Top Ten Canadian Metal Albums

In honour of Canada Day, here is a list of the best metal albums from our friends in the Great White North. [It's aboot time, eh.]

O Canada! A Canada Day playlist

Best Albums of 2011

Origin - Entity
Following the exit of guitarist Jeremy Turner and long-time vocalist James King, Origin's sole remaining guitarist Paul Ryan surely faced a quandary. How do you follow Antithesis, the best death metal album of the last 10 years? Is it even possible for Origin to get heavier and faster without becoming one-dimensional and boring?

Luckily, Ryan (backed by drum god John Longstreth, bassist Mike Flores, and former Skinless vocalist Jason Keyser) resisted the traditional sequel mentality ("the same as last time but more so") and opted to tweak Origin's formula by adding groove, melody, and epic slow parts. By not wallowing in past glories, Origin have created Entity, an album that manages to be as awe-inspiring as its predecessor without copying it - and one that perhaps signals the beginning of the next chapter in Origin's stellar career.

Make no mistake: mighty Origin made every other album in 2011 its bitch.

Listen To: Saligia, Swarm, Evolution of Extinction


Abysmal Dawn - Leveling the Plane of Existence
Tech-death at its worst is like an over-choreographed martial arts movie - the acrobatics are impressive, but you're left wondering what the point of it all is. Though undoubtedly playing death metal of the "technical" variety, Abysmal Dawn triumph over their peers by putting their impressive chops in the service of songs that are memorable, the hardest feat in extreme music.

Listen To: In Service of Time, Leveling the Plane of Existence, My Own Savior

Nader Sadek - In the Flesh
Steve Tucker's return to death metal couldn't have been better timed, seeing as his former bandmates in Morbid Angel chose this year to unveil their clusterfuck of a new album. With Cryptopsy's Flo Mounier and Mayhem's Blasphemer, Nader Sadek's debut is as filthy and twisted as crude oil gushing over a nude beach. As far as conceptual death metal albums go, this is a unique and forward-thinking meeting of minds that won't be topped soon.

Listen To: Petrophilia, Mechanic Idolatry, Soulless


Demonical - Death Infernal
With so many great NWOOSDM releases (Feral, Miasmal, Entrails), 2011 was plagued with nostalgia for the good old days of Sunlight Studios. What puts Demonical above every other HM-2 revivalist? Well, probably the amount of times I blasted "March For Victory," THE death metal anthem of 2011. And the rest of the album follows suit, mixing blackened melody with stomping riffs that make you want to raise your fists to the sky, a horn of mead in one and an enemy's head in the other. Like Hypocrisy at their best (and most evil), Death Infernal is perfect for metal festivals and house parties alike.

Listen To: March For Victory, All Will Perish, The Arrival of Armaggeddon, and then listen to March For Victory some more!


Machine Head - Unto the Locust
When I was 15, these guys were the greatest band in the world to me; since then, they've mostly been an annoying reminder of how stupid 15 year olds can be. Over the years, Machine Head - a band that promoted their groundbreaking debut by opening for Napalm Death, Obituary, and Slayer - traded in their credibility by jumping on every bandwagon from groove metal to wiggercore to emo. Though 2007's The Blackening was heralded as a "return to form" by the metal press, to these ears it was more of a cynical attempt at metalcore, while "metalcore" was still a thing. Adjusting my expectations accordingly, I wondered what form the follow-up would take. Certainly the band has noticed the relative popularity of Mastodon and Baroness - would 2011 mark the appearance of a bearded, flannel wearing Robb Flynn, complete with horn-rimmed glasses? Thankfully, they've gone the other way, with 7 songs that draw equally from the members' classic thrash pedigrees as well as classic metal (check out the Manowar steal on "Who We Are"). After indulging in every trend from groove thrash to mallcore, Machine Head have delivered, at long last, a heavy metal album.

Listen To: Who We Are, Darkness Within, I Am Hell


Krisiun - The Great Execution
How does a kvlt South American band best known for bloody pentagrams and uninterrupted blasting age gracefully? By applying the brakes and letting their riffs breathe. Call it the South of Heaven syndrome. Like every band that once vied for the "heaviest, fastest" crown, Krisiun now use speed judiciously, allowing their songs to build from mid-paced gallops before erupting into their trademarked blast. It feels wrong to describe a Krisiun album as "hypnotic," but that seems to be what they're aspiring to. Just as long as they don't abandon the blast, I'm happy.

