What’s in a name? It’s an age old question and one that often applies to bands. THE SOULLESS from the UK have a cool name indeed, and are about to drop a new album. They may seem relatively new to the game with one other album to their credit. However, they are formerly known as IGNOMINIOUS INCARCERATAION. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue or sound as badass as THE SOULLESS. Now word comes down that Earache records has been served with legal papers by another band in Ohio claiming to own that name. Who knows what that means for these guys going forward, but one thing is certain: their new album is a solid follow-up.
There are a lot of people who will tell you metalcore has seen its day and we should stick a fork in it. THE SOULLESS play an unrelenting style of metalcore that owes as much to old-school ALL THAT REMAINS and UNEARTH as it does their countrymen in BRING ME THE HORIZON. The opening track “Unaltered” is killer. Chugging riffs, ferocious beats and raging vocals all in the mix. Andy Wardle’s brutal delivery has the urgency of a Jamey Jasta and the gravel in the throat of a Vincent Bennett (THE ACACIA STRAIN). To his credit he leaves all the melody parts to the guitarists. His voice sits nicely in the pocket of chaos the band creates and shines as a result. Second cut “The Path” opens with some dizzying riffage on the level of some of the newer techie-death bands, but then down shifts into a straight ahead thrash style. This band is not afraid to mix it up musically, occasionally adding some blast beats and death-core breakdowns. Guitarists Steve Brown and Kristan Dawson do a nice job of intertwining their parts together. “Earthbound” is another over the top track with some more strong playing by Dan Wilding behind the kit and a sick string-skipping lick in the verse that knocked me over. After a neat piano interlude called “13th Morning” comes “New Perspective”, which might be the strongest track here. The song is a brooding, bruising tune with all of the aggro rage the kids these day go wild for. Bassist Chris Ball is solid, but doesn’t stand too out much other than providing the low end. Other choice cuts are “Clones”, “Unite Us” and Without Heart”. Most of the record follows suit with some similar sounding tracks of varying degrees and feels a little formulaic on repeated listens. On the plus side, it’s a fun listen and these songs will translate well live. At about thirty minutes which seems to be the order of the day lately. Every band out there can learn a lesson from this. As much as I love pretentious prog wankerey, sometimes it’s good to keep it short and to the point!
Another short player has landed on my desk (or in my iTunes as it would be). The new EP from Massachusetts metallers WITHIN THE RUINS is out and it seems like these guys have put out about a release a year since arriving on the scene. The EP has been released in celebration of the band being the final act added on this years installment of The Summer Slaughter Tour. It is vital for bands to always hone their craft and in terms of keeping a fan base energized, this is a great strategy too. Just a year after Invade came out the band has released two new songs along with two covers. “Controller” is just an over the top assault of technical death metal. The band tends to have two speeds: overdrive for their blastbeats and riffer madness type material and then the half-time breakdowns for the deathcore part of their influence. The song is like a greatests bits type track, accentuating all of the things they do well as band. With their creative twin guitar work Joe Cocchi and Jay Vanscheldt put themselves creatively in the wheelhouse with CARNIFEX, BORN OF OSIRIS and at times even DECREPIT BIRTH. Second track “Infamy” has an even more prog/death metal direction and the song flat out-crushes. Vocalist Tim Goergen has the requisite gravel in his throat to make this music work. He continues to improve and stake his claim as one of the rising talents in the game.
Then it’s on to the covers and two very curious choices indeed. The first being the KANSAS classic rock staple “Carry On Our Wayward Son” which is solid. The song is cool, declares the bands’ respect for prog and their marriage of their unique style with the song works well. Once again the guitar work stands out above everything else since it covers a lot of the melodies that would normally be done by multi-tracked, harmonized vocals. The second cover is a more straight ahead version of METALLICA’s “Fight fire With Fire”. Both songs are well done and even though both have been covered recently by other bands, WTR puts their own stamp on them. This EP is a nice treat for the fans and something to tide people over until there is a new full length album sometime next year.
