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“Turn it up that chainsaw sound!”

Yeah!!!  That is a heavy metal lyric if there ever was one.

“Please sign this affidavit so my insurance won’t go up!”

Um, yeah??  Whatever.  The song in which that lyric pops up in is so badass that I don’t even care that it involves insurance premiums.

Both lines come from Metal Church, an almost forgotten thrash gem from the lovely state of Washington.  Long before the advent of grunge, there was Metal Fucking Church.  Dammit.  I really have to say that I had kind of forgotten how badass these guys are and what a large chunk of my high school soundtrack they composed.  There isn’t a clunker in any of their first five albums.  The last time I saw them perform was the summer before my senior year in high school in 1989.  Metal Church opened up for Accept and W.A.S.P. at the old Austin Opry House.  This was the first of many shows where I was way more excited to see the opener than I was about the headliner (even though W.A.S.P. did put on a pretty damn good show this night as I remember…The Headless Children Tour…best album they ever put out).  As a dorky and giddy 17 year old, I remember rushing up front as soon as the doors opened and claimed my spot on the barricade just left of center stage.  It absolutely made my summer when lead singer Mike Howe rushed on stage to start their set and proceeded to give me a serious high five.  I just felt cool.  I probably haven’t felt that cool since.

Metal Church kind of entered the wastelands after releasing 1993 album Hanging in the Balance.  Lead singer Mike Howe called it quits after poor sales.  Metal Church continued on. They released four albums with a new singer, but these albums never captured the magic of their early years.  Last year, Mike Howe re-joined the band and they released the very solid XI album.  Last night’s show was a celebration of the classic era Church with a sprinkling of songs off the new album

It really felt as if these guys never left.  The songs sounded fresh and the band sounded completely on top of their game.  Howe hasn’t lost a damn thing off of his trademark soaring vocals.  Kurt Vanderhoof just solidified himself in my mind as one of the great composers of 80’s era classic thrash riffs.  Plus, he’s aged into a damn near doppelgänger of David Simon, creator of The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Street.  I’d like to think that they are the same person.  It would make sense that the creator of the riffs in Start the Fire, Beyond the Black and The Badlands is the same guy to create characters like Jimmy McNulty, Stringer Bell and Omar.  Sorry, I digress.  All this shit was going on in my head during the show last night.

Anyhoo.  Here are some sample clips.  I hope you enjoy.

Fake Healer

Start the Fire

Beyond the Black

Badlands

 

Here’s the first surprise album for me this year.  Riviere released their debut album, entitled Heal, on January 20 of this year.  I had never heard of these guys until stumbling upon a sample song and was slightly intrigued by what I heard.  I decided to give the album a chance and was extremely happy that I did.

This French quartet has crafted a solid and inspiring slab of progressive post-metal that is in the mold of a mellower Intronaut.  Every song on this album is a standout and this is easily my favorite release of the new year so far.  The songs are crafted with multiple layers of instrumentation and vocal stylings.  This album is just a dense wall of sound all the way through.  It has just made a mark on me and I haven’t been able to stop playing these songs over and over in my head.  I hope to hear more things out of these guys in the future.

4.5 flip flops out of 5

When my fiance and I first started dating, we came up with this question game in an attempt to get to know each other.  One of the questions that came up was, “What band that you haven’t had the chance to see perform live would you like to see?”  My answer was Pain of Salvation.

I have been a been fan of these guys since I first heard the album The Perfect Element, Part I, way back in the year 2000.  They were a perfect progressive metal machine.  Each album they release is something unique all to itself.  They never repeat themselves musically and lyrically, they have put out some of the most emotionally bare and philosophically deep songs produced in the metal realm.  They are just one of the top notch bands going.

Sadly, they just don’t tour the States very much.  They have played the Prog Power fest in Atlanta a couple of times and have had a couple of limited runs in connection with those appearances, but I was never in a position to make an extended road trip to see them play.  Finally, with the release of their new album In the Passing Light of Day earlier this year, they announced another small tour of the States and actually set some dates in Texas.  I managed to get time off from work to make the drive to Houston to finally see them do their thing live.

The only negative thing I can say about this show is that three members of the core of the band, guitarist Johan Hallgren, drummer Johan Langell and keyboardist Fredrik Hermansson, all left the band within the past few years.  All three of these guys were instrumental to the classic Pain of Salvation sound.  The only founding member remaining is vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter, Daniel Gildenlow.  It was just a little bittersweet not being able to see the “classic” version of the band.  The members that he has brought on to fill out the current Pain of Salvation lineup were all capable musicians, but it did feel as though I was seeing a bit of an imitation of the actual band.

As far as the show itself, it was pretty cool.  The setlist focused primarily on the latest album with a sprinkling of classics culled primarily from the Remedy Lane and The Perfect Element albums.  The club maybe had around 100 people at most, so it was an intimate show.  The sound was great and the songs came across very well in the live setting.