Listen To: The Sword of Orion, Shadows of Betrayal, The Will to Potency

Vader - Welcome to the Morbid Reich
Like Krisiun, Vader know their popularity lies not in bold re-invention but in dependability. And having pioneered the death-thrash style since the mid-80's, few do it better than these Polish grandmasters. Less manic than 2009's Necropolis, Morbid Reich weaves epic melody into their mix of Slayer and Morbid Angel. A fine addition to a praiseworthy catalogue.

Listen To: Return to the Morbid Reich, Don't Rip the Beast's Heart Out, Come And See My Sacrifice


Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand
Much anticipated - by me, at least - the new Primordial album carries on from where 2007's To The Nameless Dead left off, with a mix of Celtic folk and blackened doom that somehow manages to be bleak and uplifting at the same time. Over it all, Alan Averill's vocals distill feelings of rage and loss in a way that few metal singers can dream of. The best folk metal you'll hear this year.

Listen To: Death of the Gods, The Puritan's Hand, Lain With The Wolf



Neuraxis - Asylon
It's sort of hard to root for Neuraxis - they've got more than a passing similarity to the trendcore bands of the last decade, and their current line-up is bereft of any original members. At the same time, it was hard not to succumb to their goofy Canadian charm when I saw them live (on both the Sepultura and Deicide US tours). Like Abysmal Dawn, Neuraxis root their technical virtuosity in memorable hooks, but meander ADD-like from riff to riff, causing their songs to morph along the way. Like serpents, if you give them half a chance, they'll make their way into your head and nest there for months.

Listen To: Purity, Left to Devour, Trauma

State of Death Metal, 2011

Morbid Angel's long awaited return (and for some people, long-awaited reunion with eyeliner enthusiast David Vincent) caused no small amount of consternation in the death metal underground. The word had gone out in advance that Morbid Angel had "gone techno," and death metal fans were at turns livid and dismissive of their new direction. My first listen to the album had me hoping that the cd came packaged with glowsticks and a hit of ecstacy. I don't, in principle, have any problem with electronica-infused metal - Godflesh broke down the walls between hesher and raver 20 years ago; the Berzerker did the death-chno thing and were frequently brilliant; and anyone who thinks that housebeats can't be heavy should have a word with Red Harvest.

In truth, the rancor to Illud Divina is a bit of an over-reaction. Half of the songs are classic Morbid Angel and as good as anything they've done since the mid-90's (though tellingly, the best of these were 2 songs written by Destructhor of Zyklon and Myrkskog fame).

Of the sketchier songs, only the closing track (ironically titled "Mea Culpa") comes close to living up to Trey Azagtoth's claims that he's finding new ways of making Morbid Angel extreme (though the song would be improved innumerably by dropping the techno and letting drum scab Tim Yeung just BLAST). "I'm Morbid" takes Marilyn Manson's "Antichrist Superstar," puts it through the death metal ringer and adds some entertainingly Sondheim-esque vocal phrasing. It's a rare case of something being so dumb that it's awesome.


The remaining three songs are as bad as their death-disco reputation suggests, and bring terrible flashbacks of Vincent shaking his hips in the Genitorturers. It's baffling how Trey and "Evil D" thought that they could get away with passing off such dated, hackneyed songs as revolutionary. What's even worrying is the possibility that Trey actually thought they were, in fact, revolutionary.

Morbid Angel picked a lousy year to stage a comeback. If Illud was released in 2010 amidst that year's critically lauded experimental albums (and general lack of quality death metal), Trey and company may have gotten away with their half-baked melange of gabber and blast. In 2011, though, they found themselves in the company of returning veterans at the top of their game, and newer bands using MA's style as a jumping off point in their own bid for elite status, including two that feature Morbid Angel alumni.

Erik Rutan's Hate Eternal have been heavily hyped since their debut was released in 1999; as a true death metal OG (Ripping Corpse, bitches!) and producer/engineer of some of the best death metal albums of the last 10 years, Rutan is one of the genre's major figureheads. It's unsurprising that the former Morbid Angel guitarist's work is largely in the style of his former colleagues, but credit should go to him in trying to outdo them in terms of outright extremity, culminating in 2009's claustrophobia-inducing Fury and Flames. Hate Eternal's latest album, Phoenix Amongst the Ashes, shows the band easing up on the brain melting density of that previous album to include Cattle Decapitation-style skronk.


