Iron Maiden // The Final Frontier Rating: 4.0/5.0 — A great record… Label: EMI Websites: ironmaiden.com Release Date: EU: 08.13.2010 | US: 08.17.2010
Iron Maiden is the greatest heavy metal band to ever live. Thirty years after the release of their self-titled album, they are arguably just as relevant as they ever have been—not resting on their laurels and imitating a hits jukebox, but instead touring the world playing their new material to the joy of fans everywhere. After what was a rousing success with their most recent record, the 2006 release of A Matter of Life and Death, there is actually maybe a bit more pressure on the band to produce something that is quality, memorable and, frankly, classic. Especially with the rumors floating around that this is Maiden‘s final album, spurred even further on by the fact that Steve Harris helped write every song on the record, the pressure cooker of fan scrutiny is reaching fever pitch. And so it falls to this Angry Metal Guy to try to put all of this into some sort of context; to try to listen to my favorite band with fresh ears—and I’ve come to some realizations about the band in the process. Continue reading
So, Iron Thrones‘ new EP The Wretched Sun which I made the Record o’ the Month and raved about in my review came out yesterday (the 27th of July, 2010). You can order the record from the band via their website (actually, through their store, but go to their site, too) and over at their Band Camp you can download the EP for $6 and you can still download the particularly excellentVisions of Light (the band’s first LP) for as much as you want (i.e. free, if you don’t want to contribute to the band’s well-being).
Oh yeah, it’s also available on Amazon, iTunes and any other number of sources where you can probably find the thing.
Listen to that song above (I hope you’re already doing so) and tell me that it isn’t worth your six bucks. Or wait, it is worth your six bucks. So fucking buy it already.
Edit: Oh right. My friendly competitors over at The Number of the Blog (who shall lose righteously in the Pigskin Destroyer 666 Fantasy Football League) are also sponsoring a tour for the band as well. If you click that link up there, it will take you to their vastly inferior website for the details. Or you could stay right here in the comfort of AngryMetalGuy.com and look at the tour dates.
7/29/10 — Chicago, IL @ The Double Door w/ The Alaya Conscious, Hessler 7/31/10 — Columbus, OH @ The Summit w/ The C.O.A.S.T., Artillery Breath 8/01/10 — Aliquippa, PA @ The Fallout Shelter w/ Sathanas, Dethlehem 8/02/10 — Brooklyn, NY@ The Charleston w/ East of the Wall, Name, & more! 8/03/10 — Allenstown, NH @ Ground Zero w/ TBA 8/04/10 — Worcester, MA @ Tammany Hall w/ Irepress, Frozen 8/05/10 — Philadelphia, PA @ The M Room w/ Monolith, Willing Swords 8/07/10 — Spartanburg, SC @ Ground Zero w/ TBA 8/10/10 — Clarksville, TN @ The Coup w/ Evolve or Die 8/11/10 — Nashville, TN @ The Muse w/ TBA 8/12/10 — St. Louis, MO @ The Firebird w/ Ashes and Iron 8/13/10 — Marshalltown, IA @ The American Legion w/ Anno Domine, Tony Rocky Horror
Amorphis // Forging the Land of Thousand Lakes Rating: 4.5/5.0 — The first time I’ve ever recommended a DVD Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | US) Websites: amorphis.net | myspace.com/amorphis Release Dates: EU: 09.07.2010 | US: 07.13.2010
Amorphis is a band that needs no introduction, particularly if you’ve been reading this zine for more than a few weeks. When Skyforger came out in 2009, I was fortunate enough to be able to catch it on MySpace at the time and put up a review of it on this site: it was actually one of the first things that started increasing traffic to this site. At the time that I wrote the review I was particularly laudatory of the band’s new material. Despite the wave against them because they never re-wrote The Karelian Isthmus or Tales from the Thousand Lakes again, I have been nothing but enchanted by the last three albums. They are, for lack of a better word, genius. Modern, melodic metal done with class and style, Eclipse, Silent Waters and Skyforger are three of the best album from the 2000s and have re-established the legacy of a band that has seemed to have lost its way at times. Continue reading
