Category: 2018

December 14, 2018 2018, Best of, Blog related 10 Comments

The Metal Pigeon’s Best of 2018 // Part Two: The Albums

This was undoubtedly the most difficult to narrow down year-end albums list I’ve ever had to put together. It involved whittling down a sizable nominee pool to the final ten, the last spot of which I must’ve switched out well over a dozen times, constantly rethinking myself out of making a final decision. As I’ve always done, I prefer to only list and discuss what I think were the ten best songs and albums in these lists, not my top 25 or 50 or more that some other sites do. I think sticking to a tight ten forces you to really think about what you listened to the most over the year, and more importantly what really blew you away instead of merely satisfied you. Albums that I really enjoyed at various points throughout the year aren’t here, not because they’ve fallen out of favor, but simply because there were other amazing releases crowding the field. It was a great year to be a metal fan. Let me know in the comments below if you agreed or disagreed with this list! 

1.   Orphaned Land – Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs:

In a year packed full of remarkable new albums by newcomers and veterans alike, a few of which would’ve been able to top a year-end list at any other time, Orphaned Land’s conceptual Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs towered above them all —- and it wasn’t ever close. After I penned my original glowing review of the album, I wondered if its extremely early release date (January 26th) would’ve eroded my enthusiasm for it as the year wore on. Whenever that question would pop up at random times many months later, I’d give the album a spin and would have those doubts immediately erased. I even gave myself a wide berth from the band after seeing them live for the first time ever in Austin at a spellbinding show on their May tour with Týr and Aeternam, thinking that the intoxication surrounding that experience (and repeated listening thru their entire catalog) would’ve clouded my judgment. Yet even after that level of precaution; when I sit here now in December and consider everything I’ve listened to over the year, and think about the nine other records that made the cut out of the nominee pool, I can honestly say that I’ve never been as confident as I am right now about declaring that this is the unquestionable album of the year.

Here Orphaned Land leans harder than ever before into the incorporation of Middle-Eastern folk melodies and instrumentation, infusing it in every song, weaving it not only through moments of delicate beauty but around their most pummeling, aggression laden riffs. The result is their most perfect, most fully realized recording to date, a flawless fusion of those two disparate worlds of sound. The songs are wildly diverse in style, tempo, and structure, the melodies lush and vibrant, and Kobi Farhi turns in the most inspired vocal melodies and performances of his career. He also delivers some of his angriest lyrics ever, but smartly channels everything through the compelling concept of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, giving narrative shape and structure to what is ostensibly an anguished protest album. The co-MVPs here might be guitarists Chen Balbus and new guy Idan Amsalem; who together not only erase any worries over the departure of founding guitarist Yossi Sassi, but put their stamp all over this album, unleashing waves of creative guitar and expressive bouzouki. The band also wisely chose to carry over from All Is One the use of an extensive supporting ensemble of choir singers, Middle Eastern percussionists and string players. It sounds like a lot. It sounds like it could be a mess in the wrong hands, but Orphaned Land has this music in their DNA. Their greatest strength is in knowing how to write songs that incorporate Middle Eastern folk melody as an integral, structural foundation of their music as opposed to mere window dressing. 

2.   Visigoth – Conqueror’s Oath:

It’s not the time nor place to go into it here, but when I do eventually attempt to make my case in writing that we’re in the midst of a truly inspired global power metal resurgence in these past couple years, albums like Visigoth’s Conqueror’s Oath will be part of the bedrock on which I build my argument. Part of why I’ve found myself paying far more attention to newer power metal bands coming out of the States and Canada is their tendency to unabashedly wrap their arms around the genre’s traditions and tropes both, almost reveling in their over the top nature and yearning for epic storytelling (such as last year’s album of the year Apex by Unleash the Archers). Visigoth simplified their approach for their sophomore record, leaning harder in the Manilla Road / Manowar / Virgin Steele direction, and the result is the most outwardly joyful record of the year. It was also my most played album throughout the year, just perma-lodging itself in my playlist for those daily commutes to work, the long drive to the other side of Houston for gigs, and on the old headphones while ambling through the grocery store. Songs like “Warrior Queen” are full of inventive twists amidst the trad-and-true, glory claw raising thunder, and “Blades In The Night” is the kind of perfect, anthemic magic you wish more power metal bands could manage to achieve. You know an album is awesome when it makes waiting for your oil change to finish a pleasure.

3.   Thrawsunblat – Great Brunswick Forest:

I’m prepared now to expect the unexpected with Thrawsunblat, who chose to follow up 2016’s year end list making Metachthonia with this all acoustic album, the decision itself being somewhat eyebrow raising. That it wasn’t an album full of maritime balladry ala “Maritime Shores”/”Goose River” from their first album was perhaps the bigger surprise, because guitarist-vocalist Joel Violette seemed to be a natural at that style. Instead he and drummer Rae Amitay (also of Immortal Bird fame) worked up songs that were strikingly aggressive, uptempo, and energetic yet still woodsy, rustic, and incense smoke scented. Things veer from the lush prettiness of the title track to the anthemic spirituality of song of the year listee “Via Canadensis” to the violent, furious roil of “Thus Spoke The Wind”, where Violette and Amitay employ tremolo riffing and blastbeat accented percussion —- on acoustic instruments remember! This was a clever, inspired re-imagining of what folk metal could be, an expansion of the very definition of the genre. More than that however, it was a personal sounding album that echoed with strains of the northeastern Canadian folk music that inspired it.

4.   Therion – Beloved Antichrist:

For many, Therion’s massive, three-disc spanning opera (like, an actual opera!) Beloved Antichrist was an immediate write off. I’m almost positive that the majority of folks who managed to take the step of listening through its entirety the one time never went back to it, and most never got past hearing a single track on YouTube or Spotify, and hey, I get it. As I remarked in my massively deep diving review for this project back in February, few Therion fans were happy about the band taking a half decade plus leave of absence for this project. Understandably, they might’ve been a tad less forgiving than usual when initially hearing the thing, and at first I wasn’t either —- that is until I switched my mindset to okay, I’m listening to the soundtrack to a stage performance, not a metal album mode that I was finally able to begin appreciating what Therion had achieved here. There are a heap of musical treasures within this thing, moments I came back to throughout the year repeatedly (“To Shine Forever” landed on the best songs list). I do think one’s enjoyment of it hinges on whether you can appreciate not just classical music, but opera as a musical form itself. I had to check myself and make sure my Therion fanboy wasn’t showing in putting this so high on this list, but sure enough, it was one of my most played through albums this year according to iTunes playcounts. I’d put it on in the background night after night when working on other things, but sometimes I’d sit and really focus on the lyrics, and I got to know the plot pretty well and had fun with it. Its a gargantuan achievement in its own right, something that was labored over for years by a composer who had already proven himself to be a wizard at marrying metal and classical music. If anything, Therion’s pedigree should warrant your giving it a second chance.

5.   Hoth – Astral Necromancy:


This was truly one of the year’s out of left field, standout surprises. I’d never heard of Hoth before (the band, not the planet…), but they completely captured my attention with this compulsively listenable opus of intricate, shifting, and downright unpredictable melodic black metal. Hoth’s music is a contradiction; it’s icy in tone befitting the band’s name, as bleakly cold and unforgiving as you would want a two person black metal band to sound. Yet these songs are loaded with major chord sequences that jet out of nowhere with an almost power metal-ish joyfulness. You hear a nice cross-section of all those traits on “The Living Dreams of a Dead God” where seemingly triumphant, Blind Guardian-esque major key guitars inform the lead melodies over the top of that deathly cold tremolo riff underneath. Vocalist/lyricist Eric Peters has the perfect tone for these songs, withering and fell, like an actual necromancer’s voice careening down a snowy, windswept mountainside to chill your very heart. But again, no matter how awesome the black metal aspects are, what really grabs me are these perfectly written power metal soaked melodic counterweights, to add splashes of sharp colors to what is ostensibly a gray affair. You might be wondering why I’m so taken aback by the addition of melody to extreme metal, not exactly a new or fresh concept to be sure, but just give my enthusiasm the benefit of the doubt and listen to this record. Its likely that its very much unlike anything you’ve heard before.

6.   Elvenstorm – The Conjuring:

Storming out of the apparently secret power metal stronghold of Grenoble, France(?!), Elvenstorm sailed under many radars way back in July when they released the most vicious, devastatingly aggressive album of thrashy, speedy power metal this year. If you only hear the intro melody and first riff sequence on album opener “Bloodlust”, you’ll probably think these guys are from Germany, so indebted to Kreator and early 90s speed metal tinged Blind Guardian is their rocketing guitar attack. But then you’ll hear vocalist Laura Ferreux swoop in, with her wild, almost punk edged melodic vocal and that français accent echoing off canyon walls. She’s likely to be a make or break proposition for many, her vocals often unnerving raw, but I think she’s one of the strengths of this record, her careening voice matching the intensity of Michael Hellström’s explosive riffing. Like Visigoth with Conqueror’s Oath, there’s an infectious enthusiasm here for old school metal, that bullet belt attitude and defiant strut. What makes Elvenstorm stand apart from anyone else is their straight-faced manner of going about it, something one could almost think of as charming. There’s a passion and intensity ripping through these expertly crafted songs —- that they hit me with something resembling the force of a hurricane is why The Conjuring is on this list.

7.   Exlibris – Innertia:

Soaring out of Warsaw as if in protest of all the attention we’re lavishing onto the great power metal pouring out of Canada and the States lately, Poland’s Exlibris dropped the best Euro-power album of the year in Innertia. This was my introduction to the band, and it turns out to be perhaps the best possible point of entry as its the debut of new singer Riku Turunen, the absolute tour de force of this album. Call him the Patrick Mahomes of power metal in 2018, but I haven’t been this bowled over by a new vocal talent in the scene in ages. His voice has the pure raw power of Mandrake-era Tobias Sammet with the distinctive pronounciation inflections of Timo Kotipelto. You might have already read about best song listee “Shoot For the Sun”, where he proves himself as a leading man in an ever soaring duet, but check out his jaw dropping range in “Incarnate” or his command of theatrics in “No Shelter”. Beyond amazing vocal performances, these are simply expertly crafted songs, structured around earwormy hooks yet loaded with progressive metal twists and turns. Daniel Lechmański’s guitars sound meaty ala Tad Morose or Brainstorm, and his riffs and chord progressions are all intriguing in their balance of straight ahead rockin’ and rich complexity. Speaking of balance, his having to bounce off of keyboardist Piotr Sikora instead of another guitarist seems to be a source of fruitful inspiration between the two. There’s a push and pull going on between each of their lead melody lines that refuses to sit quietly in Turunen’s immense shadow. 

8.   Immortal – Northern Chaos Gods:

I really didn’t think Demonaz and Horgh could pull it off, rather naively thinking that an Abbath-less Immortal record was more likely to be a disaster than anything close to a success. And in my defense, what reasonable Immortal fan could think that Abbath’s departure would somehow make a new Immortal album better? It seems illogical on the face of it. But sometimes weird things happen, and there’s nothing weirder in 2018 than Immortal Mach 2 turning in the band’s best album since Sons of Northern Darkness, and maybe even a top three Immortal album overall. This is just a relentless, tireless rush of old school second wave black metal reminiscent of the band’s first four albums but tempered with the riff density and cold, crisp production of the post At the Heart of Winter era. Demonaz’ ice demon approach on vocals is pitch perfect for this blend of Immortal, grim and fierce but with a lengthy drawn out utterance that’s coupled with a surprising degree of enunciation, unlike Abbath’s bizarre frog gargoyle barking approach. The nine minute epic “Mighty Ravendark” barely missed out on making the best songs of the year list; its about as perfect an Immortal song as I can imagine, with an epic buildup and satisfying (dare I say hooky?) refrain built on clever vocal phrasing. I really can’t think of any time in recent memory when a band has lost a key member and somehow thrived as a result… I’d have to go back to what, Metallica perhaps? Iron Maiden after Dianno? Call it a comeback, maybe even the greatest comeback.

9.   Judicator – The Last Emperor:

Yet another in an increasingly longer line of excellent releases from North American power metal bands, The Last Emperor was my introduction to Arizona’s Judicator. As it turns out, it was the perfect introduction too, being their most early 90s Blind Guardian era inspired work, including a guest appearance by the bard Mr. Hansi Kursch himself. A lot has been written about this very apparent influence, and its hard to ignore for sure, but there’s so much more going on here than mere hero worship. Guitarist Tony Cordisco aimed to write songs that were not only tight and concise, but purposefully and methodically energetic throughout. There are no ballads here, although brief dips into acoustic territory help to spice up the intros or bridges of certain songs to keep things varied. Its intriguing to hear an American power metal band so infatuated with the traditional European interpretation of the style. I can hear jagged edges at the corners of Judicator’s sound, little things like the sharp teeth on that straight ahead attacking riff sequence in “Raining Gold”, or the early Iced Earth influence that comes through in vocalist John Yelland’s aggro counterpoint to Hansi in “Spiritual Treason”. Judicator also seems to be filling a sonic space in power metal that was long ago left vacant by the Blind Guardians and Helloweens and Edguys of the world, one I had long ago hoped would be filled by the now sadly quieted Persuader and Savage Circus. I don’t mind if my power metal bias is showing here, because Judicator is assuming the mantle of this specific style in the here and now as a recently formed power metal band delivering an amazing new album this year. This is the stuff that will keep the genre going strong into the future. Consider me grateful.

10.   Dimmu Borgir – Eonian:

This one might raise a few eyebrows, but I just could not deny how much I listened to Eonian throughout the year. It was an album that I would listen to when in the mood for something fierce and biting, but also when I wanted something orchestral and epic, as well as melodic and complex. I consider myself a Dimmu fan, but I had been critical of them throughout the years, not completely enjoying an album since 2001’s Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia. Not only was this the first time since then I could say that I loved a new Dimmu album from front to back, but its honestly up there right next to Enthrone Darkness Triumphant as my second favorite of all their albums. The inspired songwriting in “I Am Sovereign” reminds me of that legendary album’s sense of playfulness with black metal song structures; here with an inversion of blazing riffing in the chorus instead of the verses, with regal string punctuations that would sound at home in a Carach Angren song. The band took care to increase the distinctiveness of their major sonic elements this time around, instead of the usual symphonic black metal mash up they had been doing. On Eonian, the black metal parts sound more black metal than ever, and the orchestral parts lean just as hard into their majestic symphonic grandeur. Its a subtle distinction that allowed them to sharpen their songwriting, to shape these songs with muscular force and gorgeous expressiveness. Its a shame that just like Cradle of Filth with their truly excellent past two albums, Dimmu seems to be getting glossed over this year as having released more of the same. Those are lazy opinions from people who haven’t listened close enough. This is a career rejuvenating work from one of the genre’s most creative artists.

December 6, 2018 2018, Best of 4 Comments

The Metal Pigeon’s Best of 2018 // Part One: The Songs

This was a year bursting with awesome new releases, and I know it sounds like an exaggeration, but I’ve never had this much difficultly in putting together my year end lists. Fortunately the songs were a little easier than the albums to sort through, and I’ve been able to narrow down a list that includes not only highlights from spectacular albums, but isolated gems from otherwise unremarkable releases. These were almost always songs that I listened to more often than others, verified by iTunes play counts and my own shaky memory, but others were just instantaneous nominees based on their initial impact. I tortured myself for a few days with the ordering here, reworking things several times before feeling satisfied. Let me know in the comments below if you agreed or disagreed!

1.   Visigoth – “Warrior Queen” (from the album The Conqueror’s Oath)

On an album that made a Visigoth fan out of me, “Warrior Queen” was the unquestionable highlight for its combination of brawn and beauty. Built on 80s metal swagger, hard rock strut, thunderous riffs, and Jake Rogers gritty steel-cut voice, this would be a tremendous tune even without the emotive Jethro Tull moment in the middle. It comes in the form of a flute solo, courtesy of Rogers himself, accompanying his most Mathias Blad-ian vocal at the 3:44 mark, the cherry on the proverbial sundae. A song like this by a relatively new band shouldn’t work, it should reek of the worst kind of Manowar-isms, hamminess and self-importance —- but “Warrior Queen” is emblematic of something that’s seeping into the USPM/North American trad/power resurgence of these past few years: A sense of exuberance and fun with the very idea of metal itself, where cliches are comforts and cool ironic detachment is the worst kind of boring. 

2.   The Night Flight Orchestra – “Turn to Miami” (from the album Sometimes The World Ain’t Enough)

This was the culmination of six years worth of honing in on a perfect recreation of that late 70s/early 80s sound, not only in sound but in songwriting structure, vocal layering and slightly out of touch prog-rock pomposity. That “Turn to Miami” arrived on NFO’s fourth album is almost too perfect, their own path to a song like this mirroring the way we can imagine it would have for any successful band of that halcyon era. Its not the kind of song you throw on the debut or even the sophomore album. This tune arrives after a few gold and platinum albums, during that phase when the band is jet setting across the globe on private planes with champagne, parties on hotel rooftops with supermodels that go til sunrise, cocaine decorating the marble bathroom counter tops, and waking up to find David Coverdale passed out in an empty jacuzzi. NFO conjured up a sound here that’s glitzy, lush, and fervent with a huge assist from talented backing vocalists (the “Airline Annas”), and they also managed to dream up a music video that leaned into the idea of rich, self-important rockers wearing shoulder padded pastel sport coats selling a heady concept with barely disguised sexual overtones. 


3.   Kobra and the Lotus – “Let Me Love You” (from the album Prevail II)

The chief highlight from this year’s surprisingly strong Prevail II, “Let Me Love You” was the kind of song that Kobra and the Lotus had been needing to write for years now. An unabashedly emotive, some would say sappy song that pulled from the same vein of power rock that Pat Benatar and Heart mined in the 80s for inspiration. That this song has a hook that can rival the best of those artist’s major hits is a triumph for Kobra Paige and guitarist Jasio Kulakowski (who co-wrote this with former guitarist Jake Dreyer and producer Jacob Hansen, who seemingly can’t miss these days in his many many projects). Paige’s voice has that Doro-esque level of power but tempered with Ida Haukland’s range and emotive capability, and she knows how to time her inflections as well as Floor Jansen. While the band almost got there with last year’s single “Light Me Up” (from Prevail I), they’ve stumbled upon their first bonafide could-should-be radio hit… the question is whether that central guitar riff will be too heavy for programmers and leave this song in too commercial for metal / too metal for radio purgatory.

4.   Judicator – “Spiritual Treason” (from the album The Last Emperor)

Much has been said about Judicator’s obvious musical influence from Blind Guardian, so maybe it was a bit on the nose to feature the bard himself Mr. Hansi Kursch as a guest vocalist on “Spiritual Treason”. Yet credit the songwriting prowess of guitarist Tony Cordisco and vocalist John Yelland in crafting one of Hansi’s most electric and inspired guest vocalist spots to date. Keying in on Tales/Somewhere Far Beyond era Guardian in structure and spirit, this is a lean, muscular, speedy power metal epic the likes of which we’ve not heard Hansi sing on in ages. Yelland himself turns in a fine performance too, his slightly higher register a nice complement to Hansi’s, but Cordisco might actually get the star turn here —- from his frenetic riffery, his confident clean acoustic work, and that gorgeous multi-part solo. Andre Olbrich would be proud.