8 years after leaving Morbid Angel under dark clouds, David Vincent's understudy Steve Tucker has resurfaced in Nader Sadek, named after the Egyptian visual artist who put the project together. I had been seeing flyers for the album for almost a year before it was released; the notion of a collaboration between Mayhem's Blasphemer (guitars), Cryptopsy's Flo Mounier (drums) and Tucker promised, at the very least, a highly enjoyable train wreck. The truth is, it's one of the best, most original death metal albums in years. The album takes Blasphemer's skewed, blackened riffing splits the difference between Norwegian black metal's eerier moments and the creeping lava style of, naturally, Morbid Angel.


Abysmal Dawn parlay their tech chops into actual songs, complete with (gasp!) memorable choruses. It's a meisterstroke for populist death metal, and one that will serve as a high watermark for years to come. If Leveling the Plane of Existence has one fault, it's that the production is so clean you could eat creme brulee off of it. It serves their precision well, but their monstrous hooks deserve at least a little bit of gore caked on them.


For the past decade, Azarath have been rising stars in the Polish death metal scene, and for good reason - they feature Behemoth's Inferno on drums. Blasphemer's Malediction, their 5th album (but first after a significant line-up reshuffling) ditches the lurching Immolation-isms of their previous two albums for a straight-ahead blackened death metal assault...which is a shame, as it was those lurching parts that made them so interesting. Still, this isn't an album that's easy to write off, due to its relative sophistication and confidence. One thing's for sure: this wipes the floor with Lightning Swords of Death, Abominant, and all the American bands who've attempted this style recently.


Of course, one can hardly discuss Polish death metal without Vader, the grand-daddies of the scene. Welcome to the Morbid Reich, their 9th album (not counting live albums, compilations, and demo repackagings) features a somewhat more restrained Vader than the one seen on 2009's blastastic Necropolis.  Not that Vader have changed their sound in any dramatic way; it's just that the new album has more epic overtones over the death-thrash assault, presumably the influence of new lead guitarist Marek Pająk (formerly of prog-death band Esquarial).  Like most recent Vader albums, it features a re-recording of a song from their demo days, in this case "Decapitated Saints" from their debut.  This is a jackhammer that doesn't break any new ground, but for die-hards like me in need of their Vader fix, it hits the spot.


Like Vader, Krisiun were a band that renewed my faith in death metal in the late 90's when the genre seemed stagnant and unexciting. They exploded in those heady days and, along with bands like Hate Eternal and Behemoth, led the charge for death metal's return to relentless extremity. Since those days, though, the band has worked hard to balance their earlier hyperblasting style with experimentation, in an attempt to avoid becoming stagnant and uninteresting themselves. And in that, they've been largely successful. The Great Execution is for the most part business as usual for them, though their business is slower this time around. Krisiun does employ a few inventive touches here and there, like the flamenco guitars on "The Sword of Orion." The approach pays off as when they bring back the hyperblast (such as "Extinção Em Massa"), the effect is devastating.


When talking about extreme metal from Switzerland, it's inevitable to think of the wild (and sometimes embarrassing) experimentation of Celtic Frost or Samael; Requiem, however, peddle thrash-influenced death metal in the glorious European tradition of Sinister and Thanatos, with enough blackened melody to keep things interesting. It's pretty meat-and-potatoes stuff for the most part, but with their streamlined approach (they're a power-trio, a rarity in death metal these days), they definitely make a case for less being more.


With their latest album Entity, Origin had the unenviable task of following up the greatest album of its career (the best death metal album of the decade for this longtime devotee) without their longtime guitarist and songwriter Jeremy Turner. Kudos then to Paul Ryan, the sole remaining original member, for resisting the temptation to disappear down the rabbit hole by creating a faster, heavier, or more technical album album - almost assuredly a failed pursuit - and focusing on writing memorable songs. It's not Antithesis Pt 2, but it wipes the floor with every other metal album this year. Tremble, 2011: Mighty Origin have made you their bitch.

Sepultura and Friends, 4-25-2011

Besides my obvious affection for the headliner, this was a tour that I had high expectations for. Any three bands from this line-up would have made a must see package, but all together, they trump any of the summer's touring metal circuses (Summer Slaughter, Mayhemfest, etc). Kudos to Sepultura and their management for their taste in touring partners. While Max Cavalera seems only too happy to throw himself in with every trend from nu-metal to myspacecore, the Andreas-led faction has always shared the stage with more credible underground acts, from the Victory era of hardcore to Sepultura's ostensible successors in the Brazilian death metal scene, Krisiun.

