Welcome to the newest feature here at Metal Army America, one we’re really excited about! Two of our esteemed writers will tackle a controversial subject in metal and debate each side of an argument. Each topic will be examined like an experiment, analyzed philosophically and pontificated on like …..like a pontiff! (Editor’s note: bad pun intended, sorry.) Well, maybe if that pontiff was Papa Emeritus of GHOST! A thoughtful debate between Metal Army America writers on topics concern metal music, its culture and the fans is what we are aiming for. These debates won’t always be as simple as pro versus con since issues like these are rarely cut and dry. Our hope is you will read these blogs and join in the conversation (respectfully, always) with us here in the comments below or on our Facebook page.
And…. here….. we….. go!
RELIGION AND METAL:
Keith (Keefy) Chachkes: I have always been fascinated with the role religion plays in music, specifically metal. BLACK SABBATH was really the first band I learned of as a child who exploited people’s fears of religion in their music. This was pretty potent to the listener when their use of the tri-tone (“The Devil’s note”) was heard in their first recorded notes ever, gave birth to metal. They had songs about Witchcraft and Satanism, while constantly warning against the false righteousness of the other side. Original black metal bands like VENOM and CELTIC FROST were outwardly evil sounding and promoted The Devil as the enemy of normal society, and the prowess of the occult over anything else. This has influenced everything that has happened in heavy music in the last thirty years.
American bands like EXODUS, SLAYER and POSSESED were the next generation bands to reference it heavily, often pitting Christianity against metal as a whole. Most of the old-school death metal bands, when they weren’t fixated on gore, were quite blasphemous (hats off to you DEATH & GLEN BENTON!). Being anti-religion of any kind is enough to get you censored and threatened with jail in most societies, just ask NERGAL of Behemoth or the guys from WATAIN. From church burning Norwegian bands in the 1990′s to modern Neo-folk/Pagan Metal, your favorite Norse/Viking metal bands, modern black and death metal bands and even the recent “occult rock” bands all use religion to attract fans, draw endless topics for songs and define themselves.
“Jesus, you say? I don’t believe we’ve met.”
With all the energy spent on hating Jude-Christian values, there is a flip side rarely talked about by fans. If religions didn’t exist, what would they be angry at? I’m sure there would still be plenty of shitty things in the world to sing about if there were no religion. Personally, I can enjoy the music of bands like THE CHARIOT, FOR TODAY, and MY CHILDREN MY BRIDE who use their music as a platform to promote their beliefs, even if I find the on stage preaching distasteful. They certainly have a right to do it, as does NILE to talk about ancient Sumerian beliefs, as does CHTHONIC does to discuss their historic religious culture in a modern political context. It’s all good to me and makes a more interesting world of heavy music to listen to and write about.
Dave Williams: Since being handed this assignment, I’ve been struggling somewhat with my potential approach. For those who know me only superficially, my position should seem obvious. My feelings on religion (Christianity in general) are quite public, and I play in a band that exists solely to question/attack the theistic masses.
Was this a good thing or a bad thing?
That said, there is the part of me that very strongly believes that music’s true purpose (particularly in the case of metal, hardcore, punk, and any other ‘rebel’ music) is the unbridled expression of our passions, regardless of what those might be. As members of these subcultures, we have always been beacons for free speech, and to draw lines as to who should be allowed to say what seems rather hypocritical…
However, then there is my true stance on this matter: Metal (and again, hardcore/punk/etc) was born as a reactionary position against the purveying herd mentality of the Western hemisphere (and has obviously expanded its scope quite significantly since), and part of that mentality, undeniably, is the pox upon our species that is Christianity. For eons, the befuddled masses have commandeered and swept countless cultures and histories under the proverbial rug, and the co-opting of rebel music as a form of ‘praise’ is simply another example of the slow, steady trampling of the world’s beauty beneath the lumbering feet of a billion filthy, bleating sheep.