5.   Therion – “To Shine Forever” (from the album Beloved Antichrist)

This one stuck with me all throughout the year, the penultimate “song” on Therion’s massive, three disc/46 track behemoth opera Beloved Antichrist. Though many may have taken a single pass through this recording and rejected it as fast as a mouse click, I’ve found it to be a treasury of majestic musical moments. And the key term here is musical, set aside metal for a bit and just consider “To Shine Forever” as a beautiful, cinematic piece of music. This is a vivid slice of the kind of thing Therion has been captivating hearts and minds with from Theli onwards; chiming minor key acoustic guitars, sweepingly elegiac strings gracefully ushering the proceedings —- this time accompanying a pair of gorgeous classical voices entwined in a duet instead of Therion’s usual Accept meets Maiden rhythmic guitar attack. Its only flaw is that its too short, a mere 2:07 in run time, but its aching, longing emotional pulse, and its evocative lyrical poetry subsist long after its over.

6.   Omnium Gatherum – “The Frontline” (from the album The Burning Cold)

On a largely terrific album, “The Frontline” stood out for its almost retro Gothenburg sound and approach, instantly burning onto my mind with conjured up memories of classic era In Flames. It must’ve been the clean guitar patterns in the verse over Jukka Pelkonen’s slowly muttered vocals that brought me back to In Flames “Satellites and Astronauts” off Clayman, or maybe it was “Jester Script Transfigured” from Whoracle. Whatever it was, long suffering In Flames fans can instantly sniff out something that reminds us of that band’s long distant classic era, simply because few things sounded like it (even at the time). I’m not sure why OG, a Finnish band who has a very defined sound of their own stumbled onto this particular Swedish influence here, but it spawned an understated epic. The appeal of melodeath, regardless of country of origin is in its ability to convey incredible emotion without lyrics, and Markus Vanhala and Joonas Koto’s guitars cry out heart wrenching melancholy. They also merge their own OG sound into the mix at the 3:20 mark, with a keyboard lead into a guitar solo that rockets into the atmosphere. Forget crappy Christmas music, this is all the joy you need right here.

7.   Exlibris – “Shoot For the Sun” (from the album Innertia)

Arriving on the most convincing Euro-power metal album of the year, Exlibris’ Innertia, “Shoot For the Sun” is the kind of song that sounds so effortless, its melody so natural, yet so many bands struggle to write convincingly. It was the standout on an album completely void of mediocrity, and I’d find myself circling back to it for a few extra listens every time I played the album all the way through. The stars here are new vocalist Riku Turunen and guest vocalist Ann Charlotte Wikström, who pair together perfectly. Towards the end during that soaring, emotionally charged cliff hanger crescendo, both of their voices weave around each other in a dazzling display. Its rare for duets to find those moments, because its usually a trade off of vocal parts or two voices so uneven in power that one naturally outweighs the other. I’m particularly fond however of Turunen’s intro vocal, where you heard kaleidoscope shades of Timo Kotipelto and Tobias Sammett in tandem, a little detail that brings out the power metal fanboy in me.

8.   Judas Priest – “Guardians / Rising From Ruins” (from the album Firepower)

I think this would’ve been higher on this list had the album come out later in the year, because I burned myself out hard on playing this pairing over and over again. I’m including both “Guardians and “Rising From Ruins” as one entry because they are in essence one song, the former a direct intro for the latter and only arguable by the inclusion of a track separation marker on the album for whatever reason. I told the story of when I first heard this song on the MSRcast around that time (when was this? March-ish?) because I was actually driving to my cohost’s place to record a new episode of the podcast when it came on. Its in the middle of the album, the centerpiece ostensibly, and I was already more than impressed with everything I had been hearing, but this intro piece floored me. So jaw-droppingly beautiful is “Guardians”, with its crescendo piano and guitar buildup, so epic and goosebump inducing, that my only reaction was to start laughing like a right fool. I couldn’t stop, it was like my brain had been overcome by joy and was stuck in giddy mode. By the time “Rising From Ruins” came on I was already running through my mind what I was going to say about the record on the podcast —- a litany of superlatives, spittle flying in every direction as I’d rave like a prophet. Thankfully I composed myself to be a little more measured in the end, but these two pieces of music provoked one hell of an emotional reaction in me where few things do. 

9.   Suidakra – “Ode to Arma” (from the album Cimbric Yarns)

This was a special song on an experimental acoustic album that largely failed to move me otherwise, and a song that’s been in practically daily rotation since the album’s November release. Everything that works on “Ode to Arma”; the mystic tone, the pure emotive strength of Sebastian Jensen’s vocal, specific endearing lyrics, and the layering of unorthodox melodic arrangements are the very things that somehow work against the rest of the songs on the album —- in short, they struck gold here. Of particular note is the melodic shading by guest vocalist Sascha Aßbach, and the fragile piano utterances performed by Arkadius, both working to create a lushness to the soundscape that adds to the otherworldly feel at work. As I mentioned in my review for the album, I’m not too informed about the original fantasy concept underpinning things here. But the central lyric, “The farther you travel / the closer I hold in you my heart”, reminds me quite a bit of the stories of some RPGs I’ve played, even a little of Tolkien in certain Silmarillion steeped stories. Suidakra doesn’t really touch romantic themes all that much, but they handle it skillfully here, with ache and melancholy.

10.   Thrawsunblat – “Via Canadensis ” (from the album Great Brunswick Forest)

This was the most anthemic, joyful blast of woodsy, rustic noise on Thrawsunblat’s uniquely excellent acoustic blitz Great Brunswick Forest. That it starts off quirky, with those sharp frenetic attacking plucks of the strings in the acoustic guitar equivalent to a drum count-in is part of its incessant charm. Joel Violette also turns in one of his most captivating vocal hooks to date, built on the strength of the repeating “on we go” vocal fragment that sounds practically mythic when it lands during the nearly a capella bridge midway through. This is also his most positive lyric to date, a cathartic paean to the strength of spirit and moving forward. I particularly love when the electric guitar comes in, the band seemingly so charged by the song’s energy that they couldn’t help but unleash a blast of feedback and muted crunch to further rattle the cage. Drummer Rae Amitay’s aggressive performance here and throughout the album is worthy of praise on its own, and she seems to know just where to punctuate with an extra loud hit or three. This was a re-imagining of what folk metal could sound like, acoustic and woodsy sure, but uptempo and fierce.

November 29, 2018 2018, Folk Metal, Melo-Death, Suidakra Post a Comment

Suidakra Unplugged: Cimbric Yarns

I’ve been a recent convert to Suidakra, having heard the name throughout the years but only really investigating around five years back with 2013’s Eternal Defiance, an album that landed high on that year’s best albums list. It wasn’t their best album I’d realize upon investigating their back catalog, but it was impactful on me at that time, I played it constantly and loved its merging of a more subdued melo-death approach with bright, almost power metal infused Celtic folk metal. At times throughout their career, the band has leaned closer towards one of those poles than the other, always swaying back and forth from album to album. Lately, Arkadius Antonik had been fond of including one or two fully realized acoustic folk songs in the midst of the past few albums, and they were almost always spectacular. The rare exception came on the band’s last proper studio album, 2015’s Realms of Odoric, where “Braving The End” was a bit unfocused. That aberration with its weird Nick Cave soundalike male vocals made me a little worried when I heard that the next record would be all acoustic. Its the kind of idea that sounds cool in theory but is always harder to pull off convincingly —- I think back to how underwhelming Opeth’s Damnation sounded midway through, or how bewildering and difficult Borknagar’s Origin turned out.

But its not impossible to accomplish: Eluveitie pulled it off last year with Evocation II, and very recently Thrawsunblat knocked it out of the park with Great Brunswick Forest. There’s no one way to go about it, but the general rule is to pick a direction and lean hard into it, without hesitation or tentativeness in one’s sound or songwriting approach. In Eluveitie’s case they chose to focus on the bright, shimmery, uptempo nature of the European folk music at the heart of their folk-melodeath hybrid and the result was music that could’ve felt at home at a renaissance faire, fun and colorful (I’m not alone in thinking this, I was just at the Texas Renaissance Festival this past weekend where one of the acoustic bands did a cover of “Inis Mona”). Thrawsunblat made the bold decision to not attempt to emulate the excellent “Maritime Shore” acoustic lament from their first album, and instead decided to eschew balladry and approach their acoustic album as if they were writing for a regular metal album, albeit one recorded acoustically. The result was a surprising, wildly aggressive and punchy album that only served to reinforce the band’s Canadian maritime folk roots, demonstrating how it informed all aspects of their sound, not just the slower, softer side. Coming back to Suidakra’s Cimbric Yarns then, its readily apparent after many listens that Arkadius didn’t really hone in on a specific plan of attack for these songs, other than to write them as narrative-vocal driven. That creates a consistent thematic feel across the album, and these songs do feel bound together as a result, but it takes a songwriter that is specifically talented in writing with that kind of approach to make it work across ten continuous tracks. Arkadius is awesome at cranking out his very particular blend of melo-death, with its epic lifts and aggressive jabs, but Blind Guardian-esque narrative focused acoustic balladry? That’s not really his forte, and it shows. 

The stellar exception to that statement is the album highlight and first single “Ode to Arma”, which was a little difficult to decipher on first listen but had enough charm to keep me hitting repeat on YouTube before the album’s release where I quickly grew to love it. Its a majestic and melancholic song, that combination of emotions that Arkadius has managed to convey the best in his previous rare acoustic moments. Its strength is in longtime Suidakra contributing vocalist Sebastian Jensen’s clean, emotive lead vocal. He has a smooth, hefty voice, with frayed edges towards the end of phrasings, its closest comparison perhaps is perhaps Dan Swano. Here, his vocal lines are introduced, punctuated, and dance partner swung around with delicate yet confidently performed acoustic guitar patterns. It sounds like a sad song and the title and lyrics reinforce this, and it serves as a good reminder that this is an album with a story, though how much we’re expected to know about these characters is up in the air. I think its hard to expect fans to have an emotional attachment to a fantasy world created just for an album… those attachments usually come in literature or film first, and songs can serve to build on those ideas or concepts. Ask even the most die hard Blind Guardian fan if he or she really did a deep dive on the story line for Beyond the Red Mirror —- its not impossible, but highly unlikely.

The tambourine beat led “At Nine Light Night” is another highlight, the most traditionally structured ballad you might expect that would wind up on an acoustic Suidakra record. I think the weird Dracula’s castle keyboard orchestration towards the end could’ve been left on the mixing room floor, but that minor quibble aside this is as stirring and elegant as songs in this vein can be. But the problems surface in tracks that should be tent poles for the album, like the solid ideas presented in “Snakehenge” that are marred by woeful melodic choices and under cooked songwriting. Where Jensen was the star of “Ode to Arma”, he’s a liability here, his voice jarringly at odds with the nature of this particular melody. And one wonders, if they heard these problems in the recording process, why not beef up the guitars with some added layers or maybe re-write the lyrics so his vocal lines are so awkward in connecting to the music? The particularly glaring line here is “… arise brave people, join the cause!”, and though the concept of rhyming is often over emphasized in songwriting to a fault, it does help to bend to that core principle a little and particularly in terms of meter. Similarly, “A Day and Forever” commits the unforgivable sin of somehow making the wonderful Tina Stabel sound out of place and kind of hard to listen to. There’s nothing about the underlying guitar patterns that support her vocal melody, or even complement it or melodically respond to her lyrics. I do love the sped up acoustic run after the first verse, as well as the subtle orchestration that soon supports it, and the use of banjo here is excellent. But the compelling gravitas Stabel had on previous albums (and the awesome cover of the traditional “Mrs. McGrath”) isn’t present here, and I think that’s a shame.

I’m loathe to criticize Suidakra at all, but I’ve done it before for 2015’s Realms of Odoric, and the truth is that the band’s catalog has been consistently inconsistent. Arkadius is capable of amazing things but sometimes it just doesn’t come through, and one wonders if it comes with the territory of his prolific output. There’s a feeling across Cimbric Yarns that this was an album that needed a longer gestation period, more thought given to how these songs should be written and whether it really was critical to impart much of a storyline here. Isn’t it possible for projects like this to be created as soundtracks to a book we haven’t read or a movie we haven’t seen yet? I ask this aloud because I’ve become wary of bands foisting their concepts ahead of the ideal end goal of writing amazing songs. This album is connected to the storyline in the debut album of the Realms of Odoric side project Arkadius has with artist Kris Verwimp, though how exactly I’m not sure. Again I’ll ask, who is deep diving into this storyline? What is this fantasy world and why should I invest so much in it when its not readily available for me to process? These are pressing questions on my mind as a fan lately because I used to want to give bands the time of day and really attempt to immerse myself in their concept albums, but at some point I had to admit… I didn’t know what the hell the storylines for the first two Avantasia albums were about. I kind of still don’t! But I damn well know exactly what Hansi is referring to in the various songs of Nightfall In Middle Earth, because its not packing the entirety of its storyline within its running time —- there’s an easily accessible (albeit not readable, perhaps) story in print that anyone can optionally turn to if they really want to go in depth. Those songs don’t spell out entire events, they’re merely emotional reactions to those events described elsewhere (a bardic notion if you will). Again, I really hated the acceptance of my reaction towards this album, which boils down to me yanking a mere two songs out of its tracklisting to throw on the iPod. I like Arkadius a lot, he seems like a genuinely great, wonderful, friendly guy and he’s a fellow Houston Texans fan to boot (!), so in that spirit I’ll just say I’m looking forward to the next proper Suidakra album and will be rooting for him.

November 4, 2018 2018, Amaranthe, Black Metal, Death Metal, Elize Ryd, Folk Metal, Power Metal, Uncategorized 13 Comments

Autumn Harvest Pt II: New Music From Thrawsunblat, Amaranthe, Brainstorm, Wolfheart and More!

The new releases are plentiful throughout October, and fortunately I’ve been better about keeping on top of them this year than I have in the past. Some of these are albums I’ve been looking forward to for most of the year, the new Wolfheart being chief among them. I will admit to being extremely curious about Amaranthe’s Helix, their first post Jake Berg release and debut of new clean singer Nils Molin (of Dynazty fame). Some of you might remember that I wasn’t that keen on their last record Maximalism, which saw Berg’s input and role greatly diminished and as a result led to his departure (which had the silver lining of resulting in a really fun record by Cyhra, his new band with Jesper Stromblad). And of course there’s a new album by Germany’s trad metal stalwarts Brainstorm, a band I’ve been a fan of since way back in the early 2000s during the Metus Mortis / Soul Temptation era. There’s something appropriately fitting about these guys delivering a new record this particular year when I think power metal is in the midst of a sweeping artistic resurgence, a reminder that there are still older bands who have stayed relatively consistent with their style when many of their peers started incorporating hard rock / AOR stylings. But does the new album stack up against the staggering amount of excellent releases by newer power metal bands? I’ll tackle that and other burning questions in the reviews below!

Thrawsunblat – Great Brunswick Forest:

I’ve written about Canada’s Thrawsunblat before, with the band’s 2016’s album Metachthonia landing on that year’s best albums list. Borne out of the incense smoke of Woods of Ypres, former Woods guitarist Joel Violette along with Immortal Bird vocalist Rae Amitay (here on drums) have been quietly releasing amazingly strong blackened folk metal records since 2013, and its been interesting to behold the range of this project, from maritime folk infused charm to blistering black metal fury. Their folk aspect is at once inspired by and very removed from the European folk that we commonly associate with the idea of folk metal, with Violette embracing his native roots of all things Canadian and pushing to the fore folk music of Northeast Canada and in particular the Atlantic coast. I’m only passingly familiar with that kind of music, but I gather that its related to that strain of New Englander lyrical folk song that I’ve found across the years, not quite sea-shanty material but musically joyous all the same. The black metal sieve that Thrawsunblat run this folk music through results in something that is rather unique across the folk metal landscape, one very different from other North American black metal artists that are mostly from the Pacific Northwest.

All that being said about the band’s rich folk influences, Great Brunswick Forest is a surprising album for Violette and Amitay to release right now as a followup to what was a roiling, furious black metal affair in Metachthonia. Picking up where the band left off from the plaintive maritime folk of “Goose River (Mourner’s March)” and the gorgeous gem “Maritime Shores” from the Wanderer album, the new record is an entirely acoustic endeavor, except that it doesn’t behave like the way you’d expect a typical acoustic recording would. That means instead of ballads and forlorn laments, these songs are uptempo,  jaunty affairs, bright and bursting with chiming guitars, lively violins, and a swinging percussive attack. The album starts out with its most representative model of this in “Green Man of East Canada”, a song that owes its lyrical influence directly to folk music, with its tale of two strangers pausing to speak near a darkened wood. Violette is a sharp, nuanced lyricist, and you can tell that he really loves the vein of woodsy Canadian folk that he’s clearly tapping into here, relishing it with every line and stanza; “I’m no stranger to these lands, / Though they’re not my own. / I left with the changed tides /  To call this Brunswick kingdom home”.

Things get more adventurous musically with the aggressively uptempo “Here I Am A Fortress” and the chaotic frenzy heard in “Thus Spoke the Wind”. The former boasts some tremolo-esque acoustic guitar patterns amidst the most traditionally black metal song structure on the album, and the cross pollination of style and instrumental medium is strange to behold at first, but its such a well written song that you become accustomed to the jarring juxtaposition quickly. A key component in making experiments like this one successful is the fiddle playing of one Keegan MC, who is all over this album and really becomes the musical glue and stylistic motif throughout. He has a way of engaging his instrument to create moments of dissonance that support the acoustic tremolo sections and give them a dose of ringing, electric vibrancy. But its Amitay who steals the spotlight in “Thus Spoke…” with her unleashing a battery of what you might term acoustic blast beats during the middle instrumental passage, pushing the way forward for tremolo style acoustic guitar riffs and slicing fiddle blasts to barrel forward in the album’s heaviest, most astonishing section. It was a little chaotic to make heads or tails of at first, but now the song is a favorite of mine, and I always seem to pay attention to that instrumental break.

The absolute show stealer of a song here however is “Via Canadensis”, where I think Violette sneaks in some subtle electric guitar throughout to add some muted crunch to what is a joyful, perfect slice of folk metal. I get a very strong Woods 5 vibe from this song, and musically it wouldn’t have felt out of place on that album where David Gold played around with contrasting musical and lyrical clashes. Lyrically though, this is Violette at his most positive, singing during the refrain “On we go — to the standing stones we’ve yet to raise!”, and that lyric takes on a mythic quality during the nearly a capella mid-song bridge. Similarly, I love the lyrical sentiment and supporting musical sweep that pins together the second half of “Dark Sky Sanctuary”, where Violette delivers his most smooth vocal melody yet in a hooky, Vintersorg-ian chorus. Like the folk metal legend himself, Violette’s vocals are probably going to be hit and miss for some, but frankly most of these songs wouldn’t sound right with another singer, having been attuned to his voice in the writing process. But “Dark Sky Sanctuary” is the exception, as I could hear this slice of folk-pop magic being sung by anyone and everyone, including a female voice (hopefully at some point YouTube will yield a cover version of this). This a magical album, particularly in its arrival at this time of the year when autumn is making its strongest entrance in years. I can’t predict where Violette and Amitay will take Thrawsunblat next, but I’m absolutely over the moon about where they’ve been throughout their career.

