Damn, that album cover just snaps. The colors, the design. Man, that is just a thing of beauty.
So, the In Mourning dudes are back with a new album after a three year wait. Their latest slab of wax really feels like something for people who are longing for that early Opeth death metal sound. This album reminds me in many respects of the sound and structure from Opeth’s Ghost Reveries era. Good combination of death and clean vocals. Good mixture of complex aggressive melodic death metal compositions with quieter acoustic passages. Album opener Black Storm may be one of the stronger songs to come out in 2019. Such an ambitious riff and song structure. This is another of those bands that I feel should be much bigger than they actually are. This is just a really good representation of what Scandinavian melodic death metal should sound like.
So, 2019 finds us without a Fates Warning album, but we did get an Arch/Matheos album earlier in the year and now Ray Alder, the longtime voice of Fates Warning, is out with his first proper solo album. So, that’s a good couple of tide-me-over snacks from the Fates camp this year. Alder’s album features a good selection of songs that could all easily be found on a Fates Warning album. It particularly reminds me of the Inside Out era of Fates. So, if you’re a fan of that version of Fates, then you’ll probably dig this one. It’s very well produced and is just a very clean prog metal album.
I’d probably label most of this album as Fates Warning-Lite. Not in the sense that these songs are lightweight. No, there’s a shitload of substance on this one, but the vibe is not nearly as intense as a Fates release. This feels more laid back and more personal in tone for Ray. Alder’s vocals are in fine fashion as usual on this album and are obviously the focal point of this album. He’s just got one of the more recognizable croons in the prog metal world. His vocal style is maturing nicely as he ages. Gone are the high dog-whistle high pitch notes from his early Fates days, but in their place is a more confident delivery that just feels more warm and personal than the over-the-top efforts of old. I dig it. This is just a solid album all the way through.
I wanna watch the world burn for what it’s done. I wanna watch the world burn for what we’ve become.
Yep, Refused are back. And they are fucking pissed. It’s feels right that I write this review today because I’ve been lamenting for some time now that the world needs bands like Rage Against the Machine to foment dissent and it looks like those guys are reuniting for some shows in 2020. Since RATM broke up, Refused has kind of been that band taking the mantle of champion of the working class. In that vein, there is a lot to be fucking pissed off about in 2019 and Refused are here to get in your fucking face about it.
First couple of passes on this album and I wasn’t entirely sure it quite measured up to their first post-reunion release, Freedom. That album felt so immediate and the way it was recorded just resulted in a clean sound that slammed the guitar riffs and Dennis’ screeds right in your face. The new album sounds a little more subdued on the sound and on the construction of the riffs. However, the anger and frustration just seeps out of the lyrics in every song on this album. After my third listen of the record, I think I started to get this one a little more and I honestly think it’s fucking brilliant. It’s almost as if the instrumentation of the band is almost mixed a bit back in order to showcase the vocals and the message the band is trying to impart. It’s heavier lyrically than musically is what I’m trying to say.
This is an important album for 2019 and for carrying forth into 2020.
Sidenote: I still consider these guys metal instead of punk. Punks don’t write guitar riffs like this. Come at me.
For the Dead Travel Fast feels like a return to form for Kadavar, albeit one that doesn’t entirely succeed on all fronts. Kadavar is a band that, at their best, channels the early masters of heavy metal such as Sabbath with a bit of a psychedelic sheen. Their first couple of albums were focused and tight and the songs just crackled out of the speakers as soon as you put the album on. They were one of the best of the great rabble of bands employing a retro sound. Their last two albums, Berlin and Rough Times, saw the band employing a bit of a cleaner and an almost more fashionable angle on their original sound. To me, these albums felt a bit like a band caught in a rut and attempting to break new ground. However, the direction they took things just didn’t quite leave the mark as their earlier material did.