(I should mention that my feelings on the presence of other ‘religions’ within the genre are not quite as strong. Granted, this is inevitably somewhat personal as Christianity simply hits closer to home, but as I attribute nearly all of the modern world’s ills to the spread of the Christian disease, any counterpoint is at least slightly welcome)
To melodramatically drive my point home, I leave you with this: To me, metal is the Cerberus-guarded gates that separate true humanity from celestial, dead-eyed lunatics. Metal is the fucking nails that bind their fictional savior to the planks that adorn a billion fools’ walls the world over. Simply put, metal is a pure expression of freedom (in an entirely non-patriotic, non-nationalist sense), and spiritual surrender is its fundamental opposition. Follow Metal Army contributor Dave Williams at: his website and on Twitter.
In honor of today’s day being 2/1/12 or “2112 Day” or “International RUSH Day” or “Progressive Rock Day” as some are calling it, Metal Army chatted with notable metal historian Jeff Wagner. Wagner is the author of 2010′s Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Heavy Metal (Bazillion Points). In addition to being an authority on all things prog, death metal and thrash Jeff was one of the leading editors of Metal Maniacs magazine from 1997 until 2001. In a wide ranging interview we recapped the origins of Jeff’s book, the roots of the genre, it’s historical importance as well as it’s future. What follows is an excerpt of a longer chat we had.
MAA: What led you to write Mean Deviation?
JW: Well from a practical standpoint it was a book that had not yet been written. We are seeing a lot of metal books now because metal has a long enough history to provide for a bunch of books, and provide a bunch of different views covering all the genres. A book on prog metal had not been written and I was a long time fan of metal. I was also a fan that tended to gravitate toward the weirder, more experimental, more progressive stuff. More avant garde stuff. I look at my record collection and one thing I can say about it is there is not a whole lot of stuff that sounds like other stuff. I have always gravitated toward progressive sounds. I like my bands to be similarly unique in and of themselves. I like EMERSON LAKE AND PALMER, but I don’t like bands that sounded like them. There were a lot of obscure prog bands that sound just like them and I didn’t find them interesting. It’s an originator thing. I why I like DREAM THEATER, but not bands that sound just like them. Actually I can’t think of one that I like who sounds just like them. (laughs)
MAA: Your book identifies a “big three” of the genre. How did the their arrival on the scene change the game?
JW: Both QUEENSRŸCHE and FATES WARNING showed up at the same time and wore their influences on their sleeves. And those influences were obviously IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST. They took that template and took it to some different and more nuanced areas. They messed around with more long-form song writing. FATES WARNING on their second album is writing ten minute songs. They further intellectualized their music to the point where you go from Rage for Order or Operation Mindcrime and on the FATES WARNING side Awaken The Guardian and No Exit. QUEENSRŸCHE had a more theatrical image. Then DREAM THEATER came a long in their wake and they made a different kind of amalgam of it. Not only have the same bands in common that FATES WARNING and QUEENSRŸCHE did, they took it in two other areas. First I hear an even more melodic KANSAS- type rock sounds and even a more AOR radio rock from the 70s. I even hear some JOURNEY in early DREAM THEATER. And they even made it heavier with palm muting and double-bass drumming and took it some places other bands didn’t go to so they ramped it up even more. That’s why these three bands made their mark. They style was familiar and easy to get into, but also they were it challenging.
A prog metal classic!
MAA: A lot of people think of Spiritual Healing by DEATH as the album when death metal crossed over with prog and became more malleable. But it was really before then, right?
JW: I think for one thing if you think about death metal, it is not easy to play. To the novices’ ear a lot of death metal sounds like garbage or noise. There is a built in tendency to already be a good musician to pull off really good death metal. If you are really conveying something truly brutal it’s a skill and an art. Not only do you have DEATH, but you have MORBID ANGEL. I don’t know how progressive you wanna say they are, but Tre Azagthoth. He was really virtuosic about his playing. I think POSSESSED toward the end of their output was really musical. There is something really intrinsically musical about death metal that it doesn’t get enough credit. And then with DEATH, even the album before Paul (Masvidal) and Sean (Reinert) came in they were going in that direction. Chuck was even singing in a way where you understood all of the vocals and didn’t need a lyric sheet. That was innovative too. (laughs) And then the Human album just blows the doors off of what could be done with the death metal form. There could be with Jazz influences and Fusion. They gave it a fluid, lyrical and melodic tendency, but it was also a really brutal album. It showed how much depth the music can have. I think the Human album has four of the best musicians that have ever on one album.