Brainstorm – Midnight Ghost:

So we all have our comfort foods right? Mine would be mundane but occasionally essential things like sourdough bread with real butter, soft chocolate chip cookies in bar form like my mom used to make, or whole wheat toast spread with peanut butter and a drizzle of honey with a cup of coffee —- actually this is starting to sound like the ramblings of one that has recently begun another bout of carb kicking (dammit). But thankfully here’s my metal equivalent of comfort food back with a new release to help take the edge off, as Brainstorm has been consistent in familiarity and quality for the better part of two decades now. Its a little over-simplifying to refer to them as meat and potatoes metal, because underneath those chunky riffs and earwormy choruses is a Nevermore-esque progressive technicality. Singer Andy B. Frank is one of the most underrated/overlooked vocalists in metal, capable of an operatic tenor, as well as a gritty, Jon Oliva-esque snarl perfect for the kind of heavier trad that Brainstorm specialize in. They’re a perfect “centering” band, for those times when you feel you’ve gone too far on the avant-garde/blackgaze/ambient/noise/funeral doom end of the metal spectrum or perhaps too far down the Rhapsody/Freedom Call side and need a reminder of metal at its most melodic AND heavy; so you queue up a classic like Soul Temptation or Metus Mortis (or better yet, this still exceptional live set at Wacken 2004 that is the epitome of everything wonderful about our genre) to get yourself right.

Its commendable that Midnight Ghost is the band’s twelfth release, as they’ve been knocking out records at far more regular intervals than most metal bands, at times even delivering two in back to back years. Whats absolutely astonishing however, is that this may very well be the most inspired and accomplished album they’ve ever made, in a recording career that started way back in 1997. Because the core of their sound hasn’t changed over their career, aside from a more welcoming embrace of the choral vocal backed chorus and a touch more symphonic keyboard dressing, I’m speaking to the quality of the songwriting. This is evident in the instant ear-worm gratification of “Ravenous Minds”, as classic a Brainstorm song we’ve ever heard with Frank’s vocals delivered with a sense of empowering belief. He has such staggering strength as a vocalist, singing here with a wildly confident display of his range, from gruff lows to Queensryche-ian highs in that spectacular chorus. At this point, Frank knows the pivot points around his vocals so much that you can hear that awareness reflected in the songwriting, particularly in that everything flows around his crafting of the vocal melodies. You hear it in the string and piano intro to “Revealing the Darkness”, the melody previewing Frank’s epic, arcing vocal during the chorus. Founding guitarists Torsten Ihlenfeld and Milan Loncaric rattle off a machine gun spray of punctuating bursts that are always book ended by a meaty riff to round out a verse section. Its that commitment to heaviness that separates Brainstorm’s dalliances with prog-metal from that of bands such as Dream Theater and Seventh Wonder.

Speaking of other bands, I can’t be the only one who hears a real Iced Earth Horror Show era meets Judas Priest Firepower vibe on “Jeanne Boulet (1764)”, from the aggressive, neo-thrashy attack to the “iter” ending of the lyric in the refrain, its a mash-up of sounds that are pieced together in a very different way for Brainstorm. Its been interesting to hear these influences pop up on this album and bleed through Brainstorm’s normally solid musical wall that they’ve spent a career erecting around themselves. From the moment I first heard them, this was a band that didn’t necessarily wear direct influences on their sleeves, only the general gist of those influences. That they sound more relatable to other German metal bands of all subgenres than say Maiden or Priest or Metallica is a testament to the way they’ve carved out a sonic niche of their own. Frank reminds me more of Mille Petrozza, Rage’s Peavy Wagner and a touch of Hansi Kursch than anything, but even those three singers combined aren’t an accurate representation of his vocals. I can’t believe that I’m getting to say this about his work on Midnight Ghost, but its thrilling to declare that he’s never sounded better. Brainstorm knows what they’re about, and their artistic success depends almost entirely on Frank’s inimitable talents, and its thrilling as a fan to hear them unexpectedly deliver an album this confident and masterful so late in the game. Far from comfort food, this is a meal at that really expensive steakhouse you’ve been waiting and saving for. One of the best albums of the year – write it down.

Amaranthe – Helix:

I won’t even pretend that I wasn’t highly curious about the state of Amaranthe circa 2018 in their post Joacim Lundberg state. Lundberg if you didn’t remember (or preferred not to… you haters) was one of the Swedish sextet’s founding vocalists, their clean male vocalist who had as equally big a hand in the songwriting as guitarist Olof Morck and fellow vocalist Elize Ryd. I first started listening to Amaranthe’s debut out of sheer curiosity in 2011 because you simply could not avoid hearing mention of this band that was cooking up this crazy melo-death/power metal/ pop mash-up. What became clear to me as I veered from somewhat agahst/mildly curious to rather appreciative of their frankly audacious metallic pop, was that Lundberg was a central figure in the formulation of their sound. He described his own contribution to the band’s sound as “melodic Bon Jovi type vocals” and he crafted vocal melodies in that vein that were able to both contrast and complement Ryd’s sugary pop voice. At times he would sing alongside her, in effect providing co-lead vocals that lent a needed earthiness to the melody, while he also had moments where his solo lead vocals would color however briefly the band’s sound with gritty hard rock energy. Of course the band’s two harsh vocal screamers in Andreas Solveström and since 2013 Henrik Englund Wilhelmsson were the melo-death element when Morck’s Soilwork-esque straight to the point riffing was taken into account. It all somehow largely worked, almost improbably so, a kaleidoscope of sound that was difficult to classify yet appealing beyond reason, particularly on 2014’s Massive Addictive.

That balance of elements that made everything gel together was disrupted when Lundberg’s role was gradually diminished on 2016’s Maximalism, the result being a sound that leaned too far in the pop direction and resulted in an album that was oddly disconnected, a jumble of random ideas. In my review for that record, which was written after Lundberg had already left the band, I predicted that his departure would be a huge blow for Amaranthe. When Lundberg resurfaced soon after in Cyhra with ex-In Flames guitarist Jesper Stromblad, their debut was loaded with the same kind of quality vocal melody writing that characterized Lundberg’s work in Amaranthe. It was a fun, strong, and ear-wormy album in a way that was in keeping with Lundberg’s desire to marry those aforementioned Bon Jovi type vocals to melo-death guitars. I mention that because it helps to put into context Amaranthe’s attempt to retreat into the style of the first two and a half (ish) albums, and why that attempt feels unfocused and often empty. That’s not to say that Helix isn’t at times successful, because a song like “Countdown” is every bit the satisfying merger of electro-pop and fuzzy metallic guitars into a direct, focused chorus that is packed as tight as a fun-sized Snickers. And Ryd reaches something approaching inspired on “Dream”, a song that borrows from the tempo and temperature of the quasi-power ballad “Burn With Me” from Massive Addictive, her vocals shining in a duet with new co-vocalist Nils Molin (who’s also in Dynazty, if that name was ringing a bell). Molin is a safe but misguided choice for the band, and that’s not a criticism of Molin as a vocalist, because he’s clearly a talented singer and his work in Dynazty is far better a showcase than what he delivers on Helix. The problem is that his style is all wrong for this band, far more suited to the soaring power metal of his other band and lacking anything resembling an actual rock voice that Lundberg provided.

But elsewhere on the album, its honestly hard to come up with anything resembling a successful example of why I started listening to this band in the first place. Things feel off all over the place —- the lead single “365” is a half baked version of “That Song” from Maximalism, and as controversial as the latter was upon its release, at least it had something interesting going for it with its Queen inspired stomp. With “365” the rhythmic strut never materializes, the vocal melody isn’t nearly as hooky as it should be, and everything just feels like a mess. Similarly unfocused is “Inferno”, which attempts to recreate the sound of the band’s first two albums, but again there’s not enough strength in the vocal melody to make it worth basing a song around it. Molin sticks out in a particularly bad way here, just this out of place voice singing an unconvincing lyric. And look I know, even when Lundgren was in the band Amaranthe’s lyrics hardly ever made sense, but his voice somehow sold what he was singing regardless. The intro verses for songs like the title track and “Breakthrough Starshot” really illustrate why Molin seems so out of place, when he’s forced to sing lyrics that are at best abstractions when he’s used to delivering relatively more literate lyrics in Dynazty. This might improve with his next album with the band, but I get the sense that he doesn’t quite know how to tackle these lyrics, how to get emotionally invested in them and in turn where to place inflection points.

Lets not glide past “Breakthrough Starshot” either, this being the sequel that the awful “Electroheart” never needed but we’re unfortunately getting. Its actually miles better than that atrocity ever was, with an actual memorable hook that will reverberate throughout your brain all day. When fellow metal critics sharpen their knives for this band, its because of songs like this, where for some reason Wilhelmsson is screaming out the lyric “My expectation is the accelerated / Another journey to the breakthrough starshot” —- just, WHAT NOW?!  Ryd’s vocal interjection in the hook via her “yeah yeah’s” reminds me of something I’d have heard from a Britney Spears single in the late 90s (and probably did), but that’s not the kind of pop Ryd should be evoking within the context of Amaranthe, who owe more to Euro-pop and EDM than American bubblegum dreck. Perhaps more awful than “…Starshot” however is the weirdly titled “GG6”, where Wilhelmsson takes the lead and delivers the most maddeningly non-nonsensical lyrics you’ll ever hear, complete with a baffling barrage of profanity that just comes across as lazy and dumb. Everything else on the album is just meh, ho-hum paint by numbers attempts at landing a chorus worth remembering; “Iconic” gets the closest but its still lukewarm, and the ballad “Unified” is where we feel Lundberg’s absence the most. Morck is a talented musician and songwriter, but its more clear than ever that Lundberg was the brainchild behind making the band’s vocal melodies work. They’ve lost the magic ingredient that made their weird metallic amalgam work, and that’s probably going to be news to many who think of Ryd or Morck as the heart and soul of this band.

Wolfheart – Constellation of the Black Light:

Wolfheart’s Tuomas Saukkonen has been releasing records at perhaps a nearly unrivaled clip since his Before the Dawn days from the early aughts onwards, at times with various side projects popping up throughout various years. There have been years where he’s released more than one album, and only two years since 2003 where he hasn’t released anything (2005 and 2014, although during the latter he did chair the producer’s role for a Rain of Acid record). That kind of staggering level of artistic productivity has yielded somewhere in the range of 15-16 complete albums and a host of EPs and splits/singles. I got introduced to him through his Black Sun Aeon melodic doom project, and soon after stumbled onto the fact that said project was already over and he’d forged a new band in Wolfheart, who are already at album number four since their inception in 2013. One of the things my MSRcast co-host and I had been raving about last year was the band’s brilliant release Tyhjyys, which was one of the host of folk-metal gems that 2017 unearthed in a nascent revitalization of that subgenre. I shouldn’t have been surprised that we’d get a follow-up so quickly in little over a year, given Saukkonen’s track record, but its still stunning to consider the turnaround time given just how different Constellation of the Black Light is from its predecessor.

Whereas Tyhjyys was a diverse album, full of songs with slower, more moody, shifting tempos and a utilization of silence and space that made songs like “The Flood” so hypnotic, Black Light sees Wolfheart making the leap into a more wintry, primal, furious style of blackened melodic death metal. I know its going to be an on the nose comparison for many reasons, but its their equivalent to Insomnium’s surprisingly aggressive epic Winter’s Gate. This is a level of aggression that Saukkonen has dabbled in before in brief glimpses and the occasional full song, but here he keeps it as his primary weapon, with only shades of Tyhjyys folkiness and quietude used as accents. The opening track epic “Everlasting Fall” uses a mix of both in its intro passages, but erupts into one of the more violent explosions I’ve heard Saukkonen unleash, propelled along by Joonas Kauppinen’s unrelenting blast beats. The song’s emotional pulse is heard in Olli Savolainen’s keyboards, producing a backdrop of sound that is more Porcupine Tree dreamscape than anything owing to orchestral impulses. I can hear a guitar in there mirroring what the keyboards are doing, and I think I caught sight of that two Saturdays ago in October when I caught Wolfheart live on their tour with Mors Principium Est and headliners Carach Angren. Its a ten minute opening piece, which isn’t shocking in this kind of metal anymore, but it is new for Wolfheart, their longest song to date though it certainly doesn’t feel like it. And its actually the most representative song on the record at that, showcasing the range that they’ll explore throughout the rest of the album and preparing us for the neck-snapping brutality that follows on “Breakwater”.

Its might seem surprising at first if you saw the Napalm Records backed lush music video for “Breakwater” being ushered out as the first single for this album, because this is as uncompromising a black metal attack as Wolfheart have concocted. Wildly spiraling tremolo riffing, blast beats, all with Saukkonen veering between death metal brutality and a blackened rasp in his vocal approach. Its not exactly the kind of insta-catchy single that Napalm is known for having its bands release first, but then they must have known what they were getting into before signing the band. This is Wolfheart’s first release for the growing “major” metal label, a sign that they’re moving up in the world a touch, and have the budget required to fly to Iceland with a small film crew and drones to shoot what is a spectacular looking Skyrim tribute. Things will make sense around the time Saukkonen first stumbles upon the waterfall in the video, when the song downshifts into something moodily mid-tempo, yet still shifting and undulating with its melodic guitar lines, ala Insomnium once again. Its on the far more subdued “The Saw” where we finally get a taste of that old Wolfheart sound, with its stop start riff sequences, thick vocal layers and a major key melodicism pouring through the lead guitar melody. I have detected a little impatience on my part when sitting through “Defender”, which isn’t a bad song by any means, being a straightforward melo-death affair, with a head-nodding worthy riff progression, but its lacking in impacts and surprises. It would’ve been the start of a lopsided album were it not for the rejuvenating ability of “Warfare” and the following “Valkyrie” to close out the album.

Those concluding two songs might actually be one long song, because they feel connected in sound and spirit. The latter has one of the more satisfying opening riffs, a percussive rhythmic piece that is the kind of battle call that a band like Suidakra likes to use quite often. That everything suddenly ends on a lone piano delivering a dirge-like melodic fragment is classic Finnish metal to a tee, from not only a melo-death perspective but also from legends like Sentenced, a Finnish calling card if you will. This is a quality, deep dive worthy album that was released at the perfect time because there’s just something extra special about hearing this kind of wintry music during the first breaths of autumn in the air. I got a big dose of cold Finland this past month, seeing no less than five bands from the country within that time frame. The Carach/Mors/Wolfheart gig was everything a great show in a dingy venue could be, shortcuts and all: The bands were traveling light on that tour, packed into one tour bus with notable cuts to band lineups to save on money. Wolfheart ran keyboards through a laptop, Mors ran their absent bassist through another laptop, and well of course Carach Angren could hardly afford to bring a string quartet with them so they too used the laptop. For all I knew it was the same one. That didn’t matter, and Wolfheart were as intense and crushing onstage as this album would have you believe, and well received for a band on their first North American trek. I was a little surprised that they didn’t play anything off Tyhjyys, leaning on two songs apiece from every other album including the new one. The hope is that with Napalm’s promotional engine supporting them, they’ll find their way back here on another few supporting tours. I’ll be there for sure.

Conception – re:conception:

I usually don’t review individual songs or single releases, with few exceptions, and Conception’s first new music in what, twenty-one friggin years certainly qualifies. Their EP is coming out in a few weeks and this single has two pieces of music that will be on that release and one exclusive track, “Feather Moves”. I’ll talk more about the songs at length on the review for the EP in the future but I just wanted to chime in here to talk about the stunning realization that we’re hearing Roy Khan’s vocals once again. Most of you have read that piece I did on Khan many years ago about the giant hole he was leaving behind not only in Kamelot but in progressive / power metal in general with his at the time retirement. The nature of his departure from Kamelot, the cryptic statement he released at the time —- everything really pointed towards a permanent exit, and I just couldn’t help but be a little selfish about it, thinking of all the great lyrics and vocal melodies we were being denied. When news broke that he was heard (literally) in a Norwegian rehearsal studio jamming with his former Conception bandmates, the classic lineup at that, I may or may not have gone into full on denial mode. But with April’s Pledgemusic campaign announcement, everything was confirmed and so was the utter joy at not having to watch another year tick by where Khan’s talents were being utilized.

He simply sounds excellent on these two songs (one instrumental, yeah… I know), his voice rich and full of that ability to inflect incredible amounts of emotion in a single phrase. To Conception’s credit, they’re really picking up where they left off on Flow, with heavily rhythmic, undulating (I sure love that word lately it seems) riff progressions and impassioned songwriting. Tore Østby is shredding all over the place, with little interjections and micro-solos to fill in the vocal gaps, and the rhythm section of bassist Ingar Amlien and drummer Arve Heimdal playing in unconventional, groove oriented, almost poly-rhythmic patterns. But wisely, Khan is left to direct traffic with his vocal melodies, singularly able to shift the tone of a song from dark and stormy to angelic and uplifting as we get to hear on the chorus to “Grand Again”. There’s a filter on his voice in select moments on this song, nothing that’s distracting, in fact it actually adds to the song but I would like to hear something on the EP that really sees him cut loose. His range does not appear to be diminished in the slightest, I’d even say he sounds close to Ghost Opera era Kamelot here. Hopefully the time off did him good in that regard, to lay off the heavy touring and simply rest his vocal chords. There’s folks voicing concerns about the future of Tommy Karevik’s own golden pipes due to Kamelot’s touring schedule, but I think that’s a long way off, being that he’s almost a decade under Khan in age. There’s a morality tale here for career bands, to reconsider making a living from being on the road and go the semi-professional route like our guy Tuomas Saukkonen from Wolfheart. At the end of the day, its about an artistic legacy right?

October 16, 2018 2018, Behemoth, Black Metal, Folk Metal, Seventh Wonder 10 Comments

Autumn Harvest: Major Releases From Behemoth, Seventh Wonder, and Vreid

In the midst of working on a few big features, including but not limited to a very preliminary imagining of what the Best of 2018 list might wind up as (so I’m not, y’know, scrambling in December as usual), I’ve also made sure to listen to a couple new albums from some noteworthy artists that deserve timely reviews. There’s the new Behemoth album, which may very well be one of the most anticipated extreme metal albums ever in terms of pre-release buzz that surrounded it. Then there’s the long (loooong) awaited new album by Seventh Wonder, a band that got pushed to the background a bit when vocalist Tommy Karevik joined Kamelot. This will be the second album with Karevik’s vocals released this year, and intriguingly enough, the new Seventh Wonder was ready to go way back in the spring when Kamelot’s The Shadow Theory forced its release to be pushed back. I know that rankled a lot of Seventh Wonder / Tommy Karevik fans, and I’ll attempt to answer the open question here of was it worth the wait, and frankly, which band made better use of his voice? Finally there’s the new album by Vreid, a band I hadn’t listened to in nearly a decade(!) that we actually discussed briefly on the September MSRcast, but the album was still new to me and I’ve had a lot of time to digest it since. Lets get straight to it then:

Behemoth – I Loved You At Your Darkest:

Its interesting to see the spectrum of reactions to Behemoth’s newest and most daring release to date. That it has the benefit or misfortune (or both) of coming on the heels of their career watershed The Satanist adds an extra dose of intrigue to just how their fans and the greater media reaction at large will be. There was little obvious pressure with The Satanist, I recall very vividly the sentiment being that people were simply so happy that Nergal had come out of his cancer scare and that we were just plain fortunate to have a new Behemoth album at all in the first place. But surprise of surprises, it was a massively successful artistic leap, one applauded by almost everyone (there’s always a few naysayers) for the far more expressive and adventurous musical changes incorporated throughout. Gone was the stifling, suffocating density and overwhelming technical sheen of the Demigod through Evangelion era, replaced by a more organic, breathable sonic production and far more thoughtful and expressive songwriting to match. The adjective “mature” was tossed around a lot, and while its an overused cliche in music criticism, it really did fit in that context, you could sense that something profound had changed about Behemoth and more to the point, Nergal himself. 

