Angry Metal Guy

Avantasia // Angel of Babylon
Rating: 4.25/5.0 — Excellent (but not as good as TWS)
Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | US)
Websites: tobiassammet.com | myspace.com/tobiassammet
Release Dates: EU: 03.04.2010 | US/CA: 05.04.2010

Tobias Sammet, the voice of Edguy and mastermind behind Avantasia,  clearly doesn’t mess around when it comes to self-confidence and ambition.  Few artists would have the sheer cojones to undertake as daunting of a project as a double album with over 2 hours of music featuring no less than 19 guest musician.  That however is exactly what he serves up with The Wicked Symphony and this album, Angel of Babylon (being Parts II and III of The Scarecrow trilogy respectively).

Both halves of this double album focus on epic, symphonic and bombastic power metal and as you may or may not have noticed, I loved the companion album The Wicked Symphony.  Angel of Babylon continues right where Symphony leaves off and gives you yet another whole hour of over- the- top, melodramatic metal goodness.  I will say upfront that this is the weaker of the two albums. However, that difference is minor and Angel is still chock full of amazingly conceived and executed metal anthems loaded with stellar performances by a veritable “who’s who” of the metal universe.

Look no further than the opener, “Stargazers” to see what I mean as Tobias, Jorn Lande, Russell Allen and Michael Kiske join forces to pummel and enthrall with vocal brilliance in a 9 minutes plus masterpiece of pure metal.   What makes this song work over its considerable  length is the way Tobias allows his guest vocalists to share the spotlight with him and showcase their individual vocal prowess. Of course, none of that would matter if the song itself wasn’t worth the talent involved. Fortunately, Tobias brought his best to the composing table and the overall pacing and ebb/flow of this song is perfect.  In fact, it’s over before you realize it, which is the sign of a good song.

From there we get a traditional metal gem in the title track.  This song rocks hard and rides free with a great riff line and epic dueling vocals between Tobias and Jorn Lande, who once again shows why he is considered the “voice of rock.” Quite simply, this man can shake the rafters with his gruff and powerful delivery.  The Tobias/Jorn dueling duet formula works even better later on with ”Promised Land,” another storming metal anthem  with a no- holds- barred vocal war being waged .

Angel shakes things up and takes more chances  than The Wicked Symphony, especially with “Death is Just a Feeling” where Tobias teams up with Jon Oliva of Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra fame, for a strange, eerie ditty that drifts back and forth between horror movie soundtrack and screaming metal powerhouse.  This song really grows on you and has some great whiskey soaked vocal work by Oliva.  Likewise, “Symphony of Life” provides another twist with its gothic, moody rock style with excellently performed vocals by German rock singer Cloudy Yang (who also provided backing vocals on Edguy’s Tinnitus Sanctus).

The album winds down with “Journey to Arcadia,” another lengthy tour de force with Tobias, Russell Allen, Jorn Lande and Bob Catley all throwing their weight around vocally.  This one builds nicely and  keeps the listener onboard by continual changes in pace and power and concludes things on a high note.

Looking back over the course of the 11 tracks on display, only “Alone I Remember “ failed to initially impress, but even that song improved with repeated listens.  As a longtime fan of traditional and power metal, all I can say about these two albums is, WOW! Wicked and Angel have both been in nonstop rotation in my car, iPod and home stereo and with 22 tracks, you get a ton of variety which keeps things from getting stale too quickly.  Tobias Sammet has outdone himself and truly proven himself to be a great songwriter as well as a great metal voice and he should be proud of what he has accomplished on Angel and The Wicked Symphony. I don’t envy him should he ever attempt to top this double masterpiece but I sure hope he gives it a shot.

Indukti – Idmen
Rating: 4.25/5.0 – Excellent, but winding and weak at moments
Label: InsideOut
Websites: myspace.com/indukti | indukti.com
Release date: July 27th, 2009

There is a challenge with truly progressive metal and rock and that challenge is, of course, how one describes it in novel terms without sounding like some kind of pretentious ass.   The other major problem as a reviewer is that one has to rely on sort of contrived comparisons, so when a band sort of not comparable to other bands it makes things difficult.  Not just a little difficult, but a lot difficult, because as I sit here I am literally trying to figure out how to describe this record in a way that will sit well, make sense and give an imagine of how excellent this album is.

I guess that’s where I’ll start: this album is, for the most part, excellent.  It is a smoothly progressive blend of varying styles and influences, which are deftly melded into a cohesive whole.  That, of course, brings us to those contrived comparisons to try to get the sound across: basically, if you were to mix Tool with Skyclad (sans the thrash metal, mainly just the violin), Enslaved and Meshuggah, you might have something that sounds like Indukti.  However, unlike a band like Tool or Skyclad there is no pop-song formula involved in the writing of music, here—instead the band relies heavily on improvisation in the writing process, which leads to flowing, linear songs that don’t really repeat parts so much as work in movements (which is becoming more common with modern progressive bands in general). The songs go between tribal soundscapes with folk and classical instrumentation and heavy as a ton of bricks chuggy parts, even with a couple of sickly sweet chorus hooks on “…and Who’s God Now?!” which is easily the album’s best track, with it’s powerful vocal performance and excellent writing.

The style that I have described, however, comes with some weaknesses which the band has sort of fallen into in a couple of places.  The first of these weaknesses is that this writing style can get lost in itself and in a couple of places, most notably the song “Aemaet,” the band really just gets lost in what feels a little bit like running scales.  These places lack the great groove and seductive, hypnotizing melody of the best parts of Idmen.  The second weakness was almost completely avoided by the addition of vocals on three of these tracks—but without these, I get the feeling that a lot of this stuff would start to blend together, and while it would create an interesting soundscape, there would be fewer memorable moments.

However, the weaknesses on this album were entirely mitigated by the awesomeness that also ensued and I have to say that I am very convinced that this album will end up on my “best albums of 2009″ list.  The dynamism and musical skill shown by this band means, hopefully, that they will get more publicity in the next year or so. They definitely deserve it.

So, another Polish progressive metal band, another excellent record.  There must be something in the water. Let me forewarn you—if you’re not really into progressive music, that is, sort of lacking style obsessions or ideas about how a record should sound or how songs should be put together, Idmen may not be the record for you.  While I am blown away by Indukti‘s musicianship and songwriting, this record is almost entirely without vocals and what vocals are on this album are often weird, winding and not entirely a standard sound.  They range between very Maynard James Keenan-sounding vocals on “Nemesis Voices” to thrash and death vocals on “…and Who’s God Now?!”  This isn’t a weakness for me, obviously, as I think the record is amazing—but a lot of people might get lost in the wandering intricacies that make up Indukti‘s newest opus.  If this sounds at all appealing to you: buy this record.  This band deserves all the support they can get.