Usual Locations Teil Vier: Be'Lakor & The Eternal

My focus-beam will now be aimed at the land known as Fourecks, sorry I mean, Australia. For some reason whenever I think of the music scene in Australia all I can think of is AC/DC, INXS and Kylie. And I've got to say I'm not a big fan of any of those, I might listen to AC/DC but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy an album. But then again, I do listen an awful lot of Nick Cave. So there is that. There does appear to be an awful lot of different music stylings being composed and published down there, but somehow never leave the shore.  These two these two bands that I am going to discuss sound like something else, and while I'd hope that both could gain some monumental success, I'd suspect that the first one would struggle but the second one could easily win people hearts and minds, especially if they continue in the vein of their last album.


First of we'll start with the behemoth(The monster not the band) sounding Be'Lakor. First time I cam across them was when there was a fairly frequent discussion and review requests on Angry Metal Guy's Facebook page. Their description didn't exactly light my fire. Melodic Death Metal. It's a genre I've never really got into, and not for lack of trying. I tried quite a few of the Gothenburg bands that pioneered that style and I just can't get into it, besides maybe Gardenian. But these guys are a bit more special. The first album I listened to was their rather phenomenal 'Of Breath and Bone', which has pretty much got a world wide wholly positive reviews. So I decided to check them out. And boy did it blow me away. Well.... Maybe not at first. These guys have been around since 2004 and were at one point hailed as "Best Unsigned Band in Metal" by MetalSucks. That obliviously isn't true any more but listening to their debut album 'The Frail Tide' I can understand why people were getting excited. On the whole. These guys have melodies in spade. No. They have melody in barge loads.  The amount of times when I've had people in my ear complaining that metal didn't have melody and was just noise, seriously shut the fuck up and put these guys on and then get back to me. Just in the first two songs you've heard enough melodies, enough musical changes and tempo changes that would usually fill 2 albums by lesser bands. One thing that I found brilliant about their music, their last album especially, is that there is this common thread that is woven into every song making the whole album play like it's just one song. After some listens I was going to say that their weak point is their singer, but after a few more listens I realised I was wrong. He growls and shrieks at the right points, often sounding a bit like a Daemon Storyteller, thus lending a certain malevolent air to the whole thing. But seriously though, the intricacy that all member manage to play their respective instruments and weave and wave around each other with apparently very little effort is astounding. Just listen to the beginning of of 'Remnants' there seems to be a near constant guitar solo on the go somewhere in the background which have been turned into main riffs with such an elegant ease. I am aware of other bands that play similar to these guys, and I've given a fair few of them a listen. But none have the both the staying power or the pull-back power for me as these guys do. I always return for more. These guys do deserve every accolade that surely is coming their way. And if more people had sense they'd be touring the world right now.

The Eternal, now these guys have got the sound to make it big. They've been going for a while though admittedly they changed names in 2003 from Cryptal Darkness. Which was the best decision of their career. It would appear that they read Anathema's textbook on "How to Change Your Sound Successfully". They've gone from this rather generic boring Death/Doom/Grindcore and moved, successfully to alternative rock. With a half-way stop at Gothic Metal. I only came across these guys when I was trudging the muddy waters at the Dark Port. Maybe it's no coincidence that these guys have toured with Anathema come to think of it. But yeah, their last album 'When the Circle of Light Begins to Fade' is very much up the Anathema territory. Melodic, slightly meloncholic, and stadium worthy.  They still retain some of the Gothic element, but most of it has been shed away (Thankfully to be honest, generally gothic doesn't float my boat). On the whole they haven't quite reached Anathema's but they're getting there. No doubt about it. I'm not going to spout of that their last album is a classic in the waiting (Unlike Be'Lakor - Of Breath And Bone). But the riffs are there, the singing is there, the production isn't quite there though soundwise it is crystal clear, there just seems to be something missing and I can't quite put my finger on it. But until I can I will listen to the album over and over again.

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Lasting Impact: Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of The Seventh Son

Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of the Seventh Son

Iron Maiden is without a doubt my number one favourite band. They are the only band that I am willing to buy an album when it comes out. I've already written on blog regarding an album of theirs that is close to my heart.

Now from memory rather coffee stained memory I seemed to have gone into their career a little backwards, or sideways or hub-wards. The first song I remember hearing was the phenomenal Aces High, the first album I owned was Live After Death (In cassette form!) but the first studio album I owned was Fear of the Dark. Which I really really liked, but it somehow didn't feel like the Iron Maiden I first knew. So I left it for a little bit. Sometime somewhere someone gave me a VHS copy of Made in England which was filmed during their Seventh Tour of the Seventh Tour. And boy, oh man did those spandex trousers left quite an impression and not in a good way.  But the songs. The songs were so so very very very good. There isn't enough wax for me to wax lyrically or poetically about this album but I shall try my best.

Bruce Dickinson and 80's spandex

Then I got this single given:

Can I Play With Madness

Which had two songs from an album I had not listened to by Iron Maiden. That album? Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. The best and one of the perfect albums of heavy metal. It would not be unfair to say that their creative talents had peaked considerably when they put out this album. That is not to say that all the albums that followed were shit... just not as good. I know there are people now probably shouting at the screen mentioning various names but I would argue that they haven't released a bad album, they've done some awful songs but not whole album full of them.  But Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is just completely different. It is the perfect mixture of Wow! and Woah!

For those who don't know. This was Iron Maiden's seventh studio album, they were at their peak in terms of albums sales and touring relentlessly. They were at the top of their game. These guys had been touring together for 6 years at this point. They had released the rather odd Somewhere in Time, which has their best album cover though, which had featured fairly heavily synthesizers but had not really fully incorporated them. But on this one they completely embraced them and put them to great use.