We’ll look back on The Satanist the same way we’re starting to look back on Satyricon’s 2013 self-titled album, as the simultaneous end of a defining era for the band and the beginning of a new one. Satyricon’s Deep Calleth Upon Deep was one of the most haunting, rich, and deeply resonant black metal albums in years, and it doubled down on the stripped back, less dense sound of its predecessor, a choice that has changed and morphed the idea of the Satyricon sound in remarkable ways. Ditto for Behemoth with I Loved You At Your Darkest, which bypasses further nudging open the door that The Satanist cracked open by outright kicking it down. This is wildly diverse, loose, freeing album for not only the band’s sound, but in redefining the boundaries of what moods and emotions their music can now encompass. Nergal has clearly allowed the dark folk influences of his side project Me and That Man to flow through in a myriad of ways, but that’s a gross oversimplification. This is a bold, fearlessly expressive listening experience, from the opening children’s choral intro in “Solve” that resurfaces to glorious effect in “God = Dog”, to the almost Enigma-esque Gregorian chant swells that punctuate the refrains in both “Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica” and “Bartzabel”.

The changes aren’t all vocal based either, with the aforementioned “Ecclesia” suddenly dropping into a grey toned acoustic strumming sequence in its outro that right out of the folk metal playbook. There are also much larger swathes of these songs actually constructed with open chord sequences, often with cleanly arpeggiated progressions that are dreamily hypnotic. Its something we noticed Nergal incorporating more on The Satanist, but here he isn’t afraid to build entire tracks around them, “Bartzabel” a vivid example, but its also a big part of the inverse technique employed on “If Crucifixion Was Not Enough”. This is something that seems so obvious when you hear it, but bands have to grow into doing it —- minimizing the usage of blastbeats and waves of tremolo by packing them into shorter, thoughtfully employed bursts, instead of spreading them over everything like too much peanut butter overpowering too little jelly. The unsung hero here is drummer Inferno, who delivers the performance of a lifetime all throughout these twelve songs. His ability to be creative and diverse in his patterns, his choice of fills and the shift in reliance to floor toms and tribal sounding, emotionally charged percussion instead of simply battering our ears with a non-stop assault is the singular most important facet in Nergal’s ability to grow as an extreme metal songwriter and have it sound convincing and vital. One of the best albums of the year and to my tastes, the absolute pinnacle of Behemoth’s career, just stunning.

Vreid – Lifehunger:

Norway’s Vreid began life way back in 2004 after the tragic ending of Windir, and I remember at the time thinking that they were going to continue in the vein of what that band’s recently deceased founder Valfar had started. The first three albums somewhat did, though never really fully embracing the spirit that ran through Windir, something in retrospect we can see largely came from its founding member. I think my interest dropped off sometime after 2007’s I krig, it being the last album I can now remember listening to, and after that I was never reminded to check back in, or maybe I was but decided to skip it (aka the Soilwork effect). Its also perhaps not fair to always judge bands in the grim shadows of their former incarnations. I find myself doing the same with Thrawsunblat, who have a new album coming out later this week, which I’ll undoubtedly start comparing to Woods of Ypres and David Gold’s incredibly soulful songwriting. As is the way with these things, we find ourselves re-discovering artists through word of mouth recommendation, because Lifehunger was a complete surprise to me, sent in my direction via Cary the Metal Geek on our last MSRcast. I was mildly curious as to how we got a promo of this one, and surprise surprise, this album is being released on Season of Mist, the band’s first for the label. What a difference working PR makes!

The timing of this release is perhaps key to my enthusiasm in embracing it as fully as I have, because I’m sitting here writing this on the eve of a cold “northern wind” that’s supposed to blow through the streets of Houston and purify the hot, foul, stale vapors that drape this city like the heaviest wool blanket. If the cover art wasn’t enough to put you in an autumnal mood with its depiction of dead trees and a spooky moonlit silhouette of Death, the intro track “Flowers & Blood” should work, and its acoustic simplicity is a motif that we’ll hear throughout the album, almost like a rustic skeleton that binds all these songs together. But beyond essential folk metal ingredients, what really makes Lifehunger fascinating is the scope of its ambition, that the band chose to write without constraints and to put it bluntly, let themselves get really weird with it. The album opener proper “One Hundred Years” is perhaps the most conventional thing on the album and even it is loaded with passages where countermelodies spring up to disrupt the more familiar blackened folk metal tempo and riff structure. The title track jumps from an ominous marching tempo with almost doom metal inflected repetitive riffing to a furious uptempo attack, only to down shift again in the middle with a rock back-beat and a dirty Darkthrone vibe reminiscent of something off Circle the Wagons. One of my favorites for sheer unpredictability is “The Dead White”, not only for its myriad tempo shifts, but the Reinkaos-era Dissection vibe running throughout. Its a mix of smokey blackened folk with the coiled up energy of melodic death metal that results in a standout track, perhaps the best on the album.

 Vocalist Sture Dingsøyr still has every bit the fierce, biting blackened rasp he did on their earlier records, but its aged into something resembling modern day Satyr in tone, not a bad thing. He’s at his best on my personal favorite track, “Hello Darkness”, where he even attempts some strangled cleans that remind me of In Solitude or Year of the Goat. There’s a near-campy Halloween vibe in the first few minutes here, and normally that stuff might annoy me but I think I was so charmed by hearing it on my first listen through the album that its stuck to me in a good way. Whats even more lovable is the 70s Scorpions Uli-era semi-chimed riff at around the three minute mark. It was so unexpected and feels so out of place on what is largely a bleak album, a moment of warm tones and major chords conjuring up bright nostalgia. It actually sums up the album for me, a listening experience that kept me guessing all the way throughout, yet when Vreid just put their heads down and barrel relatively straight ahead as on “Black Rites in the Black Nights”, I’m not left disappointed. The actual blackened folk here is strong, confident and creatively written in its own right —- the unexpected surprises just add to the depth of the songwriting as a whole. I’ve been away from these guys so long that I can’t definitively say this is their best effort, but its the one I’ve loved the most. Its also somewhat comforting in the light of the nascent folk metal revitalization last year to hear a strong connection to their Windir roots running through Lifehunger, I suspect Valfar would be proud.

Seventh Wonder – Tiara:

There’s something satisfying about getting to evaluate both Tommy Karevik fronted bands’ new releases essentially back to back within the same calendar year. Kamelot released The Shadow Theory in April and we heard the power metal institution run smack into a creative wall, a disappointment considering how artistically successful they were on 2015’s Haven. Without regurgitating what I went into detail in explaining in my reviews for those albums, I think there’s a feeling among the power metal constituency that Kamelot are a little too attached to the darker imagery they’re using these days in a vain attempt to try to capture perhaps a broader audience (and failing spectacularly at it commercially speaking, but that’s another matter). I’ve accused the band of trying to shoe-horn in something I’ve termed faux-heaviness, which The Shadow Theory was loaded with and characterized Haven’s few weak moments. What does that have to do with Karevik’s role as their vocalist? Well, everything. That comes into sharp relief once you hear him back in his ‘home turf’ of the unapologetically heart-on-sleeve prog metal of Seventh Wonder. Karevik’s performances on both his band’s newest albums is a night and day contrast, and since its football Sunday as I’m writing this, I’ll ask aloud: Do you hand off the ball to the running back 40 times a game if you have Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers at quarterback? You don’t need to be a football expert to know the answer to that question, and you only need to be passingly familiar with Karevik’s work in Seventh Wonder to know that like the legend that he ended up replacing in Kamelot, he understands how to craft vocal melodies and has a range as gorgeously soaring as a Rodger’s hail mary. Put the ball in his hands.

Let’s put the comparison’s aside for a bit though, because there’s also the fact that this is Seventh Wonder’s first album in eight fricken years, a byproduct of Karevik’s limited availability, so that’s enough reason to be excited. This isn’t a band that needed Wintersun or even Blind Guardian-esque timescales between albums to create the next one, there were only at most two year gaps between each of their previous four albums, including the back to back greatness of Mercy Falls and The Great Escape. Seventh Wonder purists were indeed right to be concerned with just how much Karevik’s prolonged abscences and creative responsibilities elsewhere would detract from this band (a lot as it turned out). Fortunately for them, the rest of Seventh Wonder spent the intervening years working on this album as their main musical priority, with Karevik taking part during the breaks from Kamelot related activity. With the luxury of time on their side, they had to ability to compose what turns out to be the most intricate, melodically diverse, and conceptually ambitious concept record of their career. They haven’t strayed from their inherent sonic identity, adhering to their rather uniquely streamlined approach to prog-metal with Andreas Söderin’s 70s prog-rock keyboards almost acting as connective tissue amidst the staccato riffs and rumblings of guitarist Johan Liefvendahl and bassist/co-lyricist Andreas Blomqvist. Despite the majority of the songwriting here being hyper-centered around the vocal melodies, their roles are crucial within the sound of this band, and as on past albums they find various scattered little moments for their own star turns. I’ll be honest though, one of the things I’ve identified as a weakness for this band here and on past records is that I can find myself tuning out during some of their relatively few extended instrumental breaks. Even though they’re not as noodle heavy as Dream Theater, they’re still working from a prog foundation in style, so instead of purposeful sustained riffing, or clearly outlined melodic motifs, the musical beds during the more uptempo/metal tracks work as rhythmic exercises, which is hardly captivating by itself.

With Karevik getting the lions share of the spotlight however, we’re far more attuned to process this album through his vocal melodies, inflection choices, and of course his and Blomqvist’s lyric writing abilities. I’m not going to detail out the concept here, because Google for one and also its just too much to talk about, but its tilted enough towards centering around specific characters and their emotions and that’s plenty of ammo for great lyrics. I’m thinking specifically of album highlight “Tiara’s Song (Farewell Pt 1)”, the most gloriously pop drenched moment here, its chorus something right out of the Ayreon / Avantasia grand gesture oeuvre: “Farewell Tiara, this song is yours / From Sahara to the seven seas it soars”. There’s a really inspired bit of album making in the connective sequel track “Goodnight (Farewell Pt 2), where that chorus is revisited by the mechanic of storytelling itself, with us hearing what appears to be a celebratory nighttime campfire singalong, heard amidst the din of people laughing and conversing while crickets chirp in the trees. Tiara has been selected to be humanity’s savior, and they’re giving her a farewell party, raising glasses to her name. Its a perfect lead in to “Beyond Today (Farewell Pt 3)” where we get to hear directly from the heroine herself, and this is where Karevik is just magic as a lyricist and emotive singer. He can deliver gut-wrenching emotion with vocal inflection and choices in phrasing, and sells us on the very relatable idea that Tiara’s inner dialogue on the eve of her solo journey into outer space to represent all of humanity is preoccupied with very human, very teenage girl thoughts: “I wonder will I ever say / Hey, if you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine / A perfect stranger in a ticket line / Just like in the movies, will he put his hand in mine?” Its not the first time we’ve been treated to this kind of ultra aware songwriting from Karevik and company, but few bands do it as boldly and fearlessly as Seventh Wonder.

I’ve enjoyed this album more than I thought I would, and I don’t know why I was initially low on expectations… perhaps it was that The Shadow Theory really bummed me out on anything and anyone associated with it. Hearing Karevik in this context however has renewed my confidence that Kamelot really did grab the right guy (certainly Haven was no fluke), but they just have to loosen up a bit and let him be a little closer to the vocalist we’re hearing right here. And to be fair, Karevik has come out recently and talked about why the approach he takes in Kamelot is so different to his Seventh Wonder style, and he made a few interesting points. First that Kamelot write in a different style altogether, which may be debatable given what we know about the earlier records with Roy (they were as theatrical, playful and major key as anything done by Seventh Wonder), and second that he feels uninhibited when composing vocal melodies for Seventh Wonder because he knows he won’t have to tour on those songs for any length of time. The latter is a band that for all purposes is a very popular studio project that occasionally does a festival date or two. Its a bitter pill to swallow in even considering the implication here, that Kamelot’s touring schedule might be affecting just how Karevik approaches his performances in the band. I’m not entirely convinced, because his work on Haven was closer to what we hear on Tiara than The Shadow Theory. Seventh Wonder definitely released the stronger album this year, by a mile even, I’ve enjoyed it immensely, even digging into the concept which usually isn’t my forte. This is just wishful fan-thinking, but I’d hope that hearing the record themselves would light a fire under the rest of Kamelot for the future.

September 17, 2018 2018, Melo-Death, Power Metal, Trad Metal 2 Comments

The Last Reviews of Summer: Cauldron / Omnium Gatherum / Powerwolf / Beyond The Black

More reviews from the dog days of summer, although the season is waning rapidly and good riddance I say, it was a pretty good time for metal releases. I was glad for the slow down that seemed to occur in August, it let me get around to listening to older albums and also to work on non-reviews features that I hope to have out soon for the fun of it. One of the older albums that I dug into listening to was Beast In Black’s 2017’s debut Berserker, and I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little miffed that no one sent me a message asking me why I hadn’t bothered reviewing one of the more outlandish, Euro-swagger filled power metal albums of that year. Its such a fun album, and their Greek vocalist Yannis Papadopoulos is a dynamo, one of the more promising talents in a burgeoning field of new, exciting singers coming up within power metal as a whole. I know that Beast In Black is an offshoot of Battle Beast, but their debut is yet another piece of ammo for my theory that power metal is enjoying a quiet renaissance as of the past two-three years. Anyway, here’s a handful of reviews to round out the summer months, and hopefully I’ll have some non-reviews stuff coming up ahead to give myself and you a break from the treadmill.

 

 

 

Powerwolf – The Sacrament of Sin:

There’s a few ways you can attempt to analyze a new Powerwolf album, and although I’ve only done that once before (for 2015’s Blessed and Possessed) I feel like the best way is to simply compare it to its immediate predecessor. This is because there is no lock on what is the band’s all time best album, even among their sizable fan base. In this Powerwolf share the same dilemma that Sabaton had over time, that the fan favorite songs were spread rather randomly across the entirety of their discography. In the well over half a dozen Sabaton shows I’ve seen, fans went just as nuts for “Ghost Division”, “40:1”, and “Cliffs of Galipoli” as they did for the encore “Primo Victoria”. Now in Sabaton’s case, there has been a recent consensus building/realization that their 2008 album The Art of War has risen in the esteem of the greater metal community at large as one of the best front to back power metal albums of the last decade, as well as one of the most impactful (something that I’d agree with even though I think Carolus Rex and Heroes are more interesting and rich albums). Its natural to compare both these bands, they started out in the same year with their debuts (2005) and have taken a similar career trek to headline status in the European festival scene with a poppy sensibility to their keyboard driven songwriting, a baritone-ish vocalist, and a distinct “shtick” to their image and subject matter. But where Sabaton have at times attempted to innovate, albeit slowly and subtly, Powerwolf might be on the verge of repeating themselves into a Manowar-ish corner.

 

I will say that I’ve enjoyed this particular album a great deal more than Blessed and Possessed, and though that wasn’t a difficult hurdle to clear, its encouraging to see the songwriting bounce back. The obvious single here is “Demons Are A Girl’s Best Friend”, and at least in its verses they try some new things here and there, but in the chorus its strikingly close to “We Are The Wild” off the last album, which itself was a watered down version of “Sacred and Wild” off 2013’s Preachers Of The Night. Its a strong song, though not exactly compelling stuff beyond the candy coated vocal hook, and honestly it was on the border for me with its lyrics, skirting the edge of good taste in keeping with the lycanthropic theme. If you’re going to commit to this concept, as you could honestly say they have been for years, then don’t muck it up by getting cute in your imagery (then again this is the band that once penned “Resurrection By Erection” so maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised or annoyed). I actually enjoyed “Incense & Iron” more, with Attila’s commanding vocal during the verses going in an unexpectedly epic, Blind Guardian-ish place. The chorus may be standard swashbuckling power metal fare, but the Celtic sounds, the martial stomp and swing of the rhythmic approach combine to craft a stirring anthem. I also thought “Where The Wild Wolves Have Gone” was an interesting ballad from a band that isn’t really suited to attempting them, with its Orden Ogan channeling in style and even Attila’s vocals sounding similar to Sebastian Levermann’s.

 

I get why Powerwolf are so beloved over in Europe, but it shouldn’t be a mystery why so many of us stateside power metal fans are a little more detached from the band. Unlike Sabaton who’ve made it their mission to establish a fan base in the States through years and years of relentless touring here both as support and headliners, Powerwolf hasn’t even bothered with us (and according to Glenn Harveston, promoter of ProgPower, they won’t even entertain offers to come over). I get it, why go through the massive expense of even trying when you’re kings in your home turf and are scoring number one albums in Germany? It does however result in some distance in just how much I can find myself invested in the band, because while I personally find Sabaton very interesting as someone who enjoys history, even I can admit that their music is very pop-laden for metal. Powerwolf is just as pop, but the werewolf thing doesn’t do anything for me at all in terms of deepening my interest beyond a surface level of is this catchy or not? Without the benefit of seeing them live, I haven’t had the chance to form a personal connection with the band in lieu of being unable to forge any kind of connection to them as artists. I’ve never seen Therion either, but I love their music so deeply that it can override that absence. Powerwolf doesn’t have the kind of music that can really inspire that level of devotion, and sadly this absence of both the live experience and passion for their music will keep them a distant memory in the minds of most American fans.

 

 

 

Omnium Gatherum – The Burning Cold:

I think I’ve learned to be a little wary of album previews in general, whether its those atrocious 3 minute spliced together montages of every song on an album to “whet” fans appetites, or even just the actual lyric/music video released ahead of the album’s street date. This is because even if its a full song from the album, its not enough to get an impression about the album’s quality one way or another. Its often counterproductive actually, an easy way to overreact to enthusiasm or get dismissive because of a negative opinion on one song. Recently with the Immortal album, I somewhat duped myself into believing that Demonaz and company had simply gone back to their early era roots, which although partially true was nowhere near a complete rendering of what that album really was. It took almost a solid month of listening to it for me to suss out a far more nuanced take, and I suspect that had I simply never heard the pre-release single of “Northern Chaos Gods” ahead of the album in full, I might not have come to that premature, judgment clouding take. With Omnium Gatherum, I saw the music video for “Gods Go First” way back in early July, and for whatever reason came away feeling rather “meh” about what I heard. That honestly dampened my enthusiasm for this album and although I still managed to keep my curiosity piqued come release day just for sheer reviewing purposes, it was hard to shake the bad taste I still had. I get that not everyone will have this problem, but I might be making a decision to stay away from most of these kind of early previews in the near future (case in point is the new Wolfheart track, haven’t listened to it yet).

 

Fortunately in this case, my early negative impression wasn’t nearly strong enough to work against the very obvious excellence that is Omnium’s eighth album in The Burning Cold. This is a continuation of the crackling artistry heard on 2016’s Grey Heavens, an album that I credited with the band finally finding the right way to manage the density of their musical elements. Vocalist Jukka Pelkonen started to time his vocal passages more effectively to complement the dual lead guitar melodies, to work around them and fill in gaps of sound rather than try to compete with them directly. Keyboardist Aapo Koivisto began to be a more foundational force within the structure of the songs, and as founding guitarist Markus Vanhala is usually the primary songwriter, its a credit to him in knowing that this strategy worked last time and to keep it going. A microcosm of this is heard on “Refining Fire”, where all of those elements come together to ensure that one of the more aggressive moments on the album is also its smartest songwriting wise. I particularly love the spacing around Pelkonen’s vocals during the chorus and the mid-song bridge where an awesome dual lead solo dances over Koivisto’s dreamy, lush soundscapes. Speaking of soundscapes, they’re just getting better and better, take a listen to the mid-song dip in “The Fearless Entity” for proof, with its own divergent melody and sense of melancholy and ache.

