I guarantee you the guys from Soen have to brace themselves for every review they’re going to read for two reasons. The first of these is that this band contains Steve DiGiorgio—heavy metal’s best bassist and best fretless for hire—and oh, right, Martin Lopez who we last saw as a member of Opeth. I have to say that I’m partial to these two guys as musicians (nothing against Ax, but Lopez is a special drummer) and so when I heard that this record was coming out I did some begging and got me a copy for review. Apparently there are other musicians in this band, but we don’t actually care The rest of the band is made up of by two Swedish guys—Eklöf, the vocalist and Platsbarzdis, the guitarist—for what is a four piece of alternative or kind of groovy progressive metal. Not progressive like Opeth or Vintersorg or Porcupine Tree but progressive like Tool. And by that I mean, they sound exactly like fucking Tool (that’s the second reason). 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
You may have noticed that AMG doesn’t actually really do a lot of unsigned band reviews. Partially this is ’cause we don’t get a lot of unsigned demos, and partially it’s ’cause when we do they tend to be poorly delivered with little promo info and so forth. So I was pleased to get this promo from the Greek progressive modern rock band InTensity who delivered it to me via BandCamp—this is a highly recommended way of doing this, unsigned bands. Times is a four track EP that was self-produced by the vocalist/guitarist Ilias Iovis and is available digitally throughout the world today with future, physical versions to be announced. Continue reading
So the question is whether or not I should be excited or worried… To be totally frank I’m not the biggest Porcupine Tree fan and I really have strong distaste for Dream Theater, so the only guy in the band that I really seem to enjoy consistently is Åkerfeldt. But, this could be really good because they’re all great at what they do. Or, it could be really, really bad. In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, Steve Wilson just said in an interview that was posted on the 3rd of May from Chordstruck Magazine that he’s started writing with Åkerfeldt and Portnoy.
If he’s not touring with Porcupine Tree, he’s off working on solo material, producing other bands or doing one of his side projects like Blackfield, Bass Communion and No-Man. Recently, Wilson has collaborated with Mikael Åkerfeldt from Opeth and Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater.
“I started writing with Mikael [Åkerfeldt] last month, finally. It’s still in the very early days. We wrote about 15 minutes of music last month in my studio near London and we’re very excited about it. I think people are going to be very surprised by the direction. If they’re expecting some kind of death-metal-progressive rock, they’re going to be surprised [because] it’s not like that,” Wilson continues.
So, is this good? Bad? Are we worried? Happy? I really, really don’t know. What I do know is that I’ve decided to call the project ÅWP (pronounced OHWP for you English speakers out there.. but add a little bit more w like in the word “row” as in “row, row, row your boat”.) because it sounds like a fun made up word. It’s fun to say. You’ll impress your friends with your knowledgeness and it’ll be generally awesome. It also kinda sounds like the sound an alien in a cartoon would make when it owped along. Åwp. Åwp. Åwp. … *cough*
What I can say is this: usually, supergroups are bad (though Barren Earth certainly kicks a lot of ass). They’re just not consistent. There are too many strong wills pulling in every direction. I could maybe see something working between Wilson and Åkerfeldt because of their history together, but Portnoy? I dunno. He seems like the odd man out in that group and the one who’ll make it suck (this might be part of my anti-Dream Theater bias). However, anyone who gets word of this in one direction or another should let me know so I can keep the fans updated. And worried.
Pain of Salvation // Road Salt pt. 1 – Ivory Rating: 5.0/5.0 — A stellar re-invention that should bring you to tears Label: InsideOut Websites: painofsalvation.com | myspace.com/painofsalvation Release Dates: SE: 14.05.2010 | EU: 17.05.2010 | US: 06.08.2010
One would assume that an Angry Metal Guy wouldn’t be handing out high scores willy nilly, something I seriously try to avoid doing. But apparently 2010 is a year filled with really fantastic albums by bands doing the things that, as a reviewer, and more specifically, as a music-lover, I have trouble not totally falling for. Pain of Salvation has never been a band that I personally fell for. Scarsick, the band’s 2007 release, was a record that I had issues with and I’ve had some personal gripes about Daniel Gildenlöw’s vocals on the older material (specifically his wannabe Mike Patton rappy/talky vocals). But, that said, Pain of Salvation has long been the darling of the progressive rock and metal scene, with legions of fans who love their technical prowess and pop sensibility.
Road Salt, then, stands to be a great disappointment for a large number of fans who are looking for neo-progressive sensibilities. This is simply not the same band that put out The Perfect Element (Part I). There is nothing on this record that should outright appeal to metal heads and fans of tech music. But there’s something else, and something that in my opinion places this album on a different plane than 99% of albums released this year, an emotional depth, beauty, fragility and, lastly, dirtiness that makes this album a fantastic journey and easily my favorite Pain of Salvation to date.
