It might have been cool had Toronto trio Demontage decided to call their Shadow Kingdom debut, “The Principle Extinction” as in, an extinction of the beliefs of a person or group, but The Principal Extinction, as in, either the initial or that of a school administrator, works too. This being their third album overall since forming nine years ago, I’m sure they thought it all out beforehand and picked that which best represented the music.

About that music: Demontage traffic in a heavy blackened thrash. Right in opener “Entourage of Demons Dances,” one can hear shades of Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer and Darkthrone, the latter evident not only in the relatively lo-fi production value of the drumming, but also the clear punk roots. But let it be understood: Demontage do not make for easy listening. The record is six tracks, two of which approach 10 minutes in length, of pure metallic fuck-all; the band’s reckless attitude injecting “Accursed Saboteur” and “Satan of Self (The Warrior)… and Seer of Truths (The Conjurer)” with an aggressively free-spirited feel.

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It was that special kind of cold that renders pants pointless because the wind goes right through them anyway. Nonetheless, I and the pants I decided to wear despite the futility made our way to The Clash Bar in Clifton, NJ, in plenty of time to catch Nimdok, ClamFight and headliners Iron Man in the surprisingly swanky venue. The floors were clean, the bar freshly wiped down, the lighting expensive. I’d never been to The Clash Bar before, and it hardly looked like the kind of place that would have a doom show, but hey, where Iron Man guitarist Al Morris goes, so go I.

Nimdok was up first; a kind of noisy throwaway trash rock that took elements from the ’90s AmRep scene probably without realizing it. The vocals were bad on purpose in a kind of punk rock way, but not really pulled off, and the impression I got was the young trio didn’t give a fuck about what they were doing. Sometimes that’s cool. Sometimes it just doesn’t sit well. I guess I was anxious to see the next bands, because I wasn’t buying it.

Needless to say, I survived, and they actually weren’t bad dudes and stuck around for most of the show despite being musically disparate to the other acts. You can’t ask for more than that really, when it comes to local bands. Everyone’s going to do what they do and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t and some like it and some don’t. You stand there anyway. That’s just the way it is.

With Diane Kamikaze of the famed WFMU DJing the evening, there were plenty of between-band moments of righteousness. She hit tracks from Darkthrone, Kreator, old Mastodon (you always forget how good that shit was until you hear it again after a while), and plenty of doom/stoner stuff, including “Avon” from the first Queens of the Stone Age, which sent me on a binge with that record from which I’ve yet to recover. Could be worse.

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To avoid running otherwise the risk of shameless self-promotion, I’ll just say that when a kickass band like Iron Man comes to your neck of the woods, you don’t miss it. That’s pretty much the deal. For my fellow Jerseyans, behold the following righteousness:

Released separately on the same day by Pittsburgh’s Shadow Kingdom Records, Revelation’s …Yet So Far and For the Sake of No One provide a look at one of Maryland doom’s longest running legacies as it was 14 years ago and as it is today. Respectively. Hellhound had the original release of …Yet So Far back in 1995, while For the Sake of No One is the brand new follow-up to last year’s Release and finds the band at perhaps their most mournful yet.

And I do mean mournful. For the Sake of No One — which maintains the Revelation lineup of Steve Branagan (drums), John Brenner (guitar/vocals) and Bert Hall (bass) — starts off with the woeful one-two punch of “A Matter of Days” and “Offset,” both of which creep at a true doom slow pace that just makes you want to hang your head. “Canyons,” the longest song at 9:11, hits hard in both musical weight and emotional content. The groove is solid, and there’s an under-produced feeling that pervades (Brenner handled recording and mixing, as with Release) that only winds up adding to the cult vibe throughout. This is doom for doomers, folks. Novices or anyone craving timing changes or math-metal parts needs to find themselves another boat.

Things do pick up somewhat with the shorter “On a Promotory” in the middle of the album, and there are some surprises hidden on Side B that contrast the straightforward dirge of For the Sake of No One’s forward face. “The Whisper Stream” boasts the record’s best (and maybe most extended) solo from Brenner, a moment of upbeat classic rock in a swirling sea of doom. The last few minutes of the extended “Vigil” have a bumping bass line from Hall and a lead line that speaks to ‘80s style of rock, and the closing title track starts off eerily quiet, only to blindside with yet another cut of the massive doom that typified the album’s first half.

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Put to tape in 1987, the six tracks that make up the studio-recorded portion of Reactor’s The Real World are a classic metal obscurity that comprises the best of the day’s heavy elements with just a touch of doom groove underlying. The band was born of the Maryland scene with lineup connections to Pentagram (most notably Joe Hasselvander who was in and out of the band on guitar), and their until-now-forgotten songs make their way out thanks to the fine work of Pittsburgh’s Shadow Kingdom Records.