 

My previous disliking of “Gods Go First” has largely subsided, its a solid enough track, but it should have never been the single in the first place, that honor should’ve gone to “The Frontline”, as majestic a song Omnium Gatherum have ever written. Its up there with “The Unknowing” from Beyond and “New World Shadows” from well, New World Shadows. This is a gorgeous, thrilling song, built on a Gothenburg inspired sense of swinging melodic motifs ala Whoracle era In Flames, complete with a beautiful acoustic guitar framework keeping things rustic and enchanting underneath. The rhythm guitar attack here is measured and percussive even, aware of itself enough to keep out of the way of the lovely lead melodies, just smart, focused songwriting on display. The emotional outpouring occurs at the 3:22 mark, where Koivisto’s keyboards and the lead guitar join together to cry out a melody that’s simultaneously exulting and heartbreaking. This is why we listen to melodic death metal, because we want shimmering moments of major key goodness here to counterbalance the aggression and intensity —- they both work to make each other more potent. I’ll take stuff like this every day over non-stop blast beats and a never ending tremolo riff. I know I know, everything has its place, but straight up brutality has never produced a song that provokes the kind of emotional response that this song has. I didn’t think it was likely that Omnium would top Grey Heavens, but they’ve eclipsed it, and that’s something to cheer about.

 

 

 

Cauldron – New Gods:

I first caught onto Cauldron when their vocalist/bassist Jason Decay did a guest spot on BangerTV’s Lock Horns Power Metal episode. He wasn’t exactly the right guy for the gig, it should’ve gone to Martin Popoff (who later hosted the Essential Power Metal albums Lock Horns ep and delivered) but I figured anyone willing to stand up and talk about power metal on camera earned the few minutes in checking out his band. I became an immediate fan of their 2016 album In Ruin, a wild, semi lo-fi blast of old school, early 80’s hard rock meets early NWOBHM influenced metal. Sure they were one of the legion of bands that were doing deliberately retro sounding music, and that stuff could have a tendency to get a little too blatantly worshipful at times (Municipal Waste and the like), but like Sweden’s Enforcer and Chicago’s High Spirits, Cauldron found a way to express something vibrant and endearing (if not exactly new) in their music. There was an immaturity running through that album that was a boon, not a drawback, and through it a connection to the bands of that distant era they were pulling their influences from. I hate to get cliched, but this was metal that sounded great in a buddies garage from the stereo in the corner, while beers got drunk and bands and albums got argued over.

 

So when Cauldron leans into that aspect of their personality and sound on their newest, New Gods, I’m all in and enjoying every second of the trio’s still meat and potatoes sound. But this is also the band’s fifth album, and if its vague, amorphous artwork wasn’t a clue, the relatively scaled back accessibility factor is a signal that these guys are interested in maturing their approach a bit (actually if artwork is a guide, then they’ve been eyeing this path on their previous two albums as well, devoid of the Spinal Tap-ian ladies that adorned their first two). The most instantaneous stuff here is excellent, the best of the bunch being “Letting Go”, a slow burning juxtaposition of intense, biting mid-tempo riffage and Decay’s best vocal performance to date. His laid back tone has always reminded me of Chris Black but with a little more heft and roundness, and here he unleashes a memorable major key vocal hook, bright and full of energy. And then there’s “Together As None”, the most unorthodox song in Cauldron’s history to date, coming across as a slice of Dokken meets Def Leppard meets Weezer into some weird timeless pop-metal amalgam. I know its gotten its fair share of flack, but I love it and wish the band would extend further in this direction in the future (or in other strange, unexpected directions).

 

While those two songs were instantaneous and still hold up after countless listens, it took multiple efforts to crack into some of the other stuff here, and I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. I actively disliked “Save the Truth – Syracuse” at first, but came around to it over time, and perhaps its because its such a slow burner (I’m that guy who took forever to love “Holiday” by the Scorpions, it was too slow and repetitive for the longest time, but one day it just smacked me in the face). Its still just a solid, not great song however, with a refrain that is subtly pleasant and reminds me of 80’s hard rock’s penchant for taking itself deathly seriously (that’s a good thing here). I haven’t really made heads or tails of the lyrics here, but it all fits the tone and general vibe of the music, and that’s kind of what I want from Cauldron —- the title of the song suggests a possible storyline or backstory here, but I’m a little hesitant to commit that much mental energy to this band (its not implausible for the future, but c’mon, I’m not listening to Operation: Mindcrime here). Similarly, “Never Be Found” took its time growing on me, but I can’t understand why, its one of the best cuts on the album, a confident rocker with the tastiest (yes!) dual harmony guitar solo I’ve heard this band pull off. But its listless cuts like “Prisoner of the Past”, “Drown”, and the pointless instrumental “Isolation” that throw this album off balance and prevent it from being as fun as In Ruin. Its still a worthwhile listen with some awesome moments, but Cauldron took a step back here, and that’s concerning.

 

 

Beyond the Black – Heart of the Hurricane:

Beyond the Black is the brainchild of vocalist Jennifer Haben, who made her debut (to most of us not in Germany) on Kamelot’s newest album in April on “In Twilight Hours”, a song I deemed the best on the album and a contender for the Song of the Year list. Her vocals on that track in a spiraling duet with Tommy Karevik played a big role in its success, particularly during its dramatic peak towards the end where she delivered an impressive display of range and emotive resonance. It was enough to make me pay attention to news regarding her own band to give them a fair shot, and its interesting enough to point out that Beyond the Black is kind of a growing big deal in Germany already, their previous albums charting quite high there (both this new album and its predecessor were top five on the national chart). They are a German born band with German band members, and its also worth noting that barring Haben the lineup is entirely new for Heart of the Hurricane. I’m not exactly up to date on why the entire band parted ways with Haben after their 2016 album Lost In Forever, but its impressive that Haben was able to cobble together a new lineup in such a short amount of time in the interim. Just as impressive is that this is genuinely a really excellent slice of symphonic pop-metal in the vein of Within Temptation and to a certain extent, the sugary sweetness of Amaranthe sans the electro-beat influences. Let that be your warning, if you enjoy most things about those two bands, feel free to proceed —- everyone else, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

The ironic thing is that I’m writing this right as Within Temptation have released their new single with Jacoby Shaddix (yeah that guy) “The Reckoning”, and its as dicey as you’d expect, a transparent attempt at edginess for edginess sake. The band’s roots were in symphonic metal (gothic metal at first for you nitpickers), but as Therion’s own Christofer Johnson has pointed out in recent interviews, there is nothing so unfashionable these days as symphonic metal. With the genre’s bigger names and veterans having moved away from the sound, its left a vacuum for its fans wanting someone to deliver the kind of stuff that they loved on albums like Century Child and The Silent Force. I’d be willing to bet that they’d really love the bulk of the fifteen (!) tracks on Heart of the Hurricane, because Haben and company make no attempt to deviate from the symphonic metal playbook, even excelling at moments due to their dedication to its tropes and cliches. Take album highlight “Song For the Godless”, with its unabashed Eluvietie invoking Celtic/folky motifs, or “Fairytale of Doom” with its almost children’s sing-songy melody that Haben unexpectedly sings right along to. When you’d expect things to get too clever by half and do something different in order to not sound overly cheerful or happy… nope, its full steam straight ahead without a second thought. Call it refreshingly oblivious.

 

Its also worth pointing out that Haben is the perfect vocalist to serve as the vehicle for this stylistic approach, her vocals reminiscent enough of Sharon Den Adel’s nationality neutral delivery to soak up pop hooks and dish out radio-rock appeal. Even the beauty and the beast tropes seem to work just on the pure strength of the songwriting and her skill at delivering compelling melodies, as on “My God Is Dead” where the vocals of I’m assuming the guitarist Chris Hermsdörfer work as a foil, Haben manages to keep us entranced enough to avoid thinking about just how close to hammy his presence made things for a second. So with all this genuine praise about what I’m listening to as the carrot, here’s the sharp, pointy stick: This is not a genuine band in the traditional sense, and is almost certainly a studio project in practice if not in conception as well. I had wondered just how it was possible for Haben to lose her entire band and somehow get a new lineup together within a year and collectively work on new material in such a short time span —- was she the songwriter and just dictated to everyone else? Certainly possible. But no such luck, as a little digging has unearthed a trio of German producers as the songwriters at work here (with Miro Rodenberg working on the album as mastering engineer to boot). I’m not against this in principle, Frontiers Records has developed a cottage industry around these types of releases, but the “band” has certainly loses a little appeal to me as a result. Even Amaranthe is writing their own stuff, for better or worse. Make of this knowledge what you will symphonic metal fans.

 

August 14, 2018 2018, Finland, Immortal, reviews Post a Comment

The Summer Reviews Catch Up Continued

These are some quick takes on a handful of albums that I didn’t get to include in the Mid-Year Reviews Cluster, mostly because they were too late in the release schedule or I didn’t have enough time to listen to them completely. I’ve been a little all over the place recently listening wise, digesting some late July releases (Powerwolf for example) still while trying to stay on top of the sudden rush of new music in August. There’s some big names coming out with new music soon, including Doro and Omnium Gatherum, and I still can’t quit listening to a couple things from earlier in the year that are making deep indentations in my best albums list nominee pool (oh yeah I’ve started working on those pieces early this year so hopefully I’ll have them out on time for once… he says now…). I’m also trying to nail down a Metal Pigeon recommends, but that’s in flux and might not see the light of day until September if I’m being honest. As much as I want to break away from the non-stop cycle of reviews, it gets hard when there’s this much noteworthy new stuff coming out continually.

 

I also went to a few shows lately, Uada in mid-July (I talked about the show on the last MSRcast episode) and this past Saturday a buddy and I checked out a tribute night at my favorite venue, Seventh Son (Maiden) + Savage Amusement (Scorpions), and Sacred Star (Dio + Yngwie). Seventh Son and Sacred Star were tons of fun, utterly convincing in their sonic impersonations. They are both San Antonio based outfits, with guitarist Jyro Alejo pulling double duty in both (he’s playing the Yngwie part in Sacred Star, convincingly I might add, puffy shirt and crushed velvet jacket to boot). His talent is nothing short of shredder level guitar hero, and he seemed to be the musical anchor for both bands. But the vocalists were great too, Star’s Jessica Espinoza does an amazing Dio, her voice rich and full of Dio-ian texture and heft, while Seventh Son’s Mauricio Adan did a dead on Bruce Dickinson. He not only could pull off the screams, but got the tenor and tone of the Air Raid Siren down to perfection. They stormed out of the gate with “Moonchild” and won the crowd over immediately, and when I realized I was finally hearing a note perfect live airing of “Stranger In A Strange Land”, I closed my eyes for a second and could’ve sworn I was hearing Maiden live on Somewhere on Tour in ’86. I feel lucky that both these bands are regionally based, and hope they can tour nationally sometime so everyone can experience what I saw. It made me remember how awesome it is to be a metal fan.

 

 

 

 

Immortal – Northern Chaos Gods:

I had originally planned on doing a longer review for this first, post-Abbath Immortal album, but as the weeks have passed in the interest of giving myself more listening time, I’ve realized that there’s actually just a few important things to touch on in regards to Northern Chaos Gods, and so I’ll keep things brief. The first and most obvious concern heading into this was just how would the band handle the Immortal guitar sound, something that really took shape on At the Heart of Winter, precisely the album when Abbath moved into the guitarist role and the sonics of the band infinitely improved. And sure this was largely due to Peter Tägtgren’s involvment in the production for the first time, but also due to Abbath’s own characteristic thrashier guitar approach and his tendency to add in melodic color to his riff barrages. Some of those first four Immortal albums are downright unlistenable, mostly due to the awful production robbing those songs of their would-be viscerality, but also because some of the riffing is just staid, boring and samey. What Abbath seemed to inherently know and employ was the use of tempo changes, spacing and an old-fashioned heavy metal sense of what was rockin’ to make that album and the ones that came later chock full of the blisteringly memorable riffs and songs we love today. This is to say nothing of his iconic vocal style. What would Immortal even sound like without both of those qualities?

 

Credit where credit’s due, Demonaz and Horgh made the right stylistic choice in approaching this album, to lean heavily towards an old school Immortal sound. Those first two songs are a clear indication of this, both “Northern Chaos Gods” and “Into Battle Ride” being ultra dense, squeezed together slabs of unrelenting glacial black metal fury. Wisely, they chose to stick with Tägtgren for the sonics, thus the production serving as the bridge between the throwback, pure second wave songwriting approach and their more melodic, modern era. When I first heard the record, all I could take away was that it was Demonaz bringing back the old Immortal sound but preferring to stick with a modern production job —- but that’s kind of oversimplifying whats happening here. He actually took more influence from Abbath than he might care to admit, because the latter’s songwriting DNA is deeply embedded within the fabric of these songs. Listen to cuts like “Where Mountains Rise”, with its mid-tempo gradual build, hypnotic almost pulsing rhythm and a call back to something like “Years of Silent Sorrow” from At the Heart of Winter. We hear the Abbath-ian influence elsewhere too, on “Gates to Blashyrkh”, with its warmly quiet, clean noted interludes. Its a standout track, epic and full of grand, heavy metal theatricality that made albums like Sons of Northern Darkness so gleeful as listening experiences.

 

While not a perfect album (two cuts in the middle, “Grim and Dark” and “Called To Ice” are decent if unremarkable songs that dull the blade a bit), Northern Chaos Gods is an intense, fiery record, far more convincing than 2009’s strangely uninspired miss All Shall Fall. Credit to Demonaz for delivering a focused vocal performance that meets the challenge this material presents, he’s more ice-demon in tone and frozen breathy rasp than Abbath’s bizarre, frog-ish bark, but it works with the tone of the material —- a far cry from his questionable performance on the Demonaz March of the Norse record. He dominates on “Mighty Ravendark”, as addictive a tune as you could imagine Immortal could write, his vocal lines perfectly paced, with dramatic buildup and a hook that is catchy with nary an atom of pop to be found. All these weeks later after first hearing the album, I think I’m honestly just stunned that Demonaz (and Horgh, who is as solid as ever) had this in them. Not that its a competition to the bands, but they’ve clearly released the better album between both parties, Abbath’s own release a few years ago being the direct follow-up to All Shall Fall that he took with him when he left the band. I hope this fires up Abbath as much as it did myself and apparently many others, because that could only mean great things for all of us.

 

 

 

 

Necrophobic – Mark of the Necrogram:

One of those out of nowhere surprises for me, we played a track called “Tsar Bombs” from this on the last MSRcast, and when I saw the band name on our show notes, I had to really think back to when was the last time I had listened to them. I had to be in the very early aughts, back when I was running down every band to come out of Scandinavia just out of pure obsession with those countries. Necrophobic are a Swedish band hailing from Stockholm, but they’ve got a lot of Norwegian black metal running through their sound if you ask me, a blending that reminds me of a Enthrone Darkness era Dimmu and all eras Dissection. Even though I have a vague recollection of listening to them before, I’m essentially coming into this viewing Necrophobic as a new band to me given the passage of time. Its also worth pointing out that this their first album since the original vocalist Anders Strokirk has rejoined the band, he originally appeared on their 1993 debut The Nocturnal Silence. It gives this release a bit of the same uncertainty factor that Immortal’s Northern Chaos Gods came with, returning old members, new vocalists, etc.

 

All that detail gets a bit tedious though, particularly since my overall impression is that this is the most convincing blend of black and death metal that I’ve heard in awhile —- the songwriting is unabashedly melodic in its incorporation of Gothenberg-ian riff sequences, yet delivering Watain-level raw brutality in its blackened attack to balance things out. I love the Iron Maiden worship in extended guitar passages scattered throughout, something that might irritate purists but then again when you’re listening to a merging of two genres you might expect that all bets are off when it comes to cross pollination and experimentation. There are bands who provide brutality for brutality’s sake but Necrophobic seem far more interested in my preferred approach, that bands use every tool available to paint epic pictures, to create grand atmospheres. Strokirk emerges as an excellent vocalist for that approach too, his rasp is clean enough to be discernible lyrically, and it works to great effect on a song like “Requiem For A Dying Sun” where the vocal narration is the musical centerpiece everything else swirls around. He takes on that role with relish, coming across as more of a necromancer (heyo!) turned bard singing about his days running across the mountains of Skyrim (Krosis, is that you?!). In a year that’s not exactly brimming with black or death metal that’s demanded my attention, the Mark of the Necrogram is a rarity. Stick that in your Whiterun house and smoke it.

 

 

 

 

Kalmah – Palo:

This is a really late review for an album that I’ve been returning to ever since we played a cut from it on the MSRcast episode 207, and that occasion itself came a couple months late from Palo’s actual release in March. That’s a rough microcosm for how I’ve paid attention to Kalmah over the past decade, with the band making a big splash in the early aughts with their wild take on Finnish keyboard-laden melo-death with exuberant albums such as They Will Return, Swampsong, and The Black Waltz. If my memory is accurate, I kind of fell off the band after those albums, particularly around the time of 2008’s For The Revolution, and for whatever reason I never really found myself going back to see if they’d bounced back. Until now that is, and bounce back is a relative term for myself and for this review in general because I’m hearing Palo with no frame of reference to what they’ve been doing. It should be observed however that this is the bands first album in five years, their longest layover between releases ever. The one observation I can make about those intervening years is that when Children of Bodom was out in the wilderness of infusing industrial sounds into their take on Finnish melo-death (and just releasing subpar quality material in general), the one comment I’d often see casually tossed out was “at least we still have Kalmah”.

 

And we still do, and then some I’d argue, because Palo sounds to me like the band I remember enjoying so much in those halcyon early aughts. There’s the largely keyboard driven, blazing fast assault of hyper riffing and frantic fretboard flourishes all built around that sweet, sugary Finnish brand of melody. Songs like “The World of Rage” and “Into the Black Marsh” feel familiar for those trademarks, and there’s even a blackened touch to the vocals in the latter that seem new to me (though perhaps they’ve been working that in over the past few albums I’ve missed). What I really love however is the one thing I’ve seen people get really critical towards this album for, that being the inclusion of some poppier elements that sprout up on “Take Me Away” and to a lesser extent “The Evil Kin”. The former is my absolute favorite tune off the record, precisely because its channeling that strain of Finnish melancholy via goth rock tones ala Sentenced, Charon, and yes even HIM. It comes through in those aching keyboard notes to start off the song, a melody that blossoms through a clean-toned guitar passage later on. I adore stuff like this, and while the tempo is slowed down a bit to let the melodies breath and flow, I didn’t find it altogether so poppy that it would somehow be considered offensive. Metal fans have their quirks though (though sometimes I think they’re just insecurities). A bit surprised to say this in a year with an Amorphis release, but this is my favorite Finnish metal album of 2018 so far.

