SHORT BUT SWEET: FEVER SEA – “THE DELUGE”

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
May 172012
 

There once was a band from Bristol in the UK called Rosicrucian. The music they played was a marriage of tumultuous black metal blasting and sweeping ambient melody, part of it furiously ripping and part of it ethereal and sublime. They released a five-song EP in November 2011 called Beneath the Waves, which our Andy Synn gave a very positive review here. He called it a “flowing, tide-driven take on post-black metal dynamics”.

Rosicrucian are no more. But the band haven’t exactly broken up. Instead, they have a new name: Fever Sea. They have a new sound, too. So now we need to ask, what is Fever Sea’s take on post-Rosicrucian dynamics?

And we have an answer, because as of yesterday Fever Sea released their first EP — The Deluge — for free download on Bandcamp. There are only three songs on the Fever Sea EP, though they amount to more than 20 minutes of music — and they’re all very good. In fact, though I enjoyed Beneath the Waves, I’m liking The Deluge even more.

As for the style, the band have moved in the direction of a new kind of marriage — kind of a three-way between prog metal, melodic black metal, and at times the sort of dark, doom-weighted sounds I tend to associate with that Finnish triumvirate of Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, and Before the Dawn. Or at least that’s how I interpret it. The band seem to prefer the description “Atmospheric and Triumphant Post-Black Metal”. Whatever labels you might choose to afix, Fever Sea have made an auspicious start on their new life. Continue reading »

CHILDREN OF BODOM COVER THE DROPKICK MURPHYS: “SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON”

 Album Reviews  14 Responses »
May 152012
 

As everyone who hangs around here knows, I’ve listened to almost nothing but metal for years. But every now and then I do dabble in other things, and The Dropkick Murphys are one of my non-metal pleasures. And among their many boot-to-the-ass songs, “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” is one of the best. If you’re not a fan, you may nevertheless remember it from the opening sequence in Martin Scorcese’s 2006 masterwork, The Departed.

Well, today I saw the news that Children of Bodom have recorded a cover of the song. It will be included on Holiday at Lake Bodom (15 Years of Wasted Youth), a COB CD/DVD that will be released on May 15. “Shipping Up To Boston” will be one of only two newly recorded songs on the CD, the other being a cover of  Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” (I’m cringing at the thought of that one).

A web site called CraveOnline premiered the “Shipping Up To Boston” cover today. Now, a song that good is very difficult to ruin, especially for a band as talented as COB (we’ll leave aside whether they’ve been coasting on that talent) — but it’s also very difficult to improve on a song that good, especially given the authentic sound of the original.

So, I guess with that preamble, it won’t surprise you to learn that I think COB neither ruin nor improve on the song, they just make it a bit moar metal. It’s worth a listen (after the jump), though I have to say I’ll stick with the original (which is also after the jump). Continue reading »

ALLEGAEON: “FORMSHIFTER”

 Album Reviews  5 Responses »
May 152012
 

(We’ve been following (and reporting) the news about Allegaeon’s new album very closely, and now we have TheMadIsraeli’s review of Formshifter.)

Melodic death metal has not really flourished in the U.S despite its popularity (which led to the metalcore movement) and ultimately hasn’t seen much action within its territories.  By my lights, only two melodic death metal bands have started in America who have ever been worth a shit — The Absence and Allegaeon.

The Absence have always been decidedly about blatant old-school worship (really fucking good worship) of past heroes, while Allegaeon sought to combine Swedish majesty with American grit, netting them a killer debut EP and an even more musically accomplished album debut, Fragments of Form and Function, which had titanic grooves, ferocious serpentine riffs, and epic melodies all about.  An debut as staggeringly strong as that puts a lot of pressure on a band to succeed the next time around.

Though it’s a cliche to say so, the sophomore release really is the most dreaded album of a band’s career. It is where a band either cement their status as a legitimate musical force or torch their progress to date, then and there.  Fortunately for Allegaeon and their fans, Formshifter is a bewilderingly powerful album that is an essential of the year.

