‘UNITED ABOMINATIONS’ - MEGADETH

Megadeth supposedly played their final show at Download festival at Castle Donnington in 2005, before quitting music for good. Yeah right! Not even 2 years on and they’ve released an album that can probably be considered as one of their best. Capturing all the speed, excitement and unpredictability that made them so unique in the past, they have skilfully honed and condensed these elements, formulating a powerful yet easily accessible record. And for once Dave Mustaine even sounds interested in what he’s singing about.


The thing with Megadeth is that they're incredibly technical and insanely proficient musicians, so sometimes they can lose themselves in themusic and sound up their own arse. Fortunately United Abominations is just not like that. This is a very focused album. ‘Sleepwalker’ opens up like a high-speed train without any brakes, and will surely prove to be nothing less than a classic. Dark and menacing 'Washington Is Next' creeps through the speakers like some snarling predator until you can almost believe it's sat right in front of you, leering and sneering into your face. Set over a news broadcast-style tirade of rhetoric, the title track adds a disturbingly blunt and venomous rant against the UN. But perhaps the nicest touch to this album is the re-recording of 'A Tout Le Monde'. Sang in duet with Lacuna Coil's Cristina Scabbia and with far more sentiment than the original version, this adds a nostalgic edge to what is an otherwise uncompromising and unnervingly scathing political album.


The break has clearly done the trick because United Abominations is like one serious punch in the face, and it feels soooo gooood! Welcome back boys.


6/7

‘IN SORTE DIABOLI’ - DIMMU BORGIR

Dimmu Borgir have never strictly adhered to the standard black metal formula, preferring to offset the raw, often painfully abrasive brain-grating cacophony with powerful keyboard and orchestra driven theatrics. The result is far more accessible than the ear-splitting din produced by many of their contemporaries. But more importantly rather than detracting from the spite and malevolence inherent to this style of music, this extra depth quite overwhelmingly emphasises the emotional nature of black metal.

With 'In Sorte Diaboli' Dimmu Borgir have surpassed themselves. It is so mind-blowingly, beautifully savage it makes you want to scream, murder someone and cry, all at the same time. Anyone who's knees don't tremble while listening to the nefariously delightful majesty of opener 'The Serpentine Offering' is surely dead from the waist down. Shagrat's repeated lament 'My descent is the story of every man. I am hatred, darkness and despair' quite literally brings tears to the eyes as all synapses overload, disintegrate and implode. Yet that is just the beginning. The rest of the album continues in a similarly veiled-vicious vein, 'The Chosen Legacy' kicking off with a spectacular drum intro before the hellmouth itself opens up with an almost trance-like blast of riff and double-kick. 'The Fallen Arises' offers an interesting instrumental interlude - reaffirming the setting of the album's theme in medieval Europe, as the it follows the story of a priest who turns to Satan - before 'The Heretic Hammer erupts in a devastating maelstrom of Stormblast-esque battery. As a finale 'The Foreshadowing Furnace' offers a perfect analogy to his discordant and chaotic demise as he burns to death on the stake.

In Sorte Diaboli. The very name instils fear - it conjures hordes of hooded black-clad riders emerging from a gnarled and shadowy woodland to take your life, your soul. If mankind ever has to experience apocalypse then this album will play a superb and fittingly terrifying soundtrack.

7/7