Southern California has been a breeding ground the last few years for a stunning group of metal bands. Most fall under the techie/progressive death banner and a few others have jumped on the “djent” trend. Santa Cruz metallers ARSONISTS GET ALL THE GIRLS share some elements in those sub-genres, but also liberally add in odd prog-rock tendencies, traditional death metal motifs and a grindy-death core attitude into the mix to form their own sound. They have been steadily improving and their new album Motherland is definitely the high point artistically in their brief career.
The guy not looking at the camera is supercool.
Kicking things off the heavy and quirky “Rise to Fall” the band sets the tone for the entire album. Blast-beats, ridiculous fretboard acrobatics and wacky keyboards fill up the din and melt together well as a song. The song goes through several other movements including a poppy jam and a brutal hardcore stomp. Jared Monnette’s ill, screaming vocals only have a few modes to work with, but he does admirably with them. Garin Rosen’s drumming is really above the cut, which it almost needs to be since you couldn’t attempt this style of music with anyone less gifted. Like most of the tracks within “Neck To Contrast” is short, to the point and manically evil sounding. Some of the guitar textures in the slower parts call to mind NEUROSIS while the rest of the cut is just a frenetic proggy burn. Jazzy riffs and throwback (think 1970′s) keyboards also make an appearance. At just under four minutes “Gooseknuckle” almost qualifies as an epic for this album. Impressive shifting tempos and and almost DREAM THEATER-like attention to detail where each instrument seems to lead for a portion of the song really open your ears. Even bassist Greg Howell gets into the act. Despite having a stable lineup for a little over a year and a half, the band is very tight and none of the genre hopping sounds forced at all. Similar to bands like THE HUMAN ABSTRACT, IWRESTLEDABEARONCE, BORN OF OSIRIS and even DECREPIT BIRTH they can shift gears and mash styles seamlessly without sounding contrived. A cool musical interlude like “It Was A Memoir” show the maturity of this group. My favorite track on the album is next in “Dr. Teeth”. Named for my favorite Muppet Show band leader, the song is killer and has some great melody stuff going on between Sean Richmond’s keyboards and the twin guitar attack of Arthur Alvarez and Jaeson Bardoni. They seem to favor a lot of colorful ear candy parts as opposed to shredding solos, but it is hard to quibble with the results. Other tracks I favored upon repeated listens are the heavy “Avdotya”, the grindcore speed of “Waiting for the War to Die”, “Woebegone” and “Tempest”. Motherland is a definite big leap forward for this band who is about to lose the underrated tag.
There was a time when the dark arts of underground black metal was a predominately European proposition if you wanted high quality. Not that domestic bands didn’t try their best best, but many fell short of the mark for one reason or another. That has all changed recently. American black metal (and blackened death) is surging of late with too many great and vital bands to name. Out of the great northwest comes another beast called BOOK OF BLACK EARTH. With their new opus The Cold Testament they have served notice to the rest of the sub-genre. Formerly an up-and-comer, they have muscled their way into the forefront of the conversation.
They just bitch slapped an entire sub-genre in the mouth.