The "father of death metal" was also integral to bringing in a progressive influence to the genre.
MAA: I think it’s interesting where the original prog rock bands were influenced by Jazz and the modern bands found Jazz thought the back door of prog metal. What do you say to that?
JW: The way I look at prog metal is there is not really one sound and one style. There are bands that have nothing in common. Other than the fact that they are trying to move the form forward, they might have little in common. Some of them have their own unique vision and style that no other musician will quite have.
MAA: Who are some of the underground bands of the genre that the average fan might not know, but are essential.
JW: I think if you go into with the right mindset WATCHTOWER is a band that was important. They were there way early on. They were throwing in RUSH and Jazz influences in `84, 85. Not even FATES WARNING and QUEENSRŸCHE were not even doing yet. And then if you get up to their 1989 album Control and Resistance they were tightly honed, but a bizarre group of different things. I know for a lot of people, they aren’t anything to listen to. Ron Jarzombeck is getting a lot of attention now for BLOTTED SCIENCE, but he is a WATCHTOWER alumnus. And of course I’m gonna talk about VOIVOD. I know people are gonna roll their eyes at this if they know me at all and say “oh there goes Wagner talking about VOIVOD again”. They remain really underrated. Their first six or seven albums: Killing Technology through The Outer Limits they were constantly changing, growing by leaps and bounds, using new technology and exploring new production techniques. They are the textbook example of what a progressive metal band really is. I think for one album CELTIC FROST need to get mentioned. Just for the Into The Pandemonium album. It’s so eclectic and brave. They opened up with a new wave cover song. Later on it has beat box song. There was a soul song. You have gloomy opera-type doom songs, new wave, jazz weirdness, a doom song. Just a weird album.
MAA: A lot of people hated them for it. My friends all hated them after that.
JW: Oh yeah I know. Talk about splitting your fan-base! But it was so weird and out there I really loved it. I was so intrigued I had to love it. They really blew apart their fan-base and their career. WATCHTOWER, VOIVOD, CELTIC FROST and others. That is the thing about my book. I didn’t want to just talk about the popular bands and the avatars. I wanted to discuss who the underrated bands were.
The best prog metal band ever in my opinion. (Keefy)
MAA: What is your take on more recent bands like MASTODON and OPETH who have abandoned their heavier ways for prog? Also, what do you think of the backlash against them?
JW: I say more power to em! They proved that they can do this modern epic metal. They can be modern, be different. And they started off as a very different band. They followed their heart. I don’t care if you’re KISS or MASTODON, I don’t think any band owes anything to your fans in terms of where they go with their music. That is not to say they don’t love their fans. When those guys are writing new music, I mean who wants to hear the same old shit? (laughs) You can tell I feel strongly about this. OPETH could’ve come out with another Deliverance, another Ghost Reveries and another Watershed and it would have been very good. OPETH are so influenced by all these bands that really epitomized all of these prog rock bands. It was about time they made their prog album. I love it. Why would fans expect Mikael Akerfeldt to be boring and stay bored and do the same thing again. Compositionally it is one of his best records. I fully support those bands and what they do. It’s about wanting to be surprised and wonder what is around the next corner. It depends what kind of fan you are. If you like a band like OPETH, if you love MASTODON or OPETH you want what those bands do and are all about you want them to follow their hearts. And I was especially surprised at the OPETH fans because I thought they were more open minded. Allow these bands to do what artists do, let them change rather than be beholden to expectations.
MAA: How important is a band like RUSH and an album like 2112 to the music still being made today?
