“Labeled as “Orchestral Doom Death” in AMG’s top-secret promo vault, I figured this Australian act would at the very least make for an interesting listening experience regardless of quality, and with Eigengrau being their second LP, it’s more likely that they’d have their ambitious sound already dialed in. Indeed, Eigengrau is far from boring, and even quite good at times, but Rise of Avernus’ identity crisis makes it a regularly frustrating listen.” Symphony of frustration.
“2017 finds Epica as they have ever been (and essentially as they were in 2016 because it’s been eleven fucking months): well-oiled and fun, but still prone to excess and struggling to engender their music with a sense of purpose. A thirty-minute time limit should rein in the former, can a lithe bodice and some deft editing take care of the rest?” In space, no one can hear your bombast.
“Enter Seven Spires, a Boston-based act I blindly picked as a personal punching bag after going soft from weeks of reviewing great material. Featuring Adrienne Cowan of Light and Shade (a band we largely panned last year), their debut Solveig, armed with the most excruciatingly mediocre cover art of the year, is doomed to fail… right?” Books, covers, judgments, etc.
“Kobra and the Lotus is a Canadian melodic power band that first came onto my radar in 2012 with their self-titled debut. Fronted by the actually-legally-named Kobra Paige, the band’s third LP, Prevail I, is on Napalm Records, after releasing the debut on Spinefarm, and 2014’s High Priestess on Titan Music. Prevail I is, apparently, the first of two albums which will be released in quick succession, and it’s being marketed as produced by the guy who produced Amaranthe’s records, with a debut single squarely marketed at people who like Delain. Since the band’s debut was a solid power metal album, this strategy raises a question for me: three full-lengths (and three labels) into this whole experiment of being named Kobra, how’s the whole thing going?” That’s a very personal question.
“Since their 2009 debut, Mastercastle have blasted from the blocks by channeling Iron Maiden’s otherworldly focus on output. The Italians released five albums in six years, intent on spreading their cheesy neo-classicisms far and wide. This shotgun approach has done the band no favors, though; their potency stretched thinner with each new release. With lead axeman Pier Gonella nearing his 30th album, concerns of diminishing creative stores seem all too prescient. Mastercastle’s sixth release Wine of Heaven reaches the breaking point, shaking the emperor down, stripping him naked, and flogging him through the streets.” All cheese, no wine.
“Despite trying to sound like Death SS via their humble beginnings as a tribute to those guys, Deathless Legacy comes across more as a soporific Halloween-themed Nightwish, but with worse vocals. There are plenty of keyboards, and the tempos don’t generally get too lively. Sadly, ‘Monster Mash’ may actually make for an apt comparison.” So much for the Transylvanian Twist.
“You know, you can say what you want about female fronted symphonic metal like Nightwish, Within Temptation and Leaves’ Eyes, but they have (or had) some terrific vocalists. Tarja, Sharon van Adel, Simone Simons of Epica, the list goes on. In plenty of cases the music may be tepid and derivative, but at least those golden throats are there to put salve on the wounds and distract from the musical mediocrity.” Throwing shade.
“A few years back I had the pleasure of seeing Kamelot live at the only venue in my home state that hosts good metal concerts. It was a brilliant show, with the audience belting every lyric while the band granted us an unanticipated level of interactivity, yet one man I met in the crowd remained nonplussed. Forget one of America’s best power metal bands; this guy was excited as all fuck to catch second-rate supporting act Delain.” Taste is a terrible thing to taste.
“When Steel Druhm pitched my weekly Hot Pocket and Fanta allotment down the Well of Rookie Souls, he shouted something about it being “ultra mega super cheesy.” I thought he meant my pepperoni-infused beauties, but it turns out he was talking about the cheese-nuke of an assignment he dropped on my work slab.” Loosen the jazz hands.
“The cultish devotion to contemplating endless variations of Descartes’s “evil demon” question mixed with Hume’s ridiculous skepticism has led some philosophers to seriously contemplate if saying “I have hands” is a valid assertion because we can’t definitively prove that we’re not just brains in vats (BIVs) imagining the whole world, our hands included. Somehow this line of thought is still taken seriously, and it’s given us plenty. It’s given us proof positive that if your philosophy abandons Aristotle and Aquinas, it’s going to be terrible. It gave us The Matrix; a good action flick. It’s also given us a record based around wondering whether our world is actually just an elaborate VR simulation in the form of Epica’s The Holographic Principle.” To glee or not to glee.