Road Salt is still a prog record, however, it’s just way more a 70s rock influenced album that places the band into the same arena as bands like Porcupine Tree, Anathema, Guilt Machine and their ilk. And when I say “70s rock influenced”, let me be totally clear: this is an album that is built to sound like it was recorded on analogue equipment in a room with brown shag carpeting, made by bearded men in bell bottoms who’d smoked a little bit too much hash. The guitar tone screams Hendrix, the vocal harmonies mimic the soul harmonies of folk musicians like Kris Kristofferson and the moog organ is something that you’ve heard a million times while digging through your dad’s record collection. Hell, even the build at the end of the first track “No Way”, sounds like it came off a Trettioåriga Kriget record. And there’s nary a technical wank solo to be found on this album. No, instead the album is based a lot around blues rock—a thing that this Angry Metal Guy hates with a total passion.
But from the opening notes of this album, I was moved emotionally in a way that I think no record has done almost ever. Gildenlöw’s vocal performance is perfect—it is emotionally evocative, huge and sweeping and amazing. His emotional performance reshapes good (or excellent) music into something that is epic and transformative. By bringing his prog and non-blues rock influenced sensibilities to the entire genre and then placing his vocal perfection over songs like “She Likes to Hide”, “Sisters”, “Linoleum” and probably the most evocative of all the tracks on the album “Road Salt”, Gildenlöw and Pain of Salvation create a sound all their own in what is easily the most overdone genre in the history of mankind. Turning the sounds of 60s and 70s rock and blues into something unique in 2010 is a magical feat, honestly. I have trouble wrapping my mind around how it was done.
In the end, this is an album that should make your heart ache. There is a sadness that really permeates the album. And in an era when hard rock and metal is so incredibly impersonal, when every other record is faux hate and anger or clichéd nonsense, it is beyond refreshing to have band produce material that is so emotionally poignant and beautiful. On top of that, of course, is the fantastic production of this album, mixed with the superb quality of musicians involved in the whole production and you have the formula for what is easily one of the best albums of the year—and one of the best albums I have heard in a really, really long time.
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.
Votum // Metafiction Rating: 2.0/5.0 — Some good things, but largely forgettable Label: Mystic (PL) Websites: votumband.pl | myspace.com/votumband Release Dates: PL: 19.11.2009 | Rest of the World: 03.21.2010
Poland’s progressive rock and metal scene has definitely been strong of late. In the last year I’ve discovered some really great bands, particularly Indukti and Riverside which have just blown me away from the Polish scene. Turns out Poland doesn’t have just black metal and death metal in their veins, but instead there are a good number of proggy dudes who really dig the new wave of prog that has been pushing its way into metal in the last decade. Votum‘s second album is another one of these Polish prog rock records that’s definitely influenced by neo-prog bands like Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Anathema. In 2008, Votum released their first album Time Must Have a Stop, which impressed some but left me cold. Metafiction is the next step in the band’s development, but still doesn’t impress.
Metafiction is an LP friendly 45 minutes of progressive rock that is really meant to appeal to fans of the aforementioned bands. And while it is an admirable attempt at creating the same kind of intelligent, interesting music as those other bands it doesn’t have the same kind of depth, originality and clean approach that the other bands do well. While Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Riverside all are able to walk the fine line between prog and pop music, which keeps the listener interested in their songs despite them being long sometimes, Votum has trouble with their songs feeling drawn out, simplistic and repetitive at times. On top of that, this record is remarkably weak vocally and especially lyrically. Vocalist Maciej Kosinski is remarkably talented, but his voice feels like it doesn’t fit the music at all. He sounds like he would be way more comfortable in a progressive metal band along the lines of Dream Theater than this post-rock kind of progressive rock. While this isn’t the end of the world, it’s sort of like rubbing cloth in the wrong direction. It just feels weird after a while.
I truly enjoyed several parts of several songs, but there wasn’t an entire song on the entire album that I found to be truly gripping. Instead, the tracks slip through one ear and out the other back into obscurity. The things that actually stand out for me are not the good, but instead the bad. The lyrics are not very good, seeming oddly trite and unpoetic at times, reaching their peak of bad with the final track “December 20th,” which is a poorly executed attempt at writing about synchronicity. The stuff that really stands out in a good way is when these guys show off their metal influences, like at the beginning of “Glassy Essence” or in “Stranger than Fiction” which is easily the best song on the record. But unfortunately these things are too few and far between to keep things fresh.
This could be a case of sophomore slump, as this is the band’s second album. Or, I could entirely be missing the point as I’m really not a fan of Porcupine Tree, either, who Votum has quite a lot of similarities to. But really Metafiction is not the impressive display of musical and pop sensibilities that we have witnessed from other Polish prog bands over the last few years. Hopefully they’ll hit their stride with their third album, but this is probably one you can pass on and not be missing a whole heck of a lot.
