrying of the punk rock torch by delivering a mix of heartfelt and substantial music from the depths of their guts to a crowd of rabid fans hanging on every pre-chorus. This disc will make you seek these guys out the next time they pass through your town guaranteed. www.fatwreck.com -Mike SOS

IMAGIKA
MY BLOODIED WINGS
CRASH
Metal quintet Imagika hail from the Bay Area but have way more in common with Nevermore than Metallica, yet they do employ the classic Hetfield guitar warmth quite a bit on the 11-track MY BLOODIED WINGS. Armed with an unobtrusive progressive edge, tracks like the quasi-ballad "One More Day" links Iced Earth and Queensryche, while "Inhuman" lays down a badass Judas Priest versus Blind Guardian vibe. If you're down for a mix of muscular metal and technical prowess, Imagika convincingly hits all the highs and sinks to the lows. www.crashmusicinc.com -Mike SOS

WOLVERINE
STILL
CANDLELIGHT
Swedish mope metallers Wolverine return with STILL, a weighty nine-track affair whose early Queensryche, Dream Theater, and Katatonia influence reign heavily on this affair. Somewhat straying away from the metal side of the fence to explore mainstream prog rock territory on tracks like the lucid "Nothing More", the quintet's teeth still manage to bear on tracks like the sprawling "And She Slowly Dies", evoking comparisons to Opeth. If you like your theatrical metal with darker hues, songs like "Sleepytown" is somberly engaging a la Dredg, while "Bleeding" churns out the goth meets prog metal tendencies the band is best known for. Despite these moments giving way for a more toned down metal side, this band still serves from a crock pot of melancholy, helping Wolverine remain a solid somber unit.
www.candlelightrecordsusa.com- Mike SOS

NUEVA ETICA
INQUEBRANTABLE
NEW EDEN
Hatebreed en espanol? Si, my bilingual friend, as the Argentinean septet Nueva Etica brings the brutality south of the border with a blistering 11-track disc. Paying homage to today's heavy hardcore, songs like "Nada de Vos" and ""Arder" religiously follow the blueprints laid out by Full Blown Chaos, Sworn Enemy, and the like, throwing out a relentless assault while rarely coming up for air. This album is by no means original, but it is tight, terse, and slam your head against the wall fun for you and your buds to beat each other up to. www.newedenrecords.com -Mike SOS

FLATTBUSH
SEIZE THE TIME
KOOLARROW
Produced by Faith No More bassist/ extreme metal guy Billy Gould, Flattbush is a band whose latest 15-track disc contains spastic bits of speedcore, grind, and avant garde metal sung in English, Tagalog, and Kapampangan. This Filipino/American connection get politically medieval on your ass, drumming up songs of protest that'd make Joan Baez and Bob Dylan soil their diapers, while implementing a punk meets industrial by the way of grindcore that travels a bit more south of heaven than System of a Down. Odd, angry, and expansive, everything from the acoustic coffeehouse-ready rebellion of "Awit Ng Pag-asa" to the sheer panic shockwaves sent by the title cut are here to revel in for those on the adventurous side of the room. www.koolarrow.com -Mike SOS

SAHG
SAHG 1
CANDLELIGHT
Norwegians are typically admired for their black metal prowess, yet Sahg (a band featuring members of Audrey Horne, Gorgoroth, and Manngard) is a doomy hard rock band with some tendencies to get a bit technical at times. On this project's 10-track excursion, the corpsepaint gets swapped for blacklight, as the gas-huffing seven minutes spent peeking in the kaleidoscope of "Repent" and the Soundgarden meets Monster Magnet march of "The Executioner Undead" emanates from your speakers. Trippy in a heavy way and earthy without losing its edge, Sahg's humungous rock sound and scintillating use of dynamics accelerates this savvy group's version of stoner rock to the heights of the greats that dabbled in the murky waters of psychedelic hard rock and the reverie of doom metal. Horned hands way up for this one. www.candlelightrecords.com -Mike SOS

