Revolting - Hymns of Ghastly Horror (2012)

   It's one thing that Rogga Johansson played and still playing in lots of bands, and his inspiration and productiveness seems inexhaustible, but the same could be said about several of his bands too. And despite its quite basic horror addicted old school death metal concept, Revolting is one of them. 
   "Hymns of Ghastly Horror" became even exceptional compared to the previous Revolting albums, because instead of the most usual features of Swedish death metal, it took the second most usual path of the style, a more melodic and vintage style. This simpler, more thrash and heavy metal influenced direction is quite common among Swedish bands, and if it's about Mr. Johansson's previous works, this intense and nearly party compatible style wears plenty of similarities with the first Paganizer record. Not so '80s oriented, less mixed, and evidently old school death metal, but it's closer to death'n'roll than any basically groove death metal that's marked as death'n'roll for some unknown reason. The guitar themes and sound are quite similar to Slasher Dave's style (Acid Witch, Horrific), that has the interesting feature of being able to turn the darkest topics somehow unusually energetic and to give them some brighter, entertaining tone. The same energy could be sensed in "Hymns of Ghastly Horror", and it's not completely clear if the whole thing was intentional, or just the accidental result of turning old school death more vintage sounding and heavy metal influenced. The whole thing could have ended up as something pretty close to melodic death, and it would have been logical, but it's something else. Something definitely underrated and unnoticed by most, that could serve even as an alternate guide to determine the basics and features of lesser known and yet quite tiny subgenre. An impressively interesting and entertaining album for sure!

Horrific - Your Worst Nightmare (2009)

   As it was mentioned before, death 'n' roll became a popular error since the whole term was created. But fortunately the existence of a few bands gave sense to this style definition.
   One of these few was Horrific, a former short lived side project of Slasher Dave (Acid Witch) and Lasse Pyykkö (former Acid Witch, Hooded Menace) that really included rock 'n' roll influences, so their music genuinely fits to the style that nobody else was able to fit to, though it was created way before. It's like a recipe of something that once seemed great to create, but nobody could perform it how it supposed to. And later Horrific came and made it. Their music is basically similar to some '70s rock 'n' roll and heavy metal influenced hard rock (like Ted Nugent for instance), it's only more intense, and not intense like thrash metal, but like how old rock 'n' roll was. The catchy-wild, sometimes heavy and demoralizing, but all-round very characteristic guitar play of Slasher Dave proved to be the same effective in an intensity based style, like in the stoner/doom depths of Acid Witch. The strong sound distortion and Mr Pyykkö's extremely deep growling vocal style gave the touch of death metal, like icing on the cake. This combination resulted something that was catchy but also extreme, sounded modern and old school the same time. This style seems to have wider potential, because it could be compatible with both the underground and mainstream audience. So it's wonder why many others didn't even try to experiment with this? "Your Worst Nightmare" is a short, but very effective masterpiece that would deserve wider attention!

Blackstar - Barbed Wire Soul (1997)

   The British just love their '70s and '80s heavy metal scene, so it's not surprising if retro endeavours overcome on them. The same thing happened in the case of Blackstar, a short lived band that was formed on the ruins of Carcass.
    By knowing anything about the musical past of the members, it's evident that this wasn't a project of high notes singing, half naked heavy metal warriors in leather pants, but still it was something far different way for sure. Their one and only album was like a transition of classical heavy metal into the late '90s by adding the actual influences. This is the same way how stoner rock was born, so the similarity of their music may not count as a coincidence. The sound had to be heavier, noisier and the vocal style more harsh for the same serious effect in the late '90s, like a few decades earlier. The lyrics about life, personal issues and inner struggles are also modernized versions of the old school heavy metal lyrical style. The album is kind of party-compatible filled with catchy themes and it's very entertaining in general. It's a proof that great musicians are able to create good music in various genres and styles.