Halo, Burnt by the Sun, Burst, Mastodon, and Recollection

Relapse Records: Nü metal, Öld metal, aRt metal, deaTH metal. Like Melbourne, Australia's "sound-excreting" duo Halo, whose sophomore apocalyptic message, Body of Light, quakes primordial, like underground nuclear testing at the concussion factory. Even the rocks howl, "Filling the Empty Spaces With Cash" yelling Earth's fate as a burnt out war hole. Jersey's Burnt by the Sun is having seizures on its own second LP, The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good, shredder Mike Olender defaming government with his extreme "vocal machine," not an axe. John Adubato's guitars firewall "180 Proof," but more "Arrival of Niburu" textures and hooks ("Pentagons and Pentagrams") are in order. Thirty-nine minutes of dead-zone TV close this Good book. Linus Jägerskog, lead singer of Sweden's Burst, crisps a few vox chords himself, the difference here being guitarists Jonas Rydberg and Robert Reinholdz, who hook 'n' texturize like any good Euro six-string tandem should. "Fourth Sun" and "Crystal Asunder" are the stained glass shattered by shit storm "Vortex." Another sophomore CD, Prey on Life is an alien bounty hunter. Bursting out of Atlanta, Mastodon's second release/first full-length, 2002's deadly Remission, has left its hoof-print on a growing Emo's fan base in Austin, no more so than on the heavies at Sixth Street pizza-slice haven Hoek's. Newly digipak'd with a DVD, Remission's "O'le Nessie" thrashing remains as monstrously metallic as its sole bonus track, Thin Lizzy progger "Emerald." Philo (Lynott) is green with pride wherever he resides. Thirty-five minutes of gig from Atlanta's Masquerade club, meanwhile, bad lighting and badass bassist profundo Troy Sanders top billed, never streamlines better than on closers "Workhorse" and "Crusher Destroyer." Relapse's other new DVD, Recollection, lances ulcers with 16 videos from throughout the label's aggro electro-shock history: High on Fire (juggernaut), Neurosis (corrosive), Alchemist (funny), Unsane ("Sick"), Alabama Thunderpussy (Blair Witch Skynyrd), Dillinger Escape Plan (destroyed), Today Is the Day (wanted), Amorphis (Farinelli), and Dead World (lobotomy). Finally, also from the vaults seeps sour Harvey Milk, Athens, Ga.'s early-Nineties answer to the Fuckemos. Righteously named for S.F.'s slain gay activist, the Milk's "retardedly hard" 7-inchers are gathered on The Singles, whose Peter Criss cover from his solo Kiss LP, "Easy Thing," is as inspired as the band's moniker. "Easy to Be Hard" is more like it. Relapse.com, "point.click.grind."