Metal Ketchup #13: Maylene & the Sons of Disaster, Magnum, Master, more

Lucifer Was, The Divine Tree (Transubstans): This ancient Norwegian psych outfit reportedly first got together band-wise in 1969, stayed that way until 1974, then went their separate ways for 20 years. But they've put out three albums since 1997, and this latest one is real good. Seems like they have lots of people, too: Hammond organ player, three lead guitarists credited (one of whom doubles on Mellotron and another on Spanish guitar), a flautist, plus two of the instrumentalists and somebody else act as a choir sometimes. Adds up to a better Uriah Heep approximation than young whippersnappers Blood Ceremony or Jex Thoth have managed.

Magnum, Wings of Heaven Live (Steamhammer): This long-running double concert disc by this  long-running (formed in 1972, just three years after Lucifer Was; toured with Blue Oyster Cult in 1979) "British melodic rock" (with proto power-metal tendencies) unit seemed somewhat promising at one point, in the sense that I shelved it and kept "promising" myself I'd get back to it eventually. But I never got through the thing, at least while paying attention. Which probably means it isn't very captivating, though "Backstreet Kid," at least, seemed a decently UFO-like Springsteen/metal hybrid.

Manes, How the World Came to an End (Candlelight USA): Reformed Norwegian black-metal crew do musique concrete non-metal with no personality to speak of, but I enjoy its French rapping and trip-hoppiness. And I don't even mind the guy who intones like Peter Gabriel -- or is that Sting?

Master, Slaves to Society (Ibex Moon): Most ridiculous and/or offensive album cover of the year: naked ladies stand in line to perform oral favors on scythe-wielding pointy-eared zombie, after which he beheads them. Looks like it was drawn with black ink and red magic marker on plain white typing paper by some burnout bored during math class. I initially figured it was the cover of a prehistoric demo tape --  the murky notes hint that this murky Chicago noise might date back to the mid-'80s, when it served as a big influence on, uh, everybody from Death to Napalm Death. Unless that's a hoax I'm just a dumb sucker for believing, or maybe this is some kind of reunion session. Either way, the guitar riffs in tracks like "In Control" and "Anarchy Nearly Lost" and "Everything Is Rotten" grumble with unexpected mid-'80s nuke-rock catchiness, à-la-before-extreme-metal-got-too-unmusical-for-its-own-good. I still lack the stomach to wanna wade through the whole bog, though.

Maylene & the Sons of Disaster, II (Ferret Music): Good rustic thrash playing with boogiefied groove intact; invariably hard-to-take sore-throat yelling that at its most tolerable sounds like Alice in Chains, which means still pretty crummy (even kind of emo). More often the vocals are just ugly -- a shame, since supposedly the album is a concept set about "true tales of 1920s gangster Ma Barker and her prohibition-era real-life crime family," not that you can tell, and sadly they don't cover "Ma Baker" by Boney M. They list Willie Nelson among their influences, which is not remotely audible, but the Skynyrd influence might not be a total lie (or at least less a lie than in the cases of Clutch, Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, etc.), at least as far as the rhythm is concerned. Best track by far is a reasonably lovely closing guitar blues tapestry instrumental called "The Day Hell Broke Loose at Sicard Hollow." But Wino Weinrich's the Hidden Hand do this backwoods sort of legend-of-wooley-swamp metal way better on The Resurrection of Whiskey Foote. And Wino has a voice.