| Nuclear Blast has been around forever -- they’re German in origin. Recently they were bought up by Century Media -- I believe the corporate way of putting it is “they were welcomed into the Century Media family” -- and they moved their offices from Philadelphia to the West Coast, and you’d think this would have compromised their identity in some way, but instead they’ve just been kicking ass all year. It’s incredibly refreshing to have one of the bigger metal labels unleash a flurry of quality like Nuclear Blast has in 2001, mixing up sure-thing releases like Dimmu Borgir with next-big-thing records like Meshuggah’s “Rare Trax” and throwing in occasional you-oughta-buy-it-right-now surprises like “Festivals 2000,” a live CD that came out a month or two ago featuring three or four songs apiece from Crematory, Destruction, Hypocrisy, Raise Hell, and the present object of our interest, Canada’s conceptual death-metal art bandits Kataklysm. |
