Identity Five

I Defy (Century Media)
by Scott Hefflon

Now in their tenth year of providing some of the best heavy music of all sub-genres, from all over the world, Century Media does it yet again with the fifth installment of the Identity series, this one subtitled I Defy. With 17 tracks and 76 minutes to skip around in, there’s a little something here for anyone into metal: heavy, power, new, black, death, doom, epic, Goth, hardcore, and the many schools within. And seeing as this sick puppy is a mere $4, if you consider yourself a metalhead just cuz you attended the travesty with the gall to call itself Woodstock, spend the bucks, shithead.I’ve reviewed most of these bands anyway, so I won’t waste the ink repeating myself, but let the record show that there’s a vast breadth of heavy music here – from brutal to beautiful, heavy music has expanded to such an extent, it crosses boundaries like never before. Forefathers like Metallica and – well, the list is very, very long – sound downright caught-in-a-rut in comparison. And rightly so. Heavy bands are spreading their wings and experimenting with classical, Goth, acoustic interludes, techno/industrial, hardcore, technical soloing, soaring melodies, lush harmonies and orchestration, and on and on and on. Yeah, and hip hop too, but I don’t wanna talk about that. So don’t just skim the surface, dig down into the rich soil that is heavy music. Revolutionaries speaking their minds the best way they know how: Iced Earth, Skinlab, Lacuna Coil, Turmoil, Sentenced, Katatonia, Nevermore, Old Man’s Child, Blind Guardian, The Gathering, Haste, Cryptopsy, Borknagar, Theatre of Tragedy, Angra, Jag Panzer, and Opeth.

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