SIX FEET UNDER ***
Death Rituals
Metal Blade
Are death-metal gurus Six Feet Under a blast of old-school grind that harkens back to the genre’s formative years, namely Obituary’s detuned droning and Cookie Monster-ish rumbling vocals? Or are they yet another band that have remained stagnant over the years? The answer to both questions is yes. On Death Rituals, SFU tear through your speakers with double-bass drums, sharp, chugging guitars and former Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes’ delightfully gross lyrics to “Death By Machete,” “Involuntary Movement of Dead Flesh” and “Shot In The Head,” while refusing to progress or grow in the slightest. While offering few — as in no — surprises, Death Rituals plugs along solidly and reliably. It’s neither exciting nor disappointing, for the exact same reasons. KEITH CARMAN

OHGR ***
Devils In My Details
SPV
Officially, “Ohgr” isn’t just Skinny Puppy frontman Ogre — it’s a band that includes studio wizard Mark Walk. But for pretty much everyone waiting to hear it, Devils in My Details is the third solo release from Ogre and will be judged on how it fits into his creepy, cacophonous canon. The guy’s hallmarks are all there: scream-of-consciousness lyrics about eco-catastrophes and animal rights (“You’re killing me with bacon, America!”) over layers of electronic fuckery and nerve-racking sound effects. It’s all a bit schizoid — machine-gun opener “Shhh” (ripped from both “Jesus Built My Hotrod” and “Ballroom Blitz”) and “Feeling Chicken” (a surreal waltz through factory-farming clucks and tubas) on the same disc? But the album is also great fun, particularly cult horror actor Bill Mosley’s devilish introductory diatribes. Devils In My Details is best enjoyed as a spoken word experiment, although hardcore industrialists will certainly find enough material here for wicked remixes. LIISA LADOUCEUR

OHGR PLAY THE OPERA HOUSE (735 QUEEN E) DEC 2.

BLACK SHIPS ***
Omens
New Romance For Kids
On Omens, Montreal’s beastly and thunderous Black Ships perfectly balance melodic tendencies bastardized by detuned aggression. Uniting Cancer Bats’ modest metallic edge with Cursed’s death-metal-meets-hardcore guttural prowess as well as the apocalyptic slant of High On Fire, Omens is direct and hyperactive, packed with girth and rabid fury. But while their redlining distortion initially creates a strong, haunting atmosphere, by the halfway mark it becomes a tiresome jumble of static detracting from their obvious abilities. When Black Ships step up the production aspects of their hardcore dirge, they may acquire the underground scene’s throne that was abdicated by Cursed. For now, they still have some plotting to do. KC

CALLAHAN ***
Moshpit
A mishmash of hardcore’s confrontational bravado, the lilting harmonies of emo and metalcore’s abrasive vocals and punchy guitars rammed through a Protest The Hero filter, Callahan’s eponymous effort is a confusing affair. Moderately reminiscent of the oddball attack and stylistic ramblings of Mr. Bungle but without as much talent, Callahan’s amalgamation of influences is impressively dynamic but the band have yet to refine it to the point of originality. Often their inspirations are exceedingly obvious. The end result is just too chaotic to be consistent or motivational unless the listener is dealing with a particularly strong case of A.D.D. KC

STRAIGHT READS THE LINE **
The Author
Distort
This quintet from Stoney Creek provide us with yet another chance to hear overly-complicated, technically qualified riff-rock, anchored by back-and-forth guttural/melodic vocals from singer Blake Prince and guitarist/vocalist Andrew Levasseur. It’s great that most of the songs fall under three minutes, but the Alexisonfire-style vibe doesn’t interest me, and without discernible hooks, it’s difficult to get a bead on these tunes. Even with such short songs, some feel meandering. With founding member Josh Mckenzie tragically passing away at age eighteen, it’s impressive to see they continued onward; it’ll be interesting to see what all of these young, musically all-over-the place metalcore bands wind up sounding like in a few years. Perhaps they’ll all become jazzbos? NICK FLANAGAN

DILLINGER FOUR ***
C I V I L W A R
Fat Wreck
Six years after their last release, this Midwestern punk powerhouse is back with a frothy pint of grit and grime. Perhaps to make amends for their dormancy throughout most of the Bush administration’s reign, several songs here seem like postscripts to the USA’s foreign-policy follies in Iraq. Elsewhere, D4 reassume their positions at the frontlines of the culture wars, taking snarky shots at celebrity-worship=(“parishiltonisametaphor”) and rock-star ego trips (The Art of Whore”). But besides coating their songs in a thin film of accessibility, the band sound like they’re retracing their old steps. After such prolonged teasing, it’s a disappointing consummation. ALEX NINO GHECIU

CRADLE OF FILTH ***
Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder
Roadrunner
Suffolk, England’s Cradle of Filth are back with another extreme metal history lesson. As with their previous concept album/biography, their eighth album explores the life and death of Joan of Arc’s war buddy-turned-Satanic-serial-killer Gilles De Rais. With production that’s as overwrought as any 15th Century biopic, Cradle of Filth enshroud their galloping riffs and double-bass-drum assaults in menacing film-score orchestrations and choirs. Unlike the brutal musicality, the lyrical gore-factor is surprisingly subtle, even though singer/lyricist Dani Filth seems oddly sympathetic to the killer’s plight. Despite being “Shat out of Hell,” De Rais’ execution finds him ascending to heaven as a pseudo-martyr. So much for subtlety. CHRIS BILTON