Clutch come rumbling on down the highway once again with a load of straight-ahead rockers. This is album number 12 for the Maryland rockers and they honestly couldn’t have come up with a more Clutch-like album title. Clutch is one of those amazing bands that has managed a career this long with the same four group of dudes for their entire recording history. It’s an impressive feat.
This album is decent, but isn’t going to end up in the pantheon of great Clutch albums. I think the biggest problem on here is the presence of too much fat. The album clocks in at a total of 15 songs and, really, it could have easily been carved down to a choicer cut of meat with only 10 of them.
Fuzzy guitars, funky bass lines, solid backbone of drums (and cowbell) and Neil Fallon’s almost conversational style of vocals. Seriously, a good chunk of what makes Clutch such an enjoyable band is the ability of Fallon to pen songs that come across more like short stories than anything else. He creates these little capsules of misadventures and braggadocio. They’re fun. Hell, one of the tracks on the new album, Hot Bottom Feeder, is basically Fallon reciting how to properly make Maryland style crab cakes. And it works. The tune will get stuck in your head and you’ll want to head to the kitchen to whip up some cakes. Win-win. Fuck off, Rachel Ray.
Not one of the best, but still worth your time. Weaponized funk, indeed.
It feels like if you’re going to jump on the retro/psychedelic wave that has been going on in the metal underworld, you’re going to have to do something different to distinguish yourselves from just another run-of-the-mill tribute-type bands versus a band with something fresh to bring to the genre. A lot of bands just sound like Sabbath retreads. A lot of these bands are cool at first blush, but the impact doesn’t last. There’s zero staying power in just recycling old riffs. I mean, if I want to listen to Master of Realty, I’ll go grab the damn thing off the shelf and put it on.
So, where does The Vintage Caravan fit into the scheme of things? As you can probably tell, I’m getting to a point where I’m not easily impressed with bands trading in this particular movement. And after the first listen, I have to be honest that I was left feeling like these guys were just another part of the great rabble of second-comers. Especially after track one, Set Your Sights. The guitar riff kicks in on this track and I’m immediately thinking this sounds exactly like Kadavar. It’s cool and catchy, but it seems like it is just going to fall into the same recycled riffs that have been done a hundred times before.
However, give this one some time. On pass number two, I started to see that there is a different groove going on with The Vintage Caravan. Maybe it’s because these guys are from Iceland. Maybe it’s because these guys are really young. But, they’ve managed to take that retro-sound and make it into something of their own. I’m hearing influenced of old Thin Lizzy and maybe a little Grand Funk Railroad throughout. Especially some of their soulful numbers. Seriously, listen to the last track on the album, Tune Out, and tell me the beginning part of the song doesn’t remind you of something off of Nightlife. I don’t know. Overall, this still isn’t breaking any new ground, but it has enough of its own style to keep the songs interesting.
Man, that kid is about to get lit the fuck up! It’s just happenstance that I’m reviewing an album with this cover on the day Florence goes tearing into the Carolinas.
So, what do we have on the insides of this awesome album cover? Ummm…it’s kind of hard to pin down. These guys are from Australia and seem to be in that same sort of modern metal vein where the likes of TesseracT, Coheed and Cambrian and The Contortionist dwell. The music is not metal in the traditional sense. I don’t see Maiden or Priest being touchstones for these guys’ inspiration. The music is technically proficient pop metal and it is very clean in its production. Actually, the production is almost anti-septic in its presentation. This is the exactly opposite sound of the fuzzy doom of Sleep and Electric Wizard. Overtop of this modern sound are the very clean and highly emotive vocals of Ben Rechter, who kind of reminds me of a crossover of Claudio Sanchez of Coheed and Cambria and Daniel Gildenlow of Pain of Salvation.
