Posts Tagged ‘double-bass drumming’
Monday, June 25th, 2012
L’Enfant Sauvage (Roadrunner)
There are bands happy to exist in metal eager to carve out a little niche for themselves and stay there. There are bands that spend their careers catering to the whims of their fans or changing to gain a wider appeal. GOJIRA is a band that does neither of these things, yet somehow manages to be in the elite of artistic ideals, yet maintain a growing, popular following. I prefer to think that all credit due for this goes to the band, rather than the changing tastes (for the better) of the sweaty masses of metal fans. No matter, GOJIRA has crafted another masterpiece album that again defies convention and changes the course of heavy music. Just as they have done with each release of their career.
L’Enfant Sauvage translates from French as “The Wild Child”, but the title is not meant in a strict literal sense. The feral nature of humanity and their constant affect on their surrounding world is closer to the real concept of the piece and it is in that savagery that the music and lyrics are represented to the fullest on this album. All of the colors and emotions that make up the struggle of life, become articulated from the intro seconds until the very last notes ring out. The opening track “Explosia” comes with the trademark sound of the band intact. Syncopated riffs, over the top drumming and vocals that have brutality and melody together seem like they are in the DNA of these guys. Then there is the little hook of the repetitive harmonic lick that flows in and out of the song. Double time blast beasts, swinging grooves and impressive guitar work really punctuate this great opening salvo. The title track follows next and is equally harsh. Intricate melodic riffing captures your ear and I doubt anyone can hear this song and not bang their head in agreement to the beat. The early star of the album is drummer Mario Duplantier. As expected, he has turned in one of the top drumming performances of 2012 on this album. Of course in tandem with the talents of his brother Joe, they are the driving force behind the band. “The Axe” is another face melting track with a stellar main riff, top-flight vocal lines and deep lyrics. I can just envision entire crowds screaming along with the chorus live. In the same sense of the best modern metal bands, GOJIRA doesn’t need to rely on guitar solos to express different themes, they just come up with textural guitar work to bring in other flavors and sounds. “Liquid Fire” brings more of the same power and majesty you are accustomed to. To offset the driving beat and impressive guitar work is the return of the vocorder heavy lines that dotted the bands’ other releases. This brings in the prog influence which always goes hand in hand with their sound. This shows that you don’t have to get softer to change sometimes, just weirder.
When the band is finally done kicking your head in from four tracks in a row of punishment, “The Wild Fire” changes things up. With a whimsical tapping riff and a light beat, this little interlude warms your ear up for what comes next. “Planned Obsolescence” might be the best over all track on a perfect album. GOJIRA makes potentially raw chaos sound coherent with clever writing, tempo changes and dynamic sweeps in the singing. The interplay of the guitar parts between Joe and Christian Andreu is also sublime. Intense and full of little surprises, this is the best kind of writing elite metal bands have to offer. “Mouth of Kala” grinds out riffs and pummels, but never plods tempo wise. In addition to the standard rough hewn verses and sing-along chorus parts, there is a cool mellow section that lulls you into a chill space before decimating you again. “A Gift of Guilt” switches things up once again with a slightly lighter chorus and more tapped out central riffs, which is another Duplantier perfected technique. The verses are a heavy as anything that has come out this year on a record. “Pain is a Master” is another killer tune too. “Born In Winter shows the true prog face of the band. This is a track that could pass for a TOOL or even a new RUSH song if you didn’t know what band it was. For any other band this could be a misstep, but again and again this band takes chances that ultimately pay off. More than half the track is gone before a massive chorus comes in, but when it does, it rules. Bassist Jean-Michel Labadie, often the unsung hero of the group gets to shine here and on a few other tracks with his tasteful playing and thick tone. “The Fall” closes out the album in epic style. Brutal vocal flourishes are blended with yet another powerful, modern dirge of a riff.
Singular in vision, particular of taste and supremely talented; GOJIRA is nearly unrivaled in modern metal excellence.
