Angry Metal Guy

I made comments earlier to the effect of that I’d not heard the 2011 death metal record of the year. Nader Sadek definitely fills in that gap deftly, but Beyond Creation‘s 2011 release The Aura from some obscure Canadian Label that is going on a 6 month vacation so you can’t actually order records from them, should definitely tickle the fancy of anyone who loves technical death metal in the vein of Death, Obscura, Necrophagist, Cynic or Exivious. In other words, this is mandatory listening for fans of the genre.  Continue reading

As we’ve done the last two years, it behooves us to point out all the shit that we’ve missed in the last year. And 2011 has been mighty full of oversights from our side. This has been a pretty crazy year, but let me just say that I apologize and hope we can really make it up to you by throwing out a few awesome or pretty awesome records that we’ve managed to overlook due to time constraints or limited attention spans.

Andorra is not a large country. But a couple of years ago Persefone blew progressive metal fans away with Shin-Ken and now in 2011 fellow countrymen Nami have released a record that has been inexcusably overlooked by this Angry Metal Guy. Fusing together melodic death metal, progressive and acoustic tendencies à la Opeth and adding in a layer of Meshuggahesque riffing and polyrhythm Fragile Alignments is a truly interesting and pretty damn unique melodic/progressive death metal record. There is plenty to love here, but there are also a few things that don’t sit as well with me. Let me explain.  Continue reading

Cynic // Carbon-Based Anatomy
Rating: 3.5/5.0 — Apparently Cynic entered the hanging-out-with-Ravi-Shankar-phase of their career.
Label: Seasons of Mist
Websites: cyniconline.com | facebook.com/cyniconline
Release Dates: US: 11.15.2011 | EU: 2011.11.11

Well, since the release of Traced in Air, I can’t think of a band that has higher expectations for their next full length than Cynic. Really, I don’t know a single non-Cynic fanboy among the reviewers that I frequently read, and this is because their two records are fantastic. The EP they released last year (Re-Traced) was a neat little foray into other styles and I really loved it. But I don’t think that anyone is quite ready for the band to stay in those other styles. Carbon-Based Anatomy is raising questions as to whether or not they will come back to the techy metal for which they’re supposed to be known. Continue reading

Pestilence // Doctrine
Rating: 2.0/5.0 — Like Jazzercise with more screaming
Label: Mascot Records
Websites: pestilence.nl | myspace.com/pestilenceofficial
Release Dates: Out now worldwide!

They say you can’t go home again. If the recent track record of Dutch deathsters Pestilence proves anything, it’s that you may get home again, but you can’t stay there long.  Pestilence had a few significant contributions to the death genre in the late 80′s and early 90′s, most notably  the excellent Consuming Impulse from ’89 (a nasty, vicious slab of ugliness and a top ten all time death album IMHO) and the very solid Testimony of the Ancient release in ’91. Then they radically shifted styles by incorporating copious progressive jazz fusion elements into the Spheres opus and alienated many fans in the process. That essentially closed the book on Pestilence until their 2009 reunion album Resurrection Macabre, which did indeed go home to their early death metal roots and kicked a fair amount of arse too. Now, we get their second post-reformation platter and much to my chagrin, back comes the progressive jazz-fusion elements to muddy the waters (though not to the extent they did on Spheres). This leaves Doctrine a squirming, writhing mutant offspring, half Consuming Impulse, half Spheres and it feels like an album tearing itself apart with inconsistent, incompatible ideas. Needless to say, I’m not very jazzed about this. Continue reading

After Steel Druhm’s fine addition to this discussion about awesome metal songs, here’s the continuation of my ridiculously superior list. No need for a rant. Just jump right on into the joy contained below. Here’s the first one.

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Obscura // Omnivium
Rating: 4.5/5.0 — Mmm.. techy goodness!
Label: Relapse
Websites: myspace.com/realmofobscura
Release Dates: EU: 2011.04.01/04 | US: 03.28.2011

March has really been one hell of a month, hasn’t it? To think after Amon Amarth and Vintersorg we get to follow it all up with Obscura‘s Omnivium. If any record counts as the most-anticipated of the year, Obscura is probably getting pretty close to that level. Having released in 2009, what was really a hell of a surprise for most listeners (including people who’d purchased their previous record) in Cosmogenesis, these technical death metallers built on their Necrophagist cred (and sound) and on the legacy of the mighty Death with their technical, progressive death metal—complete with awesome fretless bass attack. So, while this isn’t really a record that can fall victim of the sophomore slump (being the band’s third record), it certainly is an album that could fall victim to overly heightened expectations. And, I must admit, this Angry Metal Guy certainly had heightened expectations. Continue reading

Thomas Giles // Pulse
Rating: 4.5/5.0 — Super great!
Label: Metal Blade
Websites: myspace.com/thomasgilesmusic
Release Dates: EU: 28.01.2011 | US: 02.01.2011

Oh man, the Internetz are abuzz with love for this record already. Apparently everyone and their dog who runs a review website got this album 3 months ago and has been subsequently shitting themselves over the awesome!!!1! that is Thomas Giles‘ Pulse. A bit of background information as to why that might be. Yeah, because this is the vocalist from Between the Buried and Me. Yup. That’s it. I want to state with all certainty that if this were an independent record put out by a dude actually named Thomas Giles who wasn’t in a band that was well-respected even though being associated with a scene that everyone hates, this record would not be listened to by metal guys or reviewed on a metal website. Because this record is not metal. It contains minor bits o’ metal, but it for the large part a progressive-indie-electronica record. So be forewarned. Continue reading

It’s hard to make this kind of broad list, I just want to say that from the get-go. How do you do this? Do you choose your favorites, or do you choose the genre defining records? Because saying, for example, that some of the following records are really genre defining wouldn’t be true. On the other hand, these are the records that when I go back and look at the 2000s I think of pretty immediately as some of the best stuff and the things that I keep coming back to.