Overall, this album just didn’t do a whole lot for me. I’m honestly not sure I’m the best demographic for these guys. I just kept hoping that they would cut things loose a little more than they do. The sound is just so conceptualized and clean that it just doesn’t feel dangerous or edgy in any form. Metal really needs that aspect, in my opinion. However, this is just one middle-aged, burned-out metalhead’s viewpoint. As I said, I’m not really sure the dudes in Circles are really targeting dudes like me as their core audience. At any rate, these dudes are talented musicians. It’s just not really my cup of tea. If you’re into any of the bands listed above, you’ll probably dig the hell out of this thing.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll discover a theme running through a lot of my screeds. This is of the bands that just consistently churn out quality product, but still have a hard time gaining the type of recognition I feel they deserve. These are bands that have been at it for years, have multiple solid albums and, while they tend to have loyal fan bases, they just don’t seem to breakthrough to the mainstream metal fans. It’s rare to see these bands headline a tour and they usually end up in the third or fourth slot on a major touring bill. Omnium Gatherum are the epitome of this type of band. And it’s why I love them and will always root for them harder than I do for some more established bands.
These guys are a death metal group from Finland. They don’t go for the overly technical side of death metal, but ply their trade in that more epic style of metal. You can tell they are fans of Maiden, Priest, and Dio. Kind of in the same tradition of Amon Amarth, with less Viking references. Their sound is grand and it just belongs on a big stage. I guarantee that you are going to find yourself doing air guitar poses.
The new album is exactly what you would expect from the Omnium guys. It sounds a bit like the keyboards are highlighted a little more than on past releases. Vocalist Jukka Pelkonen is reminding me more and more of Johan Hegg from Amon Amarth. The songs are catchy. The sound is dynamic and large. This one is just itching to be unleashed live. Luckily, they will be heading around the States next month. Sadly, they will be the opening slot for Moonspell, Amorphis and Dark Tranquility. Make sure you get there early and go check these guys out.
In some respects, this is the matching album for Model I and II of Alice in Chains. Model I, the Staley years, saw three full length albums and two very successful EPs. With the release of Rainier Fog, we have arrived at the third full length release for Model II Alice in Chains, the DuVall years.
I don’t know where you fall on the dividing line of old or new Alice. I was a fan of the Staley Alice years, but I can’t say that I was a rabid fan. Their material from this time was fairly groundbreaking with them being one of the forefront bands of the Seattle grunge scene. Their music from this era was challenging and abrasive. It was a lot less accessible that Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I remember when Dirt came out and I really didn’t care for it that much. It was just so dark and dense. It’s one of those albums that I go back to from time to time and realize what a masterpiece it really is. Definitely a very forward thinking band. It’s interesting to ponder where Alice in Chains would be today in Staley had lived. Would they be the band they are today with DuVall fronting them or would they have morphed into something completely different?
I think the fact that I wasn’t a monstrously huge Alice fan during their initial run made it easier for me to accept William DuVall stepping into the shoes of Staley. It also helps that DuVall didn’t try to cop Staley’s vocal style. He’s got some similarities, but he has really made the position his own and it has helped Model II Alice mold itself into a separate entity from Staley’s version of Alice. Model II doesn’t sound as dangerous as Model I did. It’s still dark, but it is coming at the darkness from the other side of the tunnel. It’s got a more mature outlook of someone who has been through the shit and managed to pull themselves out of it. I honestly thought that the first two albums put out with DuVall were damn fine records. They were fresh sounding and captured a band finding a new identity seven years after Staley’s death.
The new album finds the band still mining the sound that they have been going for during the DuVall years. Alice these days honestly feels more in line with Jerry Cantrell’s solo material than with the older Alice albums. The new album is one of those that starts out really strong, but doesn’t have the energy to make it all the way through. Side A is definitely stronger than Side B. But, the strong parts are still really good. Cantrell can still write a dirty riff as well as anyone. The harmonizing between DuVall and Cantrell just works so well.
Overall, this is probably the weakest of the DuVall era albums. But that’s not a real big criticism. It’s still a strong album and is worthy of your time. I’m just happy that they have managed to find new life for this band. It keeps the Staley era legacy going and creates a new one going forward with DuVall.
George Lynch seems like a really busy dude these days. The former 80s hotshot guitarist has really crafted an interesting post-Dokken career. He’s had his main outlet with Lynch Mob which is still firmly planted in his guitar driven 80s style metal. He’s experimented on several solo releases of various styles to varying degrees of success. Most recently, he’s created side projects KXM (with Doug Pinnick of King’s X and Ray Luzier of Korn…really good…you should check out both albums) and Sweet and Lynch (collaboration with Styper’s frontman Michael Sweet). Continuing this trend of cranking out project after project sees Mr. Scary joining forces with Living Colour’s vocalist Corey Glover for Ultraphonix.