For anyone who has regularly read my site, it is pretty obvious that I am a big Orphaned Land fan. So it is no exaggeration to say I was pretty stoked to do an interview with the band’s vocalist, lyricist and gigantic personality, Kobi Farhi. We had a chance to talk about several different things, ranging from the cultural approach to metal in Orphaned Land to working with Steven Wilson (from Porcupine Tree). For the first time I am going to offer the audio of this interview edited down with some clips from the record, as well as typing out the “transcript” as it were. The transcript, of course, will have the full text and the audio is a bit more edited down so as to cut out the BS.
Orphaned Land formed in 1992 as Resurrection, however the band changed their name early on. Since then they have produced one demo and four full length albums, including 2010′s The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR. The band has major middle eastern influences and is well known (maybe infamous?) for taking huge amounts of time between records. However, this quantity deficit is offset by the quality of their releases.
AMG: Why don’t you give us an introduction?
Kobi: I’m the vocalist of Orphaned Land for the last 18 years. This is mainly what I do and Orphaned Land is like my project life for me and for most of the band members because we are all into music but much more than that when it comes to the concept of the album and stuff like that. So we are very much devoted to what we do. [We] come from the Middle East which is a lot of the time a very tragic area for so many people so this is like some kind of mission that we have here as musicians. I’m 34 years old, living in [inaudible] which is very near to Tel Aviv. And that’s right about it.
AMG: You said you were the vocalist for 18 years, but you guys have had like what, 4 studio records now?
Kobi: We had a demo and this is like the fourth album, yes. It takes us pretty much time to release an album but when we do it, I mean, it’s a big celebration for fans and everything because everybody is like waiting for our album approximately five to six years. I guess it’s an outcome of living in our area, which is very diverse and complex and so is our music. We never deliver an album of like 35 minutes or 40 minutes it’s always like above the one hour [mark]. The latest album is 78 minutes long. It’s very complex and diverse and full of layers and stuff and maybe those are the reasons altogether why it takes us this long to come with an album.
AMG: So how does the writing process start? Who is the spark for that or do you guys write separately and bring things together?
Kobi: We have a very strange way of working, I always love to call it the puzzle formula. We always collect the material like guitar riffs but we never write a song. It’s always like a bank of riffs. It could’ve been written on several instruments and everybody composes, I mean, even if I don’t play guitar I have material that I compose and I make sure to record myself singing or stuff like this for example. We always find a concept or a theme that we want to speak about and once we have this concept we start to divide the story conceptually speaking to some kind of chronological parts of the story. Like if we were making a film for example or a script. And according to that we are starting to build, we go to the bank of our riffs and we start to build the music putting the riffs in like pieces of a puzzle. So if one of the parts is very sad then we will go to the bank and search for these sad parts that we have and wrote and we use it. And if it’s a part that’s speaking about, I dunno, the wrath of God or some kind of a war or something like that we go to the more extreme parts and we put it on that and layer-on-layer, this is how we build the album like a puzzle. I don’t know if there is any other band working that way but it’s very complex and you don’t get to see the picture yourself as a composer you know, because you build it like a picture. And only in the end when you make the album, you just start to see the picture as well.
AMG: You say that you’re puzzling it together, so that process goes on for what a couple of years? Are you demoing as you’re doing that?
Kobi: Well, it could take us like, yeah, definitely like a year and a half just to see and to build the whole puzzle. Then we are rehearsing the material for six months, so this is like the last two years are always very much intensive, in terms of composing and rehearsing the stuff and making all of the arrangements, while the first years are all about composing and collecting material.
AMG: And you guys work thematically like you said, and the new record is a concept album, but unfortunately when I get promo I don’t get lyrics. So I was wondering if you could elucidate the concept a little bit.
Kobi: Well, first of all, for an album and music such as ours it is really shit to listen to it without the lyrics because there is so much into it and stuff.. It’s basically a concept album about the warrior of light who is not some kind of any [irrelevant?] messiah who is going to come and rescue all of us, but the warrior of light is in simple words it’s just me, you and you know the listener who listens to the album. Because we believe that people all around the world are living in this frustration, wherever you look at them. I don’t mean the Middle East, but everywhere. People are unhappy. Whether it’s capitalism or their parents, girlfriend or even teacher or priest. They’re not really happy about the way the world is looking out [sic]. And the way we see the world is that there is a very big chaotic, spiritual darkness that we are into. When it comes to the Middle East this is like this black circle that goes on and on between Israelies and Palestinians or Jews and Muslims. But if you goes centuries back you see the Abrahamic religions killing each other for centuries. So, this darkness of ours we are trying to light the inner light of each and every one of [us] human beings because we very much believe that human nature is also good when your inner light is on. When you’re able to see that we are all pretty much the same and that there is no difference to categorize people or to think that you’re different than the other or to not want to communicate with the other. So this is something that we are trying to avoid and we use it as an allegory “the darkness” as a place of questions and “the light” as the place of answers where you can see more. Just as if I will put you in a very dark room you will not see anything and if I give a match into your hand you will be able to see more. And questions that you had in the darkness, you will have your answers while having a match in your hand. So the light in many ways is some kind of an answer, giving you more information about where you are. Adding to that your taking your inner light and lighting it within your soul, it gives you the opportunity to see that there isn’t any difference between you and your enemy or between the Israeli and the Palestinian or between.. it doesn’t matter, you know? Between the black and the white. It’s pretty much the same and this is what we are trying to do here because we are coming from such a place, we are not thinking about mythologies or history stories. We are singing about things that are happening right here right now. And I want to give a better Middle East to my future children. I want the Orphaned Land to come back and be a Holy Land a Promised Land. And that’s why we chose to deal with this subject.
