And man, when I got this record I was fucking giddy. From the beginning it’s pretty much a non-stop, smash you in the face example of what makes tech death some of my favorite music in the world when done right. Subtly melodic, tracks like “Coexistence” hook you with guitar (and bass) carried melodies and virtuoso performances, while at the same time bringing around heaviness and brutality when needed. In that sense, it’s more comparable to Obscura‘s breakthrough record Cosmogenesis than most of the other tech death kin. There’s a melodic sense that often gets lost in Necrophagist or Spawn of Possession kind of work.

While the whole band is obviously very talented, you should know that the thing to watch for here is Beyond Creation‘s bassist Dominic Lapointe. This guy is a rare talent on the fretless bass and the way that bass is used here is even more in your face than on Cynic or Obscura‘s work. But while this rubs some people the wrong way, it definitely hits me right in the “OH FUCK YEAH” section of the brain. Watch out especially for the way it’s used in clean breakdowns like in “Coexistence,” or as a countermelody at the halfway point of huge epic “The Departed.” This is a sound I can’t get enough of.

I strongly recommend you head over to the band’s merch page and buy this thing directly. It’s ridiculously awesome.

Related posts:

1. Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Nami – Fragile Alignments
2. Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Graveworm – Fragments of Death
3. Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Nader Sadek – In the Flesh

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. 

The good for me is when the band is really rocking the melody and their acoustic work. Vocalist Roger Andreu has a great growl that actually is quite reminiscent of Mikael Åkerfeldt in tone and extremity, but he also has a very unique clean vocal approach that I can’t really compare to anyone else. In these moments, and when the band is knocking out melodic and technical work—firing on all four cylinders with the bass and drums being just as unique and interesting as the riffing they’re doing like on the track “Loop of Truth (The Link)”—these guys excite the hell out of me. This stuff makes my little angry heart forget all about all the shit and focus on the amazing talent of this band. And a good portion of this record has riff after blistering riff that makes me… wanna rage (thanks Sacred Reich!). And there’s a ton of this going on. I’d say 80% of the record is made up of mind blowing melodeath riffing that vacillates between tech and just plain melodic, or beautiful acoustic work. These two overlap in amazing ways, as well, on the track “Conscience of the Void (From Oblivion to the Renew) – Water”.

For me, the downfall of this record is the stuff that’ll make so-called djentlemen shit themselves with glee. With the very modern Jens Bogren production behind them, Nami also has a side to them that is way more techy. Sometimes this is well done, but sometimes it just bores me to tears. While I’m a huge fan of progressive music, I often feel like these parts are more forced than they need to be. So while in the track “Cosmical Beginning – Air” these guys have a Death or Cynic kind of vibe going on, that makes the tech awesome, other tracks like “The Inner Man – Materia” and “Oppression and Understanding – Fire” (and others) have parts that leave me pretty cold at times because they sound forced and unnatural in their context.

Overall, though, I’d still give this record a really high score (if this were one of those scoring kind of reviews). It really drags me in, despite the extraordinarily high production values and replaced sounding drums and the long running time (about an hour). The music these guys are producing is really fantastic and the potential for greatness here is through the fucking roof. I expect great things from Nami in the future and I hope you take the time to check ‘em out.

Related posts:

1. Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Beyond Creation – The Aura
2. Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Nader Sadek – In the Flesh
3. Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Loch Vostok – Dystopium

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.

Omnivium is actually not what I was expecting, however. In some ways this was a little disappointing, and in some ways this was very invigorating. Let me try to explain. Cosmogenesis was a front-loaded record, in my opinion, and it was excellent when it was riffy, fast and techy. But the record almost underplayed the technical aspects of the band because, realistically, compared to their genre-mates I think that Obscura is quite easily accessible. It’s like taking something that should take some effort to get into (see Ulcerate or Defiled) and turning it into something that could make Gibson’s shittiest list ever made. And reality has it that Obscura is about the hookiest tech death band out there. But Omnivium? Omnivium is different.