ROBOTS AND EMPIRE
CAST SHADOWS ON DRAGONS
GLACIAL
Poughkeepsie, NY stoner rock troupe Robots and Empire play with an awkwardly unorthodox metal swagger and a sullen noise rock aesthetic that'd make this quartet a big hit in a Big Apple basement soiree. CAST SHADOWS ON DRAGONS is the band's latest nine-track offering that draws as much from Clutch as it does Unsane, as tracks such as "Hydroaxe" and "Attack of the Firepants" leave a sticky residue of crusty guitar riffs and a flurry of pop you in the jaw rhythms that smart way more than in the physical sense. If Helmet smoked pot with Melvins at a Rollins Band gig, Robots and Empire would be the result, unleashing a caustic concoction of cultish hard rock. www.glacialrecords.com -Mike SOS

DAMAGE CASE
TYRANNY
PUNKCORE
From TYRANNY's very metal Joe Petagno album artwork, you'd think you're getting a full-on metal album. Wrong. Dallas, TX quartet Damage Case blend metal's imagery and general heavy tones into its torrid punk rock attack to form a bastardized version of Discharge, Motorhead, Megadeth, Strung Out, and F-Minus. Staying on the offensive throughout the 10-track barrage, just check out the frenzied pace of songs like "Blood Cell" and "Prepare to Die" to get the fully trounced treatment. Somewhere between Slayer and The Bronx, TYRANNY crashes through your speakers with boisterous belligerence, begging you to slam dance. www.punkcore.com -Mike SOS

BLITZKID
LET FLOWERS DIE
HORROR HIGH
Virginia's horror punk rockers Blitzkid follow the Misfits/AFI template pretty accurately on this 12-track reissue. Impassioned vocals, grooving melodies with the right balance of metal chug and punk bounce, and a love for all things horror are staples on LET FLOWERS DIE, a perfect rocking soundtrack to crank out of the stereo come Halloween time. www.horrorhigh.com -Mike SOS

MAXIMUM RNR
HORNS UP
SELF-RELEASED
Canada's compact killers (six totally kick ass songs in under nine minutes) Maximum RNR have put forth an unadulterated and hell raising effort with HORNS UP. Dirty rock meets angry hardcore punk on this mean street, as the suspects like Motorhead, AC/DC, Circle Jerks, and Black Flag are cited as bad influences while this quintet rip up the rulebook and destroy all in their path. Pump your fist and yell with these guys as they unleash angst-ridden anthems like "I Hate the Cold" and "Say What" on your hapless ass. Obliterating with pure rock fury, Maximum RNR throws it into full throttle on HORNS UP. www.maximumrnr.com -Mike SOS

DEAD TO ME
CUBAN BALLERINA
FAT WRECK
Straight from the San Francisco punk scene come Dead to Me, a quartet featuring two e-members of One Man Army and one from Western Addiction whose 11-track endeavor is laden with an unfiltered display of punk like it oughta be such as "By the Throat" and "Goodbye Regret". Far-reaching and gritty with a slew of tough melodies, tracks like "Something New" and "Special Professional" intertwine a punk rock punch with contagious hooks aplenty, at times sounding like an organic merger of NOFX and Sick of it All. Putting punk before profit without sacrificing stellar songwriting, CUBAN BALLERINA is an album everyone that wants to stick it to the man should own. www.fatwreck.com -Mike SOS

JUNGLE ROT
WAR ZONE
CRASH
Death metal grooves galore are what longstanding act Jungle Rot unveils on its sixth offering, the 11-track WAR ZONE. Content with breaking more bones than breaking new ground, the quartet stay in the mid-tempo metal zone for the duration of this one, opting to pound out some simple, catchy, and in turn, quite effective ditties about the horrors of war. Chances are if you dig Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under, and Torture Killer, you'll be headbangingly happy with the blissful brutality that tracks such as "Savage Rite" and "Ambushed" release. www.crashmusicinc.com -Mike SOS

GUTTERMOUTH
SHAVE THE PLANET
VOLCOM
California punk rock veterans Guttermouth return with their usual smarmy shtick intact on SHAVE THE PLANET, the band's 10th album clocking in at a trim 22 minutes. Still snotty after all these years, Guttermouth embodies the way punk rock used to be before everything became marketable and politically correct. Sarcastic and crass, tracks like "My Chemical Imbalance" and "Flacidism" display that even after all the tours and albums under their belts, these guys are still in the perpetual state of arrested development, and thank God for that. Nonsensical and aiming to offend, Guttermouth's new album placates to no one while paying homage to the true spirit of punk. www.volcoment.com -Mike SOS