Apparently Steve Harris had been reading Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card. And with Bruce Dickinson's interest in history and Aleister Crowley in particular it was only a matter of time when this would collide. Them two spoke for a while and then decided to make a concept album about the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

The story follows a boy who is the seventh son of the seventh son(Betcha didn't see that one coming). In Moonchild he is being born and there is a fight going on between the Devil and an Angel regarding who's path he will follow. Throughout his life he struggles with his dreams, his visions and generally his life seems to be going down the drain. Fast. He tries, but in the end can't live with the burden. So the album ends on a cheerful note called Only the Good Die Young.

To be honest the concept went right over my head, still does in fact, but the music is impeccable.  As a concept album it is really rather weak, nowhere near like say Operation Mindcrime or Christ.O or Brave. But what it does have a common musical thread running through all of the songs. There are two songs that are blatantly commercial namely Can I Play With Madness and The Evil that Men Do, but they are great. And the former has a video that features Graham Chapman! Apparently the former also started of as a ballad, and listening to it I don't understand how, but the latter could have very easily been a power ballad. But both are equally hard rocking and headbangable.

 

Then you've got the prog element that has always been there. To be honest regarding long proggy songs the best one they've ever done is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. But the title song is an atmospheric masterpiece, but it's by no means the only prog song there, the other contender for prog-metal song on here is Infinite Dreams which has one of the most interesting guitar playing and very unusual song structure, considering that most of the time when they write songs they try to make sure that that the audience can sing along. But that is pretty hard with this one. But it's a great song though and you can feel for the character and the psychosis that is plaguing him. It sorts of meanders from being a power ballad to a fully fledged metal song towards the end with those patented Iron Maiden dual guitar attacks that are just so so very wonderful to listen to. 

With all of this you also get Steve Harris galloping bass playing. I've yet to hear anyone else play the bass like he does, it is quite wonderful to listen to especially when he goes off on one like on The Clairvoyant which for a long long time was my favourite song from this album. Not sure which is my favourite song right now because whenever I put this album on I have to listen to it from start to finish. Each song individually is ranging from great to greatness, but listening to them all in sequence from start to finish just adds that oh so extra special layer on top of all of them. Bit like a smear of Mr. Vikki's BBQ sauce does for ham sandwiches.

Bruce Dickinson goes out of his way to show why he is one of the best voices to come from that Heavy Metal Era (Still has one of the best voices in fact) and mesmerises completely throughout and keeps you captivated in the story that isn't all there. He shows why he's called the Air-Raid Siren with gusto and puts his history degree into good use when writing his lyrics.

Dave Murray and Adrian Smith are the dual guitar players that every other guitar pair, it was such a loss when Adrian left. Though that is not a slight on Janick. But thank the Gods that both Bruce and Adrian returned and kept Janick.

The album ends with the same acoustic ditty and sinister words by Bruce Dickinson (Which he borrowed from the aforementioned Aleister Crowley) that it started with:

Seven deadly sins
Seven ways to win
Seven holy paths to hell
And your trip begins
Seven downward slopes
Seven bloodied hopes
Seven are your burning fires
Seven your desires

They still haven't bettered this album, though Dance of Death came pretty close.

So for people's enjoyments I'll share the album in two different formats.

Usual Locations Part Two: Xanthochroid

Xanthochroid are a band who, according to the Holy Book of Armaments, have been around since 2005 but somehow managed to go without publishing a full album until last year. What they had been up to form inception to THAT album seems to have consisted of rehearsing a lot. Because their debut album does not sound like a debut album. On any level. For those who've been hungry of full blown epic orchestral Black Metal (that does not involve Dani Filth) since Emperor should have their thirst and hunger quenched and satisfied with this album. So far they've done one demo, one EP and one LP. I haven't heard the demo, though I would love to, but the EP is classy as classiful classy thing. But the album, have I mentioned already how effing good the album is? No, and did I mentioned that it's called Blessed He With Boils, because it is.

I first came across these guys when I was just browsing through a dark port filled with filth and metal bands where I have no business being at. To be honest I just noticed "USA" and "EPIC BLACK METAL", those together would usually put me off. I'm not a huge fan of black metal let alone EPIC BLACK METAL. But the cover I have to say was really really nice. Real piece of art. Most of the time black metal tends to be wrapped around frost and tundras, but these guys decided to go for swamps and bog.

So I thought I'd check them out and all the reviews I read were positive. Very positive indeed. So I thought I'd just listen. And it just absolutely blew me away. Musically it is great, but it wasn't just that. It was the scope they were going for and the grandeur! Both of which they achieved on a level that I had not really heard of since Emperor's Prometheus. What did or didn't help was how similar Ihsahns and Sam Meadors vocals are. Especially when he goes full In The Nightside Eclipse style. Musically they draw inspiration from Opeth, Emperor and Cradle of Filth. They take plenty of story telling tips(without the voice-over) from Bal-Sagoth. On their Bandcamp site they wrote:

We spent nearly a year in the studio; writing, recording, re-writing, re-recording every element of this album.
Not to mention the many years before that we spent writing the actual material; making sure every note served its purpose, every line complemented its counterpart, and every lyric fit properly with our story, because we wanted to create something special.

Well the plan worked. They definitely delivered on their promise because this is a tight package of evil black nuances that few bands are able to do. The ability of going from sombre acoustic to blistering blast beat black metal without losing momentum is just phenomenal. Yes there are moments which feel like they are slightly overstepping their talent boundaries but every time that happens they pull it off, with gusto and without too much pretense.

It starts of with an orchestral intro piece dramatically named Aquatic Deathgate Existence that leads nicely into a full blown orchestral black metal title song. Into a nice melancholic ballad called Winter's End. Followed by the riff fest of Long Live Our Lifeless King. Oh just listen to the whole album, it is worth it if you like your black metal and you miss the times when Dimmu Burger did good albums.