Starting off with “Weight of the World” the track immediately kicks your face and ears in! Grim guitars, crazy drums and harsh vocals are upfront in the mix and awesome. The track has all of the touches that make the genre great, but most importantly the song is well written with fine riffage and many interesting changes. Really one of the most stunning lead-off tracks of any album this year. Second cut “Cross Contamination” is a horde of blastbeats, and harsh vocals. Main lead vocalist T.J. Cowgill has one of the most brutal voices in the genre today and sounds like ate sandpaper before hitting the vocal booth. Raising their level of musicianship and writing even more on this track, the song hops several sub-genres all while keeping the main theme intact. The hypnotic, head-nodding riff between verses is a sick contrast to the manic madness that follows. Third song “Antarctica” opens with tribal drumming you might not be expecting, but Joe Axler (SPLATTERHOUSE) has proved to be one player you can’t pigeonhole or underestimate. By the way with a name like Axler, shouldn’t he play guitar? Meanwhile the driving rhythms and more fantastic singing from Cowgill et all are highlights here. Cowgill and co-guitarist/vocalist Rob Beebe just play plenty of sick riffs, ear candy textures and evil sounding changes. “Irritating Spectre” is next and is a blast of modern death/d-beat crust and thrash influences. The breakdown (not like you think) of the song has an Iommi meets deathmetal melodic guitar line that is just chill inducing. Ricky Way’s bass tone is strong and can be heard fully in the mix throughout which is great. Expertly handled by producer Chris Common and mixed by metal legend Dan Swano, you can tell that this band that knows how great they are as musicians and wants their music to shine. Whomever decided that garage-y, tin-can production and unlistenable albums was the mark of this music didn’t play guitar or bass like these guys! “Termination” is another wicked track which features a stomping riff and yet another amazing melodic line worthy of highly raised horns. The amazingly titled “Research and Destroy” is another bruiser with a great gang vocal attack and a d-beat drum-off and guitar duel at the end. “Road Dogs From Hell” is like a devilish, punk rock apocalypse that would appease both Lemmy and GWAR. Final track “I See Demons” is an epic that I would love to hear performed live when they hit the road. I can’t say enough about enjoyable this album is on repeat spins. One of the year’s best for sure.
If you, like me, were wondering if Sweden’s Lake of Tears were still around-and let’s be honest, why would you be?-well, then the band’s eighth and latest LP Illwill will serve as a resounding…”um…yeah.”
This is sadly unfortunate, given the fact that this melodic dark metal outfit USED to be fairly mighty back in the day, delivering a back-to-back shot of quality, neo-doom/rock releases in the form of 1994′s Greater Art and ’95′s even stronger follow-up, Headstones.
Time has not been kind to vocalist/guitarist Daniel Brennare and Co., however, for Illwill sounds lackluster, dated and hapless/hopelessly stuck in second gear. It isn’t as if Lake of Tears has suddenly switched to styles to something drastically different or uncomfortable either; no, the sad reality is that Brennare simply seems out of ideas, running on empty playing a really simplistic style of sub-Sentenced rock for which there really seems no audience.
Sure, Illwill possesses a number of ill-advised trips into speedier territory-a fashion with which the band really approach with clumsy awkwardness and inability-on a song like “The Hated”, but overall Lake of Tears just doesn’t really have much to offer, having exhausted most of their best ideas back in the 90s. Add to this the fact that Brennare’s voice REALLY has not aged too well-sounding worn and cracked, as opposed to atmospheric and mysterious-and you have a recipe for melodic metal disaster; something which really shouldn’t come from a band as formerly solid as Lake of Tears.
Although Brennare was once a prime contender to Cemetary’s Mathias Lodmalm and Johan Edlund of Tiamat for bright, shining dark star of 90s goth-metal, Illwill is a comparatively disappointing effort from a band who is capable of far better material, in the end.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the clear, punchy vocals of Urban Breed, ex-singer for Tad Morose and current Pyramaze frontman.
With that said, I approached Bloodbound’s fourth LP with a certain amount of trepidation. Luckily, new vocalist Patrick Johansson does his best to fill Breed’s shoes, and does so with proper taste, class and power.
Bloodbound benefits greatly from Johansson’s slight Germanic tone and approach-sounding slightly like Helloween’s Andi Deris at times-with Unholy Cross serving as a stately reminder of how this sort of melodic, approachable metal can still sound quite traditional and pleasing, without the cheese.
Mixing old school Accept and Rage-isms with a healthy dose of Americanized power metal a la Savatage, Unholy Cross doesn’t exactly win any awards for originality or uniqueness overall, yet the album serves as a suitably strong candidate for fans of the style, delivering practically all a follower should desire from this very Euro-centered heavy metal madness. Eliminating much of the speedy, neo-classical style of a Stratovarious or Yngwie Malmsteen, Bloodbound instead approaches their music from the perspective of The Riff and The Song, celebrating mid-paced choruses and chugging, simply effective verse structures.
