Category: Album Review

Kirk Windstein-Dream In Motion

This album was a refreshing surprise.  There are a lot of bands out there that seem to be mainly driven by one person.  So much so that it becomes difficult to separate the band from the person.  I’m thinking of Mikael Akerfeldt and Opeth.  Dave Mustaine and Megadeth.  Nergal and Behemoth.  That sort of thing.  When this person decides to release a solo album separate from their main gig, I often wonder what the point is of such an endeavor.  I mean, if you are the controlling creative force for a band, wouldn’t that entity provide enough of a creative output for you.

Well, it turns out that I’m wrong.  Kirk Windstein is Crowbar.  He sings the songs.  He writes the songs.  Crowbar is essentially Kirk.  So, when I saw that he was putting out a solo album, I thought, “What is the point of this?  It’s probably going to sound like Crowbar.  Why not just release a Crowbar album?”  Well, Kirk obviously had a creative urge that didn’t fit within the Crowbar framework and decided to put these songs out under his name alone.

And I am so happy that he did.  I’m a Crowbar fan, but not a huge one.  They always felt like a reliable sludgy doom band, but not one that has ever completely blown me away.  I’ve honestly been more of a fan of Kirk’s work in Down than I have been with Crowbar.  This new album is more low-key, melodic and introspective than his work in Crowbar.  It’s heavy, but there is just a nice relaxed vibe running through the album that really connected with me.  His vocals are reigned in a bit and they aren’t quite as hoarse sounding as his Crowbar persona.  Plus, he throws in a capable cover of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung to finish the album.

I don’t know if it’s whether I just wasn’t expecting a whole lot out of this album that it resonated so much with me or not.  For whatever reason, I just found this to be one of the strongest albums of his career.  It’s one of those albums that I just can’t wait to listen to again.  To me, that is simply the sign of a fantastic album.

4.5 flip flops out of 5

Konvent-Puritan Masochism

It’s getting to the point where I guess we really shouldn’t be surprised at the number of female metal bands.  But, there’s still something about these bands that just impresses me and I still feel like it’s important to note the bands that are female driven.  I come from an age where female metal bands just weren’t taken all that seriously.  Vixen was the primary female band of the 80s hair metal heyday and they honestly just weren’t that good of a band.  I honestly don’t remember seeing anyone at shows sporting Vixen tour merch.

Konvent is very representative of female metal bands going today.  Their music is uncompromisingly brutal and heavy.  There’s no gimmick here.  It is heavy dark music of the doom and death metal variety produced by talented individuals.  There’s nothing to differentiate this band from their male counterparts.  It’s just a solid metal album.  And I think that’s just fucking great.  The music on here leans towards the fuzzy doom side of things, but the sound is further darkened by the brutal death vocals of Rikke Emilie List.  To me, Konvent sounds like what would happen if Electric Wizard had death vocals.  This is simply a stellar debut album by an up-and-coming band to watch.

3.5 flip flops out of 5

Nero Di Marte-Immoto

Nero Di Marte is on to album number three of their career and this one sees the Italian post-metal group exploring the outer-reaches of the “post” aspect of the genre.  I was a really big fan of this band’s first two albums in that it was right in line with the best of some of the more prominent practitioners of post-metal such as Intronaut and Isis.  There sound was multi-textured and adventurous, but it still retained a solid song structure that made the albums fairly accessible.  This latest album feels quite a bit of an ambitious swing in direction by Nero Di Marte.  This is still very much in the post-metal, so it’s not a complete restructuring of their sound.  However, the focus on this one feels more atmospheric and less structured than their past efforts.  There’s more of a meandering going on with these songs.  There was also the decision to sing the lyrics on more than half of the songs in Italian instead of English.  The end result is a pretty challenging listen.  I’ve got to be completely honest in that I still haven’t completely made up my mind on how I feel about it.  It’s good, but it hasn’t grabbed my full attention as their past albums.  However, this album just feels like one that needs to marinate in my brain for a while more.  It’s just so different and the abstract nature of it is holding me back somewhat.  I think I’m just going to have to listen to it some more.  For now, I’m saying it’s a solid effort and I really respect the decision to not stand pat with a formulaic approach.  It just hasn’t completely won me over yet.

3.5 flip flops out of 5

Sons of Apollo-MMXX

Not exactly the first album release of 2020, but it’s the first one I’m going to review.  Sons of Apollo enter 2020 with the adventurously named MMXX, the Roman numeral for 2020.  See, it’s 2020 and they have named their album released this year “2020”.  It just doesn’t get more inspired than that.