This is one of the best concept albums I've had the pleasure of listening to. One with one of the most coherent story, with a HUGE background as well. You can easily hear that as well in that they use the same common musical thread on the entire album. In between they also use a choir to narrate the story, as well as bringing some welcome relief from the constant onslaught of brick-wall black metal. There is easily enough ideas and themes here that could be separated for 3-4 further albums. Sam Meadors vocals provide an excellent focal point for (what could have so easily been nothing but chaos) the listener. When he's not shrieking like a drunken banshee, he croons like nobodies business. The way he manages to switch from croaking to clean, un-vilified singing is mesmerizing. If he ever jacked in metal and wanted to go solo with some un-adultered rock, I think he would be able to make a handsome living. Of course the drummer not only provides the rhythm grounding for all this potential chaos he also mixed and produced this phenomenal piece of work. He manages to keep the music sounding huge and crisp, without it being sterile.

Now. I have not mentioned the EP, Incultus, that came out before. I wish I had come across it before the LP, but ah well it can't be helped now. Apparently the story and the world they created with the story is first set out here. It is here were we are first introduced to the brothers Thanos and Ereptor in the world Etymos. Their struggle against each other and eventual betrayal. What is interesting to hear on this album are the plethora of guest vocalists that sort of flesh out the story a bit better then they do on Blessed He With Boils. Natacha Nielsen did the album cover on here as well and it is again a album cover of desolate beauty. It sets the scene of what to expect really well and if I had been browsing through HMV (RIP) I would have bought both purely on the strength of the album covers. The music is definitely rawer on here and there's more done with black metal riffs, less orchestral work and the use of cookie monster growls also adds an extra effect. In a good way. 


The talent pool that is floating in this band has extremely deep and I'm quite happy to float in it when my headphones are attached.

Usual Locations part one: Throwdown Syndicate

Well then, this is a new series. Now I'm going to look a bit more towards the usual suspects of places where you'd find usual music. The reason I decided to write this one was mainly because for the first time(and hopefully not the last) somebody actually wanted be to write about them. So thank you for asking.

Throwdown Syndicate is a band from Washington D.C., they play a variant of Rap Metal, or Ghettometal like they want to call it. I have to admit that as soon as I read the music description my back went up a bit. Metal/Rap. Not usually a mix I'm to fond of. I still remember the Nu-metal days, and those were not good days. But having said that I did have a copy of Limp Bizkit's Significant Other and Linkin Parks Hybrid Theory. Those albums have since gone their merry way of become Two fierce beer coasters. And it certainly didn't help when the first song is called Ghettometal. Thankfully these guys are nothing like the bands I've mentioned. Their a lot closer to Rage Against The Machine and WAR. Probably more the latter than the former. Which is great as I love both bands, RAtM is still close to my heart if only purely through their 'Killing In the Name' song. They've mentioned Bad Brains as a major influence. Now admittedly I've never listened to them, so I can't really comment on that one. But there is aspects of hardcore and punk on display here with plenty of blues and funk thrown in for good measure with thrash riffs spicing the pot. The only other band I could probably mention in the same breath as these guys is Body Count, the main difference being is that Throwdown Syndicate have written better songs and sound like they mean it.

The first two maybe three listens I was a little bit skeptical, but with further listens I've really started to enjoy most of the songs. First of all I have to say that I do love the groovy funk riffs and the fit perfectly with James Reeves vocal style. The problem I am finding with a couple of the songs is that they feel a little half finished. Take for instance the song 'Shaman' it does start of with this rather nice funky riff a la WAR, the drums do this nice little jazz rhythm and the bass. Oh my gods the bass on that song is HUGE! And it feels like it's building up to something, something big, something HUGE! With James spoken word floating on top. Then a guitar solo comes in sort of out of nowhere, and yes the guitar solo is good. This crescendo keeps on coming, but the peak never seems to come. And then the guitar solo fades and the listener is sort of left hanging, wondering what happened.

But then the song 'Shame' aside from the intro samples, that song just rocks. Plain and simple. I can well imagine it being a concert favourite. The riff is brilliant. The drums are again very very groovy and bombastic. The untitled song is another great song, thrashy as fuckery, funky like a gone off cheese, and James seems to be channelling the spirit of Derrick Green. Again here the instruments really do sync together. 'Discontent' is another song I would love to feel in a live setting. James goes straight for the jugular on this one, and does it great.

There are some great ideas being thrown about, some stick while others don't. Most of those that don't could, the ones that don't is the use of samples. James has got a very good voice and sounds very much like he's used to command. This band seems to be very much a labour of love and you can hear that in his earnest vocals and lyrics. He deeply cares about the subjects that he's singing about and that adds an extra layer of enjoyment for the listener. His guitar playing is well played and does some great riffage, and decent solos. His bass playing in some cases though sounds a lot better, and that is saying something. I always love hearing the bass taking a bit more of a centre stage to provide the groove. The drums seem a bit troublesome in the first song and the instruments don't mesh very well on there but it sounds like it would just take more practice to get over than anything else. but after that they seem to pick up the pace and give decent backing to the music, and as I said before on the song Shame and Discontent you can really feel and hear some great rhythms. The drummer Andy Och on the whole is a great choice.

The bottom line I would say is that this is a band that is worth following and see what they do.They've got the ideas, they've got the chops and they've got the attitude.

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Lasting Impact: Marillion - This Strange Engine.

I might have talked about before how this one particular VHS influenced my musical appreciation, it was a Kerrang Heavy Metal Kompilation. On it were such heavy metal luminaries as Iron Maiden, Queensryche, Armoured saint and... uhhh... Marillion. Yes Marillion, the progressive luminaries who started out as pretty much like a Genesis tribute band. The song by them that was on this video was a wonderful ode to paranoia called 'He Knows You Know'. Which is a very unusually short and commercial song by them, especially considering that it was when Fish(nee Derek William Dick) leading them. I, of course wasn't to know that he had quit and had been replaced when I came across a CD called 'This Strange Engine', which was being sold in my home towns shop. This was in 1997. I was expecting some rather heavy progressive heavy metal album only due to that song I had heard from Kerrang!