CALIFORNIA REDEMPTION/ START THE PANIC
SPLIT CD
LET THEM EAT
A split punk disc by two indie California acts starts off with Start the Panic, whose five tracks take a discernible rock 'n roll approach and inject the proper punk sneer, especially on their cover of "Johnny B. Goode". California Redemption's style is rooted more in the hardcore vein, opting to get heavy both musically and topically on their five tracks, highlighted on the track "Religion for Dummies II: A Resurrection". Both acts showcase a raw vibe that hopefully overcomes the current safety first style commandeering the spotlight. www.lterecords.com -Mike SOS

GOATWHORE
A HAUNTING CURSE
METAL BLADE
New Orleans metal mongers Goatwhore return after yet another round of the much maligned outfit's infamous string of bad luck and catastrophe nearly behind them with A HAUNTING CURSE. Showcasing a decisively leaner and meaner demonstration of pure destruction, this metallic monstrosity doles out an album’s worth of spellbindingly demonic delights from the opening chaos that is "Wear These Scars of Testimony”. Following black metal patterns of the finest from Europe's yesteryears and melding them with a slew of death metal nuances, this 11-track offering truly can be considered a crossover entity that misanthropes everywhere can agree on. Tracks like the foreboding "Forever Consumed Oblivion" incorporates the corpsepainted stomp of any respected Swedish troupe, while the guitars on "Diabolical Submergence of Rebirth" recapture the bleak vibes from the recesses of the underground black metal scene. Blast beats galore, foreboding musical gloom and doom passages, and evil throat-ripping vocals are staples across A HAUNTING CURSE, yet there's something more etheral propelling this latest foray into madness. Could it be vocalist Ben Falgoust's brush with death for the ump-teenth time, the wake of Hurricane Katrina's ravagings which delayed this release, or the fact that this album was recorded in a supposed haunted environment? No matter, because Goatwhore’s latest disc is a vicious and visceral assault that any fan of modern malevolent metal needs to own. www.metalblade.com -Mike SOS

THE SEVENTH CROSS
SCORCHED BY THE FLAMES OF VENGEANCE
CANDLELIGHT
UK quartet The Seventh Cross combines death metal and hardcore with mixed results on their 11-track SCORCHED BY THE FLAMES OF VENGEANCE. While the band showcases their knowledge of the art of the breakdown on cuts like "This Cross From Which I Hang", thanks to the serious lack of dynamics and similar vocal patterns and pitches heard throughout, there's a been-there, done-that feel across this entire disc that sort of demeans the overall impact. Exemplifying a metalcore by numbers stance throughout cuts like "Through This Cleansing" and "A Demon's March", The Seventh Cross comes off as a stiff, terse, and second-rate clone of the minions of other bands vying for the same target. www.candlelightrecordsusa.com -Mike SOS

EVALINE
POSTPARTUM MODESTY, A PORTRAIT OF SKIN
MAVERICK
Evaline's six-song sojourn contains a plethora of instruments and influences on POSTPARTUM MODESTY, A PORTRAIT OFSKIN that one could easily draw comparisons to Thrice or Saosin. Produced by Quinn of The Used, this quintet hailing from the small town of Turlock, California provide dreamy, well-textured melodies nestled within indie rock sensibilities heard on tracks like the floating "La De Da". That's not to say that they lack an ample bite, as tracks like "Write Your Pretentious Squalls (Off Again) demonstrates a harder edge wrapped inside the ambiance. It's just that the group more often than not keeps the guitars and bass at bay and allows the lush side of its music to take precedence, in turn sounding like a hybrid of Dredg, Incubus, and Say Anything. Chances are if you enjoy sitting on the side of the fence where intensity and melody play catch, you'll dig the hell out of this act. www.maverick.com -Mike SOS

