Better do this before I get bogged down by Brazilian drag queens and Vietnamese jazz (don't ask)!!! :laughing:

As others have said, this doesn't appear to be your run-of-the-mill Death Metal album, even to someone like me who has only a passing acquaintance with the subgenre. I mean, it opens more like some sort of prog metal, with piano and a kind of almost orchestral thing going then kicks into proper life with some pretty frantic guitars, vocals that both wail and growl, and also allow the odd clean phrase through. Impressive. Even when the second track gets going in a sort of hybrid of Doom and Death Metal, I can hear violins in there, can't I? Now it's going into a prog metal/almost symphonic metal vibe for a moment. There are just so many different styles on this album, it almost can't be called a Death Metal album, or if it is, then it's the Death Metal album with something for everyone. Cool pick, Batty, and a great start!

http://www.trollheart.com/cleaver4.jpg

Where's your rating, bitch?

Ratings are for bitches, no?

Edit: If you insist!

A death metal album worth four butcher knives. I'm assuming that's good.

They're cleavers. And five cleavers is the highest rating, so yeah, pretty damn good.

You still only tolerate the growls?

Kind of blocked out the singing, such as it was really. Concentrated more on the music. No, I don't like growls, probably never will. Except at the zoo.

Do you like Hatebeak then?

Traumatic Voyage - Traumatic (1992)

I did a little reading about this artist and apparently it's a one man project—or at least it was at the time of this album, his wife joined the band later on. I thought it was pretty good, really more black metal than death metal in my opinion, not that that matters. I think the thin production kind of hurts the album so I'd be curious to hear some of his later work to see if it's a little fuller sounding. I think this music would benefit a lot from that. The last few songs were the strongest on the album to me. I actually could have done with the last track being much longer. Anyway, all in all I thought it was pretty good, if a little flawed, and I like to check out some of his other stuff.

My rating: 7/10

Alright **** it let's just do a signup sheet for picking new albums. All this voting business sounds like a pain in the ass. Frownland was the first to respond to the thread, so he's up first.