So I was just a little bit shocked when the first song was more of an epic sing-a-long song, 'Man of A Thousands Faces'! With acoustic guitars, piano's, choirs, EPIC CHORUSES! Loved it immediately, but by the goodness of the Metal Gods this was too much lack of metal, but I stuck with it. Then the next one is a bit of AOR pop, 'One Fine Day', still my favourite song of the album, but by Joe it's not metal. The lyrics as always from Marillion are great, this one ponders on our longing just for that one fine day to appear while we work and work and work, hoping that it will all be better when we retire. In the meantime the rain just keeps on pouring, but then when it all does turn out for the best we still don't want to believe it. Cue a rather nifty guitar solo from Steve Rothery.

Now there's a guitar player who hasn't received the accolades and attention he really truly deserves, bit like Andreas Kisser of Sepultura. His way of playing is rather understated, but full of melody. He seems to go for the less is more approach and never overstays his welcome, but he always adds to the music. Though you'd hardly notice him there when he's there, the hole would be greatly felt if he left.  The songs 'One Fine Day', 'Estonia' and '80 Days' show just how good he is.

The other highlight is of course Steve Hogarth, the man who replaced Fish. He's got a much warmer and melodious singing voice than Fish. Suppose the only thing he hasn't got that Fish did was a rather brilliant word play in the lyrics. But Steve doesn't need to pun his songs, he just writes great stories in lyrical form which on the whole is more interesting than punning. Steve has now been with Marillion for longer then Fish, and released more albums. And although I do like the the Fish Era albums, I still prefer Hogarth's period. For example on the song 'Memory of Water', where Steve has to carry the tune pretty much on his own, I doubt that Fish could have done the same thing.

Now finally after such a long wait, finally we have a metal song! In the guise of 'An Accidental Man' though to be fair it's not really. It's the hardest song on the album and would qualify as a hard rock song, but heavy metal? Maybe in the 70's possibly in the 80's.

What is probably most evident from this album is that there's a strong focus on making songs that the audience can sing along to. But unfortunately that sort of fails a little bit with 'Hope for the Future', it's not a particularly bad song. It just pales a lot in comparison to the rest. It does have some great up lifting lyrics like the rest(bar Memory of Water and This Strange Engine), but on the whole it is probably the only song that can be truly called ordinary(take that Allmusic) on here.

The pinnacle of the album though is the title song, which is an ode to all of those 70's prog rock bands. It goes through nearly all the emotions you can go through. Mark Kelly can finally take centre stage with some great Rick Wakeman-like keyboard flourishes and solo's, Rothery goes ballistic going through his guitar pedals and changing the guitar tone several times, Hogarth goes all falsetto on us, Ian Mosley and Pete Trewavas do all they can to keep up, hold up and show up wherever and whenever they can! There's the expectation that this will all crumble any minute, but the song finishes just as it all should but doesn't. After 15 minutes.



To be honest I was a little shocked at the time when I listened to the album, I was not that enchanted back then, besides Man of a Thousand Faces and One Fine Day, I could just leave the rest. But it kept on coming back, the album that is. And as I've grown older I've started appreciating it more and more. So this blog is written with my 30 year old ears, but using the memories of my 14 year old self.

The love of prog sort of seems to stem from this album. It is not my favourite by Marillion, no that would be Anoraknophobia. The to be honest as well the prog scene is a minefield to walk through, especially when your standard is the song and not the instrument-masturbation-ship. Which is were Marillion is king, the manage to make proggy songs, but without draining your interest in the song itself.

Unusual Locations... Part Deux.

Well this is the second part of this series. This is where I talk about bands from what could be called unusual locations, but that quite frankly isn't enough though as they have to be good as well. Being novel is one thing, being good is something completely different.






The first project/band (and the inspiration for making this sequel blog) that I want to talk about comes from a tiny island that I had to look up, as I was sure that the last time I heard it's name mentioned was in a fantasy book. But no, there it is. Tiny teeny weeny island, the size of a walnut. The island is Aruba, and the project is The Isle Project. Apparently this is just one guy with his guitar, keyboard and computer. For anyone who's listened to say Animals As Leaders will recognise the style. The album is entirely instrumental with lots of effects being used, guitar pedals galore, synthesizers and computer magic on display. There is a lot of Tosin Abasi worship going on here, the good thing being it's not a straight of rip-off but a rather well played tribute. The album New Perspective is also sounds like it could have been used for a First Person Shooter, or possibly a Real Time Strategy a la original Command & Conquer. It is safe to say that this album has made a big enough impression on me to look forward to the next one.

Now with a country that has 1.2 billion people that there would be more famous bands springing out, but no the most famous musician that I'm aware of from India is Ravi Shankar. And he was dull. Way dull. But these next two acts are not. While they do both come under the Metal Genre, they are as different metal bands as you can get.

Bhayanak Maut have been playing and entertaining the Indian masses for 10 years. The first time I came across them was on one of Metal Hammers excellent Global Metal compilations, I'm going to have to dig up that album again because there were some excellent bands on show there. Apparently they started out as a sort of a joke band, which quickly, evolved into a working band with a joke to play. Not only that but a really good working band with their tongue firmly in their cheek. The name translates as "Terrible Death". Currently, at least according to themselves, they are the biggest metal band in India. If there is anything I could describe them as Groove Metal with Metalcore vocals. Which usually is  a bad thing in my books, but these guys to seem to pull it off. They've only released one full album but on the flip side they've done 3 EP's, my personal favourite being Malignant. I would love to see these guys in a live setting, as I can imagine it being a sweaty, neck breaking session of fun, filth and frolics.