AMG: That leads to about 1400 questions for me, because something that I’ve been thinking about since I watched Global Metal [the documentary from Sam Dunn] is that in a lot of ways sort of thematically, heavy metal has very much been a music of individualism and a breaking away from society and rebelling against society. It seems like what you’re doing here is that you’re thematically talking about unity at the same time that you’re also talking about what you’re referring to as the Abrahamic religions, which is almost the opposite of where metal has gone in Europe…
Kobi: We’re not missionaries, I mean, we’re not preaching to people “go to church” or “Islam is good for you” or “Judaism is good for you”, you know, we have a lot of criticism against religion just like black metal bands. The only thing is that we’re not using it in the way black metal bands choose to use it. We use it in our own political or artistic way just like we did in our band photo. We are not a “white metal” band whatsoever, I mean, you can’t consider us as a white metal band. And we have a lot of critique against religions and what they’re doing. And it’s not really uniting everyone into one group, we do support your being individual. We just don’t support the individual rejecting the other individual or considering himself being more just or more on the right side than the other individual in front of him. That’s the main problem. We don’t mind everyone having his own ways on the road, it’s just that we don’t want this conflict to go and smash one another so that we will kill each other. You know, because human kind lost completely their morality when it comes to human life. I mean, I would even say that if I was like, I dunno, one of the leaders of the world I would have summoned all the leaders of the world and created a new law that says it is forbidden to kill other people. And I would educate it in schools that this is something you cannot even imagine. Of course, you can do it. You can take a knife and you can kill someone according to your ideology or holding your holy book in your hand. But this is not something that God in any way tells you to do. Anway, the God that I believe in. So, I would even go further. I would say to you that it isn’t possible for people to think or to imagine themselves having a sexual relationship with their mother or sister right? This is like really hilarious and, “woah!” so um, if this is something we cannot even imagine how can we imagine, or even not imagine.. how come we can kill people which is something even worse than that? So, I would say that I have nothing against being individual, I just want people to be in harmony and some synergy. I mean, if you listen to our music this is a fusion. A fusion of instruments it’s a fusion of ideas. It’s a fusion of languages. And each and every one of the languages or ideas is very much individual when you take a tazuki (suzuki?) guitar into your hands this is very much an individual guitar and each of the instruments is very much individual. But when you combine them together you’re getting this rich, colorful synergy between the whole sound and.. you can love Orphaned Land, you can hate Orphaned Land but you can never say that this is not a very rich music. And that’s what we’re trying to get here in terms of human people.
AMG: Definitely. What you’re saying is true, but I think the point I was making was that black metal, and Satanism in the Levayen sense is serious selfishness and the basic idea is a big “fuck you” to the world, to everyone. And to quote Fenriz from Darkthrone: You’re throwing fists in all directions no matter at whom. And I think it’s interesting, because it’s very much one of the things that appeals to me personally about Orphaned Land that it’s a very different approach.
Kobi: Our approach is very different, that’s for sure, you know, I mean we come from a very different place with such a different mentality and when everyone is used to Norwegian black metal, bands from Europe and from USA and suddenly you have this band coming up with a completely different approach coming up from the Middle East, so definitely it’s something to notice.
AMG: What are you influenced by as far as non-metal music goes?
Kobi: I would say everything. Being such a fusionist in our metal music we go and listen to any kind of music and we can find beauty in any kind of music that you could just put in your mind. If you go through my CD collection you can find music from [inaudible] or opera from Puccini. You know, you can find Arabian music you can find [inaudible] music, definitely all kinds. I think that music is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us. So, just everything, I would say. You name it and I love it. Because this is why we also stretch it from extreme music, which is metal and growling to a very much cultural music because we are very much fans of music and we are very much receivers of any music that we will get and listen. Music always fascinates me, strange instruments always fascinate me and the human need for music. So everywhere that you go you will see that human nature created these instruments and stuff. This is always something fascinating for us, especially because we are Orphaned Land and we are great fans of these things.
AMG: You guys chose to work with Steven Wilson, what were the specific reasons that you chose to work with him?