ISIS
IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUTH
IPECAC
Those in the throes of the underground know all about Isis, and hopefully the Boston-based quintet’s latest release (along side a huge opening slot on the Tool tour) will help the masses explore just what the justified buzz is all about. IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUTH, the groundbreaking outfit’s fourth installment of multi-layered metallic bliss renders another sonic masterpiece bursting with dramatic upsurges, tumultuous breakdowns, and kaleidoscopic interludes, as this nine-track excursion dispenses well balanced dollops of expansive trance rock, skull-crushing ambiance and progressive metallic muscle. Tracks like “Dulcinea” and “Holy Tears” summon influence from the deep waters of Pink Floyd, Neurosis, and Tool, as Isis cautiously shapes and emulates the elaborate loud/soft dynamics and the building of luxurious soundscapes of these artists without detaching their own unique spin into the mix. Rich enough to require repeat listening while powerful enough to destroy all in its wake on cuts like “Garden of Light”, IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUTH displays Isis not so much as a band but as a force of nature that has the dual capability to provide moments of breathtaking brilliance and utter destruction at a moment’s notice. Easily one of the most enlightening releases this year, Isis again raise the bar of ethereal excellence and pushes the envelope for progressive metal’s continued explorations. In the land of rock, there are bands and there are recording artists; Isis has mightily conquered both sects. www.ipecac.com -Mike SOS

JOTUNSPOR
GLEIPNIRS SMEDER
CANDLELIGHT
Jotunspor is a project helmed by current and ex-members of Gorgoroth, a true melding of maniacal minds. Recorded completely in Norwegian in 2005, this seven-track offering is as bleak, grim, and foreboding as it gets, adorned with eerie melodies, blood curdling screams, and slightly ambient yet utterly soulcrushing sounds. A bit of noise, a touch of death, and a whole lotta evil make GLEIPNIRS SMEDER an album those entrenched in the underground should enjoy. www.candlelightrecordsusa.com -Mike SOS

CERBERUS
WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?
HELL AND DEATH
California metal troupe Cerberus returns with a scorching five-track release. Punishing and heavy yet tuneful, this act's intense barrage of riffs fly at your head at alarming rates while the jackhammer rhythms and scalding vocals thoroughly hold their ground. "Obsidian" showcases the group's Gothenburg by way of Tampa, Fl influence, while the title track suggests that this band looked to its fellow statesmen to learn some Bay Area thrash metal tactics. Bleeding metal throughout without giving a chance to catch your breath, WHAT HAVE WE BECOME? is a solid offering that heavy music purveyors can easily sink their teeth into. www.hellanddeath.com -Mike SOS

SPEKTR
THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE
CANDLELIGHT
French extreme metallers Spektr can be summed up in a simple word: harsh. Swirls of raw black metal blended with bleak drones of industrial noise and tied together with bloody barbed wire is what this studio-savvy diabolic duo create on the nine-track THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE. Summoning every demon they can to make this album an unsettlingly uneasy listening experience, this album's purposely disjointed, dissonant, and above all, experimental nuances are tough to comprehend at first, but tracks like "Astral Descent" seep into the subconscious with a vengeance after a few listens enough to wreak havoc on your REM sleep. www.candlelightrecordsusa.com -Mike SOS

DAY WITHOUT DAWN
DAY WITHOUT DAWN
SELF-RELEASED
Morphing from The Postman Syndrome, Day Without Dawn takes a discernibly sharp progressive rock turn on its eponymous five-track debut. Bulging with rich guitar textures and brimming with a multitude of musicality, there's a lot to digest within each song here, and that's exactly what this quartet anticipated.” The Acquittal" has your attention span careening between the sly fretwork, the melodic vocals, and the hypnotic rhythm while "The Plea" demonstrates the outfit's chameleon-esque charm, jumping from a jazzy Haight-Astbury base to reach a hovering heaviness which surprisingly never gets in the way of the groove. Challenging yet worth the time, if you dig Circa Survive, Between the Buried and Me, Opeth, or any band that can issue an intense case of the shivers, Day Without Dawn delivers. www.daywithoutdawn.com -Mike SOS

