Aortic Regurgitation - Aortic Regurgitation (EP)

     Aortic Regurgitation are a brand new thrash metal band hailing from China.  They show a lot of promise on their first release, but like any debut release it suffers from a few draw backs.

     This is Thrash, which is good and it is also bad.  There is a reason that thrash virtually disappeared when the 90's hit.  Thrash is a very limited genre and is in itself a means to an end.  If thrash metal gets too melodic it turns into power metal and if it become too brutal it becomes death metal, thrash metal is a transitional genre that thrived before heavy metal met its logical extremes.  Although thrash metal is limited in its ability to diversify, it has many branches.  There is a huge difference between Sarcofago's "INRI" and Anthrax's "Among the Living."  Aortic Regurgitation is among the more extreme variety of thrash and borders on death metal, in a similar way to early Sepultura, Kreator and Sodom.

     You have heard this release before and if what I stated in the first paragraph is true it is impossible for you not to have (assuming you are a fan of thrash metal.)  The riffs on this album vary between the German and Brazilian scenes, but every now and then I hear some good ol' mid-paced "bay-area-thrash" palm muting.  The fake drums are brilliantly programmed, they sound like the person behind the computer had just as much experience behind a real drum set because they sound like something a drummer would actually play.  The bass playing is a highlight for me as the bassist seems to understand that it isn't always necessary to mirror the guitarist and strictly play root notes, the bass playing really shines on "Alien Worlds" and "Dementia."  The vocals are good if not fairly stereotypical for extreme thrash (not that its a real problem.)  The real problem is that they are mixed very poorly, and sound like they were recorded on a very poor microphone contrasting the good guitar tone.

     Since I have decided that it is virtually impossible to record a unique thrash album in 2010 the only way to judge a thrash album is the memorability of the song writing itself.  None of the songs on this album are really overtly memorable, the best song would have to be "Dementia," the melody that comes in at the half way point really sines and shows the band's skill as song writers.  "Silent Night" is a great closer and very enjoyable.  That is all I can really say about this EP, other than that it all just kinda blurs together into a homogeneous mass of thrash metal.  I don't know why the longest song on this release is an instrumental, it doesn't make much sense and it reminds me of Metallica (it always bothered me that they did that.)

     This is a good thrash album, and is above the bar for a debut release.  The problems with memorability will no doubt be resolved on future releases that I would be very interested in hearing.  This is also worth checking out if you are interested in extreme metal bands with female vocalists.

Curt's Review: 81%

Download this shit for free and bang your head!
http://www.mediafire.com/?9aqv3h8brpu85cx

Auspicium – Hope Is All you Have (Tex's Review)

Actually there is no hope for this demo, so you’re left with essentially nothing. This is some really painfully “bedroom” black metal: Poorly written, performed and recorded. All the songs follow the same structure of long clean intro with many overlapping guitar parts played out of time (and often out of key) – abrupt shitty black metal part – outro that’s the same as the intro.

I’m not sure what the first song, “The Flame of Man Dies in Twilight” (lol) is supposed to be. It doesn’t work as an intro, as it doesn’t flow into the next track or do anything but set up the boring formula for the rest of the songs. The second song “I will never Forget Your Face” (lol) showcases the worst of the off time playing. Once the black metal kicks in, it’s truly awful. This guy couldn’t even play to a drum machine / click, so he mixed it super low hoping you wouldn’t notice. It doesn’t help. The mixing and production itself is just awful in general. Horrible tone, fluctuating levels. It’s what you’d expect from bedroom black metal.

This song also contains some horrible blatant mistakes. The lead at the end has a bunch of wrong notes. He’s constantly hitting incorrect notes and sliding to the right note in the riffs. This demo sounds like it’s supposed to be super atmospheric and dreamy, pretty sounding stuff, so there’s no way this can be passed off as being dissonant on purpose. It’s just shitty playing. I like the style he’s going for, but this demo just simply does not achieve that sound, or anything for that matter.

The last two songs are exactly the same as the first two, so they won’t get much comment. However “The Opportunist” has about a minute of nifty clean vocals, much better than the vocals on the rest of the demo which are sparsely utilized and seem misplaced when they are used.  Really the vocals don’t serve much of a purpose. They can’t save the songs. The title track is pretty much worthless.

It sounds like this guy had about an hour before his parents got home to write and record this entire thing, no time to account for the myriad blatant mistakes in his playing, and most certainly no time to learn how to write songs or play black metal. I appreciate the style and sound I think this demo is supposed to get across, but it just does not deliver.

Tex’s rating: 23%

            Oh, did I mention this guy is pretentious as all fuck? Check out these quotes from his myspace page. Read ‘em and LOL:

“Songs for midnight walks along the ocean shore, shadowed by the mountains and forests, under the stars, drunk as can be. ....If you do not know me or do not enjoy my music, do not add me. If you aren't interested in my work, I am definitely not interested in your pathetic attempts at rap music, your "emo" bands, how you look with some stupid name written on your underage tits, or how many friends you can get by clicking here. Seriously. Save me the time of having to delete you. .. .. ..”

He doesn’t like underage tits… I don’t even…

His influences include:

“Waves as they hurl themselves at the stones. Oceans of stone. A little stream with a waterfall that no one else has ever seen. The endless sky. A tree in winter, fighting back the wind.”

And apparently his music sounds like:

            “Triumph and failing in one breath.”

Remove a couple words and this would be a fairly accurate statement. Hope you kids enjoyed!

Here’s the download link for those of you brave enough to venture: http://blackmetalownsyou.blogspot.com/2011/07/auspicium-hope-is-all-you-have-demos.html