So, I can take these guys off of the list.  I think next up on the list of bands I’ve never seen live has to be Amorphis.  And those dudes are coming to San Antonio in April.

Here are some snippets of songs from the show.

A Trace of Blood

Linoleum

Beyond the Pale

Meaningless

Like most people, I think I’m like a lot of folks in that I get easily distracted.  What with having the entire internet at our fingertips at all times, it sometimes becomes a serious obstacle to block out everything and just be in the here and now completely.  Concerts are a way in which I try to get back into that “Be here now!” mentality.  I have always loved concerts because they are a fleeting thing.  It’s a moment in time between the band and the audience and when it’s over, it’s gone forever.

Sometimes it is hard to get completely lost in the music at a show.  Whether it’s trying to avoid the drunken asshole moshing out of control in the pit, trying to block out assholes loudly conversing about random shit during the show or trying to force oneself to not heed the call to document this fleeting event by photos or video (totally guilty of this), it is a struggle to maintain that connection that can develop at a good show.

This connection happened in really awesome way at the Alcest show this past weekend.  Alcest is a little band from France who deals in a very melodic and ambient sort of black metal/post metal hybrid.  Kind of like if Russian Circles had vocals.  For whatever reason, the music just sucked me in from the moment they came out on stage and it just put me in this very zen-like trance.  I just let go of everything that was going on in my head and just let the music take me on a journey.  It was just a magical evening.

I broke my trance on a couple of occasions to get a little bit of video to share with you.  Both of these tracks are from their latest album, Kodama.

Eclosion

Oiseaux de Proie

Soen is the band started by ex-Opeth drummer, Martin Lopez.  Lopez was an instrumental force on Opeth’s strongest period (from My Arms, Your Hearse to Ghost Reveries).  I was a big fan of his drumming style and was really interested when word spread that he was starting his own band.

Lykaia is Soen’s third album to date.  Up to this point, Soen has mainly been seen as a Tool knockoff.  Soen’s vocalist, Joel Ekelof, conjures to mind a mixture of Maynard from Tool and Mariusz Duda from Riverside.  Very soft and melodic in his delivery.  Musically, it is straight up Tool style rhythms.  If anything else, Soen can be used as an effective salve for any DT’s you may have developed while waiting for a new Tool album to drop.

Lykaia sees the band attempting to move away from the Tool comparisons a bit, but overall it is an uneven delivery and an uneventful album.  Album openers Sectarian and Orison both come galloping out of the gate, but the remainder of the album is not able to capitalize on the strong start and just sort of meanders without much direction.  It remains even more disappointing in light of the talent of the musicians involved.  I would hope that these guys would be able to harness a little more originality going forward.

2.5 flip flops out of 5

Growing up, The Scorpions were a fairly big band, but they weren’t really among my favorites.  They always seemed a little more on the pop metal side of things.  their 80s output was decent, but it never really did a whole lot for me.  That was until I hit college and one of my friends turned me onto their early 70s era albums.

70s era Scorpions were a psychedelic influenced, krautrock machine.  The driving force of these early albums was a man named Uli Jon Roth.  Roth was a worshiper at the altar of Hendrix and you can hear this influence all over the four studio albums on which Roth was lead guitarist.

Since it was much later in life that I was exposed to these albums (plus the fact that I was 7 or 8 when Roth left the band), I never got to see Roth play live and never got to hear some of these Scorpions classics live.  Until this past Saturday, that is.

I have to say that this show was a bit bittersweet.  Roth was amazing.  At 62, his guitar playing is as fluid and cutting as they sound on the albums he played on nearly 40 years ago.  It was worth the drive to San Antonio just to hear some of his solos.  It’s always cool to see a master playing up close in an intimate setting.

The drawback on this show was really the lead singer he brought.  God bless him, he was giving it his all, but his high pitch vocal style was just way over the top and just overwhelmed the songs.  You have to understand this is basically karaoke at this point and people are really wanting to hear Klaus Meine sing these songs.  Ideally, you would hope the singer would do his best to compliment the original.  There were moments on the slower songs were the guy did an admirable attempt, but overall, there were just too many times when he went above and beyond with the high pitch wailings.  It just made these songs sound a little too saccharine and sanitized for my tastes.

Here are some highlights:

Dark Lady

In Trance (I apologize for focusing issues)

Sail of Charon (Once again, focusing issues)

This crossover punk/thrash outfit from Richmond, VA kind of started as a silly side project but is honestly becoming a genuine band to be reckoned with.  Composed of the vocalist and bassist from Municipal Waste along with members of Darkest Hour, these guys set out to re-capture the magical irreverent madness of Anthrax offshoot, Stormtroopers of Death.  I don’t think the current album reaches the pinnacle of the S.O.D. material, but it is a rockin’ good time nonetheless.