Kobi: We’re great fans of Porcupine Tree and during the years we always noticed that despite the fact that Porcupine Tree is playing this prog rock music we could hear that the guy has this thing with metal music. Just in the Porcupine Tree music and then, of course, he also worked with Opeth, which really gave us the [receipt?] for what we had thought. I always wanted to have someone that is very much skilled to understand our music and to know how to mix it properly and how to get involved and it’s also interesting to have someone out of the band involved in your project if it’s the right person so this is a great added value. And Steven was definitely fitting this position and I think that he did a great job in terms of playing keyboards or even mixing the album and his ideas I think work. And it was a privilege of course to work with him because we’re fans of the guy and it’s amazing to have him on our record. I think from his side of things it was also great because he’s always looking for this unique music and interesting music and we are very much flattered that he found it in Orphaned Land. He always said that if Opeth would have been born in Israel they would have been Orphaned Land and the opposite, if Orphaned Land had been Scandinavian we would have been Opeth. This is the way he sees it and I can really understand where he comes from and that’s probably why he chose to work with both bands.
AMG: And how did that come about with him playing on the album? Because I know that you talk about the puzzle method and how you rehearse six months, so how does that work once you get into the studio and you know what you’re going to do and then suddenly you’re adding things in with him? I mean, how does that come about?
Kobi: Uh, we had sessions with him when we were playing him the music and just giving him the list of songs and just mentioning times when we would have thought it would be fitting keyboards. But it was just in a drive from our side of things and of course he had the free access also to offer whatever he wants so we gave him the music with our advice and he took it and just learned it and decided what to do. And it was this kind of a ping pong between us at the end of the day and we very much knew what kind of sound we wanted to use, like the Melltron and the Hammond sounds or the Melltron choirs which are very much analogic [sic] classic rock from the 70s kind of sound. And he agreed with these and we agreed with most of his ideas.
AMG: Were you guys physically together at any point? Or were you just working over the Internet sending files back and forth?
Kobi: I was in London actually at some later stages of the mixes, I went to London just to.. I spent like three days with Steven on the studio and we worked our asses off and you know we recorded some stuff and we fixed some stuff and I had this like… I came probably with my 40 pages of comments. More here, more effects over there.. let’s try this here. It was like, very generic work but it was really necessary to the whole process so.. and he was very much understanding and really into it and he understood that the album was very complex and he’s claiming that this is like the most complex album that he ever mixed in his life. So I will take it as a compliment in a way.
Clip from His Leaf Never Withers (Pay attention the violins.. we talk about them next!)
AMG: There were a few things on this record that I thought were a step away from Mabool a little bit. Was this a real orchestra or just really good samples?
Kobi: No, no, it’s an orchestra. All violins, I mean 99% of the violins on the album are not keyboards. So 99% of them are the Nazereth Orchestra which are like Arabian violin players who play the usual violin like the one that we all know from Classical music but they just use it in a different approach. The way the play on it. So it was a fascinating experience for us and for them as well. For them I mean, to work with this rock band [inadible] I mean, it doesn’t happen to them every day. Also for us to have those sounds on our music and riffs, it’s very unique and giving the atmosphere of the Middle East so much and really helping the music to give the color of our region.
AMG: And that’s sort of the unison violins that will swoop in and out.. that’s what that is right?
Kobi: Yeah, yeah, yeah..
AMG: That works really well. It’s one of the things that stood out for me right away when I was listening to the album was how cool that was.
Kobi: Yup, this is one of the things we didn’t do on the past albums and we wanted to have that sound. We wanted to be unique on this album, to make it differ from the rest while using these violins. I mean it was a whole process, we did rehearsals with them and it was like a whole project to work on parts with those guys and yeah, the results are great and I’m happy that you noticed that.
AMG: You guys did your first, or I might be wrong, but these are your first Arabic lyrics on this album?
Kobi: No, I used Arabic in the past, but this is like, I would say, the best and the longest process that I ever did with an Arabic text, I mean I really worked on it a lot. It’s like, I had to execute Arabic which is, you know you have to be perfect with your diction and your pronunciation and with the way you sing it which is a completely different approach of singing. So, yeah, I worked on it a lot. I mean, we used Arabic from day 1 here and there, but this is like the first time that we used it really massively, like in song number 9 [Disciples of the Sacred Oath Part II].
AMG: And you had actually said that this was an appeal for peace or something along those lines?
Kobi: Yeah, among the other versus that we do it, this was like a very important song. Usually we use our messages in a very poetic way, or allegorical way but this is like a very up front song if you just get the lyrics. You can find them I think on our website, if you look for them today you can just go to the album section and you can read all the lyrics. So you can check this song which is, I mean the way we approached to Muslims as Israelis, it’s very much up front and like.. we really speak to them directly in many ways. And I did it as a gesture, you know, as a gift to show them how much I have nothing against them. How much I appreciate their religion, how much I love their culture because if you can listen to the way I execute, the way I sing it, you can definitely see that it comes from the bottom of my heart and that’s what we wanted to get there. And we already have had a bit of criticism about it because.. in terms of being religious, we did something which is actually forbidden because we used a text from the Koran. But, what we’re trying to say that all the people is that in order to create unification sometimes you need to break old rules. And this old rule doesn’t make any sense to me, this isn’t like the Danish caricature that was laughing about Mohammad, there isn’t anything comic over here. I’m just singing the words which I chose from the Koran and I sing it from the bottom of my heart. And if the Koran are God’s words and music is one of God’s gifts then why is it forbidden to combine his gift with his own words? So, um, we did it in a very respectful way, and still people sometimes find it offensive, I would say. But I guess that’s the way it is. You cannot make everyone happy and this is art and when you make art you follow your heart and we definitely followed our hearts on this one.
