“Every once in a while, something trvly special makes its way to the bin, something that I just can’t fucking wait to wax reviewic on. I’ve been pretty blessed with the majority of my selections as it is, but there’s still always room for something better—until now. I’ve been lusting over the chance to babble about Radiant Dark, the upcoming masterpiece by the UK’s The Drowning, and at long fucking last the day has come—” Powers used irresponsibly.
“Not often do shivers ripple up my spine on my morning commute. I’ll admit this feeling isn’t alien to me. Discovering transportive music that makes my heart swell is my lifeblood. I seek out shiver-inducing music, so much, in fact, that I wonder if I will one day grow immune to it. Despite this, I couldn’t contain my excitement when I rediscovered the response, known as frisson (French for “shiver”), while listening to the orchestral intro track of Astralium’s debut album Land of Eternal Dreams for the first time.” Wishes and dreams.
“Extinction Six is the full-length debut of the symphonic power metal band Dialith. Hailing from Connecticut, I took interest in Dialith because good symphonic power metal is rare. And, frankly, good unsigned symphonic power metal is even rarer. Symphonic power has a high bar to reach a “passable” grade; one of the highest in metal. Symphonic bands putting out mediocre albums are filled with musicians who are orders of magnitude more talented than many of their counterparts. But in order to create great symphonic power record, everything must fit.” Does it all fit? Well, we’re debuting the thing, so I guess there’s not a lot of tension.
“We all have our weird idiosyncratic dislikes. For me, one of those is people who cut spaghetti with a knife. Despicable barbarism. Another is the random and unnecessary capitalization of letters within a word. So you can imagine my reaction when the new album from SinHeresY landed in my lap.” Don’t hang up.
“Say what you will about Nightwishcore, but most of the bands following this insipid template have at least one thing going for them: a gifted, technically proficient woman on the mic. Regardless of instrumental quality, or absence thereof, the quasi-operatic skills of Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation) or Floor Jansen (Nightwish) cannot be denied. So what happens when such a band fails to follow through on this trend and flunks not only fails the songwriting and instrumental departments, but can’t even compensate with high quality vocals? My, that would be truly disastrous wouldn’t it?” Nightmiss.
“The level of diversity available with metal music is a wonderful thing. At any given moment, I’m completely enamored with two or three styles of metal, but those styles are constantly in flux, my needs and desires shifting with the mood of a given day. Lately, I’ve been coming back around to symphonic metal. Embrace of Disharmony launched me back in, and I’ve come to miss that orchestral, symphonic, and otherwise over-the-top element in my heavy metal. Enter Glasya.” Wish upon the night.
“I guess I brought this on myself. All that trash I’ve been talking at the office about power metal has finally come full circle, and here I am laying out the carpet for a power metal band. The debate rages on: does power metal belong among the ranks of true metal or is it too melodic? I suppose, since the beginning, one of metal music’s core tenets has always been a focus on excess. Whether it be slamming death metal’s absurdly violent lyrics or black metal’s corpsepaint, power metal’s dramatic focus on the operatic and epic certainly fits.” Abuse of power.
“I’d like to invite you to take a moment and look at that album art. While you’re at it, admire the album title and band name. And now that you’ve spent three seconds doing that, you won’t be the slightest bit surprised when I tell you that Italy’s Hidden Lapse play progressive power metal with symphonic elements. If you were surprised, I’d recommend spending some more time on this site.” Butterfly effect.
“Stagnation is a problem. In this wondrous day and age where music can be shared across the globe at a mere few clicks, you’d think that “too much of the same” in metal would be a laughable concept. Instead, it’s an actual problem. An uncountable number of fledgling bands are being influenced by the same big acts and creating essentially the same sound over and over again. There is nothing more exciting in this musical sphere than a band that breaks the cycle of stagnation, who smashes through stereotypes and clichés both to rise above the rest and revitalize their sad, tired genre. Symphonic metal, I give you Embrace of Disharmony and their sophomore effort: De Rervm Natvra.” Symphonies of slickness.
“Every once a while we at AMG hack and slash each other for promos. In this case, I slice-and-diced one Very Messy Individual™ (Holdeneye) in the name of a symphonic death metal band by the name of Stormlord. You see, symphonic death and symphonic black metal seem to be on the upswing this year.” Storming with malice.
