“Alternative metal is among the broadest of genre tags in heavy music. A few months ago, UK act Zedi Forder impressed with their solid interpretation of the alt metal style on their self titled debut. Alas, I broached this second LP offering from France’s Vital Breath with both trepidation and cautious optimism when I saw they were also listed under the alternative metal umbrella.” Alternative to what?
“Tommy Victor’s Prong have been cranking out music at a furious rate lately, with 4 studio albums in the past 5 years. While this work ethic is admirable (and rivaled only by Creedence Clearwater Revival circa 1969-70), we all know quantity does not always equal quality.” Assembly line metal?
“Debackliner is the second French group in a week for me. The first was the excellent Ars Moriendi—a one-man, black metal act focused on the Frenchy weirdness of bands like Spektr and Blut aus Nord. But, Debackliner is something else. It’s not a one-man band, it’s not black metal, and it’s not anything you were expecting.” Is there a French connection?
“Given that I have a great relationship with my father, didn’t get bullied in high school, and don’t hate my hometown, my qualifications to review nu-metal are basically nil. Alas, I’ve made my superiors here rather upset in some way, shape, or form and have been duly saddled with a Greek nu-metal opus in the form of Project Theory’s Something between Us.” Ouch.
“If you’re like me, you already skimmed over the above tags, curious of Darkhaus’ origins, the style of metal they play, and the clickbaiting that awaits you in today’s review. And, perhaps, you noticed a few tags that stood out. You know, those couple of tags that made you want to rip your eyes out. By the way, you can stop refreshing your browser. You and I both know you’re here at angrymetalguy.com and those tags ain’t going anywhere.” And so goes the good doctor’s dubious metal cred.
“Before I progress further, I want to make something clear: I’ve long held the belief that the letter “V” is not a vowel. Yes, I know, look at my screen name, but bear with me here. Call it being stubborn from years of having it drilled into my head in elementary school, but when I see it used in words like “kvlt” or “trve,” I cringe. Or if it’s used in place of an “f”, I also shudder. Case in point: Cali tech-deathsters WRVTH. How do you even pronounce that? “Ruhth?” “Rooth?” “Rivith?”” Spelling is fun.
“Just about every day, Angry Metal Guy pushes out a review of an upcoming or recently released album, producing press for the album whether we love it or hate it. It exposes readers to a lot of material, but disadvantages artists who aren’t putting out music at any given time. Given a small temporal window, this creates a very biased sample of the music scene. I love reviewing albums, but a lot of great and criminally overlooked bands are in between releases right now, and it kills me to see their hard work go unseen. So in order to rectify their invisibility, they’re being talked about here, where you can be held captive by the unbreakable bonds of html and subjugated to my terrible opinions.” Next stop, Europe!
“Nothing annoys me more than when artists hype up their work beyond perceivable notions. You know what I’m talking about. “It needed to be visceral.” (adorable, Linkin Park). “…unique, not following trends” (right, Savn)? It’s just better for everyone involved to just shut the hell up and let the music do all the communication for you instead of throwing out false pretenses in hopes that maybe someone out in the Nethersphere will somehow agree with you. In other words, take a note from Germany’s Vehemenz, who have managed to grab my attention and kept me musically fixated and grinning ear-to-ear with their self-titled debut 5-song EP, all without overhyping the ever-loving shit out of it.” We at AMG will tolerate no guff, bullhockey or hype. None!
“Madam X rarely wanders down the road of hardcore or metalcore since dealing with mallrats and emo’s is troublesome (where to hide the bodies and all…). Once in a while though, venturing out into the unknown pays off and you stumble across an album with a little more imagination and progression (cast your mind back if you will to 2011’s Digital Veil delivered by Travis Richter’s The Human Abstract). Now jump back to 2009 to the release of Lexington, Kentucky based Beyond the Shore’s first EP precursor (The Arctic Front). While the album bore some small resemblance to Parkway Drive, it sounded juvenile and lacked the intensity of say “Dark Days.” Four years later Beyond the Shore haven’t been working on a funeral doom album. No, instead they’ve been working on getting into Metal Blade Records (home to As I Lay Dying and a host of other big names) good graces, honing their sound and gathering some interesting elements to add to their music.” Is our Madam X warming up to metalcore?? Say it ain’t so, X!! Oops, there I go using genres as pejoratives…
As Karmic revenge for throwing things at Ill Niño, Fisting Andrew Golota is forced to listen to their new album. It seem they’re the same nu-metal band he once threw stuff at. So much for progress!