JW: I think hugely. For me when I sit in a dark room and listen to 2112 that is part of that experience for a guy like me or any fan that treasures the band. But the other thing about your question is: it’s huge because of the influence from a band like RUSH has had. They have influenced not just prog rock bands or prog metal fans. RUSH has influenced metal bands, death metal bands, grindcore bands and even indie rock bands and all other kinds of musicians. If you took a survey of bands from a wide outgrowth of all music, RUSH is a very important band. I think that ten or fifteen years ago they were a little more like a guilty pleasure for some people. Now it is okay to say you like RUSH now. Their influence is incredibly vast.
MAA: Looking back at the longevity of some of the bands that were around at the time when you joined Metal Maniacs, do you feel proud of the role the magazine helped play promoting metal bands to a wider audience?
JW: I was just a part of the Maniacs legacy and certainly all the magazine did was reflect the legacy of the music itself. I am amazed and sure I’m proud. When I started at Maniacs it was 1997. I felt like I was down in the trenches. It was one of the first times in metal’s history a lot of people thought it was dead and it didn’t have a lot of juice anymore. We all knew different at the time. It is pretty incredible. Especially when you are seeing demos and re-issues of albums that are selling really well, being sold and repackaged. Metal now in 2012, it just has a longevity that shows it will never die. Even if no new music came out, there is so much from what has come before this music will never die. It’s history is kind of staggering. For guys like me that have been with the music for a long time, we do feel proud that we have come through the other side. It’s legitimate and here to stay. Not to sound really cliche’. It is part of popular culture.
Although Finland’s Decaying seem to have all their papers in order when it comes to old school, dyed-in-the-wool death metal worship, the thin production and clicky, mechanical drums do quite a bit to castrate the obvious power lurking withing the band’s songwriting.
It seems as if Decaying knew this already, as the band seem to have enlisted the services of a real drummer for future recordings. This is a very good thing, for Devastate is otherwise on target when it comes to balancing Bolt Thrower and Asphyx styled blast with the simplified and straight forward attack of vintage Stockholm Swe-death like Grave or early Tiamat.
Yes, that trudging doom style of Sumerian Cry is here in full effect, as is the screaming guitars and deep, hollow-sounding vocals so intrinsic to this genre’s success. I can almost taste how much the band’s sophomore effort is bound to improve upon this template contained within Devastate, especially if Decaying can enlist a producer who can lift the band’s arrangements with a thick ‘n massive production.
Unfortunately for Decaying, that will be their second album. As it stands now, Devastate only hints loud and clear the promise which lies beneath the surface. Bring on the real drums, and we should see some wicked improvement. Looking forward to it.
Although I’ve yet to check out this Aussie act’s 2010 debut, Away From the Haunts of men, there’s certainly much to impressed with here on Thrall’s sophomore effort, and first for the Moribund Cult.
Vermin to the Earth capitalizes on varying style and moods, evoking grim, old school black metal atmosphere while also sounding extremely heavy, vicious and energetic at the same time. The vocals of instrumentalist Tom Void and his session help Trent Griggs and Alex Pope are harsh yet understandable, enunciating every ugly word with a palpable feeling of hatred and scorn. Meanwhile, the guitar work follows suit with peaks and valleys, alternating with lurching crunch and slow, grim crawls when appropriate, the end result of which actually sounds frightening….a quality which is admittedly rare these days.
Celtic Frost, Darkthrone or prime, Attila-led Mayhem could serve as a points of comparison here with Thrall; a legitimate tie to their genre’s old school past while also possessing enough inventive riffing ideas to keep the band alive as a contender in the game. Vermin to the Earth is a dark and twisted ride, but definitely one worth scoping out regardless. Not bad at all, this one.
Recently Metal Army caught up with Chris Gamble of GOREAPHOBIA who recently released their new opus Apocalyptic Necromancy. Chris spoke candidly with us about a great many topics. What follows is an excerpt of our chat.
MAA: Take us through the making of Apocalyptic Necromancy.