AUTHORITY ZERO
RHYTHM + BOOZE
SUBURBAN NOIZE
It seems that Authority Zero gets a kick from unable to be pigeonholed, and thanks to this 15-track acoustic gig recorded live in front of a hometown crowd, it's getting increasingly harder to place this band in a box. Are they a third-rate Sublime rip-off, a post-grunge ska hodgepodge and ska, or a West Coast punk troupe? All of the above, as the beer-trodden audience enjoys every note of the outfit's STP meets Unwritten Law by way of Marley-esque reggae-fied rock. Laid back and soulful, RHYTHM + BOOZE is a startlingly crisp recording capturing a band genuinely kicking back and having fun. www.suburbannoizerecords.com -Mike SOS

THE CITIZENS
POST CRO-MAGNON DRIFT
YELLOW BALL
The sophisticated and sleek sophomore effort by NYC quintet The Citizens provides a cavalcade of colors and an endless array of intriguing musical soundscapes. POST CRO-MAGNON DRIFT is an exuberant example of five musician's magnificent prowess for writing enchanting and entrancing tunes whose complexities play with your gray matter as much as tug at your heart strings. Steeped in psychedelica and well-versed in keeping things tastefully quirky, songs like the '70 sunshine vibes of "The Surfer" complement the Steely Dan by way of Brit pop alt-rock of "Meat on the Major's Mind" by stretching beyond the surface to, doling out substantial and altogether brilliant pop-rock. "18 Dover" is a brooding Mark Lanegan-esque soother, while "September 30th 1955" hits prog rock heights falling somewhere in between Radiohead and Queensryche. 11-tracks of contagious vibrancy await the adventurous side of your rock 'n roll soul courtesy of The Citizens and their display of elegant rock excellence. www.citizensmusic.com -Mike SOS

VICIOUS CIRCLE
THE ART OF AGONY
CRASH
The veteran New Jersey quartet Vicious Circle are an amalgamation of death, thrash, and left of center metal that draws from Cannibal Corpse, Bloodlet, Voivod, Death, and Candiria. The act's latest mind-numbing exposition of extreme metal is the 11-track THE ART OF AGONY, a release whose monsoon-esque might is felt from the opening strains of "Dead Scent" and is carried to its entirety. Odd time signature switches, varied vocal styles, profound metallic technicality (especially percussion-wise), and a versatile influence pool assist Vicious Circle to change things up in a way that showcase the band's strengths to the hilt. If you like it heavy and ambitious, here's one to pick up. www.crashmusicinc.com -Mike SOS

HATEBREED
SUPREMACY
ROADRUNNER
It's hard to believe that Jamey Jasta, a guy who seemingly has achieved everything he's worked his ass off for, fell into a severe sense of depression a short while back. Thankfully SUPREMACY, the latest piledriving effort by Hatebreed, is the end result of Jasta's breaking free of those chains. As brutal as anything the band has ever set to disc, this 13-track tour de force of Metalcore 101 sets the record straight and justifies why this band gets the accolades, the tours, and the attention they richly deserve. Jasta's vocals throughout are seething, reaching new highs and sinking to new lows with an unadulterated rage, while the rest of the band provides a bruising backdrop of the most intelligent brand of punch your friend in the face music going. Anthemic and able to create a personalized swift kick to the ass at moment's notice, Hatebreed's vitriolic virtue has never sounded as complete, beefing up to a quintet once again to resonate a dastardly twin guitar assault that smacks you in the face. Horns and fists in the air, people, Hatebreed is at the top of its game. And despite naysayers labeling the New Haven hardcore masters as one dimensional, like Motorhead and AC/DC, Hatebreed has time and time again unwaveringly produced their genre's best often replicated but never duplicated brand of heavy music. www.roadrunnerrecords.com -Mike SOS

STRIBORG
EMBITTERED DARKNESS/ ISLES DE MORTS
SOUTHERN LORD
Leave it to Southern Lord to span the globe for the bleakest, most depraved black metal "bands" to round up and put out. Striborg is the latest find, a Tasmanian one man wrecking crew whose EMBITTERED DARKNESS/ ISLES DE MORTS disc conveys the perfect amount of emotional despair and unbridled hatred necessary for any one-man band to have to be considered a true black metal fiend. Fuzzy guitars, out of time drumming, and a raspy horror movie vocal all add to the grim fun that this enduringly painful 16-track release dishes out, a loveless undercooked undercurrent of underground bliss whose misanthropic meanderings are music to the ears of the downtrodden. www.southernlord.com -Mike SOS