So, where does this new project see our aging guitar hero go? Well, it ain’t Back For the Attack. And that’s probably a good thing in 2018. Ultraphonix is more of a mature soulful rocker. The songs on here are capable and there are definitely some attempts at pushing the envelope of creativity, but nothing on here is really going to make you want to engage in some serious rocking out. They work in some funk, some soul, some classic rock, a dash of metal. It’s kind of all over the place. The performances are all solid. Glover’s vocals are powerful as they ever were. Dude just has a serious set of pipes. The rhythm section of Pancho Tomaselli and Chris Moore provide a solid foundation from which Lynch can twiddle to his heart’s content overtop.
I hate to do this, but it is hard not to compare this new project to Lynch’s KXM project. As decent as this new record is, it just doesn’t quite match up to the material produced from the KXM sessions. I may be biased because I’m a huge King’s X homer and the KXM albums sound kind of like King’s X with Lynch on guitar. I think I wish that Ultraphonix had a little more punch to its sound. We’ll see if this ends up being just a one-off project or if they mine this collaboration further.
This album seems tailor-made for my little blog-o-rama. I feel like me and the dudes in The Spirit share some weird mental bridge when it comes to coming up with titles for things. I’m not exactly sure that is a positive development for the dudes in The Spirit or not. If I had any funding at all behind my blog, this would be the perfect tour to sponsor. Dispatches From the Void bring you the 2018 Sounds From the Vortex Tour. Cool, huh?
I wish I could tell you that I know much about these guys. They are a blackened death metal band from Germany. That’s really all I can tell you. I don’t even know the dudes in the band’s names. The liner notes list them at MT, AK, AT and MS. Mysterious shit, indeed.
At any rate, we have a pretty cool little record that would be perfect for fans of Witchery or Tribulation. Rather than a straight ahead black or death metal sound, The Spirit gives their spin on the genre a bit of a rock n’ roll sort of feel. Sure, there’s the tremolo picking and the blackened shrieks, but this thing has some groove and melody to it. In this way, I think it gives the material a little more personality than a lot of the albums coming out of this genre today. This is one of those bands to keep an eye on.
Disclaimer: This one may get away from me a bit. I want to be fair to the band and album at hand, but I also want to touch on how this album encapsulates an issue that inflicts a good deal of metal, especially that which comes from the death metal realm. Thanks for your indulgence on this issue.
Let’s start off with the album at hand and then we can get into the larger issues it presents. Soreption is a technical death metal band from Sweden. This album overall fits right in line with a lot of the other bands trading in this type of death metal today. The band is tight. They are professional. They are proficient and masters of their instruments. The complexity and the arrangements of the songs are impressive. If it sounds like there is a “but…” coming, well, that’s because there is. As impressive as the individual parts of Soreption are and as tight as the performances are on this album, the songs just aren’t there. That’s harsh, I know, but that’s just the honest impression I got after listening to this one a couple of times through. Everything on here just seemed to run together once I got a few songs in. Right now, I can’t honestly recollect anything specific from the album. Like, there’s not a song on here that really made me want to go, “Damn, I can’t wait to jam that one again.” I don’t know. I could be completely missing the boat, but it really feels like a forest-for-the-trees sort of album. The individual parts are cool, but the cohesive project feels lacking.
To my larger point mentioned at the beginning: I find myself feeling this way a lot from bands in the technical death metal sub-genre. I think the focus on technical skill gets in the way of crafting well-written songs. It’s a really fine balance to blend crazy time signature changes and super charged solos with finding a hook, melody or riff that is the foundation of any good song. There’s got to be that solid foundation upon which everything else gets built. I think you can take this same issue back to the mid-80s when dudes like Yngwie Malmsteen were coming out the woodwork. Yngwie was a hell of a talented player. The first time I heard Rising Force I was blown away by dude’s chops. But after a while, the flash of his solos wore off once you realized that dude couldn’t write a decent song or riff. I think it’s evident in the fact that Yngwie’s career basically stalled after the late-80s. He had one trick and once the initial hoopla died down, there was not much substance upon which he could rely. He was also a bit of a egomaniacal prick. So, that didn’t help much either. Compare Yngwie’s career to that of AC/DC. No one is going to characterize AC/DC as a technical powerhouse. Shit, everyone always jokes that every album they put out is basically the same album. But, goddamn, can we acknowlege that they could write a fucking riff that would just get stuck in your head and never leave. They also paired this riff writing genius with a healthy dose of sass and blue-collar personality. They were real and they had a rock solid foundation that has stood for years. Go put on TNT or Back in Black or Dirty Deeds or Jailbreak. It’s the fucking riffs, man. It’s the fucking riffs.