So, this is another one of these proggy mercenary albums.  The number of exes in the musical bios for the members of this group are massive.  This started out as the brain child of Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) and Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater) getting back together in what feels kind of like an attempt to recapture the sound of the Dream Theater era in which they were involved.  They have wrangled in Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (ex-Guns N Roses) and Billy Sheehan (ex-David Lee Roth) and Jeff Scott Soto (ex-Yngwie J. Malmsteen) to round out the band.

As with a lot of these all-star bands, it seems as though forging an original identity is always the biggest struggle.  They play less like a cohesive unit than a showcase of individual talents.  Hey, let’s have Portnoy go nuts on this song.  This song we’ll let Bumblefoot show his chops.  And so on and so forth.  As a result, the songs tend to suffer.

So, the final product on this one feels a little more cohesive than their debut album, Psychotic Symphony, from a couple of years ago.  Foundationally, you’ve still got that prog metal sound that Dream Theater perfected in the 90s.  However, it does feel like the sound on this one is a bit of a throwback in feel to bands like early Rainbow and classic era Deep Purple.  Sherinian’s keyboard work is definitely the highlight on the album.  Even though it feels like this album is a step in the right direction in the band finding its sound and it is more than capably performed, it just doesn’t inspire any lasting impression.  I have a feeling that this is going to be another album that is forgotten by the time we reach the end of MMXX.

3 flip flops out of 5

Novembers Doom-Nephilim Grove

Man, Novembers Doom is one of those bands that I have just slept on for some reason.  There are so many damn fine bands in the world that its impossible to hit them all and there are bound to be some really good bands that just fall through the cracks for everyone.  I feel kind of bad admitting that Nephilim Grove is my first real exposure to this death/doom band out of Chicago that has been cranking out albums since the mid-90s.

The biggest thing that really hooked me on this album is vocalist Paul Kuhr.  Those of you that know me well know that I am a huge fan of Nevermore.  It still hurts that the world is never going to get to hear the plaintive wail of Warrel Dane since his passing a couple of years ago.  There are times on this album in which it feels that Kuhr is downright channeling the lower end range of Dane.  It’s just eerie.  The band itself reminds me a bit of Nevermore in places, but with less aggression and chaos.  Their sound is more of a slow burn and it is one of those albums that you should sit with a bit.  I feel like this one has grown on me with each listen.

4 flip flops out of 5

Nile-Vile Nilotic Rites

I may be wrong here, but I think Nile is the only ancient Egyptian themed death metal band in the world.  At the very least, they are the only ancient Egyptian themed death metal band to come out of South Carolina.  I’m think I’m on fairly solid ground on the second statement.

This is the first album Nile has put out since the departure of longtime vocalist/guitarist Dallas Toler-Wade.  The good thing here is that main songwriter/guitarist/vocalist George Sanders is still in charge of things and Vile Nilotic Rites doesn’t really miss a beat at all with the subtraction of Toler-Wade from the mix.  Even though the sound of Nile hasn’t changed at all on this latest album, it feels a bit less epic than past releases.  Granted, you’ve still got some of the best song titles going with selections such as “The Oxford Handbook of Savage Genocide”, “Snake Pit Mating Frenzy” and “Thus Sayeth the Parasites of the Mind” and the guitar and drum portions are a chaotic and frenzied as ever.  It just feels like this one of missing a little something extra that would push this one from the middle rungs of Nile’s discography to the upper reaches.

3.5 flip flops out of 5

Vanden Plas-The Ghost Xperiment- Awakening

If you’re familiar at all with Vanden Plas’ past catalog, you’ll know that subtlety is not a word these guys are familiar with.  Everything Vanden Plas does is done with a hefty dose of bombast and pomposity.

For those of you not in the know regarding Vanden Plas, they are basically the German version of classic-era Dream Theater.  They love them some concept albums.  They bask in the traditional prog metal sound of the early 90s and infuse this framework with a healthy dose of power metal.  From what I understand, many of their past works have been translated into lavish stage shows in Germany and a good chunk of the members of this band dabble in musicals when not performing in Vanden Plas.  So, you know, they’re flamboyant.  I guess you could kind of put them in the Trans Siberian Orchestra vein as well.

