“A supergroup of sorts—featuring members of Temperance, Serenity, and Even Flow, among many many others—Wonders play a triumphant, uplifting, adventure-bound sort of heavy/power metal. That means belted cleans, big stadium-crushing choruses, sparkling synths, speedy guitar chugs and noodles, double bass runs out the ass, and ten thousand metric tons of shredded cheddar.” If Wonder Bread was cheese.
“We throw around the phrase “Nightwish clone” in here a lot (at least it seems like we do; I have no inclination to check my claims), but in this case it feels eerily accurate. With Eternal White, Nergard channel Century Child with some Winterheart’s Guild-era Sonata Arctica thrown in for “spice.” “Spice” is in quotation marks, by the way, because this isn’t a very spicy album – in fact, it’s played very safe, leaning on a formula that has served the Leaves’ Eyes, the Xandrias, and the Sirenias of the world well: symphonic first, metal second.” White is a passive color.
“Angry Metal Guy’s latest n00b interrupts your regularly scheduled black metal to bring the ultimate question: is power metal metal? “It has the word metal in it, so of course it is, you babbling bumbling baboon,” you say. I get it, and it’s been proven again and again, but while various facets of the metalverse have to justify why they’re not rock, power metal is one of the only styles that must justify why it’s not pop.” Justify our love.
“If a sonic description of Greece’s Fallen Arise you require, too bad. The genre has been so deeply saturated since 1998-9’s Oceanborn that if you, dear readers, don’t know what you’re about to hear right now, it’s your own fault.” No enigmas here.
Debut releases are weird; you never can know what you’re going to get. Sometimes debut means one-man black metal who just discovered GarageBand. Debut can mean hidden talent of Lethbridge, Alberta unmasking themselves for a world unprepared. Or it can mean a group of already-established musicians getting together and deciding to try something new. So […]
“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.
“Scene: German dancy folk metal band In Extremo play on a stage built on the deck of a giant ship. In the hot tub in the audience, a woman wearing a unicorn mask headbangs. A conga line lead by Jesus winds its way through the crowd.” Join the Metal Navy!
“Sirenia hasn’t been getting much love from AMG Industries of late, and perhaps rightly so. The bands 2015 release The Seventh Life Path was criticized harshly for both its cheesy, formulaic approach to symphonic metal and its abundance of beautiful women. The 2011 offering, The Enigma of Life, fared absolutely no better. While I will never be one to condemn the inclusion of sexy band photos (female or otherwise), I did find myself agreeing with the general sentiments; both albums were trite, shallow, and boring.” Sex sells, but who’s buying?
“Pizza is a sacred thing. When it’s good, it’s damn good. When it sucks, it’s an affront to humanity. An atrocity on a level with the Biafran revolt, just about every Adam Sandler movie, some genocides, and Illud Divinum Insanus. If you’ve read more than one of my reviews here on AMG you will know that I often equate music to food, not just because it is an analogy I think most people relate to, but I love these two things more than even my family members who aren’t reading this right now. The Seventh Life Path may not be my pie of choice, but during my tenure as a music critic, I’ve heard enough from the formative years on to be able to approach an album with at least relative objectivity.” In food, as in music, too much sugar wrecks the palate.
2011 had some really great records, some great songs and some just generally fantastic moments, despite burnout, European crisis and it being our last year on earth. It also had the musical equivalents of burnout, European crisis and the end of the world. In this new annual feature, we will highlight the most horrendous shit we had to listen to this year as a price for being reviewers. Some of these things may be disappointments, whereas others might just be rehashing the painful. There are some records that you might expect to be here (like Lulu) that some of us just were smart enough to avoid, so they can’t be unheard because they were never heard in the first place. But there’s still a pretty good showing of shit going on over here. But just so you know, we’ll be working hard to make you all feel better for the rest of the week after reading this list.
