Angry Metal Guy

As under the radar and below the Earth’s crust as a band can get, Brazil’s doom/death stalwarts Mythological Cold Towers may have crafted an album capable of getting them some serious attention. Immemorial is their fourth release (available from Cyclone Empire) and like their previous works, it’s slow to mid-paced, atmospheric doom/death with a fair amount of melody and a smidgen of goth influence. The end result is like a cross between Swallow the Sun, Candlesmass, old Katatonia and really old Paradise Lost (some of this sounds like their Gothic album but with more finesse). If forced to describe their sound in a mere two words, those words would be “fucking” and “morose.” Though not the least bit cheery or hopeful, Immemorial is so well executed and laden with dark atmosphere, it ends up far more addicting than it should. In fact, it reminds me of Loss‘s Despond. Both are crushingly doomy, heavy affairs that somehow stick in the head and demand repeat spins (this is way more melodic though). While not reinventing the death/doom wheel, Mythological Cold Towers manages to find that elusive sweet spot between heavy and subtly melodic and proceeds to milk it for all its worth. This is their best material by far and good enough for an honorable mention for 2011′s best, so Steel Druhm feels some shame for getting to it so late. If you were looking for quality doom/death in 2011 and missed this, you should also feel shame! Continue reading

Vallenfyre // A Fragile King
Rating: 4.0/5.0 — In crust we trust
Label: Century Media Records
Websites: vallenfyre.co.uk | facebook.com/Vallenfyre
Release Dates: Out now!

2011 might as well be dubbed the year of Swedish Retro Death. Band after loathsome band has burst from the underground to pay rancid homage to genre legends like Entombed, Dismember and Grave. Despite the sheer volume of the stuff, Steel Druhm has remained supportive and for the most part, the trend hasn’t worn out its welcome. Now we get Vallenfyre‘s debut full length from a veritable death metal super group featuring members of Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Cradle of Filth. With such a pedigree, it shouldn’t be too surprising when A Fragile King has everything you would reasonably expect from a Swedish death album. It’s chunky, thick, nasty and vile. It’s an ode to all things Entombed with a sizeable injection of Celtic Frosty goodness as well. At times, its so much like the immortal Left Hand Path it’s uncanny, yet it also brings in plenty of dire dirges to shake things up. This MOFO was conceived in unholy sin, birthed in ungodly filth and raised on bloody carnage. There’s a guitar sound heavy enough to fracture your vertebrae and vocals so grisly they’ll disturb the deranged. But, you rightly ask, is it actually good? Oh yes, it’s really good! This is unapologetically retro and doesn’t strive for innovation but it nails home the tried-and-true Swedish sound with the subtlety of a Panzer division. How this will sit with you depends entirely on your tolerance for more Swedish death. If 2011 has fed you all the old-time death you can stomach, move along and I won’t think less of you. If not, belly up to the death buffet and chow down on this meatloaf of the damned. Continue reading

Draconian // A Rose for the Apocalypse
Rating: 4.5/5.0 — Apocalypse WOW!
Label: Napalm Records
Websites: www.draconian.se | myspace.com/draconianmusic
Release Dates:  EU: 2011.06.21 | US: 06.22.2011

It’s Angry Metal Confession time kiddies. Steel Druhm has many things he should confess but for now, lets focus on aspects of the metal scene I’ve grown weary of. First up has to be symphonic black metal. Its been done, overdone, redone and ultimately, undone. Another very overused gimmick is beauty and the beast vocals (death metal vox paired with soaring, usually operatic, female vocals). Since Theatre of Tragedy came out with Velvet Darkness They Fear, every gothic metal band under the moon tried their hand at the style and while it can be amazing, it’s been overblown in a major way. Because of the staleness in this approach, only the very best practitioners leave any impression on me. Draconian is one such expert unit and while I liked their early material, I LOVED their 2008 release Turning Seasons Within. That opus managed to balance heavy doom with ethereal gothic sensibilties and they made the beauty and beast approach work magnificently. Now with A Rose for the Apocalypse, these Swedish glumsters have done it yet again and offer a top quality gothic-doom/death album brimming with emotion, intensity and dark atmosphere. Its good enough to make me rethink my position on the entire paradigm and its a real slobberknocker of a metal album. Continue reading