MAHAVATAR
FROM THE SUN THE RAIN THE WIND THE SOIL
ESCAPI
A meeting at the metal Tower of Babel reared the NYC quintet Mahavatar, as this act features musicians from Jamaica, Israel, and Poland. This mulit-cultural mixture of musicians yields a spacey, earth-loving yet groundshaking blend of mid-tempo melodic tribal metal, as airy female vocals turn into jagged shrieks at the drop of a hat while the band switches from dynamic riff machine to atmospherically moody effortlessly. Imagine Kate Bush dueting with Otep as an idea as to what to expect from tracks like the arena-rocking riffage on "Cult", the stop-start heavy into float on a cloud madness of "Raw", and the ethereally crushing "Open Your Minds". Mahavatar's unique background and avant-garde mash-up style isn't for everyone, as it espouses the free love and tree hugging mantras, yet it makes for a very interesting listening experience. www.escapimusic.com -Mike SOS

INTRONAUT
VOID
GOODFELLOW
Savagely heavy yet dexterously fluid, Intronaut picks up right where their masterful EP NULL left off with VOID, its 43-minute counterpart. This seven-track gem rolls out all of the heavy artillery and abstract outlooks it can muster without confounding but inviting the listener along for the ride, creating a stunningly brutal batch of Hessian excellence that shares common bonds with bands like Mastodon and Isis. Yet thanks to virtuoso bassist Joe Lester, whose enormous four-stringed presence provides the cornerstone for the calculated madness to ensue, there's a much more organic feel propelling this Los Angeles quartet's unique musical visions and ridiculously stellar musicianship than their counterparts reveal. Devastating echoes of distortion and massive walls of feedback wash away into seismically-charged bombastic riffs and monolithic rhythms thrust upon your ears by a massive attack of guitars, bass, and drums, all under a prog rock harvest moon which yields richness like the pummeling "Gleamer" and the dizzyingly caustic "Iceblocks". Boasting a veritable lineup of top notch metal musicians, displaying a compressed yet intensified assault that hits hard and smart, and brazen with world class compositions bursting with a distressingly aggressive edge, VOID is an epic release demonstrating how one of the finest up and coming units from the current crop of thinking man's metal perfects the craft of making timelessly important music. www.goodfellowrecords.com -Mike SOS

TAKE MY CHANCES
DOWN HERE WITH US
ONE DAY SAVIOR
Long Island hardcore troupe Take My Chances features members from This is Hell, The Backup Plan, and Heads Vs. Breakers, so it's safe to surmise that these guys are no strangers to the scene. DOWN HERE WITH US showcases a band packed with grit, passion, and judging by the unlisted bonus tracks, good taste in cover tunes (Misfits and Black Flag). Meshing Sick of It All, Lifetime and Murphy's Law with a touch of New Found Glory, this quintet's sense of humor displayed on songs with titles like "I Am the Guido Champion" never gets in the way of the band's pugnacious attitude affirmed on tracks like the 30-second stomp of "Maximum Extreme Part 2" and the 32-second "Genius Doesn't Transfer to Tape". Take My Chances convincingly champion the hardcore spirit with an abrupt, lightning quick assault to the senses that new jacks and old schoolers alike can appreciate. www.onedaysavior.com -Mike SOS

SETHERIAL
DEATH TRIUMPHANT
CANDLELIGHT
Swedish black metal mercenaries Setherial are a veteran black metal crew whose latest offering is a nine-track hate-filled metal offering bursting with maladjusted misanthropy and war-mongering disdain. With members of Naglfar, Bewitched, Blackwind, and In Battle in its ranks, this black metal machine churns out sizable chunks of blast beated maliciousness on cuts such as "Hellstorms Over the Empyrean" and the majestically metallic title track. Sweepingly Satanic and epically evil, Setherial's aural assault is surprisingly dynamic for an album in this genre, as DEATH TRIUMPHANT gives a horrific glimpse of the soundtrack to the decent to the hoary netherworld. If you dig Dimmu Borgir and Emperor, here's another one to prepare the altar to. www.candlelightrecordsusa.com -Mike SOS