Those of you who have been reading Angry Metal Guy since the beginning will remember that I lauded heavy praise on a Minneapolis, Minnesota based band called Iron Thrones last year after I downloaded their record (for free) and had myself a little Angry Metal Hernia™. The band was incredible. Like some kind of unholy cross between Opeth and Jesus… or whatever. I promptly declared the record amazing, gave it five stars and then took a cold shower. In any case, Visions of Light, the debut, still ranks as the best unsigned act I’ve ever heard and I have had very, very high hopes for the follow up record—The Wretched Sun—which will be self-released on the 27th of July after the very talented band went and won the No Label Needed contest and got sent to a pro studio. Continue reading
In an attempt to not re-post Blabbermouth’s news like many of the blogs out there (since yes, I, too am unfortunately tied to Blabbermouth for my news), I try to do a bit more analysis and opinion on certain things. Think of me as the pundit to your regular news hour. Anyway, I have often given Iron Maiden shit about their American tours. Now once again they’re skipping the midwest in the US for the most part, and unfortunately they’re not coming to Sweden except for the stupid Sonisphere festival which costs way too much to just see Maiden (RIP Dio.). But one of the things I’ve often complained about is Maiden‘s reluctance to do new tours in the US or to play deep cuts on tours (can’t you play Alexander the Great JUST ONCE!?). Continue reading
Well, it’s on us again. Iron Maiden fever. I have no idea whether or not there will be promo for this. I’ve already been bugging my local EMI people about this stuff, but they’ve been hiding behind a website and pretty much no contact whatsoever. But I can promise that I’ll be keeping you up to date on this whole thing. And fuck. August 16th starts Maiden-mania again. Man, this is going to be a rockin’ summer for me..
As far as I’m concerned, one of Wisconsin and Michigan’s best kept secrets is the solo project of one Rory Heikkila: Shroud of Despondency. I posted earlier about his amazing tracks from the record Objective: Isolation which is soon to be released (hopefully). And now, he’s apparently gotten together with the drummer and vocalist from Owlscry to create 5 new tracks of fucking amazing black metal. This stuff is sans bass and vocals and “slightly unmixed” and still it is fucking better than most of the stuff I’m getting in as promos. It is fucking phenomenal, to say the least. One observer put it like this: “Dude, your music is so good it makes me cry.” Not because it’s so emotionally evocative (though, it’s that too) but because it’s just so fucking good and as a musician you can’t help but be a little jealous.
The Swedish blogger (and ridiculously fucking metal) Demonia has posted some pictures and videos (in Swedish—though, she’s got Google translator embedded for the foreigners) from Blaze Bayley‘s show in Stockholm. I, being Poor Metal Guy, managed to miss this one, but hopefully they’ll be back soon (though, what with shedding their manager and drummer in the last few days I’m not sure when that’ll actually be). Anyway, the turnout seems like it was actually pretty damn good and the band is on. I have to say that their bassist (David Bermudez) is one of the best heavy metal performers I’ve ever seen. I commented on it from the live DVD, the dude is just a fucking beast. Los hermanos Bermúdez are pretty awesome in general, I’d say. I’ll post four here, but she’s got others on her blog and some on YouTube as well.
Here’s one of my favorite songs off of the mighty Tenth Dimension record:
And here’s “Faceless” from 2010′s Promise and Terror:
And of course, “Futureal” from the much maligned Virtual XI record. But once again the band shows that had that record had some production and energy it would’ve been a much better album.
I first became acquainted with 1349 at their landmark Hellfire album which marked them as leaders of the post-90′s Norwegian black metal scene. It seems with their subsequent release, Revelations of the Black Flame, they lost a lot of support from their “true” supporters for their favoring more ambient passages and relying more on atmospherics than blistering black metal. Luckily, 1349‘s latest offering attempts to strike a balance between the two extremes in the genre and Demonoir looks like a very solid album, treading the waters between dark ambient and black metal to great effect.