Lake of Tears // Illwill
Rating: 3.5/5.0 — Genre polyamory for you and me
Label: AFM Records
Websites: lakeoftears.net | myspace.com/thelakeoftears
Release Dates:  EU: 2011.04.29 | US: 06.14.2011

In the Whack-A-Mole game that is genre pigeonholing, Lake of Tears pop up all over the board, defying you to anticipate their next move. These Swedes have been around a very long time and have always defied easy answers as to what style they actually play. Generally described as gothic metal, they’ve wandered between psychedelic doom, goth-rock, quasi-thrash and pseudo-death over the years. Each album had its own unique flavor and approach while always keeping the distinctive LoT sound. Here on Illwill, their eighth album, they keep the guessing game alive and deliver a strange mix of styles but it all hangs together somehow and works well. With parallels to Paradise Lost, Cemetary, Charon and Type O Negative to name a few, they run all over the place but its always dark in tone and plenty melodic. Continue reading

So, among my fanboyisms, one of the ones that most people probably don’t realize I have is Symphony X. But oh boy do I love that band. And so, it is my joy to announce that they have finally announced June 17th in Europe and June 21st in the USA! Let me just say for all of us: HELL FUCKING YES! June is going to be a great month and largely because Symphony X will be rockin’ out of my stereo!!

Here’s the full press release from Nuclear Blast:

North America’s progressive metal masterminds SYMPHONY X are proud to announce the two artwork versions and track listings for their ninth studio album & Nuclear Blast debut, Iconoclast. It will be available in Europe on June 17^th and in North America on June 21^st.

Illustrator and film concept artist Warren Flanagan (Watchmen, The Incredible Hulk, 2012) is the talent behind the album artwork.  Here, he shares his creative process on the new album’s artwork:

“The idea was to create imagery that was a little darker in tone to previous SYMPHONY X albums and to represent the overall theme of Iconoclast into the artwork.  The whole concept came from Mike [Romeo], who had a strong idea of what the cover should represent based off the music.  I  just ran with it.  When the album’s title was decided on, I focused the image based on the meaning of it.  I also wanted to use the band’s signature ‘masks’ but present them in a way that connected to the new album.”

SYMPHONY X founder & lead guitarist Michael Romeo has the following to say about Flanagan’s art:

“We worked with Warren on the last CD, Paradise Lost, and have a good relationship with him. When I talk to Warren about artwork ideas, a lot of times we end up making comparisons to films and movies.  With the new CD, Iconoclast, the music and lyrics have a darker mechanical/technological theme, and I remember us talking about scenes from films like The Matrix and Terminator.  From there, we sent him some song titles and lyrics (songs like ‘Dehumanized,’ ‘Bastards Of The Machine,’ ‘Electric Messiah’) and just let Warren run with the ball.  He has a great imagination and style, and he totally gets what we are trying to convey with the music.”

The track listing for the jewel-cased version of Iconoclast is:

01.  Iconoclast
02.  The End of Innocence
03.  Dehumanized
04.  Bastards of the Machine
05.  Heretic
06.  Children of a Faceless God
07.  Electric Messiah
08.  Prometheus (I Am Alive)
09.  When All Is Lost

The track listing for the 2-CD Special Edition digi-pak version of Iconoclast is:

CD 1:

01.  Iconoclast
02.  The End of Innocence
03.  Dehumanized
04.  Bastards of the Machine
05.  Heretic
06.  Children of a Faceless God
07.  When All Is Lost

CD 2:

01.  Electric Messiah
02.  Prometheus (I Am Alive)
03.  Light Up the Night
04.  The Lords of Chaos
05.  Reign In Madness

SYMPHONY X are currently on the Power of Metal tour in Europe with Nevermore and will hit North America in April.  View all upcoming SYMPHONY X tour dates here.

Visit SYMPHONY X online at www.SYMPHONYX.com, www.facebook.com/SYMPHONYX, www.myspace.com/OFFICIALSYMPHONYX, and twitter.com/SYMPHONYX.

