Well, this is a nasty little record. And one that kind of came out of nowhere. Take three dudes from three legendary death metal acts and you’ve got a pretty formidable lineup on your hands.
Vltimas consists of ex-Morbid Angel vocalist/bassist David Vincent, ex-Mayhem guitarist Rune “Blasphemer” Eriksen and Cryptopsy drummer Flo Mounier. Vincent has been meandering all over the place since his latest departure from Morbid Angel and was last heard promoting his country-and-western project. It’s nice to see him get back in the metal fold on this album and I think it may be his strongest performance since the early Morbid Angel albums. All three dudes just seem energized on this album and the songs just crackle with life. This is very much is the Behemoth sort of death/black metal vein. It’s cool too in that this thing doesn’t really sound like any of the other bands these guys are associated with. It is it’s own little entity.
Another plus, if you’re into this sort of thing, is the album artwork. If your a purist and still purchase the hard copies of album, you’ll be rewarded with a full expanded poster of the artwork on this one. For this reason, I’ll just never understand people who go digital only.
If you’ve read any of this blog in the past, you’ve probably seen me rail against certain bands in the technical death metal field that I feel let the technical side of things get a bit out of hand. It’s not that what these bands do is not impressive. It’s just that the focus seems to be more on how complicated the band can make the rhythms and techniques used in the songs rather than on creating a solid song. Like the song itself becomes secondary to acting solely as a vehicle to showcase the players’ musical chops. This sort of technical focus only carries so much weight with many as I get older. Sure, I was blown away by the Yngwies and shit of the world when I was in junior high, but now, I just want something that fucking jams. Or something that hits me in the emotional soft spot. Tweedly leads and scales just don’t have any sort of staying power in my world anymore.
Now, I know I’m probably not in the majority in my viewpoint here, especially in the world of tech death fans. Case in point is the band at hand, Fallujah. Fallujah is a fairly new band and is one that has gotten quite a bit of favorable press amongst the metal journalist and metal fans alike. They were a band on paper that I should enjoy. However, I just never really warmed up to their sound. I think a big part of it was that it seemed like their focus was right in line with my aforementioned thoughts: too technical at the cost of the quality of the songs. It’s one of those things that I can’t entirely put an exact finger on in trying to explain why their sound never quite gelled with me, but it just never clicked.
So, flash to 2019 and Fallujah has seen themselves go through some changes with the quitting of founding member and vocalist, Alex Hofmann. As a result, it seems as though the band had a reevaluation of their sound and direction and this latest album sees a distinct shift. And from the reaction online, it seems to have rubbed a lot of their hard core fans the wrong way. The new album is less focused on the technical side of things and feels like a tighter presentation. New vocalist Antonio Palermo has more of an organic growl to his delivery than did Hofmann and I honestly dig it. He’s kind of reminicient of Tomas Lindberg of At The Gates. I have a feeling that I’m in the minority in kind of digging the new direction. It’s not groundbreaking in any real way, but it’s not a sellout direction either. It’s not like they’ve gone hair metal or anything like that. It’s still technical death metal at its core, but the focus on flash has been reigned in. I just feel like this approach is going to have more staying power than their earlier sound.
This was a shot in the ass. It’s always good to get surprised by a band. I first heard The Moth Gatherer in 2015 when they released their last album The Earth Is the Sky. I thought it was s decent album, but it didn’t really leave any indelible impression on me. It was kind of a darkly mellow post-metal sound. It had some good moments, but the band just kind of fell into the rabble of new bands that I come across in my meanderings across the metal landscape.
Flash forward to 2019 and BAM! I saw their name pop up on the release calendar and I was happy to see that the band was still around and producing new music, but honestly, I didn’t really expect to be blown away by this one. Well, spank my ass and call me Nancy because this thing is just EPIC. Here in your grimy little hands you hold a slab of post-metal that approaches the likes of Cult of Luna and Isis type material. It is really that good. It feels like the band has gone a bit heavier in their presentation. The guitars sound thicker and the vocals lean more in the harsh area. There are a lot of layers on this album and I have a feeling I’m going to be unpacking the full measure of this thing for quite some time. I honestly feel a need to go back and re-visit their previous material because I really feel like I may have missed something on my first pass with these guys. Job well done, lads.
