Occult Master is the latest release from Finland’s most prolific indie metal label, Inverse Records. It’s a self-titled debut album from an Oulu-based trio who deal in traditional heavy metal.

This first thing that’s noticeable is the title of the opening track, ‘Just Another Nail in the Failier's Coffin’; we thought we had learned a new word for an archaic artisan but unfortunately, it’s simply a misspelling of “failure”.  We’re not going to hold that against them though. For starters, they’re performing in their second language and also, The Smiths’ ‘Cemetry Gates’ is regarded as one of their masterpieces despite the poorly rendered title.

The album was recorded as-live with some overdubs, and is all the better for the warts-and-all production, or lack of production, if you prefer. It’s obvious from the first notes that Occult Master are heavily influenced by the metal of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It’s like listening to an unearthed recording from the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) that brought the punk template into the hard rock world. Fortunately, the sound is much better than many of those records. All the instruments are clear as a bell, and the guitars are satisfyingly chunky and crunchy.

Nowhere is the NWOBHM influence more notable than on ‘Heavy Metal Madness’; a proper old school celebration of the communion of the mosh pit. This is well-worn ground and Occult Master make no effort to reinvent the steel. They are indebted to Metallica and not far away from the sound of Slough Feg, in both their riffing style and vocal/lyric delivery.

It’s a style that has been sent up by Spinal Tap and Tenacious D and is most reminiscent of Canadian metallers, Anvil. Best known for the documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil, they are a band who faced, and continue to face, ridicule for their unreconstructed, unironic take on heavy metal that lacks self-awareness, when they should be appreciated at face value as an unreconstructed, unironic heavy metal band that lacks self-awareness.

So it is with Occult Masters. There’s something here for metal fans of every stripe, and it’s an unapologetically old-school, spiked leather, fist raised, glorious romp. Bang the head that does not bang \m/

Track list:

1.  Just Another Nail in the Failier's Coffin 
2.  Island of Leper
3.  Heavy Metal Madness
4.  Lucifer's Henchman
5.  Ground of the Damned
6.  Who Is Our Enemy
7.  Sorry Soul
8.  Soothing Swamp
9.  Gnarly Geezer

The Male Pattern Was Shot in the Heart

Released on September 25, I Was Shot in the Heart! is the debut album from The Male Pattern, a project by Will Schwartz (he/him), a songwriter, novelist, and English professor from Queens, NY. He began making music in the early 2010s as a co-songwriter/vocalist in Uncles with Daniel Bateman (who appears on this album) and Tom White of Frog before issuing one solo EP via Monkfish Records. Schwartz then shifted his focus to fiction writing, and his work has been published in Newtown Literary, Ninth Letter, The Baltimore Review, and The Briar Cliff Review, from which he received the 2017 award for literary fiction.

His first musical work in over a decade, I Was Shot in the Heart! is a character-driven, narrative work that explores and exploits Americana tropes to capture its time and place. It’s a concept album in the tradition of Darren Hayman’s Pram Town (dubbed a “Folk Opera”), Terry Allen’s Lubbock (On Everything), and Alex Cameron’s Forced Witness.

It’s a funny, intelligent, and violent album that shows Schwartz relishing writing a different kind of fiction, which is ugly, weird, unworkshopped, and most importantly, free of the constraints of academia and publisher appeasement.

The singles, ‘I’m a Soldier’ and ‘Charlie (The Robbery)’ will be released on August 14 and September 4, respectively.