By now we all know about ANVIL via their hard luck film Anvil! The Story of Anvil. The film helped improve their profile among mainstream fans and help refresh them to old school ones. It was a rough film to watch if you ever tried to make a career go of it in rock or metal (like I did) and showed the guys who just needed a chance to improve on their former glory. Well the film was a smash success and has opened (or reopened) a lot of doors for them. The promise of the movie was that given the chance to make a proper new album with everything in place to promote it they would come through big. Well the chance to answer the bell is here on their first album of new music since the movie in Juggernaut of Justice.
Still going strong.
The album opens up with the title track and it’s a definite rocker despite some lyrical cheese. Still, the band sounds vibrant and exciting in an early 80′s JUDAS PRIEST kind of way. Produced by Bob Marlette (OZZY OSBOURNE/ALICE COOPER) the record has the big riffs, humorous and intelligent lyrics, wicked guitar playing and pounding drums that have always been the currency of the band. Guitarist/singer Steve “Lipps” Kudrow and drummer Robb Reiner still deliver strong, bow-worthy performances. Second track “When Hell Breaks Loose” is a little more my style with a real uptempo, old-school feel and groove. This song also has awesome lyrics and vocals by Lipps, who also kills on the guitar solo too. Slow Sabbath-ian jams have always been a secret weapon of the band and tracks like “New Orleans Voodoo” shine brightly. Extra props to Glenn Five’s unsung, weighty bass tone which gives extra power to the tune. They come right back to the fast thrashy stuff with “On Fire”, the hilarious “Fucken Eh” and “Turn it Up” and in terms of top to bottom songwriting quality this is the best release the band has put together in a while. ANVIL knows who they are and what the fans want from them which is their best asset sometimes. They stay within their hard rock/proto-metal arena and mine that for as much musical gold as possible and don’t try to be something they are not. Other tracks like “This Ride” and “Running” have the marching metal stomp many wannabe neo-thrash bands have yet to conquer. I am also partial to “Conspiracy” (more cowbell!), “Paranormal” and the ripping instrumental “Swing Thing” (think MOTORHEAD meets BENNY GOODMAN) that closes the album. I would rather hear these guys, a band whose cassette I had in high school, do their best to be true to themselves rather than hear the one hundredth pack of noobs fail big time at ripping them off. Long live ANVIL!
After seeing them basically do everything short of blow up the stage last fall on the awesome BlackDiamondSkye tour I knew I wanted to see THE DEFTONES headline tour this spring. I have seen them captivate arenas for years and they seem to have always made big music for big moments. By comparison I first saw THE DILINGER ESCAPE PLAN on a little stage at a metal festival in New Jersey in 1999. Over the many other occasions I have seen them they have never failed to light it up as a live proposition be it a small club or larger hall. The thought of seeing the two of them together was really exciting since both bands have their own fan base, vision and operate outside what the “norm” is for most metal bands today. Let alone two bands with a modicum of mainstream success. They don’t care what other bands or critics say about them, they just follow their muse and you have to respect that even if you are not a fan.
Walking on stage with the house lights up the but the stage dark made them seem like heroes, but TDEP is above the antics of most typical bands. “Farewell, Mona Lisa” blows up like powder keg after three gentle chords and pretty much set the tone for their entire set. Top flight musicianship and a manic performance that saw the band jumping off amps, kicking apart drum kits and in general causing themselves potential bodily harm every second. This band is truly the soundtrack to the apocalypse, even if it is your personal one. “Milk Lizard” was next and was totally sick. I can’t really say enough kinds words about the performance of Greg Puciato. They guy is a beast vocally with the most versatile pipes in the game this side of Mike Patton or Krysta Cameron. With almost a gospel singers soulfulness, insane animal noises and hardcore growls can only scratch the surface of what he can do. Tearing through songs like “Panasonic Youth” and “Chinese Whispers” you get a feel for what a tight and professional unit these guys are collectively. They always walk a tight-rope of out of control, train about to fall off the tracks, but never do. Billy Rymer is just insane on the kit dropping hardcore, prog and deathmetal passages with the intensity of a pissed of teenager and the poise of a maestro. Guitarists Ben Weinman and Jeff Tuttle nearly destroy themselves in the process of getting what they need out of their axes. “Gold Teeth On a Bum” is another sick ass song with plenty of twists and turns like doom version of CAVE IN. Great bass work on this track by Liam Wilson. “Black Bubblegum” is one of the best pop songs you will ever hear played by a band this heavy and weird. Yup, I said pop song. Deal with it. Next came “Sunshine the Werewolf” with its manic SUN-RA meets math rock stylings. It just proves there is no style this band can touch or warp to fit their mood. Careening toward the end of their set like a slow-motion train wreck full of awesome they closed with “43% Burnt” and promptly destroyed their gear in the process of jamming the the rave up/burn out.