How many original band members does a band need to lose before it should simply stop existing as a band? It seems like this question came up a while back amongst a group of my friends. Some leaned toward a fairly strict interpretation and felt that if certain key members of a group left or passed away that the group should simply end as an active entity ala Led Zeppelin when John Bonham died. Others, and I include myself in this category, feel that as long as the remaining members of the band feel as though they still have something to say or create under the current moniker and feel as though their new material still epitomizes the spirit of the original band, then more power to you. It’s your band. Do what you gotta do.
I know there is still a significant portion of the metal populace that still can’t, or even refuse to, embrace Todd La Torre as the voice of Queensryche. No one will ever replace Geoff Tate in these people’s eyes and nothing Mr. La Torre does will ever be considered good enough. Well, that’s a damn shame in my opinion. Yes, he is copping Tate’s vocal style and delivery. But, even while he sounds damn close to Tate, he has a distinct personality and vibe that he has brought to Queensryche that differentiates his tenure from, say, that of Tim “Ripper” Owens when he replaced Rob Halford in Judas Priest. Owens always felt like a placeholder. La Torre feels like he has grown into the position and has made it his own. And I dig it. It’s Queensryche without the pomposity that Tate devolved into in his later years.
We’re on to album number three of the La Torre years of Queensryche and we’re down to only two original members at this point with lead guitarist Michael Wilton and bassist Eddie Jackson still in the fold. Original drummer Scott Rockenfeld has stepped away from the band for the time being for personal reasons and it is somewhat unclear whether he is done for good or will be coming back to the fold at some point. At any rate, La Torre not only handles the vocals on the new album, but he went ahead and performed all of the drums on the new album as well.
I feel like this is the best album Queensryche has put out post-Tate. This album has a focus and a tightness that didn’t quite come across on the first two La Torre albums. The material harkens back to stuff off of The Warning with a bit of a modern spin. The songs are punchy. The riffs are crunchy. The vocals soar. If you’re hesitating about Queensryche minus Tate in the year of 2019, you should really let that shit go. Give this thing a listen.
Those of you that know me or follow this blog with any sort of regularity know that Lamb of God is a very big band in my world. So, obviously, when one of their members ventures out and releases their first solo album, you’d expect that my interest would be piqued.
Mark Morton is the lead guitarist for Lamb of God and he has been responsible for writing some of the band’s more adventurous songs over the years. Think Descending, Vigil, and Walk With Me in Hell. It feels like he has acted as a force in the band that tries to keep pushing it into unfamiliar territories and generally it makes for some very interesting songs. So, I was really interested to see where he would take things when not constrained by the structure of Lamb. In interviews, he’s always stated that he prefers to listen to more blues based music and hip/hop to listening to metal when he is away from Lamb. So, there was really no telling what type of music was ultimately going to be on this solo project.
It appears that the basic idea of this album was to flush out some riffs that he didn’t feel would fit in Lamb of God and try to picture a vocalist that would fit the riff and song. He reached out to a wide variety of singers with different styles to perform on each song. The album is getting quite a bit of press because Chester Bennington of Linkin Park provided vocals for the album opener, Cross Off, and this ended up being one of the last recorded performances prior to his death. You’ve got some straight up metal songs handled by Testament’s Chuck Billy and one duet by Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe and Arch Enemy’s Alyssa White-Gluz. You’ve got some straight ahead rock songs featuring Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach, Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge/Slash, and Josh Todd of Buckcherry. You’ve got a crusty bluesy number with Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees. The real surprise number on the album is a neat little smooth jazz/soulful tune with a heretofore unknown to me singer/songwriter Naeemah Maddox.
All in all the album is OK. There’s nothing on here that is really all that groundbreaking. And I think that’s why I feel this one is a bit disappointing. I really expecting to hear a little more experimentation from Mr. Morton. I also think that some of the chosen vocalists didn’t really help some of the songs. The guitar work is fine overall, but mostly this one really makes me long for the next Lamb of God release.