The new album feels like they have decided to embrace the dirtier and grittier sound of the first couple of albums. Overall, there are two to three terrific songs on here; two to three mediocre songs and a couple of filler tracks. It’s not an entirely successful album overall, but I like the direction that the band has embraced on here. The Devil’s Master and Evil Forces are probably the two strongest tracks on here. I especially love the adventurous vocals stylings contained on Evil Forces. Frontman Lupus decides to really push his vocals into the seriously high-pitched range and it doesn’t feel like he is entirely successful at his attempt. My first reaction on hearing was, “Holy shit! He’s actually going there.” But even though it doesn’t quite work on a pure technical level, it is still awesome to hear him push his vocals to their absolute limit. The resulting effort may not be of Dickinson-type quality, but it still ends up being a pretty fucking cool part of the song. I find myself cheering for him every time that part of the song comes up. Balls to you for having the stones to try it.
Dysrhthmia is a three piece instrumental metal band that plies a very free-form sort of progressive post-metal sound. They are composed of Kevin Hufnagel on guitar, Colin Marston on bass and Jeff Eber on drums. Hufnagel and Marston are also involved in a variety of other bands and project and are probably most well-known as being a part of the reformed Gorguts.
The album at hand starts out pretty straightforward on the first couple of tracks. These tracks kind of remind me of a lot of instrumental type metal in that they are pretty emblematic of technical prowess more than anything. However, around track three, this album really starts to get interesting. The rhythms start to get a little more convoluted and the guitar/bass interplay really goes in some non-traditional and creative ways. It feels very much like controlled chaos where it is uncertain as to whether the proceedings are going to careen out of control at some point.
Instrumental albums are always kind of hit and miss. It all depends of the players’ ability to translate emotion and ideas via the music alone without the reliance on vocals. The thing that I always look like is whether or not the music tells a story or whether it is just a platform to show off technical chops. This album has a bit of both because all three players really go off the charts as far as technical chops, but they manage to find the sweet spot in creating enough engaging creative landscapes to draw the listener in on a majority of the tracks. All in all, this is a fairly fun ride.
I’m not entirely sure if this album cover art was done by the same guy who does the Tomb Mold albums, but it looks awfully similar in style. I guess I could Google it to find out, but I’m just feeling lazy today. Fuck it, I’m just going to assume it’s the same dude.
So, these guys describe themselves as Arizona Caveman Music. And I don’t think I could come up with a better description for these guys. It’s a giant hairy and manly mess of an album. I’ve been a big fan of guitarist Nate Garrett’s other band, Spirit Adrift, for a while now and it’s cool to see both bands putting out new material here in 2019.
There’s nothing pretty to behold on this album. It’s chunky. It’s grinding. It’s a mid-tempo slasher of just really quality death metal. Nothing on here is going to surprise too much, but for those of you who are into this kind of sound, the album will embrace you like a warm blanket.
I’m just going to throw this out there into the web as a tour idea: Power Trip, Gatecreeper and Tomb Mold. I think all these bands would pair nicely. Just a thought. If you know anyone with some pull, see what you can do to make that happen.
I guess you could call this one metal adjacent. Not really metal at all, but is in more of a pop prog sort of vein. This is album number three (Third Degree, get it?) for this seeming side-project-now-turned-into-full-band band. You prog nerds in the crowd are already in the know, but for the uninitiated this is the Mike Portnoy (drums, ex-Dream Theater), Neal Morse (keyboards/vocals, ex-Spock’s Beard), Steve Morse (guitar-Deep Purple/Dixie Dregs), Dave LaRue (bass, Dixie Dregs) and Casey McPherson (vocals, Alpha Rev) project that has attempted to come up with a pop palatable manner in presenting prog music to the masses.
Their first two albums were kind of hit and miss with me. If I’m being totally honest, they were more miss than hit. There were decent songs on both releases, but the project didn’t really seem to gel the individual parts all that well. Maybe it’s my metal background giving me a bit of bias, but the low man on the totem pole has always been lead vocalist McPherson. His warbly indie pop croon just has never quite won me over and it has just lent a coat of saccharine sweetness over-top of the music that kind of makes the whole enterprise seem more like poodle rock than anything else.
So, it’s with that background that I come into album number three. I’m feeling a bit jaded with these guys and my expectations were pretty low. Well, consider me extremely surprised and impressed with this latest effort. Finally, it feels like all of the component parts have come together and have finally resulted in a well-rounded album. Things are still on the light side of things musically. Not a lot of power chords on this thing. But the songwriting is smart and catchy. It feels like the ultimate goal of this project has finally been realized. Steve Morse’s guitar work is the MVP on the album and I think McPherson’s vocals has to earn Most Improved. This is just a smart set of prog songs. If that’s your thing, you might think about picking this one up.