I’ve made no bones about the fact that I find Shadow Kingdom’s ethic of unearthing bands like Reactor to be incredibly noble in the past, nor will I now. The Real World isn’t about to make anyone rich. It’s not a “Special 10 Year Anniversary Reissue” of something still in print. This is an original compilation of a lost metallic gem, put out because the label feels passionate about it. Because it sounds cool. Because how awesome would it be if 20 years from now someone came to you and wanted to put out your band’s original demo? This is love of metal in its purest form.

The songs themselves are pretty barebones metal, and it’s pretty clear from listening to the simple, punk-like structures of “Meltdown,” “Terrorist” and “Greenhouse” that Reactor was just getting started. “(When Your) Number’s Up” and “Real World” are a little more complicated, but the unquestionable high point of The Real World is the memorable “War Machine,” which most effectively blends the catchy, upbeat tone of the earlier material with Cold War-era social worry and a touch more complex melodicism. The chorus of, “The war machine is hungry/Feed the war machine,” says more than it even means to about the time in which it was written.

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I was going to give Dawn of Winter‘s The Peaceful Dead (Shadow Kingdom) the regular ol’ review treatment, but after checking out the lyrics for opener “The Music of Despair,” they’re worthy of an inspection all on their own. Here goes:

With lyrics by vocalist Gerrit Philipp Mutz and music by guitarist/vocalist J?rg Michael Knittel, “The Music of Despair” is a celebration of all things doom, shouting out artists like Penance, Mercyful Fate, Withcfinder General, Reverend Bizarre, Candlemass and others while proclaiming doom metal’s highest order. Like Saint Vitus‘ “Children of Doom” or even “Born too Late,” Sabbath‘s “Children of the Grave” or “Under the Sun/Everything Comes and Goes,” Dawn of Winter‘s track stumbles into the epic without realizing the solidness of its footing. At over seven minutes, it begins The Peaceful Dead — an otherwise solid but not necessarily landmark traditional doom record — on a note of aural celebration. Mutz is saying doom saved his life when he says in the chorus,

Doom is the soul of metal
Primordial and pure
Doom is the true essence of living
Immortal
My cure

It’s a story you hear time and again from doomers across the planet. No matter what country you’re from or culture you belong to, if you’re doom, that’s it. We’re friends. It’s an intercontinental band of social misfits and deviants — which can and has led to plenty of awkward conversations — but the community developed around the genre is like none other. Even hardcore, which has been treated to books and documentary films not yet afforded to the doom scene, sees rivalries between its various regional factions. If a Maryland doomer and a Chicago doomer were to get into a brawl (not saying it can’t happen), chances are it’s not because one disagrees with the way the other is “representin’.”

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On their probable swan-song, the now-defunct Maine traditional doom trio Ogre mounted what was likely their greatest achievement yet. After being together for a decade, the band released Plague of the Planet in 2008 on the suddenly-MIA Leaf Hound Records out of Japan. As ever, the band demonstrated the sound reasoning behind their becoming a New England institution, why so many thought them to be the best the region had to offer as regards trad doom. With all the ?70s vibes and nods toward Pentagram, Dio-era Sabbath and Mot?rhead, it?s a hard argument to counter. I won?t even try. Instead, I?ll just be happy that Pittsburgh imprint Shadow Kingdom Records saw fit to reissue the album and get it out to the masses (myself included) earlier this year.

Plague of the Planet tells the story of humanity?s demise and ultimate redemption at the hands of the machines we?ve made. It?s a familiar sci-fi theme, but Ogre handle it with grace and a flair for epic storytelling that puts oil wars in an entirely new context. Like Road Warrior meets Metropolis meets The Terminator with some role-playing nerdiness thrown in for good measure. The album?s art, like a comic book cover, goes a long way toward giving an idea of the band?s intent.

Like a lot of concept albums, the narrative lyrical approach means the individual songs are often without a chorus or traditional structures. Ogre skirt that by making the 11 individual parts of Plague of the Planet — seven of which feature vocals from bassist Ed Cunningham — one 37-minute track, so while parts like that dubbed ?Drive,? the third of the 11, has a catchy chorus, it?s basically absorbed by the largess of the material surrounding. This of course has its ups and downs, but what it forces the listener to do is take on the album as a whole, expose him or herself to the entire story and decide how they feel about Plague of the Planet on that level. There are no singles here.

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The strangest thing just happened. I was in my car on the way back from an RLE (?Real Life Engagement?) and listening to a record I?ve played a thousand times before. When that ended and I decided to load up Sinister Realm?s self-titled Shadow Kingdom Records debut one more time before setting fingers to keys to review it. All of a sudden, what was a normal blue Jersey sky clouded over in almost an instant, the wind picked up and suddenly things looked very bleak.

I?m not necessarily saying Sinister Realm?s first album has the power to block out the sun, but I wouldn?t count it out either. The Allentown, PA, double-guitar five-piece show a proclivity toward the ancient metallic secrets of old and couple it with more than capable melodicism across the nine tracks of the record. By that I mean the solos kick ass, the songs are memorable, the riffs rule and the vocals will have you hoisting your ale horn in triumphant celebration.

Metal. Very, very metal.

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