While there is definitely still that “The Anti-Cosmic Overload” style of attack, the band starts out showing that this record will be different from the acoustic strains of “Septuagint,” which while it does get heavy, is never quite so hooky. And Omnivium feels like a band that’s still sort of experimenting to some extent, drawing from the legacy of Death to even landing in Morbid Angel territory on “Ocean Gateways” and stealing the vocoder straight out of Cynic‘s playbook on “Prismal Dawn” and “Celestial Spheres.” Omnivium even ends up in Ulcerate or Necrophagist territory on the track “Velocity,” which is probably the most difficult to digest track on the record—and certainly different from anything on Cosmogenesis. This is not to say that the hookiness that existed on Cosmogenesis doesn’t exist here, it’s just more buried in technicality than before.

All of this is done with the technical expertise that few other bands have, even among technical death metal bands. Guitarist Christian Muenzner is a total beast, ripping out some solos on this thing that should make his fingers melt and that will make your brain boil, and if this guy is anything as consistent live as he is on tape he should be hailed as one of the best in the business—and, while I don’t have a list of who’s playing what, Steffen Kummerer isn’t a slouch either from the sounds of it. The other stand out musical element of this record is the bass of Jeroen Thesseling, which laces every track with impressive licks and a sound that I just can’t get over. I think the sound and approach of the fretless attack is one of the things that keeps drawing me back to Obscura. Check out the bass solo in “Celestial Spheres,” it’s fucking sublime. Hell, even the extreme vocals here have even improved in a lot of ways, though there is the use of vocoders and filters feels a tad silly at times, and there’s a of a lot more clean vocals than I was expecting. I enjoy that, but this might piss off a purist or two.

This is a dense record full of stuff that fans of technical death metal will love if they haven’t already decided that Obscura is too trendy (or derivative) to dig. I think the songwriting feels a little directionless at times (see the second half of “Velocity” and “A Transcendental Serenade,” for example), so it’s not perfect but this is a technically amazing record from one of death metal’s premier bands. I certainly look forward to hearing more from this band, and I certainly look forward to seeing where this record ranks on my end-of-the-year list, because it’s hard to imagine that something this epic and technically impressive wouldn’t end up there. Then again, predictions have a way of going awry. And 2011 certainly does seem to be turning into a banner year for metal, doesn’t it?

Related posts:

1. Pestilence – Doctrine Review
2. Abysmal Dawn – Leveling the Plane of Existence Review
3. Defiled – In Crisis Review

Legal Disclaimer: Long time readers of the mighty AMG may have noticed that Mr. AMG is a shameless Amorphis fanboy.  While his epic fanboyism runs to their newer material, I myself am an unapologetic fanboy for their older material, especially their first three albums, which I hold in extremely high regard. Therefore, my review of Magic & Mayhem, an album of re-recordings from those very albums, is subject to some serious fanboy bias and perhaps AMG should have handled this himself to insure a more objective (yet still fanboyish) viewpoint. Now that I satisfied those eggheads in the AMG legal department by disclosing said bias, we can proceed with the freaking review! [Whatevs, we're good with fanboyism so long as I agree with it. - AMG]

Magic & Mayhem, sees Amorphis throwing their collective hat into the current trend of re-recording older material with modern line-ups and modern production tools and tricks. For the most part this trend has left me cold and I didn’t like the results at all when Exodus and Destruction tried it. Therefore, I was less than thrilled upon learning that Amorphis was going to perform an update to the sacred material off The Karelian Isthmus, Tales from the Thousand Lakes and Elegy. However, because it’s Amorphis, this turned out to be cool, interesting and enjoyable even though nothing here can hold a candle to the original versions.

For those not in the know, Amorphis recruited new singer Tomi Joutsen for 2005’s Eclipse album and thereafter experienced a creative rebirth of sorts, churning out three top-notch albums in a row and proving themselves one of the most original and enjoyable metal bands out there (Warning: obvious fanboyism). Although modern Amorphis is a very fluid, progressive metal band, the early material was much more doom/death oriented with the first three albums being much heavier in nature.  Hearing the current line-up tackle the earlier, more brutal material with today’s sound is definitely a trip and I suppose it gives a good idea what they sound like covering this stuff live.