Set List:
Farewell, Mona Lisa
Milk Lizard
Panasonic Youth
Chinese Whispers
Room Full of Eyes
Gold Teeth on a Bum
Black Bubblegum
Sunshine The Werewolf
43% Burnt
It was almost time for THE DEFTONES to take the stage. With a similar set up to last fall’s tour, they had a skate ramp/riser for singer Chino Moreno to jump on and off of. A giant plain white curtain hung behind the stage as lights projected on it for the backdrop. The first image to appear was the owl from the cover of Diamond Eyes and the band came on stage playing the titular track. Sounding sharp and full of energy the crowd moshed along to the most aggro track the band has put out in a while. As usual Chino was his usual spastic self, bouncing all over the stage, but fully on point vocally. Following this up with “Rocket Skates” once again this proves to be a potent show starter. They ought to keep the set that way for a while longer. Moreno has one of the most unique and enduring voices ever to play heavy music. Next up would be the one two punch of oldies “”Birthmark” and “Engine No.9” both songs have great driving grooves and some excellent playing by the entire band. Next to Chino, Stephan Carpenter is quite the contrast as a performer. Sure he bops around in place a little with his ginormous mane of hair. But he is more focused on rocking his custom 8-String guitars than moving all around and losing his groove. He was also definitely “herbally enhanced” most of the show too. For a band that has certainly been out of the box most of the time musically the sure can write songs as catchy as they are heavy. “Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)” is both of those things and had everybody dancing and singing along. “My Own Summer” followed next and had everyone in the room amped and feeling the huge, monster riffs and singing loudly. Once again Sergio Vega (QUICKSAND) holds down the bass and backing vocals in place of Chi Cheng who is still in recovery from his 2008 accident (check out www.oneloveforchi.com). Drummer Abe Cunningham just slammed the kit on this song especially. He is great at pushing the beats and his fills are sick. I’m not sure it is possible he can still be considered underrated after all this time, but he is always great live.
www.oneloveforchi.com
At this point the band veered from their more typical set list and down shifted the energy somewhat with “Digital Bath” this saw Chino strap on a guitar for the first time of many on this night. He is a fairly decent guitar player for a guy known mainly as a singer. He is one of the few frontmen I have ever seen that really tries to engage with the crowd on a one to one level as if the show is a private performance for one. Even when planted in front of a mic stand. These more low-key cuts that have a greater depth of dynamic range more than the straight bashers you hear DJ/Keyboardist Frank Delgado shine through a lot more clearly in the mix. It was also at this point in the show the band started slipping in jams like “Knife Party”, “Korea” and “Cherry Waves”. All three tracks were pleasant surprises and great to hear those seldom heard songs live. Typical hits like “Hexagram” “Minerva” and seriously heavy versions of “Bloody Cape” and “You’ve Seen the Butcher” were played in the second half of the set as well. “Change (In the House of Flies)” was also played to the glee of the many females in the crowd. It occurred to me that mellower songs they played like “Change..” are as close to baby making music as our scene gets. Some eggs were surely dropping on this night!