CG: Well, making the album was a natural process. We were running really good on a lot of high focused energy. Mortal Repulsion became a second lifeline for the band. Alex (Bouks) and I reformed the band and when we started playing GOREAOPHOBIA out again, it was 2004. When your band gets to about the twenty year mark, you start to see things. You see through the crap, all the trial and error things and stuff like that. The things that you learn along the way start to help you, you hope those things you learned, the experience you’ve got sticks with you for the better. Alex and I, in our minds we like to do our music. Our music has never changed, our music never went anywhere. For so many years we just had so many wrong people with us. Members that didn’t really belong, into their own personal gain and own personal demons really. All selfish people, people dealing with their own demons and on the business side we never had any help, it was all us. From 1988 to 1992 it was just chaos. Nothing was focused or set in stone and every thing was for the now, every man for himself. We learned a lot from those years and when we put out Mortal Repulsion, we got that out and we got back out there. When we toured the states with MASTER we got a lot of great feedback from old fans, and made new fans. A lot of old fans came out from the days when you had to write letters to bands, before email. It showed us a lot doing those tours and Mortal Repulsion really showed that when we had all this new focus and energy. It felt like 1988 again. And we added our new guitar player VJS and I just started writing songs like crazy. We started jamming, putting things together and writing a new album. Drummer Jim Roe has all the recording gear in his own studio so as we wrote, we recorded the songs. Everything with this album has been relaxed and now we have four song writers in the band. Alex has been predominantly the songwriter. Eighty-Five percent of Mortal Repulsion was songs Alex had for years on the shelf. But now all of us have been coming in with songs. Jim and VJS had a lot of ideas. So after the last album we had a much sharper and more refined focus on it this time.
MAA: Where do you draw inspiration from musically and lyrically?
CG: Lyrically for me, between these two albums I’m not really a social butterfly on the internet. I am a social butterfly face to face. I’m an in person guy. I like to be in the present. So what I did was go on a bit of a hiatus. And I went back into doing things I normally do which is going back into a retrograde, back into the occult sciences. Everything I learned the last twenty years, looking through my personal life and going through a whole new process again. Breaking myself down and building myself up again. Reevaluating my feelings, thoughts and emotions. All of those aspects and theories helped me write the lyrics, which is how you do it really. And the overview of it was really a benefit because the songs really came together really quickly, one after another. I hope people get the album and with me, everything is important. The songs, the lyrics, song titles and the artwork. Everything comes into play and compliments everything else. I am a fan too and I always liked albums by bands like VOIVOD and CELTIC FROST. There is something you can remember from all of those albums. The artwork and the lyrics, certain parts people just gravitate to. Everybody is wired different and something initially pulls someones interest. When you put that attention to everything equally you give people more to get in to. I love THE WHO’s Quadrophenia and Tommy. I love RUSH and MOTORHEAD albums the same way. The details always stick out to me and what I learned, I try to apply it and give something back to the fans.
MAA: What has new guitarist VJS brought to the band?
CG: Personally I’ve known him for a little while. I knew him before Jim and Alex did I still do BLOODSTORM, but its on the shelf right now. In 2005 we did a tour when he was out on tour with KULT UV AZAZEL. We had some mutual friends like Tom King, the drummer of BLOODSTORM and they had the same friends and and I know the same people it’s like people say “Hey! I know a guy, a pretty good guy”. The thing I like about having VJS in the band is he is an occultist too. I feed off of that because he is darker natured and occult orientated like me. VJS wrote “Rust Worms” and it’s one of my favorite tracks off the album. Actually it is a very rare occasion when I write lyrics to someone else’s music. Normally I just write lyrics and try to match it to music later. But when he wrote “Rust Worms” and I heard it, I immediately wrote the lyrics based on that song and I’ve only done that a few times in my existence making metal music. And he has good live energy. I don’t like to stand in one spot, you gotta move! Like the VENOM video for “Witching Hour”. I saw that as a kid and thought that’s great and you gotta do that! VJS came into the band and he has more of that and that’s what I like. It works.
MAA: How has death metal changed from when you started to now. Is the genre better or worse today?