 

 

 

 

Elvenstorm – The Conjuring:

Thanks to a cursory mention by one of the peeps on the /r/PowerMetal subreddit, I learned about this new album from France’s Elvenstorm the day it came out. If the initial idea of French power metal conjures up flowery melodies and even flowerier vocals you might be forgiven if your only experience was with Heavenly and Fairyland (who all things considered, aren’t nearly as “flowery” as a few other non-French bands I can think of). I suspect there’s some cultural stereotyping we’re attributing to the idea of French music being flowery, but then again Yé-yé, Chanson, and the dreamy shoegaze of Alcest probably doesn’t help matters. No matter, because Elvenstorm have been loudly working in relative obscurity for the past decade to undo these preconceived notions and The Conjuring seems to be an apotheosis for them, and hopefully their breakthrough moment. This album surprised the hell out of me for that reason alone, its sheer aggression and viciousness, conveyed in a dirty guitar sound, thrashy riffs playing at often speed metal tempos. But trust me, its still power metal, the melodies abound and for all its bullet belt attitude, the band wields its progressive influences ala Blind Guardian in spades.

 

The band’s motor is guitarist Michael Hellström, who has an ear for keeping the songwriting grounded in rough, heavy riffs and explosive, ripping tempo shifts yet isn’t afraid to usher in major keys in his lead parts over the top or alongside. Think Helloween’s Walls of Jericho on the kind of steroids Sweet Dee was taking in Always Sunny when she was prepping to fight in the boxing ring. The band’s x factor however is vocalist Laura Ferreux, whose vocals might be a make or break proposition for some. Her tone is distinct, kept in the upper registers (she ranges from high to glass shatteringly high) with a noticeable French speaker influence to her English lyric delivery, much in the same vein that Klaus Meine has a certain German approach to his pronunciation. I find her vocals work perfectly with the frenetic nature of these songs, and there’s something awesome about that much full throttle power and attitude coming from the body of a petite Frenchwoman. She’s spectacular on gems like “Bloodlust”, “Into the Night”, and “Devil Within”, all three songs hitting you with the force of a hurricane, Ferreux’s vocals sounding like they’re coming from somewhere amidst the tempest. On the proggy end of things, “Chaos From Beyond” has quickly become one of my favorite songs over the past month, its smartly constructed echoing chorus worthy of a best songs list nomination methinks —- then again, The Conjuring has already made the nominee pool for the best albums list so… decisions decisions…

 

 

 

 

Dee Snider – For The Love Of Metal:

I remember listening to the episode of the Jasta Show podcast when this idea was initially broached. It was almost an off the cuff comment by Jamey Jasta, a spur of the moment idea borne of his gushing that he always thought Dee had a classic metal voice, and wouldn’t it be great if he did a full on metal album to showcase that voice ala what Halford did with his namesake project. Dee seemed to congenially agree to everything, that he was up for whatever, as long as he didn’t have to write the songs (he stopped songwriting after the short lived Widowmaker project in the mid-90s). Jasta was pumped, and a couple months later he let slip that he and the Bellmore brothers (Toxic Holocaust) were actually working on songs for it. I don’t remember if I thought at the time that it was a good idea or not, it just seemed like an amusing thing to contemplate —- the singer from one of the most recognizable metalcore bands working on an album with someone like Dee Snider, a guy who I honestly never really thought of as a classic metal vocalist in any capacity. He was always just the mouthpiece for Twisted Sister and an interesting personality in the hard rock world. Key words being hard rock, I just never thought of him as a metal guy. We’ve all got a little revisionist historian in us as metal fans, a way of reordering the events of the past in our beloved genre according to our own preferences, regardless of whether we’re trying to be as objective as possible or not. Its what makes shows like Lock Horns from BangerTV so crucial, that a community should be involved to come up with a consensus on what is what in regards to genres and classic albums, not just one or two voices in print mags or popular sites.

 

Jasta’s opinion that Dee is a classic metal vocalist isn’t a ridiculous notion, but its an arguable position, one that really needed to be backed up by this album, because myself and many others didn’t really feel that way going in. So how do we evaluate this record? The songwriting is clearly cut from the Hatebreed-ian / modern metal cloth, which isn’t a bad thing by any means, because as a more mainstream approach to that sound these songs are pretty solid. There’s hooks a plenty, the riffs are meaty and convincing, if simple to a fault, and there’s enough variation with tempo changes and well thought out bridges and segues to keep things interesting. Dee’s vocals are recorded in pristine fashion, through the sort of modern recording approach that most bands are using these days, certainly a league apart from the raw, punky feel of those early Twisted Sister albums. It can be a little clinical, a little too antiseptic at times however, for all its sonic perfection. I think the best track here is “Tomorrow’s No Concern”, where despite the clunky lyrics the vocal hook and riff work off each other well enough to get lodged into your head. I also really liked the different things they tried in the duet with the much over-booked Alyssa White-Gluz (yet another guest appearance? Must we?), there was a nice Spanish style acoustic strummed intro, and the guitar solo was quite pretty and made for a refreshing change of pace for an album that was largely very samey throughout.

 

You’ve all heard this record by now, I’m not gonna waste time describing it any further. My takeaway is this: It was an interesting record to behold, to consider as a novel and unexpected project. For all its relative strength as a solid metal record, its biggest drawback might be just how seriously it takes itself. We all smile to the “We’re Not Gonna Take It” video and sing along to it at metal festival karaokes, at ball games, or whenever it inevitably comes on during a commercial these days. I don’t hear that Dee Snider at all on this record, that light hearted, flippant purveyor of defiance and all things rock n’ roll. Maybe Jasta should’ve recruited a songwriter from that era to help with the writing, or someone contemporary who operates in the same spirit (Justin Hawkins from The Darkness perhaps?). I feel no urge to revisit this album at any point in the near future, but I’ve never stopped coming back to Jorn Lande’s utterly ridiculous and magnificent Dracula: Swing of Death from 2015. That album was fun, knew it was camp as hell and Jorn leaned into it hard and turned in some fine theatrical and full on Jorn-metal performances on some terrific songs. He’s all thunder and epic majesty on the Avantasia project though, largely because Tobias Sammet knows how to utilize his voice and writes songs towards that goal. Sammet’s also the guy who got Geoff Tate’s best performance of the last twenty years on the Ghostlights album, leaning hard into the man’s strengths and driving it home with a song that amplifies them. I applaud the ambition of Jasta’s Dee Snider project, but the execution was a little misdirected, and once the hype train passes, I think most people will feel the same way.

July 12, 2018 2018, reviews 4 Comments

The Mid-Year Reviews Cluster Catch Up

So I spent most of the past month mistakenly thinking that this summer was a little light on quality new music, and to a certain extent that’s right in terms of May and June. Fortunately for me I’ve taken advantage of the lull to do some digging on stuff I might have missed in the past six months in general. I discovered these through a variety of different sources, but mostly from my friends at /r/powermetal and its corresponding Dischord chat as well as the USPM Connection Facebook group, all of whom helped me out with a ton of suggestions for albums I’ve missed (for better and worse). I’ve picked out a handful of the most interesting ones, so I guess these are somewhat reviews but kinda also just straight up recommendations that I think are worth your time. I’ve also reviewed the new Khemmis and Kobra and the Lotus, two bands that I had previously heard of but have never written about or investigated too much until now. The nature of how I came to hear most of these bands is a microcosm of the very essence of this blog’s founding mission, namely being a conduit for word of mouth recommendations, from others to me, and hopefully myself to you.

 

 

 

Exlibris – Innertia:

Before we begin, a little clarification is necessary because there are two active metal bands based only a few hundred kilometers apart in Europe sharing the same name. Well, almost. So there’s Ex Libris, the Dutch symphonic metal band helmed by ex-Xandria vocalist Dianne van Giersbergen that’s active once more and in the process of crowdfunding a new album. Then there’s Exlibris, and the modern power metal band from Poland, and that’s who we’re talking about here with their new album Innertia. Poland has had a small yet noticeable impact on the power metal scene, the most notable band being Crystal Viper. There’s some much smaller profile Polish bands such as Gutter Sirens and Night Mistress, the latter of whom incidentally shared a vocalist in Krzysztof Sokołowski with Exlibris for a couple years and a few albums. He was a fairly proficient vocalist, but Exlibris have finally decided to take a big step apart and forward by recruiting a singer of their own in Finland’s own Riku Turunen, who turns out to be a remarkable talent. This is my introduction to him, but damn what an introduction. He’s got a nice blend of influences in his vocals, a blast of Mandrake-era Tobias Sammett’s raw power with a dash of Timo Kotipelto’s penchant for endearing phrasing of specific words and phrases. I really love his work all over this album, and he’s arriving at a time when a lot of us are looking around at the power metal landscape and wondering where the next powerhouse vocalists are —- as it turns out, there’s a load of them all over the globe, they’re just not getting the recognition they should.

 

As impressive as Turunen is, I don’t want to minimize what the band has accomplished with Innertia, because this is one of the most dazzling modern power metal albums I’ve heard in awhile. Its riffs are thick, meaty and Tad Morose level heavy at moments, but the songwriting is quick on its feet, throwing changes and abrupt shifts this way and that which keep things from getting plodding or staid. There’s a few songs here that evoke tinges of Theocracy’s blistering yet melodic rhythmic attack, the album leading “Harmony of Spheres” comes to mind with its airplane takeoff acceleration and lush vocal lift on the bridge. The mid-song shift to a regal symphonic metal breakdown (as close as it gets to such a strange concept anyway) is a nice diversion, something to lock in our attention as the song hits its final minutes. These guys do a lot of that, little musical ideas tossed in here and there that work to maximize the overall impact rather than simply standout on their own. I mentioned the backing/layered vocals a second ago, and I love that they’re confident enough to write with them as a major component of the songwriting at times, as on “Gravity” whose refrain is classic call and response hard rock theatrics —- the strident lead vocals up close and personal while the backing vocals handle the progression of the vocal melody driving things forward. While guitarist Daniel Lechmański and keyboardist Piotr Sikora help Turunen out on backing vox on most tracks, guest vocalist Ann Charlotte Wikström is heard on many spots throughout with assists on lead vocal lines as on album highlight “Shoot For the Sun”. Its a spectacular song and it really shines towards the end when she weaves around Turunen in a twisting, enjoining vocal dance to finish the track —- a gorgeously sublime moment.

 

The Sammett comparisons surface again in a positive way for much of “Incarnate”, and honestly it makes the Edguy/Avantasia fanboy inside nine kinds of giddy. I really love Sikora’s keyboard work, he’s really working a Jens Johansson approach here, not only for the flashy solos but in how he utilizes his keys largely as an orchestral instrument to help amplify Turunen’s vocal lines. His interplay with Lechmański’s guitarwork throughout the album is intriguing to behold on its own apart from the vocals, and when all three elements join up on the same melody as on the chorus for “Amorphous” the results are triumphant, fist in the air stuff. Great bands make choruses like these seem easy, but if you listen to enough mediocre, not-quite-there power/trad metal you’ll realize they’re enormously difficult. It takes vision to write something that has such a well-defined melodic arc, and I’d put Exlibris’ work on this album up there with the best of new Terje Haroy/Jacob Hansen era Pyramaze. I love that they’re not afraid of challenging themselves with complexity during their refrains either, as on “Origin of Decay” whose chorus is its own countermelody to the verse, a bold decision that works well, I enjoyed it so much that even the spoken word effects in the middle didn’t bother me (and they usually do). A day after I first heard this album I recorded a recent MSRcast where I prematurely spoke of Innertia as a casual summertime jam type of affair —- but subsequent listens have made a right fool out of me. I simply can’t say enough good things about this record right now, it came out of nowhere and just floored me. At this point I’m not just talking about Innertia being potentially the best power metal record of 2018, I’m talking about it being in the running for the best album of the year list period.

 

 

 

 

Kobra and the Lotus – Prevail II:

Another chapter in my ever expanding legacy of coming around to bands late, Kobra and the Lotus finally grabbed my attention with 2017’s Prevail. I heard that album when it came out last summer with a few cursory listens and came away surprised that I was enjoying parts of it, but it got lost in the shuffle of releases around the time and I never reviewed it. But there’s something happening here on its sequel that signals that perhaps the band is coming into their own creatively. Kobra Paige has always been an impressive vocalist, but for me this is the first time I’m hearing her vocals in a context that makes the most of their Doro-esque strength and vigor, her performance in this album at times even recalling the tensile flexibility of Triosphere’s Ida Haukland. The band shares credit in this too, giving her ample room to steer the melodic ship with her vocals, the often delightfully catchy riffs from Jasio Kulakowski working around her via accents and countermelodies. Its the sound of a band that has searched for and discovered its strengths over the course of a few albums and is now leaning into them hard.

 

The most vivid example of that realization is heard on “Let Me Love You”, as fine a single as we’ve heard all year and the kind of metal summertime jam where the lyrical matter doesn’t matter so much as the groove, the riff, and the killer hook does. I say lyrical matter doesn’t matter only because I don’t mind rock or metal bands singing about topics like love and romance, they’ve been doing it since Zeppelin and The Who. Yet a good many of the comments on YouTube for this song are from insecure boys opining that its subject matter is lame (or that dreaded dairy related adjective). Guys, its no more so than any other lyrical subject matter in metal, its 2018 and its past time to get over it. In fact, for the Metal Pigeon’s 2014 album of the year in Triosphere’s The Heart of the Matter, a heavy emphasis on the subject of bad relationships was the emotional core that informed much of that album’s gorgeously manipulated rage and fury. Paige doesn’t quite achieve that same level of excellence all across Prevail II, but on this song she absolutely delivers in an angst-ridden paean to forlorn longing. She does the same on the Ville Valo meets Ann Wilson vibe of “Heartache” with a wonderful vocal on the chorus there, one written with exceptional care to squeeze every emotional drop from so few syllables.

 

On the heavier end, she’s gotten better at channeling mainline influences such as Halford and even a little Dickinson as her performances on “Human Empire” and “You’re Insane” can attest. Album opener “Losing My Humanity” is another highlight, being an example of one of my favorite trad metal songwriting techniques in a punishingly fast verse riff being followed by a slower tempo in the arena rock informed bridge and chorus. Its classic metal 101 but so challenging to pull off in a way that sounds effortless like it does here. A note about the production here, because I know that Jacob Hansen has his trademark sonic style that some find too polished and perfect (and its very apparent all over this album), but I think it really works for a band in this vein where the focus is on elevating Paige’s performances in a vocal melody driven context. Kobra and the Lotus have an intriguing future ahead of them, one that could end in either extreme because while I suspect their sound is accessible enough for anyone looking for well crafted melodic metal, its also a little too trad for alternative rock playlists and maybe even Active Rock and Sirius FM/Octane. They made a dent with “Light Me Up” last year, but a small one at that and its unfortunate that they’re not getting better results with the singles off Pt II. Its still early in the release cycle, so maybe a well chosen tour or two could change things, and I hope so because this album deserves more ears.

 

 

 

 

Thaurorod – Coast of Gold:

You ever have those moments where you’re at the grocery store, with your responsible list of low carb, sugar free groceries in your cart and you’re stocked up on organic chicken, avocados, bags of salad, some eggs (okay okay enough of the shopping list) and you pass by the cereal aisle and instead of  walking past like you’re supposed to you wander in and Assassin’s Creed past your better judgement to grab that box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Yep, that’s me with the new (well, a February release) Thaurorod album, a blast of Euro-styled power metal cut from the late nineties glory era cloth. This is such a blatantly traditionalist power metal affair that it even goes for the jugular with the comic book-ish cover art featuring the band members drawn as enterprising seafarers (I guess?). Thankfully they steer clear of Alestorm territory, in fact this is actually a Finnish band but they sound closer to Freedom Call in sound and spirit rather than Sonata Arctica. What was interesting to learn upon closer inspection is that its kind of a side project of Joonas Pykälä-aho and Emil Pohjalainen from Amberian Dawn (drummer and guitarist respectively). Neither to my knowledge contribute to Amberian’s writing process so I take it they get their kicks here with a project that’s been going since 2005. This was one of the recommendations from the community at /r/PowerMetal, it came up when folks were discussing what they thought the best albums of the first half of the year were. I can easily understand why this was an oft-cited favorite, much like my Cinnamon Toast Crunch comparison, its the power metal equivalent to kiddish comfort food (the band name being a Tolkien reference is also a good way to get me to listen).

 

You’ll get my drift when you hear the album opener, suitably named “Power”, because this song is as the lyrics confirm, about “Power we need / Power we breathe / Power to break through the gates / To our dreams”. Oh and don’t misinterpret the tone of that sentence, because I’m not being snarky in anyway, I’m fully buying in here, even when the band makes the near fatal mistake of having built-in “hey! hey!” chant sections midway through the song (seriously, Thaurorod gets a pass because this song is so much fun, but note to bands, don’t do this!). Its power metal 101 to use “power” and “forever” liberally in lyrics, and these guys pack them both in a skyrocketing chorus. Pure power metal fun aside, there’s some depth and complexity to what they’re accomplishing on “24601”, a song that makes clever use of its title in a satisfyingly rhythmic way. What really sells it is the rough yet smooth vocals of Bosnian singer Andi Kravljača (if he sounds familiar its because he was on the first Seventh Wonder album pre-Tommy Karevik and did a stint with Silent Call for a few years), and he entirely makes up for the fact that they lifted the keyboard intro from Toto’s “Hold the Line”. I experienced a rush of joy listening to this record, and appreciate that the band just went for it full throttle, often in speed but always in displaying their clear cut love for all things classic power metal. Its not reinventing the wheel for sure, but its a pretty good wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

The Night Flight Orchestra – Sometimes The World Ain’t Enough:

The lovable Swedes are back yet again with a new album a little over a single year after the release of 2017’s Amber Galactic. It wasn’t but a few months ago that I was writing about them for the first time, not expecting that we’d get new music so quickly, but that facet alone is another detail in what makes The Night Flight Orchestra so convincing and compelling. Back in the late 70s and early 80s, rock bands would usually be releasing new music at a pretty swift clip, even the Scorpions only took two years between Animal Magnetism and Blackout, and that includes the delays from Klaus Meine almost losing his voice before the recording sessions. Iron Maiden of course knocked out three albums in yearly succession between 82-84, all while touring like madmen in between each release and somehow finding time to write and record new music rapidly, rest and vacations were considered part of the recording session experience (I suppose that’s why they’d decamp to the Bahamas but nevermind). The point is that back in that era to take three years or longer to do an album was seen as far too long to be away from your fans, it was just an aspect of rock culture that slowly ebbed away as the 90s came out and it was seen as okay to tour longer or use the EP or live album as a way to buy time. I’m not sure whether the band is doing it on purpose or not, but there’s something charming about Night Flight adhering to this ethos and work ethic, this being their fourth album in six years since the band’s inception —- pretty good for a “side project”.

 

That they’ve managed to get better and sound more confident with each passing release is also something to celebrate, and Sometimes the World Ain’t Enough expands upon the greater role of synths and keyboard driven melodies that we heard on Amber Galactic. Lead single/video track “Turn to Miami” is emblematic of this approach, with its suggestive, slinky synth lines and lyrics that declare “while the night is young / this is where we start”. Björn Strid is as usual accompanied by gorgeous backing vocals, provided here by the “Airline Annas” (Anna Brygård and Anna-Mia Bonde), a detail that might get overlooked in the artistic success of these songs. Its not to say that Strid isn’t a powerful and appealing clean vocalist in his own right, but the Airline Annas’ harmonies and independent vocal accompaniments layer on that extra sugar icing that buoy these songs from street level High Spirits throwback grit into something that is truly transcendent and of the spirit of that era. The hardest hitting song on the record is the title track, not only for its confident hard rock stridency, but because that chorus just impacts with precision, the Anna’s once again sealing its potency with well timed supporting harmonies.