As the set hit the hour and half mark and twentieth song you only knew the show was winding down by the clock, not by the energy of the band. Chino especially really a tireless performer who gives his all to the crowd every night. He kept saying how much he loved playing in Boston which was nice. Then he was joined on the riser by Greg Puciato and the two of them sang together on “Passenger”. The track was simply amazing with Puciato covering Maynard James Kennan’s (TOOL/A PERFECT CIRCLE/PUSCIFER) parts as close as he possibly could. I wasn’t sure anything could top that and I felt that might have been it for the night, but the band came out for their encore as if by design. Chino sent out “Root” for Chi and they just killed it with Vega covering the memorable bass parts of Cheng once again. As a band they play hard the entire night, but their older material really brings out something special in them. “Nosebleed” was next with its great riff and beats. Once again it’s good to hear so many jams in the setlist from Adrenalin .“7 Words” closed out the set and pulled the plug on a long night of good music. One funny thing about the last song was that I’m pretty sure Chino sang the chorus of Katy Perry’s “Firework” (don’t ask how I know this) in his freestyle rap part at the end of the song. He was laughing his ass off that people even caught it. It goes to show after twenty years as a band they still have a good sense of humor considering all they’ve been through.
Brent Hinds presents: Fiend Without a Face/Westend Motel (Rocket Science)
Ladies and gentlemen: the perks of being in a popular band.
Fiend Without a Face and Westend Motel are two side projects of Mastodon vocalist/guitarist Brent Hinds, who has released this double disc disaster to the masses.
Sounding unfinished and unfocused, both records are presumably the product of Mastodon downtime, which is no crime in and of itself, of course. Still, this is a non-essential set to anyone other than rabid fanatics of Hinds or his band of metal media darlings.
Fiend Without a Face is a largely instrumental act, setting to music the carnival freak-show antics displayed in Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder,” via an odd, haphazard amalgamation of surf rock and rockabilly. The end result is highly annoying, to be honest, and not nearly as entertaining as it sounds. The guitar work is semi-atmospheric, but not really enough to ever get things going, and the vocals are uninspired, obnoxious gibberish best left to the cut out bin.
Westend Motel isn’t much better, either, providing a comparatively more restrained, singer/songwriter motif which attempts to pull off a Boxcar Willie/Tom Waits sort of appeal, yet ends up sounding like the result of boredom, extra time and a few too many ‘yes men’ who thought this release was a good idea. Still, this side of the album is marginally more enjoyable than Fiend Without a Face, due primarily to the brief glimpses of melancholy and melody which make their appearance.
Both of these releases probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day if Mastodon didn’t have the name they do, however, and, to be honest, the music-buying public (if there’s any of you left) would have been far better off if they hadn’t, because neither Fiend Without a Face nor Westend Motel stick in the ears after they’ve finished playing their way.
It’s been six years since Sweden’s The Quill have graced us with another LP of their legit-sounding retro-rock, with Full Circle being the band’s first proper full length since sadly losing their incredible former frontman, Magnus Ekwall.
Not that any of this really matters in the big picture, given the fact that verrrry few people have been listening during the course of The Quill’s existence, which is even more depressing, given the stellar songwriting displayed on such albums as 2002′s Voodoo Caravan and it’s 2003 follow-up, Hooray! It’s a Deathtrip.
While the band’s last album-2006′s In Triumph-crashed and burned upon it’s initial release, Full Circle seeks to build from the ashes of Ekwall’s departure (and the arrival of new singer Magz Arnar) via a more updated, less ‘classic rock’ sounding effort, for a new audience.
As a result, Full Circle seems to possess a bit more in common with bands like Hellfueled, Soundgarden, Black Label Society and even The Cult-despite the fact that Arnar’s powerful voice is a dead ringer for Grand Magus frontman JB Christofferson-then their hazier, more psychedelic days. There is much more emphasis upon ‘Thee Riff’ and it’s importance here, with a stripped down and centered songwriting aesthetic which speaks much of the band’s desire to streamline their sound, perhaps for a new audience.
Ultimately, they succeed, with Full Circle serving as one of the band’s most imminently listenable releases to date. Still, Ekwall’s passionate croon is missed, and the songwriting of super-early Quill efforts still rings loud and true on the back burner. Kudos still belong leveled at the band for their unerring dedication towards The Rock, however, for Full Circle is an admirable step from The Quill’s death door situation.