The story of In Flames is really the story of two distinct bands. On the one hand, you have the early era In Flames who was one of the touchstones of the Gothenburg melodic death metal sound. This band was heavily influenced by Iron Maiden and the remainder of the NWOBHM movement and used that building block sound of twin leads to craft a beloved sub-genre of death metal. The traditionalists have never been able to move past the classic albums of this era of In Flames. On the other hand, you have the modern era In Flames. This In Flames is characterized by more of an New Wave of American Heavy Metal. I guess at this point you can only marginally characterize In Flames as a purely death metal band as they have incorporated elements of deathcore and even some slightly alternative metal elements to their songs. It seems as though people come down in one of the two camps and there isn’t much crossover amongst the fans of the two distinct eras of this band
I find myself kind of torn with this band because I was such a huge fan of their early period. However, I do actually like quite a few of the latter era albums. I think you really have to view them as a completely different band these days and just forget that they are the same band that created Subterranean and The Jester Race. Taking their new material simply as it is without any reference to what came prior helps me judge the new material on its own merits. And some of the new stuff is decent. It’s still a little more in the alternative metal vein than I normally like, but it’s still metal.
The new album continues In Flames embracing their new sound. Vocalist Anders Friden is still moving away more and more from his trademark scream and is singing the choruses of most of the songs in his normal singing voice. I kind of hate this because he really has one of the best sounding death metal screams in the game. I’m honestly not entirely sure why so many people get downright angry with In Flames’ new sound. The new album still has plenty of very aggressive guitar work and it is still really heavy overall. It’s just different. That being said, the new album’s material is sub-par compared to a lot of the albums in their new era. It feels like the first part of the album contains the strongest material and then the remainder of the album sort of limps to the finish line. I really feel like this is one of those albums that would have benefited from the dropping of three or four of the songs from the final cut. There is just too much filler on this album for it to be considered a really strong album. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. Just kind of an average effort.
Well, it seems as though this was the strange little album for which I have unwittingly been longing. It seems like I remember hearing a while back that Les Claypool from Primus and Sean Lennon got together for a project, but I don’t remember ever hearing anything from the first album they put out. After hearing this new slab, I’m fairly ticked off that I didn’t seek it out originally. Because this thing is fan-damn-tastic.
This album really feels like a creation of two kindred spirits. Les Claypool brings his signature bass sound and the weird Primus nafarious sort of deranged fairy tale flavored lyrics. Lennon brings an equally strange psychedelic and hippy-ish multi-instrumental game to the proceedings. Together, the album feels kind of like a more laid back version of Primus with trapping of 60s psychedelic rock and 70s prog/art rock. It’s a lush sounding album and it just sounds really fresh for something that is obviously inspired by music from an older era. Delirium is a perfect moniker. This one is a fucking keeper.
Um. First off, this album cover. No thank you. Not appreciated by those of us creeped-out by spiders and shit.
Aenimus is a new band on the technical death metal scene. I have a love/hate relationship with this sub-genre. On the love side of things, I really dig dudes that can absolutely play the shit out of their instruments. It’s impressive to hear someone absolutely own their guitar/bass/drums like it is an appendage. It is honestly hard to believe that some of the things pulled off by musicians in this sub-genre are physically possible to perform. On the hate side of things, there is a tendency to run into the problem of redundancy and formulaic song structures. There are so many bands churning out this kind of metal that sound exactly the same. The songs and the bands just all start to run together after a while and, as a result, nothing really ends up standing out except for the technical proficiency of the players. And, if that’s all you got, your songs are going to suffer.
Aenimus has put together an album that kind of ends up in that grey area of being really impressive technically, but not really reaching any sort of lasting or emotional impact with their songs. I can’t really pinpoint anything specifically bad about this album, but it just never really takes off or makes itself stand apart from the great rabble of technical death metal bands out there today. Uniqueness. I think that’s what is missing here. The proficiency in the performance is there in spades. I think I wish that there was a little more focus on creating a unique Aenimus identity that makes them stand apart. Now, that being said, if would find yourself digging on something that sounds like it is the lovechild of Meshuggah and Scar Symmetry, then this album might be right up your alley.
