Remember that thrill that you used to get when you used to buy a music magazine and you get that brilliant promo CD off the front cover. You’d struggle to the sticky gummy stuff off the back of the CD cover to get it off the magazine but the struggle would always be worth it because the album would always be full of great new finds – bands that you’ve never heard of before but would fall in love with straight away. Then the hunt would be on to find albums from those bands.
Well there is an album out this weekend that recaptures all of that music. If you head along to one of the Metal United Down Under gigs this weekend make sure you pick up a copy of Metal United Down Under Volume 1, this brilliant compilation gives you a rare chance to discover sixteen Aussie metal bands… and the people that have put together this album really have put together a bumper crop for you to pick through.
There are some amazing tracks here for you to discover and unlike some of these compilations there is a good spread around of bands from various metal genres as well. If you like your metal on the brutal side then you are going to love the offerings from Battlegrave, The Loom Of Time, Beyond Vendetta, Insanation, Suffer In Rot and sQuawk! There is the great gothic sounds of A.M.P, the deep and dark Agnesis and the metal and punk infusion that is Carcosa.
I loved a lot of the bands that I have already mentioned here but for me the tracks that are the standouts on the compilation are the amazing ‘Stuck In Hell’ by Plague 9, the amazing vocals on ‘The Labyrinth’ by Enthorium, the distinct ‘Grey Seasons’ by Psionic Tide, the amazing guitar work of ‘Black Hole’ by Odysseus Reborn and the very, very catchy ‘Freedom Song’ by Children Of Perdition.
This kind of compilation is perfect for those people out there that see a massive amount of local metal gigs listed each week but are never sure whether to head along an actually take a chance on the band that is playing. The key is to take a listen to this compilation, pick out the bands that you like and then support them locally… at the end of the day we should all be supporting our local scene and this is a great compilation to help you out with that mission.