Unfortunately, such a great line-up meant mercilessly short set up and playing times. The first 6 bands were constrained to half-hour sets, and the sound for the openers was largely lacking (with the possible exception of Bonded by blood, whose no-frills back to basics thrash attack needs no extra favours).


No use guessing what Bonded by Blood sound like; they kicked off this night of metal with a largely Exodus-derivative attack, though their singer does get points for a passable Paul Baloff impression, at least hairwise. I was somewhat impressed by their young ages and ability to channel a genre that hit its apex long before they were born. Cynical fuck that I am, I really don't have the patience for another thrash revival band, but for at least half an hour, Bonded by Blood counted me as a fan.


Not much has changed since the last time I saw Neuraxis - their drummer is still a relentless machine, their guitarist is still doing the work of two, their bassist is still getting his hair caught in his tuning pegs,and their singer still brings enough goofball French-Canadian charm to make up for his sleeveless deathcore shirts. Neuraxis may be geeky tech-death on paper, but live they've got the most cross-over appeal of any band on this tour (besides the headliner). Whatever reservations I had from seeing them on the Deicide tour are gone; I honestly enjoy their effortless mix of math and hooks. C'mon guys, don't make me go to Montreal to see you headline.


With the quality of this line-up, it's no small statement to say that Keep of Kalessin were the band I was looking forward to most on this tour. Last year saw new releases from Dimmu Borgir, Enslaved, and Ihsahn, but in my mind Keep of Kalessin trumped them all with Reptilian. It's odd to see a band that relies so heavily on ambient synths and textured guitar harmonies relegate those elements to a DAT tape, but with a single guitarist and no keyboardist, that's what they did. Drawing on songs from the Kolossus and Reptilian albums, they got the first decent crowd reaction of the night. Hopefully they'll be back soon, and have a decent set time to work with.

I wonder, what do the Keep, being the token Norwegian black metal band on the tour, think of Poland's Hate, whose commitment to corpsepaint means wearing it through soundcheck? At least one other person found this amusing: The soundguy immediately brought on the snark, quipping "Hey, do you guys know that band Marduk?" (second funniest comment: "More kickdrum? Yes, that's understandable.")

I've been trying and failing to like Hate since their Morphosis album. Though there is a vague similarity to Behemoth, Hate seem one-dimensional and prissy in comparison. I'm glad I finally got a chance to see them live, but frankly there are a dozen Polish death metal bands I'd rank over them.



Corpsepaint isn't evil enough for Austria's Belphegor; they go hogwild with covering their faces in blood. Their slowchurning black metal recalls the likes of New York's Incantation and Immolation; indeed, the latter gets a shout-out during Belphegor's set. It's a pity that visa problems caused them to miss Deicide tour, where their blasphemy would have been more at home; still, it's hard to imagine them getting a bigger response from the assembled black t-shirt brigade. I'm not particularly a fan, and can't say I was comfortable with watching an Austrian onstage encouraging people to chant "Hail! Hail!" over and over again. Though I suppose the potential offensiveness of that was offset by his bizarre muppetesque between-song voice.


It's been a decade since I last saw Sepultura, but you wouldn't know it except that Derrick Greene's hair is significantly longer and Paulo Junior's hair is, well, gone (as is mine, I should add). That this band has lost significant ground since the 90's was evident from the fact that they were playing to about a fourth of the audience they enjoyed back then. The idea that their best days are behind them was evident as "Arise", "Refuse/Resist", and "Dead Embryonic Cells" were fed to the crowd right off the bat, and their newer songs (couldn't tell you which ones) were fired off quickly and without introduction. I've always assumed that most Sepultura fans have little respect for anything post-Roots, but in truth I may have been one of few uninterested in their later (post-Max) material; if anything, the crowd seemed more enervated by the newer catchy hardcore songs than the old school death/thrash that I was looking forward to.

Still, the highlight of the set for me was a Schizophrenia pseudo-medley (they cruelly teased half the album before playing "Escape to the Void"). And though I enjoyed the inclusion of three songs from Arise, I found the lack of songs from Beneath the Remains a letdown (but only because, you know, that album sort of changed my life).

The band are using this tour to premier songs from their upcoming Kairos album; like everything since Derrick Greene joined the band, the new songs run along same Chaos AD/Roots meridian. Solid, but not particularly exciting.