 GOJIRA: Heavy as a unique and heavy thing.
GRADE: A+
by Keith (Keefy) Chachkes
Tags: blast beats, Death Metal, double-bass drumming, Gojira, metal reviews by Keefy, modern metal, Prog Metal, roadrunner, Rush, tool, www.metal-army.com
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Sunday, June 17th, 2012
Phantom Antichrist (Nuclear Blast)
Proving that they get better with age, long-running German thrashers KREATOR are back with a kick ass new album. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to most observers since the band has been one of the most consistent bands of any group to come out of the early 80s that are still kicking around. For most of their thirty years in the business, they have been a leading light of the global thrash metal movement and we don’t that too lightly here at Metal Army. These guys are not going through the motions. They are at a creative peak and actually still write meaningful, killer, heavy music.
Kicking off album number thirteen with a calm intro, the track gives way to a regal, rocking announcement fit for an army. “Mars Mantra + Phantom Antichrist” is in typical form for KREATOR: a smoking lead off track that you envision them opening up a concert with. You can just picture them just laying the crowd to waste with this song. Mille Petrozza is ageless as a riff master and a vocalist. Riffs that sound classic and fresh at the same time will definitely resonate with the listener. Lyrically, Mille is also in typically great form. When 75% of the lyricists in metal show little artistry, context or poetry in their words, Petrozza doesn’t need to lean on obvious choices to express himself. Whether its rebellion, politics or controversial issues, KREATOR always has concise, anthemic words to sing/scream along with that are crystal clear. The combination of all of these things makes for a masterful table setter for the rest of the album.
“Death To the World” may have a meat and potatoes title, but the song behind it is massively clever. Great, aggressive riffs and melodies topped off by cool beats make this another standout early track. There is a cool breakdown and a fiery solo followed by a great harmony-lead part by Petrozza and Sami Yli-Sirniö. “From Flood Into Fire” switches things up with a cool half-time power groove beat to nod your head to. The album is full of sick grooves, which only serves to make the thrash parts that much better. Other than a brief, chilled out interlude, the song crushes big time. They is a sweet guitar solo in it too, the kind you’ve come to expect from this band. “Civilization Collapse” is so harsh across the board; it might be the album’s best song. Great songwriting and inspiring choices musically. “United In Hate” starts of with a deceptive classical guitar piece before unleashing holy blazing hell. Shredding solos, right-hand down-picked riffs and machine gun double-pedal work by Ventor Reil make it work. Ventor keeps getting better album after album. Another strong track is “The Few, The Proud and The Broken”. Superb melodic guitar lines, a marching drum pattern and more great sing-along chorus parts. There is even a slightly prog-rock break down at one point that is a neat left turn for your ear. Mille continues to astound! Key and tempos changes, shifting solos and top of the line playing make this a can’t miss. It’s almost like the kind of song you wish some of the older thrash metal bands from the 80′s were still writing. “Your Heaven My Hell” introduces some moody dynamics and vocals with smooth walking bass lines by Christian Geisler. This is all before the big chorus explodes and the song kicks into another gear entirely. “Victory Will Come” is another fast jam, tailor made for the circle pit, while the album closer “Until Our Paths Cross Again” is another mini-epic full of a range of emotions. This album is among the best work of the band, not just in this era, but in their entire history.
 KREATOR in 2012: still making essential albums. GRADE: A
by Keith (Keefy) Chachkes.
Tags: double-bass drumming, kreator, metal army america, metal reviews by Keefy, Nuclear Blast, Prog Metal, shredding solos, thrash
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Thursday, September 15th, 2011
Metal Army caught up with Shawn Drover of MEGADETH at this year’s ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK MAYHEM FESTIVAL. Even though we were being attacked by trees and wind Shawn was kind with his time and very candid about topics such as touring, their upcoming new record Thirteen (Roadrunner), choosing a set list, drumming in a band with famous former players and The Big 4 shows.
