RESURRECTIONS
Unearthing the latest metal reissues
MOST PEOPLE CAN remember exactly where they first heard NAILS’ astonishing Unsilent Death (Southern Lord) [8], because that’s where the paramedics pieced their skulls back together. Unleashed anew to celebrate the album’s 10th anniversary, it now boasts three tracks from the Oxnard crew’s Obscene Humanity seven-inch and two previously unreleased bursts of undiluted hostility. Expanded to a pummelling 23 minutes, it’s still guaranteed to smash your face in. Only more so. More user-friendly but equally pissed-off, 1556/SILENCE’S Irrational Pull (Nuclear Blast) [8] deserved more props first time around, but this bonus-boosted reissue should belatedly do the job. Gleefully inventive but still crushing in a Knocked Loose kind of way, it’s a blistering debut.
A stone-cold classic by any sane reckoning, ICED EARTH’S eponymous debut album (Century Media) [9]
was distinctive and crushing in 1990 and still sounds like a supremely confident statement of intent. A 30th anniversary remaster has added extra clarity and power to classics like Colors and the band’s titular theme song, but the spirit and vibe of the original remains intact. A classy upgrade for a seminal piece of metal purity, much like the new, 25th anniversary edition of BLIND GUARDIAN’S Imaginations From The Other Side (Nuclear Blast) [9]. Still the Germans’ best and most iconic album, it more than warrants this three-disc splurge, with everything from a full live rendition of the album to unheard demos and instrumentals adding depth and colour to an already weighty piece of work. Tearful vinyl fiends will swoon before a new edition of MY DYING BRIDE’S orchestral fantasia Evinta MMXX (Peaceville) [8],
not least due to a previously unreleased version of The Cry Of Mankind that will ruin all but the most cold-hearted. SCHAMMASCH’S Sic Lvceat Lvx (Prosthetic) [8] also hits vinyl for the first time, and sounds even more like an all-consuming, spiritual apocalypse than it did in 2011. Finally, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME continue their remix/remaster binge, with the basically untouchable Colors (Craft) [9]. The band’s most startling evolutionary leap, it still crackles with crazed exuberance and highly infectious delight at music’s endless possibilities.
DOM LAWSON