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The second band from India that I want to mention is Amogh Symphony. Lets get this straight right now. It's not a symphony. It's not even close to being a symphony, but if the dude who runs it ever decided to make a symphony I'd buy a ticket the minute he announces it. Now according to the Holy Book of Armaments, this band is classified as Progressive Death Metal. Which well, I do suppose could be true, but without the vocals it's pretty hard to classify it as such. But instrumentally Vishal owes a lot to Cynic and Atheist, in the sense that there's quite a bit of jazzy elements that both of those bands love to incorporate in their act but first and foremost there's the prog. The first album 'Abolishing The Obsolete System' is very much a solo project as it's just him with his guitars and a computer, no vocals. He does use some synthesized vocals that probably came with whatever music program he mixed it in. (I do wish I had at least a 1/10 of his guitar playing talent.) There's flamenco playing, some BollyPop with occasional orchestral touches. With the second album, 'The Quantum Hack Code',  he managed to hire a drummer that could keep up with him. And generally uses the same tricks as the first album, that is not to say that he's repeating himself. Dear Gods no, just that he consolidates what he did in the first album and adds more extravagant flourishes.  The Quanttam Hack Code is meant to be a concept album with interludes in between telling a story on how humankind is about to be annihilated in the far far away future. I sort of imagine that this album would be great as a soundtrack to System Shock 2. 

Picture South-Africa... lions roaming the savannahs, sun, sand, beaches, Morgan  Freeman as Nelson Mandela... so when you come across bands from this sun-ripened country that not only play metal, but metal of the variety that is more associated with ice, frost-bitten desolation, grimness and hypothermia. Not just one, but two! That's right. Two Black Metal bands. From South Africa. First up Warthane, they hail from a town called Alberton, but have since emigrated to Sweden. Though I would have thought that Norway would have been a better fit, but what hey. They've been around since 2004 and so far published 1 EP and 2 full albums. The only album I've heard is called Black Divine which came out in 2011, and it on show there is plenty of desperate black metal going on with what can only be said thrash riffs thrown in and death metal vocals. Straight from the get go you have a song that represents everything that they want to accomplish, buzzsaw guitars, blastbeats, shrieking, with the occasional operatic female singer piping in whenever the song calls for beauty. There's the iddly widdly guitar solo's. The barks. The fast drums. Yes, if I had to have a guess I would have said that these guys used to live next to Ihsahn and grew up with Varg.

Sean Gouws does have some great singing/guitar playing chops and I do hope that this is not the last we hear from him or Warthane. Don't get me wrong, it would be easy to dismiss these guys as gimmicks on the basis of the genre and where they come from, but that would foolish at best, stupid at worst. While people who don't like Black Metal already won't find anything to enjoy on here, those who already spent their minds eye and ears wallowing around tundras in animal skins will find plenty to enjoy.

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Then we have Crow Black Sky. And they hail from Cape Town. Though they do come under the umbrella term of Black Metal, they are a completely different beast from Warthane. Crow Black Sky manage to invoke the sounds of Emperor, Dimmu Borgir and early Cradle of Filth very easily. Specially the latter two. Crow Black Sky have got this expansive sound going on with orchestral flourishes here and there, piano being exuberantly and expertly played, emotions building up and up and then crumbling down. There's even an instrumental power ballad! And for a debut album they've really gone all out on their sound. The sound that they also bring across is quite nautical in nature. The singer doesn't stray much from the black metal croaking. Then there's this Danish Blue Cheese-fest of a music video, that uses all the hallmarks of Black Metal Manowar, and I love it for exactly those reasons. For a self produced and a completely DIY project this has the hallmarks of professionally done album. It will be interesting to see what they will do next.

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Glorious surprises, Disillusion comes out with Gloria.

One of my favourite albums of all time is Back To The Times of Splendor by Disillusion. I still pull that album out regularly to listen to, 6 songs spanning nearly 57 minutes of eternal beauty. I bought my copy in 2004, and I was captivated. But also perplexed as to why they didn't get the press that they deserved! Here's a band that shits out an instant classic first time trying and barely a whimper was registered in the metal press. And I could not wait for a sequel. Which never came. But never mind, they did publish another album called Gloria in 2006.

What an absolute off the wall straight from the left field that was. And I loved it. Most people didn't. Most people wanted 'Back to the Times of Splendor II'. But with 'Gloria' Disillusion were showing their progressive side, which for some reason seemed to irk people. There were shouts of sell-outs going of course, but you can't really be a sell-out if you are not delivering what people want.

So what happened. Welll, what seems to have happened is that Andy Schmidt, nee Vurtox,  got sick and tired of playing BTtToS live over and over again. And having the stress of trying to find a backing band and preferably a small orchestra as well. Probably wanted to play something slightly simpler. More hard hitting in some ways, and rest his larynx!

Andy uses on this album mostly, baritone singing, bass singing, occasionally he'll a sort of melodic spoken word or pure spoken word and only couple of times will he break and use his death rattle. I loved his vocals on BTtToS but he really does come into his own on Gloria. His vocal performance on here is simply glorious. The overtly German pronunciation of some words that has sometimes distracted me in the previous album and the EP's released before that.  I might be putting a lot compliments onto him, but the man deserves it. Though of course I don't really want to take away from the rest of the band, the drummer Jens Maluschka does fantastic job as well if only in keeping up with Andy's vision. The fills and the rhythm are just right every time and always interesting as well. Just listen to this song:



Though where Gloria really wins is how unusually built it is. It weaves, breaks and turns in all sorts of directions, but those weaves, breaks and turns are never unnecessary and most importantly never for show, well maybe a little but it never feels like it. I hesitate even calling this album Metal, because there is so much else going on but no other label really fits, and with metal being THE most diverse genre going it is probably the only label that fits. The closest would be industrial metal, some people will probably complain(and did) about how similar Andy sounds like Till, but the proof is in the listening. And while I love Rammstein, they haven't put out an album that sounds as interesting as this one. Yes in one song "The Hole We Are In" starts out as blackish Death metal song, but then just towards the end swerves into sort of lounge-ish dance song.