But the 2000s have been an interesting time for metal in a lot of ways. One of the things that happened was that death metal and death metal-influenced music really hit the mainstream in a lot of ways. For the first time since the 1980s there were larger groups of young people who really started getting into metal and there is an entire generation of musicians who have been influenced by the heavy metal of the 80s and the underground of the 1990s (particularly black and death metal). While I believe that metal is on the ebb again (in a popular music sense) and will once again retreat underground to lick its wounds and come up with something fascinating, interesting and new, the 2000s have been a great time to be a fan of the genre.

This list is going to take a lot of hits. I can already hear some of them, and some of them will come out of left field. But, as usual, I refuse to apologize for my taste. The focus on “magazine metal” bands will probably irritate some, and others will argue that my choices from one genre or another aren’t representative of the best of that genre during the period (specifically death metal in this case). But when I look back on the last 9 years, these are the ones that stand out. And trust me, there’s some stuff that I wish I could get on there, but I didn’t include an honorable mentions section since I expanded the list to 15. But there are some amazing records (Moonsorrow‘s Hävitetty, Anata‘s Under a Stone with No Inscription and The Conductor’s Departure, Agalloch‘s The Mantle, Turisas‘ The Varangian Way, Necrophagist‘s Epitaph, Ásmegin‘s Hin Vordende Sod & Sø, Absu‘s Tara, Rhapsody‘s Power of the Dragonflame, Anathema‘s A Fine Day to Exit, Nile‘s Black Seeds of Vengeance, Otyg‘s Sagovindars Boning, Obscura‘s Cosmogenesis, Watain‘s Sworn to the Dark, Akercocke‘s Antichrist, Enslaved‘s Below the Lights are just a few of my major oversights) that came out during this period that haven’t ended up on this list and I’m aware of that.

Anyway, I hope you find this list enjoyable, shocking, provocative and maybe even dead on. Backwards this time…

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Mose Giganticus // Gift Horse
Rating: 3.0/5.0 — Sludgedoomstonersynthrock
Label: Relapse Records
Websites: mosegiganticus.com | myspace.com/mosegiganticus
Release Date: July 20th, 2010

Every now and then, a band comes along and I’m utterly at a loss for how to classify them in the official Steel Druhm Book O’ Metal [That's what you get for not using the Angry Book o' Metal Classifications™, n00b. — AMG]. Generally, this causes me anger and vexation, but I always give a nod of appreciation for the bands that resist easy classification. The latest recipient of the nod is Gift Horse, the second album by Mose Giganticus, for they have truly baffled my considerable pigeonholing acumen. They have forced even me to admit I’m stumped. Mose Giganticus is apparently a one-man entity created by Matthew Garfield, a staple of the Philly punk rock scene for some time. While some of that punk ethos is apparent on Gift Horse, this isn’t exactly a punk album. What is it then? Good question!! Let’s try to piece this puzzle together shall we?

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Cynic // Re-traced
Rating: 4.5/5.0 — Well, it can’t possibly be AS good as Traced in Air
Label: Season of Mist
Websites: myspace.com/cyniconline | cyniconline.com
Release Dates: EU: 17/21.05.2010 | US: 05.18.2010

I make no bones about it, I have a total love affair with Cynic. Long have I been a sucker for good progressive metal and Cynic is about as good as progressive metal gets. While I was a bit young to really have appreciated Focus when it came out, I re-discovered it later and fell in love with it. When Traced in Air came out in 2008 I pretty much fell over myself with joy. That record has maintained a constant place on my playlists since it was released and ranks among my top 10 albums of the last decade. So when I heard that they were going to re-do some of the tracks in different styles as an EP I was justifiably excited—but skeptical at the same time. I grew up in the age of the Nine Inch Nails re-mix album: I know what happens when jackasses mess around with an already winning formula. Nothing good.

Fortunately, Trent Reznor had nothing to do with this. Instead, this is basically a re-imagining of songs you know and love and to amazing effect. While there are some glitchy IDM sounding beats going on in “Space” (a re-working of the track “The Space for This”), in general the tracks have a much more brittle feeling and what they lack in the sometimes frantic rhythmic nature of the drum and guitar combination on Traced in Air they make up for with beautiful harmonies and enticing chord structures. The sounds that were only really hinted at on Traced in Air, that is the up-close sound that is way more akin to Porcupine Tree or Guilt Machine, is something that that is used in great contrast to the hiding behind the vocodor that we’re all so used to.

While every song on here is excellent, including the new track “Wheels within Wheels” which closes off the record, the ultimate triumph is probably the track “Integral” which is a re-make of the totally amazing track “Integral Birth”, easily my favorite song from the Traced in Air album. The version on Re-Traced is a stripped down acoustic version that shows off just what an amazing song the track is at its root. I once had a friend who said that he wrote everything on an acoustic guitar, because if it sounded awesome on an acoustic then he was pretty sure that it would be even better with a whole band. “Integral” shows this off with a simple acoustic guitar, a little bit of keyboards some female vocals and a focus on the beautiful song structure and the lights out writing that make Cynic one of the best bands on the planet right now.

Fans of Traced in Air and Cynic in general should buy this. It’s not even a question of whether or not this is worth your time and money. The sheer talent of this band turns me into a blithering fanboy and this EP just gets me excited for more new Cynic in the upcoming couple of years. The only people who shouldn’t buy this album are people who for some reason haven’t gone back and checked out the previous Cynic records, ’cause it’s not exactly representative (with the exception of “Wheels within Wheels” which is much more similar to “standard” Cynic album sound). But once you’ve gone back and checked those CDs, you should rush out and buy this magnificent EP.