War Metal Battle Master

For all three of you out there who have read at least one of my other reviews, it probably comes as no surprise that one of the most common arguments I get thrown at me is "You simply don't get *insert band/album/genre*". When it came to be that I listened to 'War Metal Battle Master' I must admit that I did feel somewhat bad for not 'getting' the band because in some parallel universe (vaguely similar to ours) I can see myself enjoying this album. Of course in this current incarnation of reality I think it's about as enjoyable as eating sausages from a kiddie pool filled with bleach using only my face.

Let's get some aesthetics out of the way; the album title is dumb. I know most of you out there will think I'm being an elitist prick (again) but just try yelling the name of the album...

Seriously just do it; you'll be a better person for it.

I'm assuming you've done it so by now you're probably feeling one of two things: 1) embarrassed and are now frantically looking about hoping that no one heard you or 2) manly and awesome. The last of which leaves me confused because anyone who actually enjoys yelling out something only a pre-pubescent D&D fan would think is cool, clearly shouldn't have the mental faculties to be able to fucking read. If you're feeling up to the challenge repeat the process with each of the song titles; by the time you're up to the fifth song title you'll have suffered enough brain damage to forget what you were even doing in the first place.

The album as a whole is not musically complex, with the main components being; the riffs, the guitar tone, the vocals. The rhythm section is solid but rarely steps outside its designated realms except during those obnoxious obligatory bass breaks. The riffs are quite numerous admittedly, and there seems to quite the decent range of thrash, groove and doom based riffs that are available for all occasions. As a result the album is quite a fun little listen for about two or three songs, especially once you compound the riffs with that thick and chunky guitar tone; you could probably eat off the air surrounding the amps. Each track moves forward with a respectable amount of momentum whilst it cycles through the set of riffs, there's no detours into faffing about with complex structures and scales nor does the band consider a trip to 'Melodic Section Meadow' at any point.

Unfortunately the album's simplicity becomes its downfall and you find yourself thinking that you've heard this track before; the repetition is not outright riff plagiarism from the previous songs but is the result of the onset of monotony induced by the album being far too consistent for its own good. The songs lack any sense of individuality (excluding "Doomtrooper") and the lack of discernable lead work or noteworthy riffs only drives the point further home. If you were to pick a single song from the album and listen to it you'd have a ripping good headbang, but sit through the entire album is pure folly and would induce sleep with a greater haste than any benzoate ever could.

"Doomtrooper" is the longest song on the entire album and probably the closest thing to an actual doom metal, at least in tempo. It's also the least embarrassing to say out loud but you'll still feel like you're a five year old wishing he was villain on He-Man or something. Unfortunately the band's idea of producing a doom metal song in this case seems to revolve around slowing down some rejected Pantera riffs and being as boring as possible. Towards the end it bursts out into some tough-guy yelling with a big heavy riff behind it but by this point who even cares; it sounds like shite regardless, Reverend Bizarre they are not.

But of course I'm missing the point; Lair of the Minotaur aren't supposed to be judged with the same standards as other, better metal bands. They're just a simple band who likes playing heavy riffs, that all sound suspiciously similar while yelling/growling over the top because that's what heavy bands do. They're heavy for the sake of being heavy; there's neither substance nor purpose to their music which makes them not unlike the majority of deathcore bands out there, at least in philosophy and approach. However LOTM can at least write a few decent riffs and make an album worth a spin once in a magenta moon, which is more than I can say for Iced Earth's discography.

So if you like heavy music you'll enjoy this album because it's basically just forty minutes of monotonous heavy riffing and yelling which varies in speed every now and then. Not recommended for people who want an actual thrash album.

Imagine around the mid 80s and the most vicious and evil of the metal bands. Celtic Frost, Slayer, Venom. Chicago's Lair of the Minotaur draw their influences from these metal icons primarily. Their first two albums on Southern Lord were sort of a revelation for yours truly along with discovering Unearthly Trance at the same time. Both were Celtic Frost influenced, but the end product sounded totally different. While Unearthly Trance churns out doom metal at the end of the day, Lair is rooted firmly in thrash.

War Metal Blade Master, funnily titled, is their third album and still on Southern Lord, they continue to write thrash epics with lyrics based on Greek Mythology. The music too, continues to deliver more of what the first two did. The production is raw and gritty, especially with the incredibly heavy, fuzzy and in your face guitars, this one quite remarkably stands out among all these new bands reliving the thrash of the old. While the blasphemous fast paced headbang material often bordering early death metal is the recurring sound here, the music stands out really when the band slows down. For the biggest sludgiest slowing down though, you'll have to wait till the nine minuter Doomtrooper towards the end of the album. What begins like a soundtrack to an epic battle, carries on with some mean down-tuned slow sludgefest, and this, to me, brings out what these blokes are capable of in full force.