 MEGADETH played the main stage at Mayhem Festival this summer before a shoulder injury to front man Dave Mustaine derailed them.
MAA: How is the tour going so far?
SD: It’s going good man. We are finally settled in now. We had done a bunch of shows in Europe with The Big 4, jumped on a plane from France to San Francisco and played about five hours later on stage. It was a real test of our endurance, but we pulled it off and it’s been all good. This entire tour has been a lot of fun with a lot of diverse bands out here.
MAA: The band is playing a new MEGADETH song, “Public Enemy #1” live on the tour. How does is stack up compared to the tracks on Endgame?
SD: Musically speaking? It’s just another metal song by. I don’t like to compare apples and oranges. It’s just another good, mid-tempo metal song by us. I don’t know why we are playing that particular song to be honest, because we are really happy with the new record. The new album is great and covers a lot of ground within the parameters of metal. I’m glad we’re playing it. It’s just a good tune, man. It’s catchy and heavy so its going over really well. We’ve done this before, with stuff that hasn’t been heard by the public. We did that last time with “Headcrusher”, we did that with “Washington Is Next” before that on the previous tour. This is a good vehicle to do that, to see what goes over well and what doesn’t go over well. We like trying out new songs in a live setting, so our batting average previewing tracks early is pretty high. So we’re very happy to do it.
 Shawn began MEGADETH's Mayhem set with the opening drums for "Trust".
MAA: I understand the band finished Thirteen really quickly between tours. How did that come about?
SD: We finished it in record time! Certainly the fastest time to record an album since I’ve been in the band, by leaps and bounds. I’m glad we finished it, but if we didn’t it would have been okay. We would have just gone back in and finished it up after this tour leg with Mayhem. We’ve all been really inspired and we such a mass good riffs to assemble songs and that is always good too. We were really prepared to work and even some stuff we didn’t even use, which is a great thing as well. It just goes to show that you can do it. If you bear down and put your nose to the grindstone, you can get it done. We’ve proved that. The results will speak for themselves. We’re really happy with the record.
MAA: Thirteen will be your third album with the band. Has your playing changed over these albums if at all, since you came into the band?
SD: I don’t think it has too much. I have been playing for so long, I play the way I play. Playing your own stuff is easy. Emulating others is the trick. If you got asked to play something by EDDIE VAN HALEN, maybe some stuff you could do and some stuff you couldn’t because it’s not who you are. For me I am emulating a lot of different drummers, which is fun too. Maybe there are some things I might have done differently back in the day if it was me, but it’s neither here nor there. For me the stuff I have played on, it’s just the way I naturally play. Stylistically, I haven’t changed much at all. I’ve always been a double-bass playing metal drummer. I haven’t changed, I’ve just gotten older. (laughs)
MAA: Who was your favorite MEGADETH drummer before you joined the band?
SD: Gar (Samuelson)! Hands down! For me its all about the original lineup. I love all the drummers, they are all great and I respect all of them a lot, but for me its all about Gar. Gar was really a fusion drummer when they really mixed fusion with speed metal. There were other bands that came in after and took it further with that, but MEGADETH were really pioneers, whether they realized it or not. They probably did, but maybe they didn’t realize they were invented something very cool. Chris Poland and Gar. It’s just the original lineup is the one for me and certainly my favorite MEGADETH line-up.
 Shawn said Gar Samuelson is his favorite MEGADETH drummer, hands down.
MAA: Speaking of that lineup: is the band still going to do a tour celebrating the Peace Sells 25th anniversary?