A couple things are different this time around.  The band have switched to 8-string guitars, which often results not only in riffing that’s extremely technical and varied, but also in some of Allegaeon’s most brutal, fat, and consuming moments when the time arrives to throw down in a song.  This particular change has been really positive — with the switch to 8 strings, Allegaeon have written riffs that have quite a bit more majesty, pomp, and circumstance than ANYTHING they wrote on Fragments of Form and Function. Continue reading »

SEXCREMENT: “SLOPPY SECONDS”

 Album Reviews  18 Responses »
May 152012
 

Sexcrement.  Now THAT’S a motherfucking band name!  From the name alone I was drawn to the music, like a bee to honey, like a moth to flame, like a fly to . . . uh . . . wait . . . forget about that last metaphor, because this band’s second album Sloppy Seconds is really good.  And it wasn’t just the band’s name that suggested the kind of deviant intelligence I felt pretty sure would produce music to my liking. Get a load of the song titles:

“Heard It Through the Rape Vine”
“Chemical Handcuffs”
“Well Hungover”
“Heels Up”
“Trucker Bombed”
“Assisted Living Lapdance”
“Obestiality”
“Ride Johnny Ride”

You see what I mean? Deviant and clever, perverted and politically incorrect. I figured the odds were pretty high that I’d get some jollies from the music — though that wouldn’t necessarily mean I’d write about it here. No, dear brethren and sistren, believe it or not, I don’t write about everything I like. I do try to apply a quality filter, because even my rudimentary intelligence tells me that provoking spontaneous regurgitation isn’t a winning formula for holding on to readers. But in this case, I not only got some jollies, I also heard some fine metal worthy of your refined attention. Continue reading »

THE DIABLO SWING ORCHESTRA: PANDORA’S PIÑATA

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  15 Responses »
May 142012
 

(In this post groverXIII reviews the new album by The Diablo Swing Orchestra.)

[EXCEPTION TO THE RULE WARNING]

Quite recently, our old pal Islander asked us, “What’s in a name?” I found this pretty amusing, because I had actually planned on addressing this sort of subject in this review, albeit with a more limited scope. Specifically, I was going to address those rare instances where a band’s name is directly evocative of the music that they make. I don’t mean the sort of band names where it’s fairly easy to guess what sort of music they make, like how a band with a pluralized noun is probably a djent band, or a band with a Verb/Gerund The Noun name is probably metalcore/deathcore, or how a band with a name that doesn’t appear to be a real word is probably a black metal band.

No, as you might guess, I’m talking about a name like Diablo Swing Orchestra. I’ve been trying for a while to think of a band whose moniker is more perfectly suited to them, and I really haven’t found one. If for some reason you are unfamiliar with them, Diablo Swing Orchestra mix metal with a smorgasbord of orchestral music styles to create something that is truly unique. They have one of the most interesting back stories I’ve ever read, and while it may or may not be historically accurate, it certainly does a nice job setting the stage for their music. They live up to their name, sounding like the Glenn Miller Orchestra if they were doing a gig as Lucifer’s house band.

I’ve been following the band since I first happened upon their stunning debut, The Butcher’s Ballroom, where the mix of elements blew me away, not only because of the different styles, but also how smoothly they were mixed. DSO’s sophomore release, Sing-Along Songs For The Damned And Delirious, was certainly its predecessor’s equal, maintaining the same level of ferocious weirdness without running it into the ground. And now, we get Pandora’s Piñata, the DSO’s eagerly-awaited third album, and once again, these eclectic Swedes do not disappoint, delivering one of the year’s most creative releases thus far. Continue reading »

CATTLE DECAPITATION: “MONOLITH OF INHUMANITY”

 Album Reviews  3 Responses »
May 102012
 

(Continuing his string of reviews this week, TheMadIsraeli provides this explosively enthusiastic assessment of the [stupendous] new album by Cattle Decapitation.)

May 8 was an extremely good day.  Why?

Because this album and the new Allegaeon come out on May 8.

Cattle Decapitation and I have had a very torrid love affair, full of many ups and downs.  While the music has been consistently stellar deathgrind (with the exception of their horrific debut Human Jerky), I’ve found that this band usually killed what were great albums in the making with mixes so horrific it made my ears bleed.  If you are a long-time Cattle Decap fan, you might guess that I like To Serve Man and The Harvest Floor best since you can ACTUALLY MAKE OUT WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.

I’m not being a new-age-all-production-must-be-slick-and-pristine nazi at all, but when you have a band like Cattle Decapitation who play music this fast, this furious, and this fuck-nuts-sanity-shattering, anything less than a stellar, tight mix will lose the music in translation.