Then there are two instrumental songs one of the called Lava which always makes me envision flying over Iceland and seeing two separate volcano's going off in between grassland and black deserts. Maybe the reason I imagine flying is because of the previous instrumental called Aerophobic. Both of these tracks are very bass heavy and often it sounds like they've thrown away the guitars and replaced them with basses.

So as I said previously no it isn't 'Back To The Times of Splendor: In search for more money' that everyone was hoping for (me included) but it is a brilliant album completely blew away any misconceptions (mine included) about these guys and proves that they are quintessential progressive musicians. But the only problem is that this album was released in 2006, and nothing has been heard or seen since of these guys. Which makes me a very very sad blogger.

Bipolarism from Devin Townsend

Mister Devin Townsend is quite possibly the most inspirational, heart-warming, ludicrous, positive musician in the industry today. Don't believe me, just watch and listen to this video:

"Laugh. Love. Live. Learn."

Those are truly great words to live by, and Devin Townsend and his merry men(and woman) deliver them with great conviction and gusto. Devin, for those who do not know(How dare you?) has been around for years now. First coming onto the scene singing for Steve Vai's Sex & Religion, he also proved to be the gracing point of that album. Euggh. But hey, it was a starting point. Everyone needs a starting point... except maybe some teenage stars and Black Eyed Peas(vomit). After his collaboration with Steve Vai, he went onto founding Strapping Young Lad. A project to release all his catharsis, all his frustration on the music industry, all the anger towards life in general... oh and a solitary love song. But during his time with Strapping Young Lad, he started writing music that was more mellow, progressive and forward thinking. He did start out as more introverted, with Infinity, Ocean Machine and Accelerated Evolution.

Devin has one of the most versatile vocal chords in the music industry, as can be heard during his time as Strapping Young Lad, or as Agony in Ayreon's The Human Equation, channelling Elvis and when doing cheesy(Danish blue style) ballads. He's one of the very very few that sing with a falsetto and actually make it sound good. He is also a very very good guitar player, he's not fancy like his friend Steve Vai, but he can certainly make his guitar gently weep. And shriek. He doesn't to solo's very often, and when he does them they tend to be overwrought and over the top, but knowingly so. But he does use lots of pedal effects and arpeggios, and he seems to be able to keep things simple, whilst also making them sound complex.

The first time I ever came across Devin was when my brother recommended Ziltiod The Omniscient, which was Devin's first true solo album. I.e. meaning he did everything thing on that album, including programming the drums using EZdrummer program with Meshuggah's  sampled drumkit. While broadly speaking it's a comedy album, the music on there is pure gold. Best listened to when in a coffee shop, while drinking a tall latte.

His sense of musical humour also came out in Punky Bruster, another concept album about a punk band that decides to play death metal instead and finding finally success.

My personal favourite album by Devin Townsend is Biomech: Ocean Machine. It's an epic, sweeping, progressive album of Devin-sized proportions. My favourite song keeps on shifting, currently my favourite song is Funeral, though his best song that he's ever written is also on there.

But his best album is undoubtedly Accelerated Evolution, here he goes all 70's prog anthem rock on us. One of his many talents is that he manages to write songs that sounds like you've always known them and enjoyed them. He uses his nearly patented wall to wall music production, but without overloading your musical senses and everything is just HUGE on here.

The man oozes positivity. It's not like he hasn't had problems of his own. He has been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, which could explain his spurts of creativity along with the varying degrees of emotions he goes through. During his time as Strapping Young Lad, he decided to come of his medication in order to create a more extreme album, and it was an extreme album. But mainly on a technical level rather then on an angry level. In terms of output and level of genius, I would say that it wouldn't be unfair to compare him to Frank Zappa. I'm pretty sure that if Devin wanted to write a piece of classical music he'd do a fantastic one, probably on par with Jon Lord.

He has been taking a lot of beating for stopping Strapping Young Lad, and not reviving the project. But so far he's been adamant that it's not going to happen, the closest people got to it was when he covered 'Love?', which according to him is never going to happen again. And quite frankly I can understand him. Why try and revive a period of your life that you can't really connect with any more, the thing about SYL was that it was about raging against the machine(Ha!) when young, and at the time he might be have been genuine about that. But people grow up, change their points of view on life and just get on with it. Something that a lot of fans can't do. Which is kind of sad really.

Devin has also dabbled in making ambient albums(I hesitate using the word music here), having released two of those. Devlab and The Hummer.

After Ziltoid, Devin announced that he was finished with putting out music and wanted to concentrate on being a father and had more interest in being a music producer. Which is an area where he's also extremely talented. Having produced albums for Lamb of God, Himsa, GWAR, Soilwork and Stuck Mojo. Along with doing remix work for bands like Rammstein.

But since 2008 Devin has been busy with The Devin Townsend Project. A project that started out with only meaning to publish 4 albums, all hitting 4 different musical themes. Ki, being the mellow yet heavy hitting album, Addicted being the Abba/Ace of Base infused metal, Deconstruction a re-visitation of SYL and finally Ghost being the ambient album. Apparently that original plan was to just do those and leave it. Thankfully he has continued with it, touring pretty much consistently and constantly. Me being the unlucky person that I am have managed to miss 2 gigs of his when he's toured the UK. It seems like he's fallen a bit in love with the Ace of Base style of things, and to be fair I can understand why because Epicloud is an amazing album. With both Addicted and Epicloud, Devin has managed to make albums that are uplifting and positive. They are both great albums to listen to when you feel down, want to exercise or just want to remind yourself how good life actually is.