SD: I don’t know. The thing with that is we were only supposed to do the Rust In Peace 20th Anniversary tour for one tour leg. Then Tom Araya from SLAYER got injured and we canceled a tour. So we had to decide if we wanted to come off the road and wait for Tom’s issues to clear up or do this tour for the fans. So Dave and management had the idea to do more of the 20th Anniversary tours. And then David (Ellefson) came back in the band and all these ducks started lining up. It wasn’t planned like that, but then it just evolved this way. And people say oh you have to play here and play there so it lasted a full year. Would I like to do it? Yeah. Do I want to do it for a year? No. You don’t want to become that band that does that kind of thing because this year it’s Peace Sells and next year it would be the 20th anniversary of Countdown and it just keeps going and going. But everybody was so jacked up about of us doing all of Rust In Peace. So we were like “why not?” MEGADETH had never done anything like playing an entire album live in their career. And I’m glad we did it! Again, it was just something that evolved and we went with it. We’re glad we did it. It was really successful. We made a live album and a DVD out of it so it was really, great fun. Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Certainly not for an entire tour.
 This thrash masterwork is 25 years old in 2011.
MAA: Any adjustments from the year of playing the Rust In Peace set to doing a more standard MEGADETH set on this tour?
SD: We practice part of the set everyday back stage, not the whole thing but a few songs for warm up. In an environment like this, your casual everyday rockers who just want to rock out want you to play the songs they know. You want to appeal to the masses at this kind of tour. If you were a casual LYNYRD SKYNYRD fan and they didn’t play “Freebird”, you’d be really pissed. For us we know we have to play “Symphony”, “Peace Sells”, “Holy Wars” and we gotta play “Hangar 18” every show. “A Tout Le Monde” we should really play every show and we’ve been trying to. Our fans are so hardcore and they want to hear the most obscure songs, which we have also tried to do here and there. Depending on what we are doing and where we are doing it we will sometimes throw out an obscure track. But then that goes over the heads of 80% of the audience and they go “what the hell was that? Was that a new tune?” With this kind of tour, we need to reach out to their fans, like the GODSMACK and DISTURBED fans might know our name and maybe a few tunes, but they may not really know too much about us. We might try to play our well known songs and try to latch on to them. I think it’s better if we do that so we play our “hits”. Which I know sounds like it should be a dirty word for metal, but it is not.
MAA: Now that we are in the second year of Big 4 shows are you still pumped up for them?
SD: Oh yeah! How could I not be? We have been playing to crowds of 50,000 people up every show. Yankee Stadium? It will probably be one of the top three venues to play in my life time. Not to diss any other venue. One of my bucket-list things was always to play Madison Square Garden, but screw that! I’m playing Yankee Stadium! Every show with the Big 4 has been just so beyond massive. We are all thrilled to be part of it. We’re making history. It’s so cool that after twenty-five years or more its been great to do it for the fans and for all four bands. It’s good for metal and the fans really wanted to see it. I hope it continues… forever! Yankee Stadium is the only show we have on the books right now. Who knows what the future brings? We’ll see.
 Shawn Drover and David "Junior" Ellefson play "Dawn Patrol".
(Special Thanks to Shawn Drover, Roadrunner Records and Curtis Dunlap Photography)
by Keith (Keefy) Chachkes
Tags: Chris Poland, Countdown to Extinction, Dave Mustaine, David “Junior” Ellefson, double-bass drumming, eddie van halen, emulating other drummers, Endgame, Gar Samuelson, jazz fusion and speed metal, Keefy, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Madison Square Garden, Megadeth, new album, original MEGADETH line up, Peace Sells...But Who's Buying, recording pressures, roadrunner records, rust in peace, Rust In Peace 20th Anniversary tour, Shawn Drover, slayer, The Big 4, The Big 4 at Yankee Stadium, Thirteen, thrash, Tom Araya, “Headcrusher”, “Public Enemy #1, “Washington Is Next”
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Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
I’ve Failed You (eOne Metal)
I have followed the career of KITTE from the very beginning. When they hit the scene in the late 1990s they were written off by some as a curios novelty. I thought they were cool and certainly capable of bigger and better things even at that time. When they matured and made more complete sounding albums, they were accused of changing too much to fit in with the times. Sometimes you really can’t win or please anybody, can you?. Back in the day I would often make a correlation to them being young and also women in their tough climb upwards in the male dominated world of metal. I have watched them take a ton of abuse from hostile crowds and give the same performance as if it was their own headline show. They have improved every album without compromising what makes them a band. On the ageism angle, similar digs at bands like TRIVIUM, JOB FOR A COWBOY, BLACK TIDE and recently DIAMOND PLATE all received a similar slights early on. Rather than wilt like victims, sisters Morgan and Mercedes Lander have repeatedly beat back this negativity and remained focused on their goals. Through sheer will they have persevered and their latest album, I’ve Failed You is the most fully realized music of their entire career.