On Demonoir the much maligned ambient passages are back, punctuating the black metal songs throughout. However, after giving the record a number of listens, I feel both “halves” of the album should be examined separately, as different entities, and then evaluated as a whole. The “Tunnel of Set” ambient pieces are irregularly numbered, starting (in Roman Numerals) at eleven and working up to seventeen. It is only once these seven tracks are rearranged in order that they actually make sense – and when they do you are confronted with some of the nastiest, most evil-sounding dark ambient to grace a record in a long time. The “Tunnel of Set” as a single piece is almost nauseating; creating an eerie, guitar tinged atmosphere that literally makes your skin crawl. Listening to each piece reminded me a lot of the soundtracks to horror movies, and even more of the popular survival horror series, Silent Hill. Frequencies rise and sag; indescribable sounds creep through the static and noise and silence only accentuates feelings of dread! Something is very wrong in these ambient pieces and as a result they stick with you, crawling into the back of your mind, ready to be played during the most visceral of nightmares and cultivating impending doom between each song.
“Atomic Chapel” is the first track after a brief “Tunnel of Set” introduction. After some fast paced riffing to kick the song off, it settles into a rather pedestrian pace, favoring spoken oration over other forms of vocals. Ravn’s vocals are the usual throaty rasp, and the two vocal styles switch back and forth until we are greeted with what sounds like a madman bashing on a piano – albeit musically. The piano feels very out of place in the guitar-driven sound, but it ushers in an increase in pace that reaches back, very noticably, to Hellfire. This sound continues through“When I Was Flesh” and “Pandemonium War Bells”, though the latter feels horirbly stretched out, approaching boring.
“Psalm 7:77″ is where 1349 really show their colours. High-speed, thrash-inspired riffs coupled with hyper-aggressive drums create a maelstrom of really evil sounding metal. The guest solo from Norwegian guitar master, Ronnie leTekrö, creates a great atmosphere over the razor sharp riffing that compliments the thrash sound perfectly (sounding very Kirk Hammet-ish in places). My only gripe would be with the vocals, which have a rather annoying distortion filter over them. This distortion comes and goes between songs and I found it a serious downer to an otherwise excellent song.
The aforementioned piano returns on “The Devil of the Desert” and adds to the energetic atmosphere by sending it delightfully off-kilter while remaining majestic and Big! In the wake of Dimmu Borgir and company, piano in black metal feels horribly overdone, but 1349‘s use of the instrument, however brief, is refreshingly unorthodox and it contributes to the feeling of unease created by the ambient tracks. Finally, the title track—before a lengthy ambient outro—is quite slow by 1349‘s standard, using whispered vocals and ambient effects. It feels solid though and is a fitting end to the album.
Considering the band’s recent career, I would say that Demonoir is 1349‘s watershed album. They will possibly alienate a lot of fans due to the ambient passages, but could win more due to the balance of dark and darker music gracing the album. The presence of the “Tunnel of Set” on the album should not put more hardline fans off: there is nearly forty minutes of quality black metal on the album and I guarantee that it will not disappoint. Demonoir strikes a healthy balance between black metal atmospherics and the more aggressive, evil riffing that attracts fans to the genre in the first place. This is a solid release from a band that has not fallen into irrelevance in the wake of the Norwegian black metal scene of the 90′s and that clearly has a firm idea of where they are going!
Rhapsody of Fire // The Frozen Tears of Angels Rating: 5.0/5.0 — The Rhapsody record you’ve been waiting for… Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | US) Websites: rhapsodyoffire.com | myspace.com/rhapsodyoffire Release Dates: EU: 30.04.2010 | US: 06.29.2010
It seems forever since Italian power metallers, and just generally over-the-top crafters of Symphonic Hollywood Metal (or as I called it in one of my very earliest reviews “Sword Swinging Elf Metal”) produced an album. And really, in terms of the modern music industry it has been a very long time. Rhapsody of Fire‘s last album, Triumph or Agony, was released in 2006 to almost no fanfare. I didn’t see a single advertisement for the album, I never knew that it was being released and I had no idea that they had even been working on a new album at all. One day I just walked into my local record store and saw it on the shelf there. The total lack of build-up foreshadowed how I felt about the album, and frankly the record that had gone before it: it lacked what I was looking for in a Rhapsody of Fire album. The guitar orientation was gone, the songs were not as huge, the guitar not as bombastic and the feel was generally one that I just could never really get into. Both Symphony of Enchanted Lands pt. II and Triumph or Agony, while technically filling the standards set by the band, certainly didn’t live up to what I see as the band’s crowning jewel Power of the Dragonflame.