I know the way, and you know the way

We all fall down if we fear love

The curious case of Queensryche.

The curious case of Queensryche. I've been a fairly big fan of Queensryche for a while now, probably as long as I have been a fan of Iron Maiden. Just not with the same intensity. Quite a lot of people will probably recognise them more now due to court case that is happening in November, where it will be decided whether Geoff Tate owns the name Queensryche or whether the founding members own it (You don't really have to guess who I think should win).The first song I ever heard was the classy classic Iron Maiden worshipping song Queen of The Reich with it fantastic Dungeons & Dragons / Highlander video:

But my first album that I bought was Operation: Mindcrime, which has been dubbed the best Metal Concept album of all time. And it still is. What a effing masterpiece that is, not one dud song or needless tracks on there at all, with the particular standout being Suite Sister Mary. For those who don't know, the story of Operation: Mindcrime, revolves around a man called Nikki. Who's become disillusioned with life and society. During one of his many herion induced benders he's recruited into an organization that is dedicated to starting a revolution in the US. This Organization is headed by a mysterious man called Dr.X, who also supplies his followers with drugs and special orders. Nikki becomes an assassin without his knowing, and Dr. X wants him to kill a corrupt priest. During his time, Nikki starts getting friendly with a nun who used to moonlight as a prostitute, named Sister Mary. Dr. X takes notice of this and then orders Nikki to kill both the Priest and Sister Mary. After Nikki the priest, it seems like Dr. X has Sister Mary killed by someone else but lays the blame on Nikki. Nikki loses his mind, goes on another drug and alcohol induced bender, then ends up in a mental hospital. Where the story started.

This album had it all, cracking music, cracking story and cracking lyrics. Shame it never got turned into a cracking movie.

The next album I actually bought was Promised Land. Which just blew me away, big time. The riffs in I Am I and Damaged. Then there was the melancholic meanderings of Out of Mind and Lady Jane, Out of Mind influenced how I approached my job in mental health quite a bit, though it took some time to realise that. Lady Jane is a very very creepy song, and Geoff Tate expresses that creepiness exceedingly well. There's a lot of mental health issues being discussed on this album, and they are very upfront about it. DIS CON NEC TED which seems to be sung from the point of view of someone who's been lobotomised(my interpretation of it anyway), Bridge deals with absent father issues, Someone Else? is about someone(HA!) dealing with depression and stage fright. And so on and so on. The title song is a delightful example of organized chaos in tune form, the only downside seemingly being Geoff Tate's obsession with playing out of tune saxophone for no real reason.

The thing that always impressed me about Queensryche was the fact that they never seemed to repeat themselves. They went from NWOBHM style of their EP and The Warning, into slightly more accessible Duran Duran influence metal in Rage for Order(where Geoff goes full on stalker mode), then Progressive story telling metal of Operation Mindcrime, to pop metal of Empire, slightly more alternative progressive turn in Promised Land, Grunge/Seattle rock in Hear to the Now Frontier.

Hear in The Now Frontier is seen by many as a watershed in Queensryche career, slightly because it was so different from their epic Operation: Mindcrime but mainly because Chris DeGarmo quit after that one. But that is one thing I've hated about a lot of Queensryche "fans", with every album especially after HitNF, the common complaint was "Well it isn't Operation:Mindcrime or Empire", "They need DeGarmo back.", whine whine whine, bitch bitch bitch. Yet, commonly the same fans will say how well shit HitNF is. The problem with that, DeGarmo wrote all the songs bar two(Which also happened to be the rockiest songs on here), Hit the Black and Anytime/Anywhere). I fucking love that album, except for two songs(Cuckoo's Nest and Get a Life). Yes it is different, yes it is stripped down, but it is delivered with style that only Queensryche could do. It does include one very progressive song in the form of Sp00l. DeGarmo mounts the microphone in All I Want. There are great rock tunes(besides the ones I've previously mentioned) like You and Reach, some soulful thinking in Miles Away, desperation in Saved.

But my favourite song has to be this:



Obviously DeGarmo was heavily influenced by what was happening around them in their home town of Seattle. He even played with Jerry Cantrell(he  and did a few gigs with Alice In Chains. But hey, he quit. Get over it. Now he's flying for Lear Jets.

So what should a band do. A band that has a great history, fantastic back catalogue, know how to play and put together albums without what was arguably their most influential songwriter?

Well carry on that's what. Which they did. They bravely soldiered on through many albums that were consistently poo-pooed on. Which again irked me a lot. I like Q2K, with it's relaxed, slightly, jazzy atmosphere. I LOVE Tribe, I'd go as far as to say that it is my favourite album. But then again DeGarmo did come back and wrote a couple of songs with them on that album. But that album is amazing. Again there is a lot of thought gone into the lyrical content behind them, mainly on world peace, harmony, love(in the platonic sense) and generally how life is most of the time good, but we could do more for each other since we are essentially all one tribe. I loved the muddy production behind it(I was heavily influenced by Roy Z's style of music production), the well tribal sound of the drums and Geoff Tate's singing is inspirational. As it always had been. Yes, he isn't hitting the high notes as much, but then again I was never a big fan of falsetto singing. But he does focus on his mid range vocal style a lot, he's got a fantastic timbre and operatic style. 

Then, I don't know what happened. Mainly from what I can gather Geoff's ego got to him. He started treating Queensryche as his baby rather then the bands baby. I mean I didn't dislike Operation: Mindcrime 2, even though it did reek a bit of money grabbing, I did really like Take Cover, but American Soldier had a fantastic concept, but fell flat on extremely boring and basic song writing. And the less said about Dedicated to Chaos the better. Actually no, I take that back.

