Metal powers through the speakers

When Devin Townsend screams, your backbone snaps and the part of your brain housing your insanity starts throbbing against your skull. As leader of Strapping Young Lad for more than decade, the maniacal passion and power that Townsend injects into the band's music has made them one of extreme music's superstars. Alien is sonic and surging metal that, at times, is terrifying, and at others inspiring.

Metal is written off by many as a genre where a bunch of woolly mammoths get together to make angry noises. But Strapping Young Lad prove that metal can be as finally crafted as a symphony and one of the most clever and diverse forms of music. Where else can music go from operatic hair-metal to thrash like Strapping Young Lad do on Love? and We Ride, and those doom-laden bass booms throughout Shitstorm and Shine are speaker killers. Now, SYL (well, Townsend at least) are a humorous bunch and metal is renowned for its giggle-inducing lyrics, but the acoustic cheese of Two Weeks is unnecessary. Sample lyric, "What are we gonna do now baby, maybe go to the beach." Only if you're going to go swimming with your jeans on, Devin. Despite that song, the great thing about Alien is it reinforces what metal is about - power. It is power music, not just obnoxious noise, so treat your ears.

Trivium aren't as nutty as SYL, but on their second album, Ascendancy, they make up for it with polish. This is one classy Harley Davidson of a metal album with classic melodic singing versus guttural roaring vocals, big riffs, and flourishes galore. Put it this way, like millions of other metallers out there, these boys have listened to a lot of Metallica, a fair bit of Guns N' Roses and a good dose of death. Trivium have a spit-polish power when launching into a highly flown chorus (on beautifully brutal title track Ascendancy) or savage riffing on the frantic Drowned and Torn Asunder that make them the metal band to watch. So move over Slipknot, and don't even think about it Mudvayne.

Most true metal bands couldn't care less for the mainstream, but now and then one comes along who stink of crossover potential. Whether they like it or not, Trivium is it.

In a more extreme direction we have Blood Red Throne - rampant, unrelenting death metal. Try putting their new album on your iPod and you might even freak Mr Apple out. Altered Genesis consists of 12 tracks, but within those 12 tracks they are broken down into 99 tracks. Example: Track 1 (1-7) is called Death to Birth while track 12 (91-99) is entitled Deliberate Carnage. With song titles like Flesh To Destroy, Ripsaw Resentment and Arterial Lust you can see Blood Red Throne (led by guitarist Tchort, who's a bit of a metal legend in Norway) are preoccupied with blood, gore and all things murderous. That subject matter is matched by monstrous music full of stabbing riffs and pounding super-human drumming. Not for the faint-hearted, or, in fact, for anyone with a heart.

A hell of a lot more straightforward, but no less heavy, is High On Fire. Their third album, Blessed Black Wings, makes a sublime racket and is a worthy equivalent to 2002's excellent Surrounded by Thieves.

It really is amazing how what sounds like a bunch of stoned lumberjack-types, who can't sing, can make the best noise heard in a long while. The rough and ready trio thrash and bash their way through the music, and come off sounding like one of those lesser known grunge bands from the early 90s, like Tad, perhaps. Mix in a bit of Motorhead and you've got it.

Producer Steve Albini, the former Big Black main man (Pixies - Surfer Rosa; Nirvana - In Utero) - who's renowned for his steely production - rivets the sound together so there are big bellowing gaps in the music that suit High On Fire's slacker metal sound. It is roguish music and somehow the abrasiveness of it echoes on. Highly recommended.

A lack of oomph is the problem on the debut album from Callisto. Unlike recent albums from Boston's Isis or California's Neurosis - two major influences on this young band - the surging beauty of True Nature Unfolds tends to waffle in parts rather than make an impression, which is surprising considering it is produced by Mieszko Talarczyk from Swedish intensity freaks Nasum. On Worlds Collide (a throbbing anthem) Callisto are your new favourite band, but epic and ambient metal is all about holding the intensity and making it burst. Sometimes Callisto just peter out a little. But they're young, with huge promise, so it's not too late for them to grab their music by the neck and give it a good throttling.

Strapping Young Lad: Alien
(Herald rating: * * * *)
(Century Media)
Vancouver veterans spit back with one of their best yet

* * *
Trivium: Ascendancy
(Herald rating: * * * *)
(Roadrunner)
Florida quartet lay down polished heaviness with sing-v-roar vocals

* * *

High On Fire Blessed Black Wings
(Herald rating: * * * *)
(Relapse)
Trio from California make bloodcurdling noise

* * *

Blood Red Throne: Altered Genesis
(Herald rating: * * *)
(Earache)
Led by Norwegian Tchort, this is 99 tracks of mutant death metal

* * *

Callisto: True Nature Unfolds
(Herald rating: * * *)
(Earache)
Finland's great young hopes go heavy on the beauty, but plod a little