Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 10/17/2006
If anything is aptly titled it's this groovy comp from
Earache. Showcasing some upcoming releases, some new ones, and some upcoming reissue projects, the 17 tracks on the CD part of
Chop Your Own Head Off are simply killer. The DVD contains 19 selections of live and video footage of roster mates from
Addiction Crew to
the Haunted to
With Passion and
Morbid Angel. There is also a preview of a PC video game entitled
Extreme Metal Racing. The CD portion here opens with a different mix of
"Homage for Satan," a brand new cut from
Deicide (off their
Stench of Redemption album) of full-on
death metal with Cookie Monster vocals and simply brutal guitars and drumming. (Of course, almost everything on
Earache could be qualified as being brutal, thank goodness.) Other standouts -- though there are no weak picks -- are the
goth-drenched
doom metal of
Cult of Luna on
"Back to Chapel Town" from their excellent
Somewhere Along the Highway issued in 2006. The jazzed up
prog metal of
Ephel Duath with
"Crystalline Whirl," and
Mortiis' crazy
"Way Too Wicked [Absinthium Mix]" (from the
Grudge album) are alternately shrieking
industrial dance music and
gothic-textured messes, but they work here.
Anata's
"Better Grieved Than Fooled," is a knotty
prog metal cut that has amazingly labyrinthine guitar work The sheer
power metal of
Biomechanical's
"Existenz" smokes.
Municipal Waste's
"Set to Destruct" brings a beautiful blend of
hardcore punk and
metal which is bone blistering. The disc ends with
"Swallow the World," by the incomparable, massively loud and freaky
Anaal Nathrakh. Taken from their second album (reissued by
Earache) this is the new sound of
black metal. There are sublime textures and outrageously sick ones in this label's canon, and here they keep it to what they know best. For the cash, this is one you gotta have if you're a
metal fan.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
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