Foresta’s vocal style is a constant stream of angry angst that rarely varies in its annoyance with everyday bullshit.  In fact, all I could think while listening to this thing is that it is more of an Annoyance With the Machine rather than a full on Rage Against the Machine.  Song titles such as “Fuck the Neighbors”, “Megachurch”, “Bleed the Fifth” and “Grim Business” give the listener a sense of where the frustrations fueling the album are coming from.

Musically, there aren’t many surprises.  This is aggressive and catchy trash that is concise in its attack.  Song lengths range from a few second to the magnum opus of “Dead With My Friends” clocking in at just over 3 minutes.  The whole album consists of 18 songs, but it is over in a cathartic rush of tongue-in-cheek humor and outrage before the listener can get exhausted.

Ultimately, this is a live band more than a studio band.  See these guys live and expect a sweaty hyper-kinetic mosh fest.  Anger and frustration may fuel this beast, but in the end, it’s all about a rockin’ good time.  These guys deliver.

3.5 flip flops out of 5

Another week and another solid release by an underground death metal band.

It seems like every metal band is somehow required to either have an album or at least one song that centers on the Crusades.  Italy’s Hour of Penance steps up to the plate this time with Cast the First Stone.  Somehow the violent clashes between the Christians and Muslims over the Holy Land just inspires slabs of pounding metal tunes.  Go figure.

The album at hand starts very strong, but unfortunately, is not able to sustain the momentum throughout the entire journey.  First two tracks, XXI Century Imperial Crusade and the title track, are awesome displays of death metal guitars just furiously smashing the listener’s face.  These first few songs are classic examples of why I love listening to death metal: aggression, technical proficiency and an all out sonic pummeling.  It’s just unfortunate that the second half of the album just can’t compete with the first few songs on the album.  There’s nothing wrong with the latter songs, but they just don’t hold anything special as compared to the start of the album.  We could have had an amazing album had the two sides were of equal intensity and quality.  That being said, the first part of the album is strong enough to make this album a keeper overall.

It is nice to see the countries of southern Europe starting to consistently produce more and more metal bands.  The quality coming out of Italy and France is starting to rival their neighbors to the north, which has traditionally been the stronghold for European metal.

3 flip flops out of 4

What is it with metal bands and the letter “K”?  Does the letter “K” make things more evil sounding?  More ominous?  More kool?

Katatonia, Kataklysm, Kadavar, Kamelot, and our featured band today, Kreator!

So, it seems as though thrash bands love to group themselves together.  In the U.S., you have the Big 4 (Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax) and the Second 4 (Testament, Exodus, Death Angel and Overkill).  Germany decided they wanted to be kool with their own little thrash club that is known as the Teutonic 4 (Kreator, Destruction, Sodom and Tankard).  Kreator is the heavyweight of the German trash-masters; the German Metallica, if you will.

This new album definitely comes across as a response to the near total chaotic shitstorm that has enveloped the Western world over the past few months.  It is an angry, cautionary screed about totalitarianism.  Song titles such as World War Now, Hail to the Hordes, Totalitarian Terror and the title track give a pretty good preview of what to expect lyrically.  I really feel like I need to send a copy of this to the Trump White House as a house warming gift to the Comb-Over-in-Chief.  Chief songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Mille Petrozza rips razor sharp riff over razor sharp riff throughout this entire album.  This is not a lazy Sunday afternoon type of album.  This is slamming a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night rowdy metal fest.

3 flip flops out of 4

Guitarist albums are hit and miss in my opinion.  In my early years, I was really into guys who could just shred ala Yngwie Malmsteen.  It’s always impressive to hear a guy who is technical master of his instrument, but unless there is a solid song foundation underlying the wankery, it tends to get a bit boring.  As I’ve gotten older, shredding for shredding’s sake just doesn’t hold the appeal that it did in my younger years.

Keith Merrow is a dude from Portland, Oregon, who started his career as a dude just posting songs on the internet.  He is definitely of the shred mode and he started making a name for himself within the metal community with his chops.  A couple of years ago, he got together with Nevermore’s Jeff Loomis and Cannibal Corpse’s Alex Webster to create the instrumental band Conquering Dystopia.  It was a solid release, but still tending to tread into the wankery mode of things and ultimately wasn’t able to transcend into level of Great Album.

This year, Merrow has joined forces with Wes Hauch of Black Crown Initiate (formerly The Faceless).  Hauch is a well-respected guitarist in the technical death metal world.  He seems to focus his energies less on flashy fast techniques and does a good job at focusing more on textures and layers.  The mesh between the two men results in a very impressive album.  It meshes the technical flash along with a more subdued song structure that provides a solid foundation for all of the songs on the album.  I had expected something along the lines of Conquering Dystopia, Part II, but Alluvial is a completely different beast.  One that, in my opinion, that surpasses the prior project with a more star-studded cast.

3.5 flip flops out of 4