RESURRECTIONS

Unearthing the latest metal reissues

BMG’s MEGADETH reissue schedule reaches 2007, halfway through the band’s slow crawl back to glory after their late-90s personality crisis. United Abominations [7] starts like the return to form is complete, Mustaine’s voice especially strong, but excitement lags in the second half. 2009’s Endgame [8] ups the ante, scattering killers and fillers more evenly, self-explanatory rabble-rousers like Headcrusher and

This Day We Fight! among the band’s all-time finest, while the slower, more versatile moments are better-realised, too. 2011’s Th1rt3en [6] is a bit simpler and scrappier, but as ever the solos brim with golden magic.

On the A Few Lines In Archaic Ukrainian [8] (Season Of Mist), rustic black metallers DruDKh gather together six lengthy songs originating on splits from 2016-17. Drudkh are one of the finest black metal bands to emerge in the last 20 years and this is a fine example of their hypnotic craftwork, containing some of the shadowy quartet’s most powerful material. Drudkh were so devoted to blasting black metal intensity that the whole band formed side-project BLOOD OF KinGu to experiment with Middle Eastern atmospheres. First emerging in 2007, debut De Occulta Philosophia [7] (ATMF) sounds even more raw and abstruse, with crazy mixed-back vocals resembling a choir of monastic frog people.

The beguiling Wizard’s Spell [7] (Dark Essence) by BLACK Magic is a 33-minute EP from 2014 (recorded in 2010). Musically, it’s a rollicking occult throwback to the early 80s when thrash, speed and power metal were interchangeable terms, but the second half is demo material with much more vituperative black-thrash vocals and doom influences. DeMons & Wizards represented the perfect match between Iced Earth riffmaster Jon Schaffer’s staccato bludgeon and Blind Guardian frontman Hansi Kursch’s vocal theatrics. 1999’s eponymous debut [8] and 2005 follow-up Touched By The Crimson King [7] (Century Media) are both must-haves for power metal nuts, with a wealth of extra demo material.

Finally, UK doom pioneers pagan altar have reissued their deadly Judgement Of The Dead [9] (Temple Of Mystery), recorded in 1982 but unreleased until 1998. It’s a ghostly opus of raw, occult Sabbathian slo-mo NWOBHM that still hits the spot very hard.