 

And there’s something to “Lovers In the Rain”, a heavy synth drenched semi power ballad, the kind that had it come out in the early 80s would have irritated a few fans at first but slowly would win them over in private away from their buddies in the car. When it comes to “Barcelona”, we’re treated to a Journey-esque ode to one particular city that also serves as a metaphorical focal point for the narrator. Its the weakest song on the record but still manages to rock with early 80s conviction, and that says something about the overall quality of the album. The work this band has put into mining this particular vein of rock history has made them into one of the style’s strongest songwriting collectives. Case in point is just how interesting they manage to make the nine-minute plus “The Last of the Independent Romantics”, a running time that had me skeptical before I heard it. Here they marry the sounds of 80s rich royalty rock with the ambition of a 70s prog rock piece and keep it loaded with enough solid riffs and melodic shifts to keep us intrigued. This is a fun listen and if you haven’t gotten on board yet, this is the album to get first (and work your way backwards in order), Night Flight have transcended any jokey beginnings and have simply turned into a great band making a kind of music a lot of us miss.

 

 

 

 

 

Uada – Cult of a Dying Sun:

Portland’s Uada are an intriguing band, not for the hoods they wear in promo photos and apparently onstage as well (we’ll see, I’m catching them live in a few days time), but for their attempt at straddling the bridge connecting second wave black metal to its more melodically inclined modern evolution. This is their sophomore album, their debut Devoid of Light arriving in 2016 and in listening to the two back to back, you can see that they’ve made a significant leap in songwriting complexity in just this short span of time. The thing that I feel most critics of modern black metal miss is just how effective a crisp, clear production job can be to the overall impact of music as complex as this. Not everything should sound like a shrieking incoherent mess, and while that early second wave production style lent itself to what those artists were trying to accomplish (“Give me the wvurst microphone you have…”), a lot of us became fans of the modern style first and then went back to do our history homework with the more difficult to listen to stuff.

 

I have no idea what the members of Uada would cite as influences, and this being a short review I felt no need to research it, but I hear shades of Dissection (particularly in the wielding of melodic motifs throughout), a little Dimmu Borgir and even a bit of Inquisition. I’ve seen some criticism posted up about how these guys are aping Polish black metal band Mgla’s sound, and that’s some pretty accusatory stuff considering most metal bands are drawing influence from other metal bands. I took a listen to the last Mgla album to see what the fuss was about, and okay there’s some resemblance but honestly I prefer Uada for their deeper dive into unabashed melody. Take their melodic treatment of the tremolo buzzsaw cutting across most of “Snakes and Vultures”, its so earwormy in its own right that it works as the hook here, usurping the actual vocal refrain. And I love the almost melo-death approach on guitars in “Mirrors”, kind of a merging of two genres with its black metal song structure. This isn’t a perfect album, it starts off really strong for the first three tracks and then dips a bit in the middle (“The Wanderer” should have been left on the cutting room floor) only to perk up at the end, but its one of the few black metal records that’s intrigued me this year. Looking forward to seeing them, hoping for an entertaining show (remember, a good show needs anticipation or surprise!) and will be expecting even better things from these guys in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Khemmis – Desolation:

I had paid attention the last time Khemmis were making waves, about two years ago when they were in the spotlight for their sophomore release Hunted. I gave that album a shot and for some reason it just didn’t connect with me, and honestly their newest Desolation really took more than a handful of forced attempts at cracking its code before it finally started to grow on me. I’m not sure what my block is on this band (we briefly talked about this on the last MSRcast), but Desolation is the most accessible album for me from this band mainly because its the least doomy of all their work. I know its a bit ridiculous to come from having Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper on my best albums list last year, to now saying that Khemmis is giving me problems but that’s just the way my brain is working at the moment I guess. It was Adrian Begrand’s repeated Twitter statements on how “If you like traditional, escapist heavy metal, this is the one for you” that got me to stick with it, and kudos to him because I think I’m about 75-80% there. The stuff I’m responding positively to is the band’s increased trad metal infusion, particularly in the uptick in tempos all across these songs. There were flashes of that happening on their previous two albums, but here its the main feature, and it makes a huge difference in aligning their sound closer to bands like Grand Magus and Tyr, whom I both adore.

 

As usual Khemmis keeps the albums concise and tight (only six tracks here, ranging from four to nine minutes), its a practice that I sometimes think other bands should adopt, getting back to a more mid-80s/vinyl level of quality control, but I’m digressing. The album that I’m enjoying kicks off after the opening doom-laden track “Bloodletting” on the subsequent”Isolation” which really reminds me of Candlemass crossed with Iron Maiden. There’s a dueling guitar solo segment partway through that’s just fantastic, full of vigor and vibrant melodicism. It also contains vocalist Phil Pendergast’s best, most emotive work —- at times displaying shades of Tyr’s Heri Joensen and even Dio’s penchant for theatricality and rhythmic timing. You’ll hear more of that on “Flesh to Nothing”, particularly in the build up during the verses, and I get a real Hetfield vibe on “The Seer” that works to enhance its bite. Of course harsh vocalist Ben Hutcherson is the counterpoint here, and his raspy sheet metal scream is on point tonally and provides a nice change-up from time to time. If I’m being honest I wouldn’t mind Khemmis going full clean vocals in the future, but that’s just my power/trad metal loving side coming out. I’m still digesting this album fully, but the good news is that its something I’m willingly coming back to and its riffs are thundering in my head long after I’ve finished listening.

 

 

 

 

Frozen Crown – The Fallen King:

This was a nice surprise, another touted recommendation from the peeps at /r/PowerMetal, Frozen Crown are a power metal band from Italy that sound like they could be from the States or Canada. Its not that they don’t have the ability to show a little flashiness ala Rhapsody and co., as principal songwriter Federico Mondelli and his fellow guitarist Talia Bellazecca have enough bottled up technical virtuosity to trade spitfire solos and flex creatively with complex melodic patterns. But rather than layer it on thick, they have an innate USPM sense of keeping things scaled down, stripped back to the essentials —- so we get shreddy riffs but also vocal melody driven songwriting built on the strength of the relatively unknown Giada Etro’s emotive, throaty singing as well as Mondelli’s own solid clean-harsh range. What’s smart about their pairing is that they avoid beauty and the beast tropes by rarely trading off verses… this is largely Etro’s domain, the songs are almost all written to support her ability to soar into higher registers, but Mondelli provides a nice change of pace in select situations and also sparks a nice harmonic duet in the ballad “Chasing Lights”. That song in particular is used as a cleverly disguised segue into the sharp, aggressive epic “Queen of Blades”, one of the occasions where both vocalists do trade off a bit yet the overall vibe I get is more Unleash the Archers, not Nightwish.

 

Speaking of Archers, Etro has a touch of Brittney Hayes’ timbre to her vocals, but also a little of Kobra Paige’s smoothness, that ability to make emotive sweeps with little changes. I hear both “Across the Sea”, as Nightwish-esque as things get here (muted keyboard adorned verses, transitional bridge/chorus that pops), and I love the choice Etro makes with the sped up phrasing at the :59 to 1:04 mark (“I’m feeling frozen, I can’t hear my heart beating”), something I’d imagine that the master of that technique in Mr. Tony Kakko would be proud of. Sometimes as on the closing track “Netherstorm” I get the feeling that the band is attempting to find a place where melo-death and power metal can merge (that intersection of Wintersun and Skyfire), and they have a moment towards the end where the riffs have that Gothenberg density and are complemented by a gorgeously fluid lead melody over the top. Its not quite the integration they seek, but I think they’ll get there with future albums. Oh yeah, this is a debut by the way, it actually came out in February, but being that their label support is relatively small (Scarlet Records in Italy) its telling that they’re making lasting impressions in the online power metal community —- enough for a handful of people to remember it all these months later when pressed for recommendations. Its too early to call it, but there’s something happening within power metal that might be described as a nascent revitalization. I’m looking around at the artistic triumphs coming from the genre in the last few years as well as young rising bands like this and its starting to feel as exciting as 1998 again. To quote Fox Mulder, I want to believe.

 

 

 

 

Hoth – Astral Necromancy:

Oh get ready, this is a strange but good one, and I mean really strange and really good. This has become one of my favorites for 2018 overall, something I’ve been unable to stop listening to in the slightest (cool cover art too for bonus points). If the name wasn’t a tip off, Hoth are steeped in Star Wars mythology, particularly in their first two albums (this one seems to blend in some other lyrical topics, mainly, erm…. necromancy), and while its surprising that no band has really taken and run with that theme in earnest, its more surprising as to how Hoth have decided to go about it. Their interpretation of a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away is a soundscape of heavily major key infused black metal, and I’m not talking about symphonic arrangements ala Dimmu and others, but as in its core tremolo based guitar skeleton. We’ve talked about black metal set to major keys before, most notably in Deafheaven’s Sunbather, and it was a unique listening experience for sure, but I think that Hoth somehow make it even more interesting because they’re keeping with the darkness and not resorting to pastoral tones and colors. Make no mistake, the galaxy that Hoth want you to envision is bleak, unforgiving, icy cold (heh), and wickedly punishing.

 

On opener “Vengeance” they take a traditional black metal approach through the verses, but punctuate the bridge with some almost bark/shouted rhythmic vocal lines only to follow it up with a wildly noodley solo. Its a preview of things to come in that you’ll never really be able to predict where they’re going to take things musically —- unpredictability is their greatest strength. Take its jaw dropping follow-up “The Living Dreams of a Dead God” (that title is some Glen Cook level cosmic darkness!) where they switch up the attack with an almost trad/power metal rhythmic riff structure, one that reminds me of how Therion often surprises new listeners with their heavy 80s metal guitar approach instead of something more blackened or death metal-ish. I would call this a prog influenced track for its rising dramatic crescendo during the refrain but it might give you the wrong idea, this is very much a brutal and fierce piece of music. Elsewhere I was enthralled by their turn to pure power metal influences such as on “Ascension”, an appropriate title given the sudden sweeping nature of the guitar melodies herein, featuring a lead melody as gorgeous as anything conjured up by Opeth or Sorceror. It wouldn’t come as a surprise then for me to tell you that the guys on the /r/PowerMetal dischord recommended this one to me as well, and I find that harsh vocal based recommendations from power metal communities really hit me in my sweet spot (that ‘melodeath-ian nexus’ of everything I love about metal).

 

 

June 16, 2018 2018, Blog related, Hammerfall, Insomnium, Orphaned Land, rant, reviews, Satyricon, Tyr 7 Comments

Lessons From Concert-Going

Its been a sweat filled, beer guzzling start to the summer for me, not only for the surprising intensity this early in our Houston HnH (heat and humidity), but for the four shows I’ve already attended in May and June alone, with one more on the horizon this next week (Hammerfall) and possibly another in July. As I’ve written before, I don’t normally write up show reviews because they’re usually uninteresting to read for anyone who wasn’t there, full of sycophantic blather about how the band “killed it” or any variation on butts being kicked. It was the type of stuff I loved reading when I was 18 —- the kind of die hard fan who’d show up to shows at 3pm to catch the band sound checking or loitering outside their bus. Back then I’d stay long after the headliners had left, not only to talk to the band members I hadn’t met before the gig, but to just linger and soak up the atmosphere and keep the night going. Such thoughts are unfathomable to me now, when the very thought of standing up front by the stage for all the openers just to be in a prime spot for the headliner sounds like a nightmare rather than a privilege. Most shows these days I don’t mind arriving to the venue a little bit later, to avoid rush hour traffic and miss an opener I didn’t care about, and I’ll usually leave right after the headliners make their final bow. Chances are I have to work the next day and/or my friggin knee is killing me. The in-show energy is reserved as well, kept for moments when I really get into it and with caution not to headbang my way into feeling awful in the morning. Moshing? No. Retired. Mosh retirement.

 

That being said, I do want to talk about something I’ve learned about the act of going to a metal show, or any show really, over the course of these past couple. Two were within five days of each other, one being an out of town trip with some rough conditions (more on that in a sec), and the other was a capstone celebration for a pair of friends who’d gotten married that same day. Ah concerts, things we music lovers look forward to sometimes more than album releases. You see the announcement months in advance, let yourself get excited and sometimes even fret about whether to buy the tickets ahead of time or trust in the low-ish attendance tendency of these small metal club shows to know you can just pay at the door the night of. Then you wait. Days before the show, you let yourself get excited again, start listening to the band you’re seeing to prepare a little, to whet the appetite to hear those songs live, and then its the show day and you’re standing there in front of a stage with a drum kit, some mics, and a few crew guys scurrying around setting everything up. Countless shows attended now and its never gotten old, and I’m always intrigued by every aspect of the shin-dig, from the way the bands choose to make their entrance, to the amount of dry ice fog they’re unfurling, to how much room they’re all gonna have to move around. Music nerd you see. I don’t think I’ve become jaded yet, even when I’m achingly tired, irritated that the soundcheck’s going on forever, and the openers were meh. I’m still at a show and damn its cool, its my decision to be there and I’m in a room full of (mostly) other people who get it.

 

In my experience, any disappointment surrounding a show is largely due to having to miss it thanks to some interceding combination of bad timing, unavoidable scheduling conflicts or the bummer of bummers, being strapped for cash. There is however that rare tragedy where you actually attend a show and walk out at the end feeling vaguely unsatisfied, or worse yet, apathetic and indifferent to what you’ve just witnessed. And look, we’re all a little hesitant to admit out loud when this happens for fear of looking and feeling like a sucker. The most egregious example however came during a December 2013 Finntroll headlining show. I had seen them way back in 2007 when Vreth had just joined up as the lead vocalist, and they were supporting their most vicious black metal infused album ever (Ur jordens djup). It was an incredible show, the band playing a tiny stage that barely rose a foot off the ground with all of us going nuts in front of them. My friend Matt got his shoulder dislocated at that show by a bruiser in the pit, dashed away to the back of the room, popped his shoulder back in place and bounded back in the crowd next to me. Insane. They rolled through two years later with Swallow the Sun and Moonsorrow and again it was all kinds of awesome brutality (sans injuries). The 2013 show however was abysmal. Gone was the raw, primal intensity that ran through those two performances, replaced instead with pandering to the Korpiklaani/Alestorm set, heavy on the keyboard humppa and the band all sporting fake elven ears. The band was going through the motions, Vreth was noticeably out of it, hungover or drunk as he admitted to my friends later. Not to get dramatic, but I don’t think any of us have listened to the band since.

 

 

Kamelot in Houston (May 2018) Credit: @wilkinson_image_designBut a band making a bad impression due to a combo of performance issues and aesthetic choices is admittedly an extreme outlier, and they certainly weren’t the problem when I left the House of Blues in Houston over a month ago on May 9th one song before Kamelot finished their headlining set. This is a band that can rightfully be called one of my favorite metal bands of the past decade plus, power metal stalwarts who towered mighty during their Roy Khan era, stumbled a bit after he left in 2011 but recovered with 2015’s excellent Haven album. I’ll say this, the band played well that night, Tommy Karevik was in as fine form of voice as he was on the past two times I’ve seen him, and they played to an appreciative audience. But I was a little unenthusiastic about the experience, mainly because I had taken a peek at the setlist ahead of time and noticed just how nearly identical it was to the last time I saw them in 2015. Nine songs were the same, and of the only four Khan era songs they played (down from seven the last time) all were cuts they had already played last time (and honestly on the tour before that back supporting Silverthorn in 2012 when I saw them in Austin). Now I get that three albums into the Karevik era, they’d naturally trim the Roy songs down a bit, but a little swapping in and out of classic Kamelot cuts would be preferable. Particularly for fans who’ve been around for awhile like myself. I was essentially seeing the same show from three years ago, with the exception of the new songs they added in from April’s The Shadow Theory.

 

What was missing from that Kamelot show was two factors that you at least require one of to be in play for a good concert experience —- namely, a sense of anticipation, or the element of surprise. The absolute best shows give you both, and those are rare gems that you should cherish and boast about loudly to friends during drunken reminiscing. With Kamelot, I knew the setlist going into it, and while I was mildly interested in hearing the new songs live, it wasn’t enough to overcome my dampened enthusiasm from knowing I was going to be hearing largely the same show yet again. There was zero sense of anticipation, but I bought the ticket well ahead of time, I was certainly not going to waste it. During the show however, there were no surprises —- the band played the same setlist that they were playing on every stop of their North American tour, no curve balls thrown in or new songs added or swapped out. The beats were the same within the show as well, Karevik with a piano only accompaniment for “Here Comes the Fall” so the rest of the band could take a water break, then there were the guest vocalist spots from Lauren Hart and Charlotte Wessels at all the expected moments. I know what you’re thinking, “Pigeon, this seems like disgruntled fan talk, not really a valid complaint about a band letting down an audience.” I’ll stop you right there. I am part of said audience. I take no especial pride in being a Kamelot fan longer than perhaps some of the other folks attending that show, but having that history with the band greatly exposed what was wrong with that show (and the band subsequently) to me whereas it may not have for someone excited to see them for the first time. Its the Iron Maiden dilemma just transposed to a smaller band (the grizzled Maiden show vet doesn’t need to hear “Iron Maiden” for the umpteenth time, but the fan seeing them for the first time is all about it).

 

My next show was a few weeks later, Tyr + Orphaned Land + Ghost Ship Octavius + Aeternam in Austin and it already had anticipation building up to feverish levels. It was a stupidly awesome bill, providing me with my first experience seeing Orphaned Land live, first time seeing the ascendant Aeternam (a Metal Pigeon Best of 2017 listee!), and another chance to see Tyr who I hadn’t seen since 2008 at Paganfest. I was hoping to rope in anyone to go check out the show with me but it would end up just being myself (my fellow MSRcast co-host having to bow out due to work obligations even though he badly wanted to go), so I made the road trip alone. Had to fight through a hot Texas Friday afternoon with rush hour traffic making it take well over an hour just to get out of Houston and its surrounding areas alone, but I made it to the venue just in time for doors to open. I was so incredibly giddy. I had blasted the combined Orphaned Land and Aeternam setlists on the way up to Austin, plus a spinning of Aeternam’s Moongod for the extra adrenaline. Both bands didn’t deviate from their expected setlists, but this time around the element of anticipation was so strong that knowing the songs ahead of time didn’t faze my enthusiasm. I was right upfront against the stage for Aeternam going nuts alongside one other guy while the rest of the crowd stood a little back, most voicing earlier within earshot about how they didn’t know who these guys were. One song in and they moved up with the pair of us, Aeternam winning them over with a no frills, heavy energy performance. I loved every second of it, this was a band that I didn’t realistically think would even tour, I didn’t even mind that they only got five songs worth of time.