Dedicated to Chaos, was rank. It was horrible, I tried so so badly to like it, I tried to take it on face value. But sheesh it was bad. There seemed to be way to much U2 worshipping going on. Geoff hired some outside charlatans to write songs instead of... ooohhh I don't know... listen to what his band members were producing outside Queensryche. If he had only taken his time and listened to Rockenfield/Speer's Hells Canyon or maybe Micheal Wiltons Soulbender project. Both of which were rocking and full of ideas. But nnnoooo, he listens to Jason(fucking)Slater instead, who's past was some garbage industrial wanabe The Cure style of 'rock'.  He had a fantastic new guitarist on Tribe in the shape of Mike Stone, but he was gotten ridden fairly quickly after O:M2, for "financial" reasons.

I've still got my copy of Dedicated to Chaos, and I'm keeping it just to remind me there are such things as expensive beer coasters.

The thing is, I liked Geoff Tate's solo album that he released in 2002. It was fresh, it was laid back and very enjoyable to listen to. Now maybe, if he had been honest and actually put out American Soldier and Dedicated to Chaos as solo albums(that they are!) then I might have had more respect for him. But instead he goes on and does this:

So, they were right in getting rid of him. His version of Queensryche shat out this stinking pile a cow shit in the form of Frequency Unknown, which was essentially the spiritual heir to his solo album Kings & Thieves. Both of which are just horrible, absolutely horrible. No Geoff, I won't tell you that I luv it, stick it up your fucking pie hole and be gone. Those Glory Days are over. No just stop. Please.

But Queensryche with the rest put out an album of amazing quality. With a new singer called Todd La Torre, who is close enough in style to Geoff to pull it off, but has enough of a personality to put his own stamp on things. Parker, the man who replaces Mike Stone and Kelly Gray(please just stop playing solos!) and in a sense replaces DeGarmo, does a fantastic job. He might be "The Kid", but he's got talent to equal DeGarmo. They easily reference everything prior to Promised Land, without repeating themselves and although it is short, it is full from start to finish with pure quality songwriting. If they don't win the court case in November, I do hope they will keep on going. Because Geoff has lost my spending money.

Gateway Music: Disillusion - Back To Times of Splendor

Now everyone here I hope has heard of the term Gateway Drug, of course you have most of you have higher IQ then you duvet Tog number, so I won't explain it. Now here's another one, Gateway Music, the sort of music that opens your mind to other genres out there. For me there are so many that I've stopped counting, so I'll stick to the one I do know kicked down my prejudiced door of pure metal music.

Disillusions Back To Times of Splendor.


Prior to listening to this album, specifically the title song, I was very much into my metal with good melodic vocals. I had very little time for Thrash Metal, let alone Death Metal, and as for Black Metal. Forget it. I think I did try Opeth, but I just couldn't. Sepultura, was the lone exception. What had happened was that I was just browsing the internet and was on the lookout for a Heavy Metal Radio, couldn't really afford CD's and MP3 sales hadn't really caught on at that point. So I came across Snakenet Metal Radio, perfect! So I put it in the background and kept on browsing with a sleeping baby in the same room, so I couldn't have it to loud. Then this one song came on, unfortunately I sort of noticed it in the middle, with these gorgeous acoustic guitar and lovely voice singing, slowly building up to a fantastic crushing crescendo, then ebbing out again into a great guitar solo, again building towards an even more crushing pulverising crescendo of desperation and anger. Finishing of with death metal vocals, that I could understand! Double bass drums!! Synthesised violin section and choir!!! That song, Back To Times of Splendor. An epic rush of Progressive Death Metal running for 14 minutes. Fucking hell I had to get that CD.

When I finally got the album, with it's sweet melancholic album cover and well written lyrics. I was in hog heaven, and to imagine that it was 56 minutes, but only contained 6 songs, absolutely astounded me. And there were more things to amaze me. There was the contrast between light and darkness that I had not really heard before, until of course I discovered that Black Sabbath had used the same trick on several occasions. Though Disillusions ace in the hole was their singer. When I first heard that song, I assumed that there were at least 3 singers, how on Earth could all of those singing styles come from one vocal chord! But, yes to my surprise it was only one guy, who called himself Vurtox(Real name Andy Schmidt). Who also wrote all the songs. This man has talent by the overflow. He has got a very beautiful clean baritone when he just wants to sing, but his death metal vocals are also impressive and also understandable(which doesn't happen very often), then he croons, and yearns, pleads and begs with his vocals.

The album was published with generally glowing reviews, the average score on Metal Archives for example is 90%. But somehow this album managed to fly under the radar for so many many people. Which is a shame. And due to them publishing it with Metal Blade it's not on Spotify.

All the songs meld into each, and follow this one long thread of commonality. The panting at the end of Fall which starts Alone I Stand In Fires for example. Fall is the shortest song on the album clocking just under 5 minutes, but what a great song. One of the great examples that Power Metal doesn't have to suck. Alone I Stand in Fires is a song of desperation, and you can feel that desperation oozing out everywhere.

There is also the obligatory ballad called A Day By The Lake, which doesn't start out as a ballad at all. But the calmness it imbues at the end is so very very nice and out of character.

The crowning jewel is the last song, the very very epic The Sleep of Restless Hours, which like the title song and the first song, swings back and forth from light to darkness, from harsh vocals to pleading, from chaos to order and ends with the most exquisite riff.

Now what came out of this album is in fact that I started listening to more Progressive Death Metal, like Opeth. Vocals, while still important, weren't the focus any more. Or at least they stopped distracting my attention from the music. I don't think I would have started listening to bands like Agalloch, Aeternam, Be'Lakor, Enslaved, Testament or Negura Bunget, amongst so many others.

So thank you Vurtox. I am really really looking forward to your next album.

P.S.
Before anybody else says anything, yes I've listened to Gloria. And I love it.