Sometimes perusing the great mass of heavy metal bands churning out new material becomes a bit of a slog. The field of metal music is really full and the bands are just prolific as shit. This makes it hard for a band’s new material to stand out and make a memorable impression. I think that’s why a lot of people just embrace a few bands from their formative years and just hold them close. The sheer mass of material to wade through there is sometimes daunting and, in many respects, disheartening. Disheartening in the fact that a great majority of the stuff coming out is just average songs destined to end up in a wormhole of forgotten riffs and attempts at relevancy.
It is with these despondent thoughts that a band like Herod keeps me digging through the rabble of new material week after week. Never heard of these guys before this album came out. The main reason that I even gave this one an initial listen was the fact that they are on Pelagic Records. Pelagic is the label started by The Ocean’s mastermind, Robin Staps, and they are one of my favorite underground metal labels. They have an absolute stellar track record of finding new and unsung bands and giving them a forum to showcase their talents. Herod is one of these little bands that they found and I am happy to share them with you today. They are a band out of Switzerland and they seem to be in that strange conglomeration of post-metal, progressive and sludge that I find myself drawn to more and more over the years. The textures and levels of sound that these guys create is downright hypnotic at times. You’ll be able to hear the influences of Meshuggah, Isis and The Ocean running through this thing. I really hope this album does well for these guys because it is the best album to come out so far this year.
Hmmm. Man, I really hate to say it, but I’m really bummed out about this one.
Let me elaborate a bit before getting into the nitty gritty of this review. Dream Theater was an important fucking band in the realm of metal. During the rise of the grunge scene in the early 90s, traditional metal saw a decline in its relevancy and popularity. It seemed as though bands that featured a guitar god who lay down frenetic leads were cast out of the cool kids’ clique. During this time, Dream Theater was one of those bands that just stuck to their guns and just did what they did; consequences be damned. And me and my metalhead friends absolutely fucking loved them for it. They provided us technical flourish with grand epic songwriting. They took the proggy brilliance and scope of Rush and melded it with the aggression and metal hooks of Maiden and Priest. They were a breath of pure metal during a time when traditional metal was hard to come by. Images and Words. Awake. Change of Seasons. Falling Into Infinity. Scenes From a Memory. This four album and one EP streak was an amazing streak of creative prowess.
And flash forward to now. We are now on album number four since founding member and driving personality Mike Portnoy left his drummer post. The output since his departure has been spotty, if not downright dreadful. This culminated in their previous album, the unfortunately named The Astonishing. This album seemed like a band trying to regain their past glory of the leaders of progressive metal with an ambitious sci-fi/fantasy concept double album. To be perfectly blunt, in my opinion, this album was a completely failure on every level. It felt like a band with zero direction, zero passion and zero confidence in its songwriting ability. The music was flat and the lyrical content was just downright sap. I really worried that Dream Theater was becoming a shell of their former selves and were in danger of just becoming a legacy band happy to tour on the songs they wrote when they were still relevant. Harsh, I know, but this is just how bad that album was received by yours truly.
So, 2019. A new album. On the positive side of thing, this feels like a John Petrucci album in that the guitar really drives it. His leads are still an amazing listen. But leads ain’t going to make a memorable album (go ask Yngwie). Distance Over Time is a step back in the right direction for Dream Theater, but it is still a long way from their peak. There’s just something not quite there in the songs. Dream Theater’s best work used to manage to be both creative and ambitious. They produced the kinds of songs that left you with goosebumps both because the creativity and technical brilliance of the music and with the emotional punch of their lyrics. That aspect is missing here. Even though there are some tasty riffs and leads, it just never reached that ultimate plateau that I have come to expect of Dream Theater. For a band with a lesser track record, I may be willing to be a little more lenient in my opinion and expectation. But, these guys are one of the more talented bands in the world. I expect magic. And this, while a capable and solid album, doesn’t bring the magic.
DISPATCHES FROM THE VOID 