SKYFORGER
KAHJA PIE SAULES
PARAGON
Latvian war metal quartet Skyforger get the reissue treatment courtesy of Paragon Records, as the nine-track KAHJA PIE SAULES gets a re-release complete with authentic homeland artwork and a Viking metal vibe steered into the seas of early '90s black metal on cuts like "Kalejs Kala Debesis". Taking the imagery of Manowar and multiplying it by 1000, Skyforger juxtapose its Eastern European roots with Swedish underground metal movements, singing in their native tongue and sprinkling the abrasiveness with choral chants, flute, and folk metal nuances. This disc may be a bit over the top for the layman metal fan whose Nordic metal goes as Amon Amarth, but it's pretty top shelf for those that pine to hang out in the forest, buy swords on E-Bay, and appreciate the bugle horn and kettle drum tandem heard "Kam Pusat Kara Taures" (translated "Why the Horns of War are Blown" in English). www.paragonrecords.net -Mike SOS

TIME REQUIEM
THE OPTICAL ILLUSION
CANDLELIGHT
Time Requiem is a progressive metal project built around keyboardist Richard Andersson's technical prowess, so you can imagine from the get-go what you're going to get from the eight tracks which comprise THE OPTICAL ILLUSION. If you're thinking dollops of soaring high pitched vocals, blinding keyboard runs, and arena shaking choruses found on cuts like "Miracle Man" and "Sin to Sin", give yourself 10 points. Add in blistering yet masturbatory guitars and key solos aplenty, and a semi-soulless overall product that sounds at times like Yngwie Malmsteen teaming up with Dream Theater versus Deep Purple on speed, and then you have two options: run away now or go pick this up. It's really that simple. www.candlelightrecordsusa.com -Mike SOS

BOYS LIKE GIRLS
BOYS LIKE GIRLS
RED INK
Lump Boston's Boys Like Girls in the emo heap, as this quartet's sappy rock deliveries contain hooks galore, a slew of sing along moments, and enough musical marketability to push these guys to every prepubescent mall punk's MySpace Top 8. Their eponymous 12-track offering is neither inventive nor clever, as it treads the same waters currently commandeered by Taking Back Sunday, Jimmy Eat World, Hawthorne Heights, and Panic at the Disco. But it is bouncy, big sounding, and as contagious as a cold in December, as tracks like "Up Against the Wall" and "Five Minutes to Midnight" are formulaic and predictable enough for this band to break through to the MTV 2 crowd and find themselves on every 14 year old girl's bedroom wall. www.boyslikegirls.com -Mike SOS

ALOKE
ONE DAY WE WILL KILL YOU
PRETTY ACTIVITY
Post hardcore NYC clan Aloke perform with a sense of purpose, as their latest album was recorded in a live setting, left with warts and all in the final mix. It's this kind of ambitious spirit and belief system that not only purists will applaud, but also catapults this trio out of the easily categorized yet honest Nirvana meets Fugazi comparisons they've received. Yet there's more here than a Cobain-esque yelp and smart Guy Picciotto-like riffs. Brazen with the hardcore attitude of the greats of the Lower East Side in its heyday on cuts like "Solidify" and issuing a ferocious fearlessness on tracks such as "Love is Distance", Aloke isn't faking the funk; they're merely adding their own substantial contributions to the fray. www.prettyactivity.com -Mike SOS

JESUS AND THE DEVIL
LET THEM HAVE IT
FUDGE SICKILL
What’s in a name? Ask Chicago-based rockers Jesus and the Devil, who, despite their mighty moniker, perpetually seem to be under a black cloud. Yet this quirky quartet forges on, releasing its full-length debut LET THEM HAVE IT, the end result of sticking together through exploding vehicles, revolving door members, and stolen equipment. This 13-track disc succinctly balances punk angst and indie rock jangle pretty nicely on cuts like “Beautiful”, “Get Get Get” and “Punk Rock Song”. Soaking up garage rock grease like a well-soiled throw rag while demonstrating a rough around the edges feel championed by bands like The Bronx and Jesus Lizard, this unit’s holy racket provides the proper barroom backdrop vibe for any Friday night kegger. www.fudgesickillrecords.com -Mike SOS