So, that should give the reader the standard by which I judge The Frozen Tears of Angels. How does it compare to Power of the Dragonflame? Well, I can proudly say that this is the record that I expected Symphony of Enchanted Lands pt. II to be. The music is huge, fustian and exaggerated, just like you expect, but it is also the most guitar oriented record that the band has ever produced. It is this element in front of all things, that will make the average Rhapsody of Fire fan jump for joy. Gone are the slower passages, gone are the questions of where the guitar solo is because Luca Turilli, as he stated in his interview with me, “rediscovered his first love,” and this record is littered with some amazing guitar solos. My personal favorite comes from the fairly simple, but fragile and beautiful passages in “Danza Di Fuoco E Ghiaccio” a song similar to “The Village of the Dwarves”. But every song has amazing solos, the amazing harmonies and intertwining neo-baroque melodies on “Crystal Moonlight”, the great Iron Maiden double lead from “On the Way to Ainor” and so on and so forth. This record is a triumph for every neo-classical guitar loving nerd out there. Not just because of the standard solos, but because Turilli’s creativity lies in how well he blends his virtuosity in withhis overall compositions.
And the overall composition of this record is also a major triumph. The use of Christopher Lee and more photorealistic artwork and so forth was all in an attempt to be taken more seriously, and while I’m not sure that this is actually happening, the band has continued to impress with their understanding of the album as a series of symphonic movements. One of the things that makes The Frozen Tears of Angels great is that while the songs stand alone, the album is not an album that you want to break out for one track. Instead, the dynamics make you want to listen to the whole album straight through and just sit in awe of the breadth and depth of the music. And while the band has often lost me in the past on their more epic tracks, even the 11 minute title track was a gripping piece. The album follows an audio story arc, just like the previous albums, but being able to combine these feelings together and turn them into both convincing neo-classical music and awesome heavy metal has never been done better by the band (or any other band, for that matter).
This is getting long, but one more final point: I have focused heavily on the guitar-oriented nature of this album, but there are a few things that stand out. The band elected (probably for budget reasons) to not go with a full orchestra this time. While Luca Turilli denies it, part of me wonders if that didn’t actually help the sound of this record because it was something that was completely manipulatable by the musicians in the studio. I would bet that there are things that you can write for a symphony that cannot be played convincingly by a symphony and sometimes I wonder if Rhapsody of Fire‘s style doesn’t overpower the musicians they’ve hired to play it. All of the orchestrations are perfect, and the band itself is tight as hell. This is one of the tightest rhythm sections out there, not to mention the vocals of Fabio Lione are accented perfection.
The Frozen Tears of Angels is the perfect Rhapsody of Fire comeback record. After four years of chaos, and the band’s still ongoing legal fight with Joey DeMaio (who signed the band and tried to steal their sound), Rhapsody of Fire is back with a power metal vengeance. They could not have chosen a better time or written better music for this imminent return. I hope this record helps push them back into the spotlight and that the next (at least) year of touring is good for the band, for all the individuals involved and is a kick in the teeth to everyone trying to hold down the most powerful force in power metal.
Iron Maiden is the greatest heavy metal band to ever live. Thirty years after the release of their self-titled album, they are arguably just as relevant as they ever have been—not resting on their laurels and imitating a hits jukebox, but instead touring the world playing their new material to the joy of fans everywhere. After what was a rousing success with their most recent record, the 2006 release of A Matter of Life and Death, there is actually maybe a bit more pressure on the band to produce something that is quality, memorable and, frankly, classic. Especially with the rumors floating around that this is Maiden‘s final album, spurred even further on by the fact that Steve Harris helped write every song on the record, the pressure cooker of fan scrutiny is reaching fever pitch. And so it falls to this Angry Metal Guy to try to put all of this into some sort of context; to try to listen to my favorite band with fresh ears—and I’ve come to some realizations about the band in the process. Continue reading