This one is for all you old school brutal thrash fans and the new kids to check out how metal is to be done without the modern day production abuse and tedious songwriting. That said, the band really peaked on their previous album Ultimate Destroyer and this one just hasn't managed to live up to that. Damn good ass kicker still, so drench yourself in blood and play the fuck out of this album... or just settle down in front of your computer screen like me and watch this ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl7SonqCNzI ) instead. Just in case you didn't know these guys fucking mean it.

Originally written for http://www.kvltsite.com

They step up another step. Lair of the Minotaur reigns as pretty much the only band from my hometown region (Chicago) that I can stand. To me, they sound like a hybrid of death/thrash metal with a kind of stoner/doom tone, which is fucking awesome. To call them doom metal would be a hideous misnomer though, as this is faster than any doom band would ever attempt to play.

War Metal Battle Master ranks as their best album so far, topping the amazing The Ultimate Destroyer. Even if you can't stand the music, every metal fan can appreciate the extreme cheese of the song/album titles. Choice names from this album include Horde of Undead Vengeance, Black Viper Barbarian Clan, Slaughter of the Bestial Legion, and War Metal Battle Master. And once again, just like the last two albums, the quality of the music is proportional to the cheese of the titles.

I can understand the criticisms that get hurled at the band, as they have an extremely distorted and/or fuzzy guitar tone, but I believe it complements the attitude perfectly. Destructive would be a good adjective to describe the music. I know it doesn't sound super descriptive on paper, but that's one of the only words one can come up with upon hearing the music. Each and every riff (and trust me, there's about a metric fuckton of 'em) just feels like Sleipnir was outfitted with spiked horseshoes and trained to stomp on your groin. Most of the songs are high speed thrashing death monsters, with the only notable exception being the nearly ten minute Doomtrooper which is, as the title implies, closer to doom in terms of speed and riffage. Assassins of the Cursed Mist gives of a Motorhead-esque vibe to me, which is a very good thing. What this does though, is makes the song sound similar to some of the newer High on Fire, who are essentially a slower, sludgier Motorhead. This kind of takes away from Lair of the Minotaur's fresh originality, but it's not a big deal in the long run.

The only places the album feels lacking are in the two tracks I just mentioned. Doomtrooper is an unwelcome change of pace that seems to break the flow more than add variety to me. Assassins of the Cursed Mist has about three or four of those annoying "everything but the guitar drops out for three seconds before the whole band kicks in again with a badass scream". It's a cool technique when used sparingly, but it makes the song seem disjointed when used so many times in the same track, but now I'm just nitpicking.

In all, the first five tracks are some of the best the band has ever put out, but a few problems with the later tracks take the album away from the coveted perfect score. It is by no means a flawed album, just not perfect (if that makes any sense). So to conclude, brutality at it's finest with one of the best examples of cheese outside of a power metal context to be found in metal. A hell of a lot of fun to crank and headbang to. Highly recommended.

I have been deeply anticipating this one, as I loved this band's last slab of murderous joy The Ultimate Destroyer. I was so psyched when this popped out of the Southern Lord promo envelope. At first spin I was thinking this was a bit of a step back, but after a week I can't stop playing this, and I am convinced this is every bit as deadly as their last masterwork.

The great and powerful Usurper may be gone, but now we have Lair Of The Minotaur to carry their war-axe into the coming years. Like Usurper, LotM are all about primal bellowing and Riffs of Mass Destruction. The guitar tone here is slightly less heavy than on the last album, thus accounting for some of my reservation, but the whole album is faster and thrashier, and the songwriting is even better than on Destroyer, so I have to call them both equally good, just in different ways. The Ultimate Destroyer was a primeval crushing disc of sludgy, Sabbath-tinted mayhem, while War Metal Battle Master is high-octane Sodom/Celtic Frost proto-Thrash that kills and kills and kills some more. We get gleeful metal fists of destruction like "Horde Of Undead Vengeance", "When The Ice Giants Slayed All", and "Black Viper Barbarian Clan", plus a bonus in the nine-minute epic of "Doomtrooper", which flattens everything before it like a giant fucking siege engine covered with skulls and spiked iron plates.

This is a defiant middle finger raised to all 'modern' forms of metal, and Lair Of The Minotaur remain dedicated to digging right back down to the roots of the whole tree, creating metal so backwards it's Neanderthal. They proclaim that "War Metal Battle Master" is a concept album about solving your problems with a big fucking axe." I hardly think it can be said any better than that. A must-have album for anyone who isn't a complete pussy.

Originally written for www.metalcrypt.com