Thankfully, Amorphis manages to avoid the temptation to totally rework the older songs and they laregely remain faithful to the originals, although the vastly different production and modern style alters the mood of the songs anyway. For example, the upfront use of Hammond organs on tracks like “Into Hiding” really alters the overall vibe of that song. Likewise, subtle tweaks on “Black Winter Day” really makes it feel like a different song, not bad, just different. With the two tracks from The Karelian Isthmus, the originals undergo more extensive updating and overhaul, as does “Vulgar Necrolatry,” a very old demo track.

So what is the value of this re-recording of old tunes and is it worth your cash? Well, for newer Amorphis fans, this is a great primer on where the band came from and what their early influences were. For long time fans, it’s surely interesting to hear Tomi perform all these old death/doom classics and he does a pretty respectable job handling the death metal vocals on most of the tracks. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is essential for every Amorphis fan since these versions are not as powerful as the originals (Warning: blatant fanboyism) and overall this seems more a novelty/curiosity album (especially the regrettable choice of including a cover of “Light My Fire”).  I enjoyed this because I love everything Amorphis does and I think its well worth a listen, but I’ll never choose this over those classic originals.

Related posts:

1. Amorphis – Forging the Land of Thousand Lakes Review
2. Amorphis Release New Album Info!
3. Amorphis – The Beginning of Times Review

It isn’t often these days that I review something that I found on my own. In fact, given that the amount of time that we here at Angry Metal Guy for reviews has gone down immensely compared to the huge numbers of promos we receive, it’s probably irresponsible for me to do so. But this Angry Metal Guy is always worried that we’re still not getting every CD of golden worth and highest quality. Once again this fear has been vindicated—but fortunately for you guys, I still love metal enough that I actually go looking for shit that we haven’t received here. And because of that, I stumbled upon Winterhorde a melodic or orchestral black metal band from… Israel? Yeah, turns out, even Israel which lacks for snowy winters has black metal guys who think that snow is the ultimate eviiiil. But don’t let the silly name fool you, because Winterhorde is not just your average melodic black metal band and Underwatermoon, while excitingly ESL in name, is anything but lackluster.

To be honest, it’s tough to know where to start with describing this album. So, I think I’ll start with the genre of symphonic black metal as a general thing. First, I think we can all accept that it’s basically been dying for a while. The big bands in the genre have long been considered beyond the pale when considering who’s “true” and who’s not (that’s right Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth have long since become passé, and with good reason), and the bands that have come out that have really carried the genre forward into an interesting area have actually been blending more death metal into it (Behemoth, Septic Flesh, Gloria Morti). But where does that leave the genre as a whole? Pretty much on the ground bleeding internally from malnourishment—let’s say that it didn’t get enough of its daily metals intake (oo, so witty am I!) and became malnourished and is dying. As a rule, reviews of orchestrated black metal on this website have been monolithic: this sound is basically done.

Winterhorde says “No way, Angry José Guy, we’ve still got something interesting to say about this.” And Underwatermoon is the result of this. Beautiful layered progressive influences, clean vocals and melodic structures reminiscent of the band’s preeminent landsmen Orphaned Land (specifically in the acoustic part and guitar solo from “Wreckages Ghost”, for example), intertwine nicely into blast beat driven black metal in the vein of classic Emperor, and with a melodic sense more akin to Insomnium than to many of the traditional orchestral black metal bands. This of course means that these guys are not playing traditional black metal as you would expect it to be played: and for this there is nothing that I am more thankful for. Not once when listening to this album did I say “Oh, listen, they love [insert band here].” Instead, I was completely enraptured by the melodic structures, the song writing and the general feel of the album.

So, what makes a band like this so cool then, is partly ’cause I’m having trouble understanding why other bands haven’t done what they’re doing yet. Blending progressive metal and more traditional metal styles into melodic orchestrated black metal with a dynamic vocal approach. Tracks like “Hunting the Human” have great, but more simplistic, orchestrations which give the record a unique feel, while still having very cool death metal feeling riffs and addictive melodies and smoother parts. The track that follows (“Execution”) has some amazing bass vocals and an addictive Spanish guitar interlude, while still maintaining a militaristic rhythm similar to the kind of thing you hear on old Dimmu Borgir records. And yet somehow, like many of the best bands that are coming out these days, all of these disparate parts come together to form a cohesive whole that rules.