 

Orphaned Land // The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR
Rating: 5.0/5.0 — A work of art
Label: Century Media
Websites: orphaned-land.com | myspace.com/orphanedmyspace
Release Dates: EU: 25.01.2010 | US: 02.09.2010

Few bands will ever make their own mark on a genre of music—it’s just a statistical rarity. Someone once told me that there are something like 5 million bands on MySpace, if that gives you an idea of the breadth which exists when one is thinking in terms of how many musicians there are out there. Of those, most of them probably last longer than a year, never produce much of a demo much less get signed to a real label—and how many ever produce a real step forward into a new decade with a statement of great things to come? The chances of becoming a professional musician are basically NIL and then of the number that do, how many ever produce something that will be remembered and affect enough listeners to ever influence any? That number is even smaller. Orphaned Land is one of the few bands that will ever exact change in metal and they are doing so now with their new record The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR.

For those of you not “in the know,” (though frankly these guys are on Century Media if you don’t know by now…) Orphaned Land is progressive death metal act from Israel who produces masterpieces at a snail’s pace. However, they do, in fact, produce masterpieces. To do the band no justice at all, imagine Orphaned Land as the culmination of progressive metal (in the vein of Opeth and old Paradise Lost), traditional heavy metal and folk metal. But not Otyg, Eluveitie or Finntroll folk metal, which is very much a northern Europe kind of thing, but instead blending in all the textures and unique flavors of “oriental” and middle-eastern instruments and big orchestrations into one cohesive, and epic as hell, whole. Blend all of that in with a tendency to get a little chuggy at times with off-tempo and syncopation and beautiful female vocals and you have Orphaned Land.

For fans of the band, The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR picks up where Mabool, the band’s 2004 (!) release, left off. Well, musically, that is. Despite the 6 year break, the sound is still remarkably fresh. This might have something to do with the fact that this album was mixed by Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree genius-at-large, temporary keyboard player for the band and Opeth go-to guy for Blackwater Park, Deliverance and Damnation), who added some of his distinct, trademark sounds (see: telephone line vocals, mellotron keyboards, etc.) to the album giving the tracks a different flavor than Mabool had—though, I’ll guess that a higher budget probably had something to do with that as well (though this is conjecture). The tracks flow into each other perfectly, balancing mid-paced death metal riffs and mid-range death metal growls against folky klezmer sounding pieces and huge sweeping orchestras which use unison violins to imitate old Lawrence of Arabia style movie soundtracks—a stunning and chilling effect, surprisingly. [Editors note: it was confirmed for me by Kobi Farhi that this orchestra is indeed the Nazareth Orchestra, which plays the violin in a different way and that it was chosen specifically to give this album a different approach.]

As Mabool before it, The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR is a concept album—but the unfortunate side-effect of promotional media is that I have not received lyrics to give you a picture of the story. However, from what I’ve read elsewhere on the net and from the band’s own statements it is clear that they are maintaining their overarching theme of the unity and common ground of Islam, Judaism and Christianity—even appealing for peace openly on the track “Disciples of the Sacred Oath II” and singing in Arabic for the first time on that track. In a sense, these guys are breaking ground with this stuff, too. Without being an overtly religious band, they have broken away from the confines of EEVIIIIL heavy metal and moved into the arena of smart, appealing and interesting themes on their own. This gives the band a sense of sincerity that I think a lot of bands lack, and gives them credibility overall.

I admit freely that Orphaned Land has pretty much cemented its place as one of my favorite heavy metal/progressive bands of the modern era and, frankly, ever. The complexity of the thought processes, the writing, the arrangements and production are not lost on me and I encourage everyone to give this a record a listen in high quality earphones, because that is to some extent how it deserves to be listened to. I suspect that I will be listening to this album every day for a long time to come, despite the huge number of CDs I should be reviewing, because I can’t keep myself away. And if it holds up as well as Mabool has to the years, then I strongly suspect I’ll be about ready for a new album in 2016 when they finally get back around to it.

My Dying Bride has really been around a long time and remained remarkably good for a band of its stature. And honestly, of the bands that came out around the same time (Anathema, Paradise Lost) from the same area, they really have stayed the most consistently heavy in their long tenure. But this change hasn’t necessarily kept them fresh. For Lies I Sire is an OK record, but in the grand scheme of things it is definitely disappointing by, what I consider to be, high My Dying Bride standards. The vocals are great, but the writing is really not very inspired and/or catchy. There are some higher moments—particularly the first two tracks, which are both quite strong. But by the time you reach “Death Triumphant” (the final song), this Angry Metal Guy was ready to listen to something else.