“Dramatis Personæ is the sound of a band trying to relocate the European orchestral metal canon into their snakey and spidery Southern-Hemispherical home. Australia’s Rise of Avernus would love to have Fleshgod Apocalypse’s authentic Italian heritage of classical music and opera informing their extremity – it’s this quality which made Oracles so ground-breaking.” They can’t all be Italian….
“Doom. Doom is done right when the word is no longer a mere genre, but an onomatopoeic descriptor of what you are hearing. Suffice to say, Finland’s Oceanwake understands this.” Prepare to meet your new doom flavor of the week. Mmmm doom.
“Grindcore is a genre best-suited to the EP. The intense aggression and abrasive style can very rarely be sustained for a full length of 40-50 minutes, after which most would rip off their weary ears and embark on a quest of homicidal desecration – but as a tasty morsel it can be a powerful tool.” Like Edward 40 Hands always says, sometimes you just need a big bottle of Occult 45.
“They say don’t judge a book by its cover. But when its cover fuses the great sphinx and pyramids from Powerslave with the red sky and robots from Somewhere in Time, you can’t help but jump to conclusions.” I for one have been waiting for a Powerslave in Time album.
“The Wolf Council is what I imagine those not yet inducted into metal hear when anything with distorted guitars, energetic drumming and heavy vocals is imposed on them. I can hear their whining now. “Why is the man shouting?… It’s too loud… It all sounds the same!”” Yes, your mom wrote this review.
“Three consecutive releases reviewed by three different writers on AMG? This must be unheard of. Carving a little niche as one of the better and more evocative offshoots from the much-maligned ‘blackga(y)ze’ genre, An Autumn for Crippled Children have produced their fifth full-length in the beautifully desolate The Long Goodbye.” Many an AMG writer has tried his hand at figuring these cats out. They’re all gone now….
“It was before a long journey that I haphazardly shoved all my new music on to my iPod, paying no regard to the attached one sheets and band biographies. Having never heard their material before, it was without expectation or even awareness of genre that I approached Seven Year Storm’s début EP Aion I.” Road trip music is important. Does the rubber meet the road here?
“Given AMG and Steel Druhm’s well-documented love for power metal (Sonata Arctica, Riot, Edguy), it’s difficult to claim high profile names within the genre for review. The reviews I just linked were all within the last eight months, and 2015 alone has already seen well-received releases from Blind Guardian, Angra and Orden Ogan. Aside from demonstrating the corrupt poseurs masquerading as our leaders, this leaves us meager staff writers scraping the bottom of the power metal barrel…” Did El Cuervo just call the Metal Tribunal corrupt? That’s a paddlin’ offense.
“Matter As Regent. A bold statement indeed, against Platonic tradition which has dictated Western philosophy for millennia. Such a title rejects the notion that form subordinates matter, esteeming matter as the fundamental force and model around which everything revolves. My interest was immediately sparked, and it was with academic fervor that I approached this promo.” To Hume is this philosophical excess aimed, because I certainly Kant tell.
“Nestled in the Southwest corner of Germany, Schwarzwald (Black Forest) provides writing inspiration to its native musical counterpart, Finsterforst (Dark Forest). Playing exactly the style of metal one would expect from their name, Finsterforst have been plugging their epic, folksy wares to the masses with four full-lengths now, and Mach Dich Frei does not stray far from their established formula. There are problems, but it’s very solid and enjoyable, drawing on Moonsorrow and Wintersun in crafting epic and heavy soundscapes.” Moonsorrow influenced epi-folk sounds good, right? But is it more moon or sorrow?