And now you can maybe understand why I would willingly promote something that no record company gave me to promote: because it’s fucking awesome. The novelty, and frankly writing talent, that this band exhibits on Underwatermoon is stellar, and this leads to what I consider to be one of the most unique and entertaining records of 2010 so far. Don’t let this one fly under your radar if you dig bands like Orphaned Land, Enslaved, Istapp, Gloria Morti, Emperor or Opeth; you will certainly regret it if you do.

Related posts:

1. Crow Black Sky – Pantheion Review
2. Gloria Morti – Anthems of Annihilation Review
3. Sigh – Scenes From Hell Review

Those of you who have been reading Angry Metal Guy since the beginning will remember that I lauded heavy praise on a Minneapolis, Minnesota based band called Iron Thrones last year after I downloaded their record (for free) and had myself a little Angry Metal Hernia™. The band was incredible. Like some kind of unholy cross between Opeth and Jesus… or whatever. I promptly declared the record amazing, gave it five stars and then took a cold shower. In any case, Visions of Light, the debut, still ranks as the best unsigned act I’ve ever heard and I have had very, very high hopes for the follow up record—The Wretched Sun—which will be self-released on the 27th of July after the very talented band went and won the No Label Needed contest and got sent to a pro studio.

The Wretched Sun is being billed as a bit of an exploratory EP and one can definitely hear why. While that language sounds to this Angry Metal Guy like it could be an excuse for what could be seen as a sophomore slump, The Wretched Sun definitely has a sound all its own. While Visions of Light had a definitely Opeth meets Cult of Luna kind of feel to it, The Wretched Sun has traveled way further down that Cult of Luna side of the equation. Thick and hard to cut through at times, the sound is still interesting enough to keep me listening from start to finish (for the most part).  But the band’s “sound” isn’t what makes them interesting, instead it’s their song writing skills that make them world class.

From the get go, with the ridiculously powerful song “Like A Moth to Flame,” Iron Thrones set the stage for a topsy turvy ride which illustrates all their best sides. While the lyrics seem a bit rote and the metaphor a tad simplistic, the background music is beautifully thick and detailed. Another track that really stood out for me is the final track on the album, “And the Sky Came Falling Down,” which again sees the band wandering into sludgey Baroness, Neurosis kind of territory at the beginning, but changing pace with the clean vocals which are actually more reminiscent of Alice in Chains or Life of Agony than most of the band’s metal or hardcore contemporaries. Clean vocals also litter the end of what is easily the best track on the album “Against the Grain.” This track is just a goddamn powerhouse: huge riffs, amazing heaviness, beautiful breakdown and a surprisingly poppy but epic outro.

It’s hard to say what makes the band tick, but if “Against the Grain” is any example, it seems to me that the key Iron Thrones is inventive riffs and fantastic arrangements. The record is littered with excellent tracks that are dynamically written and never dwell to long on a single theme. The playing is fantastic and the band worked very hard to keep a pretty natural tone to their record, not falling to the most irritating of metal trends with excessive drum replacement (though the guitar tone is definitely super human). However, the band is done a disservice with the various types of overproduction that can be heard on this album. Not nearly as dynamic as the previous self-produced record, this seems to really suck the life out a lot of the slower, sludgey parts making them uninteresting and flaccid.  For me this stood out nowhere as much as on the 11 minute track “I Once Had the Crown”. While this song could also be criticized for lacking the kind of flow and transitional genius that was displayed on Visions of Light, frankly some of it just dragged and I got bored. And you wouldn’t like me when I’m bored.

Yet, despite the strikes against it, The Wretched Sun still feels fresh and interesting. The players are superb, the performances equally so and, most importantly, the ideas are novel enough to make you interested but familiar enough keep you around. In essence, Iron Thrones is still the real deal and I’m already looking forward to their next record.