Clip from Disciples of the Sacred Oath part II [This is the Arabic section]
AMG: How are you received in the region and by Muslim fans? Do you have a lot of them and do you find that you attract religious people?
Kobi: Well, we have a lot of fans from all kinds and definitely being Israeli and having so many fans coming from Arab countries it is something that is really on the limit of being bizarre, or not real because it’s unbelievable. I mean, you cannot imagine the fans of Real Madrid cheering Barçelona. Now we mention how bizarre it is for Arab people to be the followers of an Israeli band because Israelis and Arabs are killing each other for like, I dunno, decades. And it’s really crazy but I think that in a way those people succeeded to understand and with the power of music being a global language, they succeeded to understand that we are.. yeah, we are Israelis but we are not for Israelis more than we are for Arabs. We are just musicians and we are for everybody. The fact that they realize that, this is one of our great successes along our career. And, the fact that they see us as their Middle Eastern ambassadors in the world wide metal scene this is also a huge honor for us and we are very happy about it. There are always religious people that are frustrated with what we do. Orthodox Jews can be very much frustrated with me dressing up like Jesus Christ in the band photo. [chuckles] You know, but, I am a great fan of religion, I would say. I can walk with religion hand-in-hand but I am walking with religion hand-in-hand only until the point where religion starts to tell me what to do or what is forbidden or when religious people are starting to speak to me as if they know better than me. Or as if they are the ones closer to God and they can teach me and not the opposite. This is the place where I take my hand off and I’m telling them to continue with their own way, but I’m going to stay here. This is my red line. So, I cannot accept any criticism of “Don’t use the Koran”, “Don’t dress up like Jesus Christ”, “Don’t sing in Arabic because we’re enemies”, this is the kind of thing I cannot accept as a musician. This is bullshit. I think people sometimes should be afraid when they speak in the name of God because they might piss God off. God might be pissed off about the things that they say on his behalf. But with that said, I am a great fan of religion in terms of trying to be a way of morality and tolerance and stuff like that. The fact that people fail to do it is another story, but I love religion when it succeeds to deliver in those kind of things.
AMG: Do you engage politically at all?
Kobi: Well, it’s a good question.. but I would start saying that I think that being political means that you have to take some side. You have to be on one of the sides and you have to be against some parts of the other side. I would say that we are dealing with what happens in political aspects because I’m not singing about love songs or you know about girlfriends or stuff like that. We’re just singing about our political reality that’s true. So we sing about it, but we are standing in the middle and trying to unite everyone to understand each other better. I don’t want to unite people to be, I dunno.. I don’t want Muslims to be Jews or Jews to be Muslims I just want Muslims and Jews to be friends. So we are just standing in the middle and using the music as our tool in order to make it happen because I don’t believe in politicians. I never voted in the elections. And, uh, I think that politicians are very great at dividing people to take care of their own interests. So, I don’t have any other solution and I’m not trying to change the world, I’m just trying to help people to think differently or to make them think. It’s up to them what they will do with it at the end of the day.
AMG: Just to play devil’s advocate, don’t you think that at some point though you need individuals such as yourself who are looking to unite people involved in the political process as opposed to the dividers and the power mongers and war mongers?
Kobi: I don’t know, you know, I mean we have thousands of people who follow Orphaned Land and follow our messages and if you look at our Facebook pages or everything we just see Muslims, Jews and Christians just writing “peace” and “let’s unite and stop fighting” and I believe that if this movement will grow bigger, I mean, I definitely don’t want to be a politician or a Prime Minister but I think that if this movement will grow bigger then they will speak about it with their friends, they will raise their children to think in a different way than politicians or newspapers or the media teach us to think. And they will be able to see the whole picture because I think that music is much stronger than the media or the news. News just wants to sell news. And I know that when the newspaper is shouting at me in red letters, big letters, I know that something in me wants to buy and read it because this is human nature. We like these dramas and we like the news of tanks or killing each other always sells more than people hugging each other. I’m not some kind of a hippy, but I’m just saying that if we already have thousands of friends and fans who are Arabs that they are my sparckle of hope to this region. It is still nothing, it is still a small movement, but it’s a movement you know? And it’s amazing and I think that the more that we get to tell this amazing story of Orphaned Land and their fans, the more people will get into it and maybe a better future will come to this region.
Clip from Olat Ha Tamid
You can check more samples from this album on Orphaned Land‘s MySpace or just go out and buy the album, which is out worldwide as of today!