I think that’s the main point I’m trying to make to bands like Soreption and other bands who, in my opinion, focus way too much on the technical side of things. Pull it back a bit. You can still blow us away with solos and double-bass pummeling, but try to integrate the flash more in a way that furthers the impact of the songs rather than just trying to outdo the other bands in your genre. You guys can do it. You have the talent. Just harness your creative powers and instead of creating what is ultimately an album that is going to get lost in the rabble of all the other technical death metal releases this year and create something that has staying power. I believe in you guys!
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Dude, he’s hanging out in New Jersey shredding the hell out of a guitar. That’s where.
If you’re not familiar with the name Michael Romeo, you’re probably not a prog metal fan. He has been the driving force and lead guitarist for legendary prog metal group Symphony X since the mid-1990s. This dude is really everything Yngwie Malmsteen wants to be when he finally grows up. He’s got the flash. He’s got the technical skill. He knows how to construct a proper crunchy metal riff. He actually knows how to compose a well-crafted song. And he has luxuriously flowing locks to boot.
Since Symphony X is on a bit of a break, Mr. Romeo has delivered his first proper solo album. Honestly, this really sounds like it could have been released as a Symphony X album. It’s the same sort of ambitious sort of prog metal that his main gig is known for. It really doesn’t stray very far from that template. The only downside is not having Symphony X’s vocalist Russell Allen singing on these tracks. Rick Castellano does a nice job of things on the mic, but since the songs sound so close to Symphony X, it’s hard not to imagine how they would sound with Allen at the helm instead.
All in all, this is a solid if somewhat uninspired album. It has some really nice parts, but I would have liked to see Romeo push himself a bit more. Try some new things that we don’t see you already do in your main gig. It’s not really a complaint on the quality of the tracks presented. It’s just that the album feels a bit like a missed opportunity to explore some different areas than we are used to hearing from Romeo.
Redemption is a full-time band that has, in an odd way, always felt like a side-project. This is a prog-metal project that has always been the brain child of guitarist Nick van Dyk. The side-project feel mainly comes from their employing Fates Warning’s vocalist Ray Alder on the majority of their releases. Since Fates was always Alder’s main gig, Redemption always felt as if it was in runner-up position. This feeling continues on to this latest Redemption release that sees the departure of Alder from the frontman position and being replaced by Evergrey’s Tom Englund. Since Englund isn’t giving up his main gig in Evergrey, it still feels as if Redemption is simply having placeholders step in to provide the vocals.
At any rate, don’t let the revolving place at the microphone color your view of this album. The core of the band (van Dyk, bassist Sean Andrews and drummer Chris Quirarte) are all back and are once again cranking out some of the most unheralded prog metal tracks out there. This band rightfully belongs up there with the Dream Theaters and Fates Warnings of the metal world.
This band has seen a lot of hardship and personal struggles over the years. Guitarist Bennie Versailles suffered an aneurysm in 2014. He is still listed as a current member of the band, but hasn’t recovered sufficiently to make any contributions since that time. Lead dude, van Dyk, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in 2008. He is now cancer free. These ordeals colored much of the last two Redemption releases, This Mortal Coil and The Art of Loss. The latest album sees the band lightening its collective load a bit. Things aren’t exactly cheerful, as Redemption has always been a bit on the melancholic side, but there is light at the end of the tunnel on this one. The music also just pops a bit more on this one than the past two albums. It was almost as if the heavy subject matter of the past albums weighed down the music as well. I have a feeling that the addition of England as the new vocalist provided a change of scenery for the band and had the added impact of pushing this album forward and, in my opinion, into one of Redemption’s better efforts.
DISPATCHES FROM THE VOID 