CG: My opinion has never changed as far as my standard goes. I still see things they way that I saw them in 1988. But the world changes and so people changed too. Sometimes you have to change with it. That’s life. I try to adapt to and somethings I refuse to adapt to. Everything these days is about time, time, time. It’s parasitic and it takes away. Everyone is so focused on getting their album out on time and keep to a schedule, tour and do this and that all. It’s all about business and I’m not a business guy. I’ll probably be damned for saying this but I’m more likely to give away our fucking merchandise than sell it. It’s the sharing of it that is more important to me. To pass those things on. Only a few few people can make enough money from their band to live off of it. For the bands that used to sell records and think they were going to make a nice living off of that, that boat sailed off the island about fifteen years ago. And the last survivors from that boat left in 1995 when the internet started to take off. The last year I went to a Milwaukee Metalfest was 2000, when people still had cool records to sell. Now everybody is in a pissing contest. Out of every four people you meet, five have a band. And of those four, one might come out to a show. But I need to roll with what I know. I’m not saying they’re wrong, but those things aren’t for me. I’m not an internet guy, but if not for the internet there might be a lot less bands or no metal. It seems like a lot of people are trying to swim to a ship that has sailed. It’s not everybody but when you go to shows a lot of people are standing there with their arms crossed, looking like their too cool for the music. It’s not everybody, but I see it.
Classic.
MAA: What are the immediate touring plans for the band?
CG: The soonest thing we have is a festival out in California with AUTOPSY. Whatever happens after that, we’ll see. I’m looking forward to another release and hoping that this albums’ energy compliments what went on with Mortal Repulsion and before that. I hope it opens up peoples interest and that leads to a third album.
Hard to believe that Oakland’s Saviours are about to release their fourth long player, but it’s true.
When it comes to the glut of post-Sleep/High On Fire acts, Saviours and The Sword have always stood relatively high above the competition in terms of quality and honesty of execution. In particular, Saviours have proven their mettle in the live situation, offering a much more traditional/NWOBHM-influenced attack than is led on by their studio output.
Death’s Procession amps this up a little more, however, driving home the band’s much more energetic and entertaining live show within the confines of a studio record, sounding comparatively frantic ‘n crackling to the band’s earlier efforts. Less emphasis is placed on speed here, with many songs instead choosing to revel in a Trouble-meets-Priest rage, focusing their energy on dual guitar dynamics and lengthy, warm-sounding bar jams.
The vocals of guitarist Austin Barber are still a point of contention, however, as the whole ‘yelling in key’ shtick has been beaten into the ground at this point. Barber DOES tone it down a bit on Death’s Procession, however, indulging in his best early Hetfield impression with results that are, at this point, the best for which we can probably hope. Overall, this album is surprisingly enjoyable, and defies the hype machine so closely associated with this scene. Death’s Procession is solid proof that Saviours do indeed have something musically to say.
Although I’m pretty sure that Sweden’s Craft had apparently declared a cease-fire after 2005′s annihilating Fuck The Universe LP, these black metal killers have apparently risen from the grave…which is totally fine with yours truly.
While it would be one thing for a band with such an unerring track record as Craft to come back and disappoint, Void thankfully does the exact opposite, presenting what just might be the best Craft record to date; a destructive and unholy LP which bleeds discriminative black hate and death.
Anti-human and anti-life to the bone, Void follows much in the same plan of attack as later Craft records like Terror Propaganda and the aforementioned Fuck The Universe, combining a raw, crust punk vibe with prerequisite Dark Throne and Celtic Frost influences to bring it all home to Satan. One of the standout aspects of Craft is THE RIFFS, however: these nasty-ass, funkified slices of filth which remain perversely memorable yet tried ‘n true to the black metal cult.
The band never has to pick things up beyond a quick two step to be effective, either, as evidenced by the chilling album highlight “The Ground Surrenders,” which features a particularly frightening vocal attack from frontman Mikael Nox. Ex-Gehenna skinsman Dirge Rep performs with excellent feeling and a tight execution behind the kit, while the guitars and bass of John Doe, Joakim Karlsson and Phil A. Cirone evoke the apocalypse with each slice, sweep and pluck.
Sure, it may take a lot to stand out from the pack these days when it comes to black metal, but Sweden’s got it covered now that Craft is back for the attack. Definitely invest in a copy of this beast ASAP.