Ihsahn // After Rating: 3.5/5.0 — Very good, but not as compelling as angL Label: Candlelight Websites: ihsahn.com | myspace.com/ihsahnmusic Release Dates: EU 25.01.2010 | US: 01.26.2010
Easily one of the most anticipated records of 2010 for me has been Ihsahn‘s new offering. While I was a passing Emperor fan, really just a fan of In the Nightside Eclipse and Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk-era, I was taken by Ihsahn‘s solo stuff. The Adversary felt fresh—progressive enough, a step away from the later Emperor material of which I wasn’t a fan—and it captured the sonic styles and textures that he was never quite allowed to explore while in Emperor. The record didn’t stick with me as I had hoped, while I listened to it occasionally it didn’t hold a steadfast position in my discography. On the other hand, angL blew me away. Probably the finest record of 2008, angL has maintained a steady place in the rotation and is a record that I’ve showed to dozens of people. Perfectly produced, perfectly composed and smartly written, angL contained everything that I wanted out of a new progressive metal record. So, of course, when I heard that Ihsahn would be releasing a new record in 2010, I became justifiably excited.
After, the third album in Ihsahn‘s initial trilogy, has once again separated itself from the pack and from Ihsahn‘s earlier work—something that the man seems compelled to do with every release. The first album composed primarily for his new 8 string guitars, Afterpossesses a more organic sound than the earlier two albums. While the style hasn’t changed dramatically—if you’ve heard the first two albums, you certainly would recognize it as Ihsahn—the composition feels less tightly contained and controlled. The addition of saxophone to certain tracks also offers a more natural dimension to the music, similar to that of the excellent Solefald, and the saxophone is also relatively unconstrained, unpredictable and has the sound of being highly improvised.
That Ihsahn is a fantastic writer is undisputed, but how well this record plays with you probably depends on your personal tastes. The first half of After plays very similarly to his earlier material; black metal influenced progressive metal with excellent riffing, smart transitions and some acoustic parts. This culminates with track “Frozen Lakes on Mars,” which might be the best on the album, before continuing into the second part of the album. The track “Undercurrent” marks the halfway point (trackwise, as it’s track 5) and where this album started to transform to a slower, more progressive album. The riffing and writing loses some of its crispness on the second half of this album—particularly on “Undercurrent” and “Austere” which are both quite slow—and, instead relies on atmosphere, texture and feel. By the time one makes it to “Heaven’s Black Shore,” after the 16 minutes of down time, the record seems to have lost a little bit of its punch. The last two tracks are great, though again a little bit more plodding than the earlier material and the whole album comes to a major epic close that is worth the wait. How this will play definitely depends on what you like about the earlier Ihsahn material, I think. If you’re a fan of more atmospheric black metal, bands like Shining, Solefald, or even something like Wardruna (or from a totally different angle, if you’re a big fan of 70s prog and neo-prog like Opeth, Porcupine Tree, etc.) you’ll probably appreciate these things musically. If you’re more of a fan of the technical, fast, groovy, structured Ihsahn stuff—well, then this might take some time to grow on you if it ever grows at all.
There is always a danger in re-inventing your sound, and while this record is good, it just doesn’t live up to standard of what I was expecting after angL. That said, I would still recommend this album to others because it’s still heads and shoulders above a lot of the stuff that’s being released today. The musical performances are amazing: the rhythm section (Asgeir Mickelson & Lars Noberg from Spiral Architect) is tight and tremendously talented. The saxophonist (from the Norwegian Shining) offers a stellar performance and production and mix is also tight, clean and clear without feeling sterile. Musically, the record is still epic and compelling for the most part and it shows just how multi-dimensional Ihsahn is as a writer and performer. The question for fans is, of course, what comes after After?
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 Landis 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.
New #metal blog: Aborted Global Flatline Review - Aborted // Global Flatline Rating: 3.5/5.0 — Actually, they haven... http://t.co/FWl7PNL4 - 3 hours ago
OK, *that's* cool. Too bad about the shitty bands, then RT @Metal_Mark: Metallica will be playing Ride The Lightning in it's entirety! WOW!” - 1 day ago
I guarantee you the guys from Soen have to brace themselves for every review they’re going to read for two reasons. The first of these is that this band contains Steve DiGiorgio—heavy metal’s best bassist and best fretless for hire—and oh, right, Martin Lopez who we last saw as a member of Opeth. I have to say that I’m partial to these two guys as musicians (nothing against Ax, but Lopez is a special drummer) and so when I heard that this record was coming out I did some begging and got me a copy for review. 
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 
You may have noticed that AMG doesn’t actually really do a lot of unsigned band reviews. Partially this is ’cause we don’t get a lot of unsigned demos, and partially it’s ’cause when we do they tend to be poorly delivered with little promo info and so forth. So I was pleased to get this promo from the Greek progressive modern rock band InTensity who delivered it to me via BandCamp—this is a highly recommended way of doing this, unsigned bands. Times is a four track EP that was self-produced by the vocalist/guitarist Ilias Iovis and is available digitally throughout the world today with future, physical versions to be announced. 