 

 

Orphaned Land in Austin (May 2018)Seeing Orphaned Land take the stage made me feel a little like being eighteen again. It was surreal to finally see this band that I had been a massive fan of for such a long time since 2004 (more on that history here), and I’m not sure if there were any problems with the sound or if the band technically played well or not. I was on a high, just ecstatic that they were there and so was I, pressed against the stage and shouting along to these songs for the first time with other people who knew them (well, a good throng of us anyway, it was largely a Tyr crowd). At one point I made their guitarist Idan crack up when he saw how enthusiastic I was, giving him the metal horns (in my best Dio impersonation, throwing the horns directly at him). Their vocalist, the one and only Kobi Farhi said the band was going to be at their merch table directly after their set, and there I was, clutching a cold beer, with two Orphaned Land shirts slung over my shoulder (bought one for Cary, felt bad he was missing it), and shaking hands with every member of the band. I was admittedly a little star struck. Afterwards I ran into Achraf Loudiy from Aeternam in the stairwell/hallway of the venue and chatted for a bit, he remembered me from the crowd and seemed surprised that anyone knew who they were ahead of time. Oh I knew. He didn’t believe me when I told him I was jamming Moongod on the drive up from Houston. I’d like to think I helped him walk away with a good impression of Texas, enough to look forward to coming back one day (these guys work day jobs, he admitted its tough getting time off and schedules to line up).

 

The gig was already great, but it really was nice to be surprised (there it is!) with how solid Ghost Ship Octavius were live, like a groove based mid-period Paradise Lost, I enjoyed the rest of their set that I didn’t miss from hanging out with Orphaned Land in the back of the venue. Tyr were as enjoyable as I remembered, those excellent melodic group vocals being an absolute treat to experience live, and they played just about every classic Tyr cut you’d want to hear. I stumbled out at the end of the night achingly tired, having been up since 5am and having been to work earlier that day. A little detail about me, I’m really bad at tired long distance driving, prone to vision tunneling and highway hypnosis. I could chance it if someone was riding shotgun that could keep me awake and/or switch off with me, but that was no help to me this time. I had balked at the Austin weekend rates for hotels/motels when looking online, but someone tipped me off that the apartment complex literally right next to the venue had no entry gate and a load of guest parking spots where it would be safe to crash in your car for a few hours of sleep. I did this, occasionally woken up by a nearby car door shutting, but otherwise left alone. I left there sometime in the middle of the night well before dawn, a little better but still fatigued and made it thirty minutes outside of Austin to a Buc-ee’s in a highway town called Bastrop.

 

If you don’t know what a Buc-ee’s is, think of a 24 hour Texas sized gas station/convenience store with perhaps the cleanest restrooms you could imagine such a place having (seriously, they pride themselves on it). The parking lots of these highway Lothlóriens are obnoxiously large, and in the middle of the night, tired travelers often park at its far edges and get some sleep. The loitering State Troopers standing outside the store chatting and sipping coffee don’t care, they’d rather you sleep in your car there than wreck yourself or someone else on the road. I landed there and decked out for a few more hours, took advantage of everything Buc-ee’s can offer (cold water on my face, large coffee, protein snack kit and some cookies because I already had carb-y beers that night so screw it) and hit the road to Houston with podcasts playing to keep my mind focused. When I finally arrived home, I laid on my bed and felt the urge to once again hear the music that I had just heard that night, something that I never ever do. But I put on Orphaned Land and Aeternam and Tyr on shuffle and fell asleep to those bands, wanting to revisit such a great show in any way possible. It was a classic gig in my book, that perfect combination of anticipation and reward, it outweighed anything negative surrounding the show (the tiredness and the travel and having to go it solo).

 

 

Satyricon Houston (May 2018)Four days later I was heading out to Satyricon at a venue north of downtown Houston I’d never been to before. With me were three friends, two of whom had just gotten officially married earlier that day. Yes they were going to a black metal concert on their wedding night, and the groom was fired up in particular about seeing the band for the first time (he is a big, big fan). We all had a good idea of the setlist ahead of time, my only quibble being that it seemed like they were skipping playing “Now Diabolical” on this tour. Its been said by the band no less that this would be their likely last North American tour, for reasons that they’ve not gone deeply into but I think are largely business oriented at heart. They don’t get big crowds in the US, not like those in Europe, and its understandable that this late in their career they’d want to avoid spending a lot of time and money for little reward. Whatever the reason, we knew this was the last chance we’d have to see them. I’d seen the band twice before, but was still left feeling that this was going to be a momentous, memorable show just for the magnitude of its finality for us. But sometimes the best part about a show is everything else around it not related to the band or the performance —- it was fun to experience a new (and cool) venue, hang out at the nice patio bar built right next to it before and after the show picking craft beers off a gaudy flatscreen TV menu. It was an altogether different kind of celebratory feel to see my newly married friends rockin’ out right up front and center in front of Satyr in a state of near delirium. I was happy that they were that ecstatic. The bonus was that the band did throw some surprises our way in the setlist (they played “Now Diabolical” for one), and Frost came out from behind his drum kit to lead us in some strange, foot stomping crowd chant while Satyr politely tried to hide his amused grin.

 

I think in considering my Austin experience (Tyr/Orphaned Land) and the Satyricon show, it was revealing in just how much I was able to enjoy them despite the solo nature of the former and the extremely social nature of the latter. I’m not a psychologist nor would I attempt to armchair that subject even a little, but being able to get rich, positive experiences out of both of them further reinforces my belief that you simply have to have one of those two crucial elements. Anticipation or surprise. And they can both manifest in a variety of unexpected ways —- surprises don’t always need to come from rotating setlists, or even from the band themselves. They could come from the venue, or the people you meet, or the energy you’re feeling during the show, maybe even the food you ate. One of my most memorable show memories was seeing Dio fronting Heaven and Hell in 2008 on the Metal Masters tour at an outdoor amphitheater, singing the opening lines to “Heaven and Hell” itself while blackened grey clouds in the distance behind the stage crackled with lightning. It was this unexpectedly epic backdrop to one of the most epic metal songs ever, with Ronnie James freakin’ Dio singing it in front of us. Unreal. Another was seeing Watain in Austin in the courtyard of an outdoor club under waves of torrential downpour, a small pocket of fans under the awning at the front of the stage and everyone else back inside the club itself, watching from the doorway. Ages back I had a bunch of free tickets to go see Poison at the same amphitheater I’d later see Dio conjure up storms at, and I convinced a bunch of co-workers at the time to go with me. We had a blast, sitting at the top of the hill, imbibing the mind altering substances of youth while laughing and attempting to snake dance along to “Talk Dirty to Me”.

 

Anticipation can sometimes be a hard thing to perceive correctly, it isn’t enough to merely tell yourself and others that you’re looking forward to going to a show, you have to internalize and feel it within. Case in point was seeing Insomnium the other night here in town. I went with two of the same friends I went to Satyricon with, we even had time to get some phở beforehand. All seemed well but our enthusiasm in seeing Insomnium was a little worn away by having to deal with a bill that was way too loaded, and not in the good way. Three decent to downright awful local bands played before tour openers Oceans of Slumber (the hometown band gone global) took the stage. The venue, my local favorite, also took the weird step of having tables out where the middle of the floor was which made it worryingly dangerous when some idiots tried to start a mosh pit among the oh, thirty to forty of us who were standing in front of the stage during Insomnium’s set. I was exhausted from working earlier that day, seemed like most of the crowd was as well (being a weeknight didn’t help), and despite the band playing extremely well and wringing out the most energy they possibly could from us, I didn’t feel that same kinetic spark that I did the first time I saw them while opening for Epica a few years back. It really wasn’t the band’s fault —- the crowd was weird. A mix of really exhausted people just standing in the back with beers in hand, some of us exhausted folks up front, our agitation exacerbated by mosh pit starters and terrible local metal bands (I may write about this at some point, but I’m over supporting local metal). One guy was simply waiting for “While We Sleep” to attempt to start his bro-pit like this was some hardcore show. He received a prompt telling off by MetalGeeks host RedVikingDave (seriously, no one piss off Dave, he’s frightening).

 

I’m about to see Hammerfall in a few days. I had a great time seeing them almost exactly a year ago at the same venue they’re going to be playing this coming week. It was an electric, highly enthusiastic performance that engendered a similar response from the crowd, Hammerfall is nothing if not masterful stage performers. I’ve been looking forward to it to a certain extent, but I know from hearing a friend talking about it that the setlist is largely the same. This time around I’m kinda okay with that because it was such a great setlist last year… doesn’t that make me a hypocrite? I don’t know but I suspect that each band creates different levels of expectations for lack of a better term. One might suggest that it will be hard for Hammerfall to live up to last year’s show, that it might be the metaphorical second slice of pizza (no matter how good it is, its not as amazing as the first). I’m okay with accepting that as a possible reality, I’ll be heading into this show ready for anything and expecting that it will simply be a good time. It could be possible that there’s a third way of ensuring that a show is enjoyable, and that’s in surrendering one’s reliance on anticipation and surprise, but that might require a level of inner zen that I haven’t figured out how to unlock yet. Maybe getting to that show zen is about focusing less on the things that irritate you, and more on the things that captivated you when you were eighteen and everything onstage seemed a little mystical. Maybe it requires engaging one’s imagination —- so Hammerfall weren’t just bumming around their tour bus, rolling out of their bunks and clambering onto the stage. Nope, they were just standing on that hammer of ice from the “Blood Bound” video and some cosmic portal has opened up and suddenly they’re here in front of me, icicles clinging to their hair and frost covering their guitars…

 

June 3, 2018 2018, Amorphis, At The Gates, Finland, Melo-Death 4 Comments

Scandinavian Summer: The Return of At The Gates and Amorphis

The two biggest releases in the month of May, I was of course wanting to give them an ample amount of listening time before writing anything and the busy nature of the month (including concerts and one out of town trip!) lent towards the drawn out time frame from their release date till now. I’m glad I waited because I was a little high on one and not so much on the other and its been interesting to see how an extra week or so has leveled off both of those opinions with different insights that came to me later on. With as high profile as these have been I feel like I took my eye off the rest of the release radar for this month and possibly June, so if anyone has any tips on what I should be paying attention to right now please drop me a recommendation in the comments!

 

 

Amorphis – Queen of Time:

I was surprised when Amorphis announced that a new album would be landing in our laps this summer, but quickly realized that its release date would fall just under three years since the September 2015 release of Under The Red Cloud, an album that was so magnificently brilliant it took hold of my album of the year spot. I think that album had so dominated my listening time for a good half a year after first hearing it that it made it feel like it was just released last year-ish. I put the album and indeed the band on a long break after seeing them live later in April 2017, something that needs doing after so intense a period of listening to an album you’re obsessing over along with the band’s entire back catalog as a side effect of that enthusiasm. I learned that lesson way back in the early aughts with Opeth and Blackwater Park, particularly considering how soon Deliverance and Damnation and even Ghost Reveries followed —- I couldn’t so much as look at an Opeth album cover for a good long while (a few years actually). That being said I feel like I had a healthy level of anticipation for this one, optimistic that it would be a good album (remember my Amorphis as the New England Patriots of Finnish metal comparison?… no? Dammit.), but a little skeptical that they’d be able to go the distance towards a masterpiece like they did last time around. I was right on the last part, Queen of Time is certainly nowhere near the level of inspired artistry we heard on Red Cloud, and it can rightly be described as a good, even very good album, but somehow something isn’t clicking with me here and I’m having a hard time figuring out what.

 

One thing is clear after all these many listens, that Amorphis is clearly running with open arms towards the highly melodic side of their sound that they expanded on Red Cloud. That means ample melodies, some bordering on what can perhaps be described as sugary or at the least a little sweet, a load of Tomi Joutsen’s clean vocals, and the bulk of the songs being set in a mid-tempo groove. On “Daughter of Hate” they even balance a ferocious melo-death attack with a laid back jazzy section replete with backbeat on the percussion and that recent mistress heard operating around various parts of Scandinavia, the saxophone. I alternate between being okay with it and other times being largely annoyed by its presence, and this is coming from someone who doesn’t mind the odd bit of sax (I grew up liking INXS for starters and then there’s its star role in Queensryche’s Promised Land to consider). More than that though, I couldn’t get into the almost twee sounding melody propelling “Message In The Amber”, unfortunate because its brutal middle section is entirely worth sitting through the rest of the song for. The placement of various sections within the song seem disjointed as well, lacking anything in the way of needed transitions or cues. This songwriting dysmorphia is also evidenced on “Grain of Sand”, where we hear some good ideas but nothing ever gels or coalesces into a greater whole. There’s something just generally frustrating about how songs like “Wrong Direction” and “The Golden Elk” turned out, because you get the feeling that they could have been excellent had they just locked in on a few things. I love the Arabic strings towards the end of the latter, but they came in far too late and probably should’ve been used more throughout the song, as they are now they strike me as an afterthought.

 

But more often than not, Amorphis flash that brilliance we’ve all fallen in love with, be it on the synth dressed “The Bee” with its lurching, punching Jousten growled verses that stomps and beats its chest emphatically. It’s status as the best song on the album might be challenged by “Heart of the Giant”, an energetic song with a surprising rhythmically structured chorus that seems to swoop in from out of nowhere. Similarly, “Pyres On the Coast” drives a rumbling buildup to a swiftly moving orchestral motif that arrives without warning but is compulsively re-listenable. And I’m of course a fan of the duet here featuring one Anneke van Giersbergen on “Amongst Stars”, although it does by virtue of her vocal tone skirt near that saccharine territory I was talking about before. She’s just such a great foil to Joutsen though that it hardly matters, particularly when the chorus she’s belting out is as lovely as this. The folky whistles on this song I believe might come from Eluveitie’s Chrigel Glanzmann which is a cool little detail, and the addition of them makes it sound like a lost track to van Giersbergen’s collaboration with Arjen in The Gentle Storm. This was a Santeri Kallio penned tune, a perfect example of his preferred songwriting approach with largely uptempo songs built around his bright, harmonious keyboard melodies. He and founding guitarist Esa Holopainen once again split the songwriting duties fairly evenly, with Holopainen’s contributions coming in on the heavier end (a distinction that really was magnified on Red Cloud). I could attempt to draw some kind of conclusion that it seems like my tastes fell more in line with Kallio’s songs on this album, but it was the other way around last time so I’m not sure if there’s anything to really learn from that.

 

What has become clear to me however is that I just don’t find this album as addictive as I was hoping for, to take that full on plunge back into Amorphis’ world once again. It reminds me so much of their 2013 Circle album in that light, where a few songs really stood out and I’d listen to them repeatedly, but the album itself was a trying experience. I think Queen of Time is a stronger album than that one, but only because they’re really running with this whole extreme melodicism thing which is right up my power metal street. I’m not getting down on the band as a result of this however, nor on myself; it was always going to be a tall order to follow up Red Cloud, and I knew that going in. And besides, who can tell what album is going to trigger that kind of intense reaction in any of us? For all I know someone may experience this album as their Amorphis masterpiece and think Red Cloud was a misstep (they’re wrong of course…). Going back to that Patriots analogy for a second, that team made it back to the Super Bowl yet again this past February and seemed likely to cruise to another championship, only to lose to the Eagles and their upstart second string quarterback Nick Foles. So close yet so far and all that. Its hard to win a title, just look at how challenging its been for Lebron James who’s only won 3 out of the how many trips to the NBA Finals? If there’s any band that can deliver another masterpiece at some point in the future its Amorphis, whose discography is void of anything I’d call bad or terrible. Each new album has at least yielded a small handful of classics to throw onto the old playlist, and that’s something to be grateful for as a fan (as a Rockets fan, trust me you gotta find small victories). I’ll be seeing the band live in October, and you better believe I’ll be all in at that show.

 

 

 

 

At The Gates – To Drink From The Night Itself:

This might seem stupidly arbitrary, but I had a good feeling about this newest At The Gates album when I saw the title. Look at it, it practically screams early-90s At The Gates pretension, cue The Red In The Sky Is Ours and With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness. When I was first getting introduced to melo-death, those album titles were thrown my way like life preservers by magazines, the scant metal websites around back then and the few metalheads I knew who were already in the know about such things. Those titles were mystical to me, just like Emperor’s Anthems to the Welkin At Dusk, or Darkthrone’s A Blaze In the Northern Sky. I love a lengthy, vague, somewhat mystical album title. Maybe this was me just grabbing for something to be excited about, because I was already on shaky ground confidence wise considering how non-existent my relationship to their 2014 comeback album At War With Reality has been since I first reviewed it. To put it bluntly, I don’t think I listened to it again after finishing writing that review, I just never felt the urge to go back to it. For the purposes of putting this new album in context, I did go back and give it a once over, and my feelings largely remained the same as what I put down in my original review —- there were some decent songs, a few really awesome riffs, and a whole lotta paint by numbers At The Gates… it was the sound of a band trying to sound like what it thought it was supposed to sound like to everyone else. It wouldn’t have been half as glaring had Carcass not had their own glorious return just a year prior with Surgical Steel, a record that was as confident, thoroughly of the moment, and also as forward looking as a comeback album could possibly be. It was such a phenomenal record that five years on Carcass have yet to follow it up, and though I’m sure that At The Gates were proud of At War With Reality, I’m glad they’re not letting it be the last word on a storied career.

 

On To Drink From The Night Itself, At The Gates once again return to the spirit of a band trying to explore the internal limits of their sound. This is an audience challenging album, often times working at tempos that aren’t the breakneck pace of most of At War With Reality or Slaughter of the Soul, some of the most intriguing songs finding other ways than solely speed to project intensity. Take “A Stare Bound In Stone”, an early album highlight where circular riff sequences create a sense of hypnosis, new guitarist Jonas Stålhammar and band vet Martin Larsson playing in mechanical lockstep. The abrupt mid-song lone guitar led drop-out begins a passage of waves and waves of tremolo infused riffing that crash down. My personal favorite is “Palace of Lepers”, particularly for its euphoric, syrupy sweet classic melo-death riff payoff around the three minute mark, and that they let it carry on through the fade out is a nice detail. I could see how a song like “Daggers of Black Haze” might strike some as too slow or meandering seeming, but I think the melody they’re coaxing in that primary riff motif is interesting in its own right, and again with the beautiful mid-song transition (this time at the 2:33 mark), a little classic Gothenburg Scandinavian folk in that acoustic sounding sequence. There’s a real sense of the band attempting to morph or shape the limits of the At The Gates stylistic boundaries, as on “The Colours of the Beast” which is unlike anything we’ve heard them attempt, a staggeringly powerful lumbering riff based monster that rattles the interior cabin of your car if you’re like me listening to it a near full blast.

 

Of course there’s the lone exception to all this new freshness, that being the title track turned music video, and I’ll say right up front that its a fun, adrenaline rocketing tune, the kind of thing that At The Gates is identified with. The only complaint might be that its a little too close to “Blinded By Fear”, as in really frigging close (that riff is just one or two minor adjustments from being a carbon copy —- guitarists help me out here!). The jarring dichotomy between it and the rest of the songs is precisely why the album speaks to the band’s growth here. The former is a slice of past glories more in keeping with At War With Reality, and everything else is a bit of a strange journey into unknown places with only the slightest of head nods to the ancient past of their first two albums. When I listen to “Labyrinth of Tombs” and its interweaving guitar motifs or “Seas of Starvation” with its rumbling bass riffing and epic, elegiac guitar fragments, I hear a side of the band that I’d never expected (the string section blast at the end of “The Mirror Black” being another whoa moment). I will say that there are some production issues going on here that crop up more in some songs than others, particularly with how muffled the drum sound seems to get whenever everything else is pouring on top of it. Tomas Lindberg, as fine of form in gravelly voice as he ever is also gets a little cramped in the mix, with guitars taking a bite out of his fierceness in some critical spots. I am surprised at just how little I noticed Anders Björler’s absence, with the new guy fitting in remarkably well, not surprising I guess given Anders comments on why he decided to leave in the first place. For the rest of the band, they’ve found their footing after a long reunion process, and it finally feels like they’re really, really back.

 

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