Opening with a bombastic few riffs and dropping down into a serious thrash metal chug the first song sees the band already exploring some new musical territory. Morgan Lander’s vocals have now assumed a deadly black metal growling scream that has more in common with Dani Filth or Ken Sorceron than anyone else. The power of the verses is off-set by the cascading chords of the chorus. Guitarist Tara McLeod rips off a cool solo full of hammer-ons with a neat dive bomb at the end. The urgency of the song really sets the grim tone for the entire album and you realize this is not even the KITTIE of a few albums ago. “We Are The Lamb” actually kind of sounds like an ARCH ENEMY song in its tempo until the pre-chorus half-time shift comes in. Mercedes Lander has always been solid behind the kit, but her double kick-work is outstanding here and she is clearly stepping up her game with crisper fills and rolls than ever. Third track “Whisper of Death” has really cool chromatic riffs in it. They have never been shy about their PANTERA influence ever since their first appearance together on Ozzfest back in the day and it shows here. The chorus finally sees Morgan’s melodic singing voice appear which is a nice contrast to her beastly growls. Another boon to the band on this album is stability. Finally having a lineup last more than two years, you can hear the gelling of the players come through in the tracks. For instance bassist Ivy Jenkins has also stepped up and logs a performance worthy of former bassist Jennifer Arroyo (SUICIDE CITY). “What Have I Done” is a slow, churning SABBATH-ian jam that amounts to harsh balladry. Morgan’s bold and mature alto range sits comfortably in the mix and has a lot of soul too. Later in the song, it lifts off into a galloping death dirge with a near perfect circle-pit starting tempo, if only for a little while. McLeod’s bluesy soloing is also impressive. The interlude “Empires (Part 1)” played by McLeod sounds like a classical inspired madrigal. This builds a nice contrast for when “Empires (Part 2)” comes in and kicks your teeth in. The epic, brutal verses chock full of sharp riffs and pulsing beats are contrasted by another catchy chorus and Morgan’s impassioned wail. Jenkins lays down some more cool walking bass runs. The band has really found themselves in a zone with a penchant for the mid-tempo jam. For most of the album it works well. “Already Dead” is one of the best songs here. It has sleek licks that bob and weave in and out of the nautical influenced rhythms. Like much of the album, the lyrical themes are especially dark and ill feeling on this song matching the vocal performance. Other top tracks are the thrash inspired “Ugly” and the brooding “Time Never Heals”. The entire album is a breakthrough for the band with cleverly written and memorable songs to prove it.
 KITTIE makes their latest album a breakthrough. GRADE: A
By Keith (Keefy) Chachkes
Tags: ageism, Arch Enemy, bassist Ivy Jenkins, black metal vocal styling, Black Sabbath, BLACK TIDE, bluesy solos, complex riffs, dani filth, deathmetal, Diamond Plate, double-bass drumming, drummer Mercedes Lander, eOne Metal, guitar interludes, I've Failed You, Jazz, Jennifer Arroyo, job for a cowboy, Keefy, Ken Sorceron, kittie, lead guitarist Tara McLeod, madrigals, Pantera, power grooves, prog, sexism, singer/guitarist Morgan Lander, SUICIDE CITY, thrash, trivium, walking bass lines
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