ESTRADASPHERE
PALACE OF MIRRORS
THE END
Santa Cruz, CA band Estradasphere was discovered by Mr. Bungle’s Trey Spruance, so you can hedge your bets that this sextet is a pretty odd lot right off the bat. PALACE OF MIRRORS not only confirms this conjecture, but the 13-track album is so off the wall and diverse that it will have you scratching your head wondering what the hell this actually is. Utilizing a multitude of instruments and mixing classical music with Eastern world flair and pinches of alternative metal, this act is nearly impossible to pigeonhole, as they jump from track to track with a bevy of styles. From the easy listening surf rock aura of “The Terrible Beautypower of Meow” to the ‘70s television show theme played by a band of gypsies found on “Those Who Know…”, these cats are irrefutably eclectic, creative, and groundbreaking. If going five shades past System of a Down and turning left at a Mike Patton project seems a bit too ambitious for you, steer clear, but if you’re game and have the proper street pharmaceuticals, set aside a few hours and indulge in this long, strange trip. www.theendrecords.com -Mike SOS

MODERN LIFE IS WAR
MY LOVE, MY WAY
DEATHWISH
This reissue of the outfit’s hard to find 2003 offering reveals the initial glimpses of what has become the mammoth hardcore beast known as Modern Life is War. MY LOVE MY WAY has been given the old polishing number, repackaged with bonus tracks and fancy artwork, yet songs like the jarringly heavy, jump on your friend’s back and shout the chorus aesthetic found on “Farmer’s Holiday Association” and the sinewy groove of “A Tale of Two Cities” highlight a band in the early stages of making excellent hardcore anthems with balls and soul. www.deathwishinc.com -Mike SOS

DEAD RABBITS
SIN-EATER
OVERIT
Featuring members of The Clay People and Stigmata, the biggest surprise that comes from Dead Rabbits is their Southern rock meets stoner rock grooviness. This Upstate NY quartet’s undeniable experience shines through here, meshing nu-metallic nuances, ‘70s muscle rock, and a satisfying dash of doom to provide 13 ass-kicking tracks chock full of substantially solid rock foundations of the greats that comfortably double sounding “hip” enough to play over the record shop at the mall’s system. And when these guys are on, they rip, as cuts like “Open Season” meet somewhere between Megadeth and Monster Magnet, while the Hessian-esque stomp of “Trust” suggest these dudes had their Black Label Society patches from back in the day. Drawing from the gritty underbelly of rock ‘n roll, the hazy blues and genuine decadent stance taken on SIN-EATER consistently hits you over the head with bong-sized riffs and meaty melodies that switch from COC-like boogie to the fuzzy psychedelics of Nebula, garnishing this disc a versatility that welcomes repeat headbanging smoke-outs. www.overit.com -Mike SOS

SAOSIN
SAOSIN
CAPITOL
Southern California quintet Saosin was highly touted as one of those handful of bands to emerge from suburbia and save every maladjusted kid with its well-textured punk rock sound, but that’s really hard to do when haven’t put anything out since 2003. Thanks to a departing lead singer and a well-maneuvered underground hermitage, the rapidly-ascending unit had to jam on the brakes rather abruptly and reshuffle the deck. Now it’s 2006, and their eponymous 12-track debut is the end result of this hardened journey, producing a Warped Tour-goer’s wet dream of a disc. A glistening and pristine piece of post-hardcore, Saosin delivers an impressive array of intricately heartfelt rock anthems for the new generation, even if the devices employed by the quintet seem to run a bit too familiar these days and lead singer Colin Reber’s voice is a tad too high-pitched for most guy rockers to hone up to digging. Songs like “It’s So Simple”, “Finding Home”, and “Collapse” showcases some of the most developed and dramatic rock this side of Taking Back Sunday, Thrice, Far, and Thursday, while “It’s Far Better to Learn” intellectualizes the pop-punk riff to a grad school level. Falling somewhere between the rich sound recreations of Dredg and the uncanny contagiousness of New Found Glory, Saosin’s hiatus has rendered a grand comeback for a band who can now be considered a complete entity once again. www.capitolrecords.com -Mike SOS