One would assume that an Angry Metal Guy wouldn’t be handing out high scores willy nilly, something I seriously try to avoid doing. But apparently 2010 is a year filled with really fantastic albums by bands doing the things that, as a reviewer, and more specifically, as a music-lover, I have trouble not totally falling for. Pain of Salvation has never been a band that I personally fell for. Scarsick, the band’s 2007 release, was a record that I had issues with and I’ve had some personal gripes about Daniel Gildenlöw’s vocals on the older material (specifically his wannabe Mike Patton rappy/talky vocals). But, that said, Pain of Salvation has long been the darling of the progressive rock and metal scene, with legions of fans who love their technical prowess and pop sensibility.
Element (Part I). There is nothing on this record that should outright appeal to metal heads and fans of tech music. But there’s something else, and something that in my opinion places this album on a different plane than 99% of albums released this year, an emotional depth, beauty, fragility and, lastly, dirtiness that makes this album a fantastic journey and easily my favorite Pain of Salvation to date.
all the tracks on the album “Road Salt”, Gildenlöw and Pain of Salvation create a sound all their own in what is easily the most overdone genre in the history of mankind. Turning the sounds of 60s and 70s rock and blues into something unique in 2010 is a magical feat, honestly. I have trouble wrapping my mind around how it was done.
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.
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.
Poland’s progressive rock and metal scene has definitely been strong of late. In the last year I’ve discovered some really great bands, particularly Indukti and Riverside which have just blown me away from the Polish scene. Turns out Poland doesn’t have just black metal and death metal in their veins, but instead there are a good number of proggy dudes who really dig the new wave of prog that has been pushing its way into metal in the last decade. Votum‘s second album is another one of these Polish prog rock records that’s definitely influenced by neo-prog bands like Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Anathema. In 2008, Votum released their first album Time Must Have a Stop, which impressed some but left me cold. Metafiction is the next step in the band’s development, but still doesn’t impress.
really stands out in a good way is when these guys show off their metal influences, like at the beginning of “Glassy Essence” or in “Stranger than Fiction” which is easily the best song on the record. But unfortunately these things are too few and far between to keep things fresh.
For anyone who has regularly read my site, it is pretty obvious that I am a big Orphaned Land fan. So it is no exaggeration to say I was pretty stoked to do an interview with the band’s vocalist, lyricist and gigantic personality, Kobi Farhi. We had a chance to talk about several different things, ranging from the cultural approach to metal in Orphaned Land to working with Steven Wilson (from Porcupine Tree). For the first time I am going to offer the audio of this interview edited down with some clips from the record, as well as typing out the “transcript” as it were. The transcript, of course, will have the full text and the audio is a bit more edited down so as to cut out the BS.
about, I dunno, the wrath of God or some kind of a war or something like that we go to the more extreme parts and we put it on that and layer-on-layer, this is how we build the album like a puzzle. I don’t know if there is any other band working that way but it’s very complex and you don’t get to see the picture yourself as a composer you know, because you build it like a picture. And only in the end when you make the album, you just start to see the picture as well.
AMG: Definitely. What you’re saying is true, but I think the point I was making was that black metal, and Satanism in the Levayen sense is serious selfishness and the basic idea is a big “fuck you” to the world, to everyone. And to quote Fenriz from Darkthrone: You’re throwing fists in all directions no matter at whom. And I think it’s interesting, because it’s very much one of the things that appeals to me personally about Orphaned Land that it’s a very different approach.
Kobi: I would say everything. Being such a fusionist in our metal music we go and listen to any kind of music and we can find beauty in any kind of music that you could just put in your mind. If you go through my CD collection you can find music from [inaudible] or opera from Puccini. You know, you can find Arabian music you can find [inaudible] music, definitely all kinds. I think that music is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us. So, just everything, I would say. You name it and I love it. Because this is why we also stretch it from extreme music, which is metal and growling to a very much cultural music because we are very much fans of music and we are very much receivers of any music that we will get and listen. Music always fascinates me, strange instruments always fascinate me and the human need for music. So everywhere that you go you will see that human nature created these instruments and stuff. This is always something fascinating for us, especially because we are Orphaned Land and we are great fans of these things.
AMG: How are you received in the region and by Muslim fans? Do you have a lot of them and do you find that you attract religious people?
the news. News just wants to sell news. And I know that when the newspaper is shouting at me in red letters, big letters, I know that something in me wants to buy and read it because this is human nature. We like these dramas and we like the news of tanks or killing each other always sells more than people hugging each other. I’m not some kind of a hippy, but I’m just saying that if we already have thousands of friends and fans who are Arabs that they are my sparckle of hope to this region. It is still nothing, it is still a small movement, but it’s a movement you know? And it’s amazing and I think that the more that we get to tell this amazing story of Orphaned Land and their fans, the more people will get into it and maybe a better future will come to this region.
