₅ 5 ^{Made Out} of Babies the ruiner (The end) The third album from Brooklyn’s Made Out of Babies is hardly your typical all-aggro-all-the-time metal album. Vocals swirl and break with PJ harvey-styled vulnerability, lyrics tell Tom Waitsian tales of world-weary veterans and ugly lovers, guitars provide cinematic atmosphere instead of crushing riffage. In essence, The Ruiner is an alterna-metal masterwork that recalls mid-’90s left-fielders like Faith no More, Babes in Toyland, and Jesus Lizard without really sounding like any of them. The star is lead singer Julie Christmas, who, more Mike Patton than Jarboe, has an inflection for every plot device—from sociopathic whispers to cleansing howls, to spooky story-raps, to just letting her amazing pipes paint the background. CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN 6 Nachtmystium aSSaSSinS: Black Meddle, Part 1 (Cen Tury MedIa) nachtmystium mastermind Blake Judd and his horde of meddlers—including blast-lord Tony Laureano (nile, 1349)—turned black metal on its shoddily corpse-painted ear this past June with Assassins. The album kills with its convergence of pitch-black psychedelia and storming anthem rock that harkens back to Pink Floyd, heroes they also reference in both the album’s title (see Floyd’s 1971 lysergic colossus, Meddle) and opening track, “One of These nights” (see Meddle’s opener, “One of These days”). Floydian allusions aside, Assassins propels nachtmystium’s increasingly progressive sonic acumen forward while laying the groundwork for their next chapter—you know, Part 2. J. BENNETT 7

IN THE REAR
REVIEWS
Meshuggah

Micke SandStrÖM

Amon Amarth twilight of the thunder god (Me TaL BLade) Is it possible to look back and move forward at the same time? absolutely, if you’re Sweden’s premier Viking death-metal quintet. Lyrically, this career-defining disc mines über-vocalist Johan hegg’s usual subjects, like seafaring adventure, glory to norse deities, and

death without regret. But the music exudes more mid-tempo majesty than on any previous amon amarth album, even surpassing 2006’s commercial breakthrough, With Oden on Our Side. The riffs are as catchy as early ’80s Priest or accept, from the title track’s anthemic gallop to the stomping defiance of “Guardians of asgaard.” Thunder Gods, indeed. LUCAS AYKROYD

8 Meshuggah oBZen (nuCLear BLaST) Following the nerdy atmospheric escapades, drum-machine programming, and (gasp) melodic segments of 2005’s Catch Thirtythree, Swedish prog-death masters Meshuggah seem to have rediscovered the value of sheer brutality. Their sixth album fuses the stuttering, mathy riffs of 1998’s Chaosphere with the unrepentant pummel of 2002’s Nothing, resulting in songs that are knotted and challenging, yet fiercely direct and heavy. “Combustion” starts with a spindly Tool-esque guitar line, then nine seconds later explodes like a pipe bomb, while the title track coughs and spits with impossible time signature shifts, but somehow retains coherent form. ObZen may not be Meshuggah’s most complex album, but it’s one of their best. JON WIEDERHORN

9 Torche Meanderthal (hydra head) For their second album, Florida joy-doom quartet Torche keep their shoes firmly stuck in the muck and their voices chiming forever heavenward, mixing tummy-upsetting bursts of sludge metal with glorious college-radio hooks. If their 2005 debut used detuned Melvins murk to reinvent the pop band, Meanderthal is simply a sticky blob of pure bubblegum, a record so catchy and cheery that it could be played on MTV next to Pink. Well, maybe if Torche weren’t metalheads by profession and noisemakers at heart: playing at foundation-rattlingly low frequencies, keeping their lyrics cryptic and inscrutable, and making gnarly washes of white noise with their broken, booming e-strings. CHRISTOPHER R. WEINGARTEN

10 Opeth waterShed (rOadrunner) In an era domi- nated by the hit-single, shuffle-play continued