When it comes to total sonic torture, very few bands can deliver the goods with as much near-effortless aplomb as Japan’s mighty doom trio Coffins.
Ancient Torture is a double disc collection, containing all of this crushing band’s various split releases and 7″ EPs into one extravagant release. Consisting of both original tracks and some blower covers of Carnage, Cathedral and Venom, Ancient Torture is nearly two hours of big audio dynamite.
Defiant and pig-headed in their search for simplicity, Coffins are only too happy to remain stuck deep within the mire of prime Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, reveling in slow-motion heaviness and cavernous, single-minded riffing. The atmosphere on all of these tracks is unholy to the bone, and grim as fuck, making no apologies for sound quality or ambition. Instead, Coffins get drunk on the atmosphere of it all, plowing-Autopsy style-through the speakers and into that deep, sub-bass level of doom destruction we all keep hidden somewhere deep within our hearts.
Ancient Torture is heavy, dirty and mean; the exact sort of mindless metal one needs for a Saturday night filled with copious beers, spinning records, good friends…and a few illicit substances, to boot. Slap this one on and doom away the night.
It what is a truly stunning and expansive achievement, the English death/doom overlords in My Dying Bride have seen it fit to try and encapsulate an entire career-focused, as always, upon irrefutably beautiful misery and melancholy-within a new medium: that of a fluid, sublime symphony.
Actually, ‘try’ probably isn’t the best word to describe Evinta. ‘Absolute success’ is probably more accurate, particularly given the massive scope of this sprawling, two disc set-with a triple, deluxe edition on the way-and the incredible lengths My Dying Bride must have had to undertake in order to have this album see the light of day.
Boy, has it been worth the wait, however, for Evinta works on multiple, shimmering layers of awesomeness. On one level, the album supplies an encyclopedic, essential overview of the band’s best and most memorable, miserable melodies-all overseen by Bal-Sagoth keyboardist Johnny Maudling, and performed alongside brilliant orchestral and operatic accompaniment-textured within a guitar-less, yet no less ‘heavy’ dynamic.
Elsewhere, the album also gives all of these newly-titled and uniquely arranged compositions new life and lustre, with frontman Aaron Stainthorpe having submitted new vocals and lyrics to these fantastic, flowing anthems of sorrow incarnate. While there may be some muttering from the peanut gallery with regards to the ‘metal-ness’ (or lack thereof) of Evinta, but this argument should be immediately silenced upon an even cursory listen to Evinta; the album My Dying Bride was destined to unleash at some point or another.
Indeed, the band’s gothic, death/doom heritage is placed well on display throughout the album’s nine-plus tracks, just presented with a new cloak of tears, sorrow and regret; classic themes painted upon a new palette of grim and darkened grandeur. Thus, it goes without saying that Evinta should prove to be essential listening, not only for My Dying Bride fanatics, but for anyone who desires to hear a truly unique melding of metal and classical music.
Simply one of the most impressive albums released so far this year.
While the motus operandi behind Turbocharged’s AntiXtian debut is a promising one-basically attempting to combine the disparate styles of groove/thrash and hard rock-the end results here don’t quite live up to expectation.
The greyer amongst you out there might remember bassist/vocalist Ronnie Ripper from his days fronting the retro-thrash act Gehennah back in the mid-90s, and if so, you know exactly what sort of vocals to expect…gravelly, whiskey-soaked Lemmy worship. Although this would normally be a good thing, Ripper’s delivery here on AntiXtian is a bit less than stellar, and hampers the aim of Turbocharged more than it helps, overall.
The riffing of Old Nick isn’t exactly the most scintillating of the bunch, either, relying primarily on sub-Slayer tactics and Celtic Frost leftovers, which are further hindered by a murky-sounding production and tone.
AntiXtian isn’t exactly reprehensible, of course; there’s a legit-sounding dedication to the metal cause to be found within hidden gems like “Globalize the Blasphemy.” However, these high water marks are too sparsely spaced between spans of yawns to become truly effective, and AntiXtian remains an almost there-but not quite release at the end of the day; a promising ticket which nonetheless misses its train to awesomeland at the very last moment.