So, this latest platter is right in line with past Vanden Plas releases.  It is just slick as all hell and the musicianship is seriously top notch.  These guys have chops that can stand against anyone in the business.  However, I’m going to dock them a couple of point here.  First, for a progressive band, I don’t see a whole lot of progression in their core sound over the years.  You can stand this album up against any they released in the 90s and the basic sound structures are the same.  Same guitar tone.  Same keyboard tone.  Same drum tone.  This begs the question:  are these guys really prog or not?  Because the sound, whereas very ambitious on its own, shows a remarkable lack of growth or exploration over the years.  As ambitious as some of the albums are musically and conceptually, there is a definite formula in which these guys operate.  It’s not as simple as AC/DC’s formula, but you can definitely draw some similar comparisons if you stand all of their albums back-to-back.  The good thing is that their chosen formula doesn’t suck.  If you dig this kind of prog metal, you’ll be all over this album.  I find it very good and engaging, but it’s just a bit nagging at the lack of overall growth from such talented guys.  Second, I’m totally docking them for the title of this thing.  I grant that they are from Germany and English isn’t their first language, but come on!  The Ghost Xperiment!  Don’t spell words like this.  It isn’t clever or cool.  It comes across as very amateurish.  Pre-teens spell shit like Xperiment.  Just spell the damn word correctly.  The Ghost Experiment-Awakening would have been just fine.

Also, for those interested:  this is part one of a double album.  Part II is expected to come out in 2020.

3.5 flip flops out of 5

Cloak-The Burning Dawn

Feels like a very appropriate album cover and title for how things are going in the world.  Just a wasteland charred remains.  It’s honestly how things feel these days.

Cloak reminds me a awful lot of Tribulation minus the goth-inspired stage presence.  Theirs is a death metal sound, but it feels more rooted in the classic rock ‘n roll vibe than your traditional or grind death metal sound.  This feels like a really good gateway album for someone wanting to explore death metal.  It is very accessible sound-wise and has quite a bit of engaging melodic moments thrown in with the more aggressive riffs.  All in all, this is just a very capably produced album albeit one that never reaches those truly inspiring moments.  Good, but not great.

3.5 flip flops out of 5

The Great Old Ones-Cosmicism

If you read yesterday’s column, you may notice a theme running through that album cover to this one.  The band’s this week seem to have a fascination with towers of madness.  I’m not entirely sure what to read into that, but there you go.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the metal scene in France was once virtually non-existent, but that in recent years the metal bands in France are starting to make some serious inroads internationally, especially with the success of Gojira.  You can really make that statement for all of the European countries that border the Mediterranean Sea.  Metal in Europe has traditionally been the province of the northern territories (Britain, Germany and Scandinavia) rather than the southern ones.  That is starting to change.  Along with France, Italy, Greece and Portugal are all seeing fairly vibrant metal scenes.

The band at hand is another one the newer bands to come out of France and they ply their trade in Lovecraftian influenced black metal.  I say black metal, but it really sounds more like black metal recorded in a death metal sort of vein.  It’s not the screeching underproduced black metal one associates with Norway.  No, the vocals and everything else are recorded clean and are right in your face.  This is The Great Old One’s fourth album overall and second for the Season of Mist label.  The album is my first experience with these guys and I found myself fairly impressed with their musical chops.  The interesting thing here is that this isn’t the only Lovecraft/Cthullu inspired metal band to come out of the Southern European area.  Italy’s Sulphur Aeon is more traditional black metal band that also loves them some Lovecraft.  It would be a downright shame if we can’t find someway to have these two bands tour together.

3.5 flip flops out of 5

Hour of Penance-Misotheism

Yeah, that’s kind of a blasphemous album cover.  Not a lot of good happening there.  Which matches up with the album title of Hour of Penance’s latest.  When I first read Misotheism, I thought they had just made up a word.  Was this about believing that miso holds the Almighty?  Is the album about the worship of soup?  No.  Let this be another example of metalheads being a lot smarter than they are given credit.  I went down a serious internet rabbit hole while looking up Misotheism.  Turns out that this is an ancient Greek concept regarding the hatred of God.  It takes the concept of atheism up a notch or two.  It’s not the belief that God doesn’t exist.  It’s a belief that God exists, but instead of worshiping and gaining comfort from him/her/it, you actually feel spite and hatred for the entity.  It seems like the philosophy is rooted in why God allows so many innocent people suffer unnecessarily if God is all powerful and omniscient.  Dark shit and feels like good fodder for a metal album.

Hour of Penance has always explored the darker sides of religion and in many respects this latest album reminds me of Behemoth’s work over the years.  Both bands use traditional Christian stories and texts and looks at them from a very different perspective.  I find this kind of shit fascinating since I was brought up in the church as a kid and am very familiar with Christian theology.  The music contained on here is pretty straight ahead technical death metal.  Very crisp and very cleanly recorded.  Just a professional metal album that doesn’t veer to far out of its lane, but gets props for being an engaging listen overall.

3.5 flip flops out of 5