Luckily, not only is Monolith of Inhumanity their best-sounding record to date, it’s also their musical pinnacle thus far. By making a little trip back to the drawing board after The Harvest Floor (an album I mostly enjoyed, but felt was a little weak at points), Cattle Decap have done themselves quite a bit of good, as Monolith Of Inhumanity may be one of the top five albums in the death metal/grindcore realm all year. Continue reading »

BE’LAKOR: “OF BREATH AND BONE”

 Album Reviews  6 Responses »
May 092012
 

(Our UK-based writer Andy Synn reviews the highly anticipated new album by Australia’s Be’lakor.)

Be’lakor have become, it seems to me, immune to criticism in the underground press. I say this to let you know that this isn’t going to be a fawning, sycophantic review of the band’s latest album; I have tried my very best to stay impartial, even though the temptation was to simply love this album merely for its existence. That being said, while I have no major criticisms of the record (and have fallen head over heels in love with some of the tracks), I have come out of the experience with a few concerns preying on my mind.

Let’s get one thing straight first though, you’ve probably already formed your opinions that this is going to be good – hell, I’d wager that most people formed their opinion about the album without even hearing a single note – but the question is, how good?

To get the obvious comparisons out of the way, neither as heart-wrenchingly melancholic as recent Insomnium, nor as shamelessly audacious as latter-day Omnium Gatherum, the main criticism I can level at Of Breath and Bone is that while it is characteristically and distinctively a Be’lakor album (falling ultimately somewhere between The Frail Tide and Stone’s Reach), there is a certain spark missing from a few of the tracks, which impacts the experience of the record as a whole.

More restrained and perhaps a more consciously considered record than its predecessor, this factor is both a blessing and a curse for the band. It allows their multi-layered melodies room to breathe and expand, but softens the impact of some of their more fiery moments. At their most epic and nuanced, this restraint works wonders, allowing the band to express their melodic palette fully, yet at their most aggressive this often serves, paradoxically, to limit their full expression. Fundamentally the album is very much a companion piece to Stone’s Reach, introverted where that album was extroverted, restrained where it was unfettered. Continue reading »

THE SAFETY FIRE: “GRIND THE OCEAN”

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule  3 Responses »
May 092012
 

(TheMadIsraeli reviews the new album by The Safety Fire.)

So it’s time for my first true Exception to the Rule in quite a while. I decided at some point I would try to avoid breaking our site’s moniker as much as I could, but I feel this album deserves the occasion.

The Safety Fire have been picking up quite a bit of steam lately, introducing an interesting sound that has me slightly baffled, yet plenty fascinated. They mix in the low-tuned brutality and odd time signatures of bands we’ve come to know and love such as Textures, CiLiCe, and yes, Meshuggah, with technical, highly interwoven counterpoint dual-guitar mind-fuckery and add a heavy-handed dose of post-rock to taste.

To say that their sound is jarring would be a bit of an understatement, but also considering that I saw them live at The Masquerade in Atlanta last month and experienced this material full force (which convinced me to buy the album on the spot), I’d say this is a band to watch in the future. However, the future is currently irrelevant. What’s relevant is now, and Grind the Ocean is an impressive, technically adept, and progressive morsel of delightfully unorthodox taste.

The album’s opener “Huge Hammers” is immediately indicative of this. A subdued riff plays in the background, only to crash forth into the song’s gravitas-inducing, disorienting verse riff. It’s full of low-tuned rumble, high-end micro-shredding, and lots AND LOTS of pinch harmonic squeals and badass moments of harmony and interplay on the guitar front. Continue reading »

REVERENCE: “THE ASTHENIC ASCENSION”

 Album Reviews  2 Responses »
May 092012
 

(Here, Andy Synn reviews the new album from those French nihilists in Reverence.)

 

As you may know, I like my metal like I like my women – black, blasphemous, and cold to the touch. Reverence’s newest album brings all these cards to the table, but ups the ante with a distinctively industrial edge.

Staking their claim to the barren lands somewhere between the crippling insanity of The Axis Of Perdition and the warped humanism of Glorior Belli, the band have been successfully fusing the angular chaos of the former with the sinuous darkness of the latter for years now, with this, their most recent release, taking pride of place alongside the arcane experimentation of Blut Aus Nord and the ritualistic self-loathing of Deathspell Omega.

Opening track (and de facto album intro) “Earth” has a slow, menacing build up, its haunting ambience coalescing into a rippling stormfront of cryptic strings, marching, martial drums, and morbid vocals. The more overt, metallic elements creep, rather than leap, into the fray, predatory, chugging guitars and restrained blast-beats chomping at the bit to be unleashed. Continue reading »

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