Ironically, this same venue will be hosting the Cavalera Conspiracy in a little over 2 weeks, and so it's arguable that Max and Iggor's reunion isn't any more enticing to fans than any version of Sepultura without them. I've always been of the mind that once all the relevant parties have had their pride hurt enough, the classic Sepultura line-up will come together again. With talks of a reunion becoming more serious, it seems that the Derrick Greene era may be ending soon.

Still, as much as Derrick has presided over the decline of one of the metal's greatest bands, it's hard to dislike the man himself. He's a hell of a frontman, and as he tries to make classic material like "Meaningless Movements" and "Troops of Doom" his own, it becomes clear that in his own time with the band, he was given much less to work with. Here's hoping that if Derrick's time with the band is indeed coming to a close, Kairos will be the swansong that he deserves.

To Hell With God Tour Featuring Deicide 2.21.11

Death metal was scary when I was a teenager, and no death metal band were scarier than Deicide. There was nothing coy about their ties to the dark one: inverted crosses branded on foreheads, blasphemous lyrics, and the band members openly labeled themselves Satan worshippers. At one point during their 90's peak, they even called out Slayer for being "poseurs." Along with Cannibal Corpse, their infamy has lent them the highest profile in death metal, even allowing them to occassionally infiltrate the mainstream.

Since then though, sub-par albums, line-up changes, and black metal have muddied Deicide's legacy. Not unlike fighters who've suffered a series of losses, Deicide needed a clear win to maintain their relevance; luckily for them, To Hell With God is such an album. Despite the generic album title (which strays to close to self-parody), the 10th Deicide album is both a return to their mid-90's form and something of a reinvention, thanks in part to the flashy work of guitarists Jack Owen and Ralph Santolla, who replaced the drama that was the Hoffman brothers in 2006.

Joining Deicide on this tour were a number of bands whose allegiance to Satan is suspect at best. The one band whose presence was most welcome - Austrian goat worshippers Belphegor - were missing due to visa problems, leaving a motley assemblage of newjack death metal bands to open. It was like being served canapes before armaggedon, but not completely a waste of time.


I've been a fan of Neuraxis for years - though in truth, the musicians who made the Truth Beyond and Trilateral Progression albums that I love are gone, and the young members in now make the band look more like a child labour camp. Regardless, the Neuraxis of 2011 have the same flair for writing fun (if not always memorable) tech-death that's heavy on the hooks and never tedious live. Looking forward to seeing them with Sepultura in a few months.


What deluded nitwit thought it would be a good idea to put Blackguard on this tour? Certainly their stage presence and OTT melodic metal is too twee to be anywhere near the headliner? Not that they were bad, but they would have been more welcome opening for Ensiferum the following Saturday. The highlight of their set for me was their female drummer, who wasn't just adorable, but really fucking good. All the same, though, they should consider themselves lucky that a hostile crowd reaction is all that they had to suffer through.


Deicide took to the stage with little fanfare, simply walking on stage and plugging in. Glen Benton dryly noted, "I guess you've heard we've got a new album" before his band launched into To Hell With God's title track. Old Glen was in a relaxed mood, content to throw out quips when the occasional obnoxious audience member didn't get the better of his infamous temper. It's been two decades since their self-titled debut scared the shit out of impressionable teenagers and Deicide now look less like the embodiment of hell on earth and more like the Angry Dad Band. Rick Santolla and Jack "The Human Garden Gnome" Owen got hit especially hard by middle age. But the crowd reaction is as it ever was: total pandemonium and rabid appreciation for anything from the first 4 albums.



Deicide at their best are a kind of death metal Atkins diet - short blasts of blasphemous fury that never outstay their welcome. Unfortunately, that approach tends to wear a crowd out after half an hour, and the energy level lagged noticably mid-set, especially during songs from the last decade. However, things picked up immensely for the three set closers: "Kill the Christians", "Lunatic of God's Creation", and (of course) "Sacrificial Suicide". With that and a dozen tossed guitar picks, Deicide were off. I can't wait for the tour accompanying their next album Fuck You, Satan Is Awesome!


Also, major respect to the security staff at Gramercy for literally leaping into action to catch the bodies as they flew over the barricades during Deicide's set, and wading into the crowd to pull out an audience member who had been injured. They even went out of their way to avoid blocking my crappy camera. It's a nice change of pace when the guys on the other side respect the fans who pay their wage, and don't just see them as a nuisance. It's also nice when that respect is mutual.