Related posts:

1. Iron Thrones – Record o’ the Month Out Yesterday!
2. Iron Thrones – Visions of Light
3. Black Sun Aeon – Darkness Walks Beside Me Review

Barren Earth took me completely by surprise. As a rule I do not post reviews of records from labels that do not send me promos of them. I think it’s a disincentive for them to do so and generally bands don’t deserve the promotion. However, sometimes bands come onto the radar that I can’t ignore, as is what happened when I picked up this new Barren Earth record on a total whim. In fact, I didn’t even know that this band had ex-members from Amorphis, the drummer from Moonsorrow, the guitarist from Kreator or the vocalist from Swallow the Sun involved—or that it was mixed by Dan Swanö. I guess I should have expected that this would be a great record…

And great it is. No normal “super group” kind of album (you know, the kind that lacks a soul), this project has taken time to gestate and turn into a real band and the listener definitely gets that feel. If we start at the top and work our way down; one of the thing that stands out about this project is definitely how cohesive the record is. This is not an album with a “hit or two,” but instead a complete album that flows beautifully and is meant to be listened to from beginning to end every time you break it out. Not to say that the tracks aren’t strong, because they really, really are. The opening track on the album “Curse of the Red River” blends death metal pig squeels with a Jethro Tullesque flute solo and excellent melancholic melodic riffing. “Flicker”, another of my favorites, twists and turns from strumming acoustic guitars to machine gun double bass and bestial growls and back, showing off what dynamics can do for a band who is intent on using them to their full extent.

Curse of the Red River is, if you haven’t figured it out, the unholy union of Amorphis and Opeth. If you take Still Life and Blackwater Park era Opeth and mixed it with Elegy and Tuonela-era Amorphis, this is probably what it would sound like. You can hear the kind of mid-paced melodies that you get from those mid-era Armophis albums, for sure. But with the vocal breadth and dynamism that vocalist Mikko Kotamäki displays gives this a much deeper, heavier feel than anything they were putting out during that era. His vocals stand out from the background and offer that perfect contrast, with a good, smooth clean tone and amazing growls which give a force to the tracks that would be sorely missing if performed by anyone else.

The band, in what is quickly becoming a progressive death metal genre in the wake of Opeth‘s gigantic popularity, does an excellent job of blending the styles of doom and death metal with beautiful clean vocals and acoustic parts. However, unlike some bands who are intent on sticking clean vocals into the music, these guys aren’t just building tracks that are throwaway vehicles for a big chorus. Instead, they have all the intensity and melancholy that you expect of the genre and the band involved. On top of that, Barren Earth has a sense for catchy guitar melodies that really stick in your head, leaving the listener humming them for hours after listening to the record.

My biggest complaint about this album, honestly, is that it’s a little too easy to draw the continuous comparisons to Amorphis and Opeth as I’ve done here. Particularly the former band is ever-present in their sound. This isn’t bad, but one wonders if in the long run this will sit well with listeners, or if they won’t just go back and take out Elegy and Tales from the Thousand Lakes and relive something that happened a couple decades ago. While I personally think that this record will probably rank high at the end of the year list, I think there is a possible critique with it being considered too derivative and thereby losing some if its credibility. But personally, this Angry Metal Guy thinks that’s bullshit and will be listening to this album in as much free time as he can spare…

‘Cause it’s fucking great.

Related posts:

1. Claustrofobia – I See Red Review
2. In Mourning – Monolith Review
3. Omnium Gatherum – New World Shadows Review

Related posts:

1. Orphaned Land – The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR Review
2. Orphaned Land Post a New Track on Myspace and get Confirmed for Wacken!
3. Orphaned Land – The Road to OR-Shalem Review

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!

Related posts:

1. Interview with Mary Zimmer from Luna Mortis
2. Orphaned Land – The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR Review
3. Ed Warby / The 11th Hour Interview

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, After possesses 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?

Related posts:

1. New Ihsahn Track Posted Online!
2. Ihsahn Update
3. Ooo! New Ihsahn Video!