Early Halloween present for you, this one. This is a completely relentless gore splatterfest that doesn’t let up from the first note until the last. Luckily for you, this one clocks in at just under 30 minutes and a total of 15 songs. You can pretty much do the math on how long each song is.
In a way, it feels like this album is a direct response to Exhumed’s last album, Death Revenge. The guys actually crafted a full on concept record based on true events surrounding some grave robbers and strange experiments. It was still brutal, but it felt pretty ambitious for a gore-obsessed death metal band. This latest album is just not fucking around at all with the niceties. The album art is a beautiful homage to old underground slasher films on VHS tapes complete with the “Please Be Kind & Rewind” sticker on the album cover. Much like your typical slasher film, each cut is short and to the point: Blood, Guts, Mayhem and Carnage. Song titles include, “Ravenous Cadavars”, Utter Mutilation of Your Corpse”, Naked, Screaming & Covered in Blood” and “Rabid”. It honestly plays out like a Municipal Waste album, but trading out a celebration of keggers for one of mass murder.
Hey, if goregrind is your jam, this is going to be right up your alley. If not, it’s probably not going to do much for you. At any rate, this is the perfect soundtrack for your upcoming Halloween party.
This album got me thinking about institutions. Not the kind they put you in when you aren’t quit right in the head. No, I’m thinking about bands that are seen as institutions. What qualifies a band as an institution? Is it simply existing for a really long time? Is it the quality and groundbreaking nature of their material? Is it the influence they have had on future bands going forward? I think it’s probably a little bit of all of those things that result in a band becoming an institution.
Now, some bands, such as The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Elvis, Led Zeppelin, etc., become institutions for music as a whole. Their influence spreads far and wide across all genres of music and they just become ubiquitous in the consciousness of everyone. Other bands, like the one we will be discussing shortly, are institutions on a more limited basis, but I still feel have earned the institution moniker nonetheless.
Within the realm of melodic Scandinavian death metal, Insomnium is a fucking institution. Over the course of their now eighth studio release, they have pretty much perfected the framework by which all other melodic death metal bands can be measured. Sure, there have been many bands in this genre over the years and Insomnium can’t claim to have come up with the blueprint for this particular sub-genre, but I feel like the quality of their collective work over the years stands head and shoulders above most the bands working in this field. They have yet to produce a stinker of an album.
This latest platter sees the band not stretching the limits of their abilities all that much. After their last album provided us with an album consisting of a single track, Heart Like a Grave isn’t quite as ambitious. It feels as if the band just decided to put together some solid tracks. This album sees the band adding a third guitarist to the mix and also finds the band continuing to explore the use of clean vocals to mix it up with Niilo Sevanen’s death growl. It doesn’t feel mailed in by any stretch, but it doesn’t quite reach the level of the more memorable from their past efforts. Good, but not great is kind of where I come down on this one.
One of the things I love about metal is that there are just so many bands out there producing quality material. It never ceases to amaze me when new bands come out of the woodwork and just sound like a completely polished act. It’s as if they have been recording for years instead of just putting out their first or second albums. Maybe the advances in technology helps in this regard, but I still believe that the talent pool in the metal world is just really deep and rich.
Case in point: Vintersea. I didn’t know they existed prior to a couple of weeks ago. Now, I am a big fan. These guys hail from Oregon and Illuminated is their first proper record label release (they also have one independently released album that I will be hunting down here shortly). Their sound is in the melodic death metal realm with touches of prog influences scattered throughout their songs. They have a female vocalist that handles both the clean and death vocal styles. In a certain way (and I’m sure I’m probably pigeonholing their sound because of the female vocalist), they remind me a lot of Houston’s Oceans of Slumber in style. The key distinctions between the two bands is that Vintersea almost has more of a sultry quality to their songs and don’t veer into the doom territory like Oceans of Slumber do. There is almost a sci-fi sort of quality to the songs of Vintersea. Overall, this is album is very strong all the way through with only one or two missteps along the way. Definitely another band to add to the pile of newer bands to key an eye on going forward.
DISPATCHES FROM THE VOID 