Album Review: Meshuggah – Koloss (Nuclear Blast)

As a late arrival at the Meshuggah table I find, at times, that I can be driven nuts by their overbearing attack and often flat, uneven grind. Their music may be bulging with slap-in-the-face aggression, something that is overwhelmingly exciting when witnessed live, but it’s a feature that requires a little more craft when brought to bear on an album. Too many times, all for the sake of an addictive hook, stand-out riff or crafty lyric, they seem to allow tracks to be dragged down into the deep. It’s here in these submerged waters that I lose them, only hearing the sound of repetitious, over-familiarity echoing from undefined sources coming from somewhere above the waterline.

For a band that’s birthed a whole genre of wannabes I’m clearly in the minority here. It’s exactly this level of adoration that adds extra pressure to each Meshuggah offering as they strive to stay ahead of the game. One glance at seventh long-player Koloss shows they aren’t afraid of going the extra mile to please. I mean, just look at that album art. It’s all a bit reminiscent of some of Tool’s more-innovative covers with its mind-bending 3D digital rendering. Stare too long at the image and your brain begins to hurt. That took Luminokaya Lab a whole nine months to create so could feasibly contain the entire World Wide Web within its multitude of brassy squiggles! So, if Koloss can cause pain on a visual level, how does the album stack up sonically?

Well, “I Am Colossus” is typically pin-point accurate and easily as deeply-furrowed as Nothing’s “Stengah”. As an opening track, it’s a beast. Instantly, they concentrate on one rumbling chord and ping it repeatedly you, loading everything into the steady, syncopated rhythm whilst Jens Kidman meshes his monotone, scorched earth vocal to it. Meshuggah are sending out a clear message of intent. “Palm-mute this, you mothers… JUN… JUN… JUN… JUN… JUN JUN…”. The guts of it are so deep that when the guitars let loose, the strings are dropped so low, you need to strain to hear the changes. It’s skull-crushingly heavy.

“The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance” is a speed-freak, light on its feet next to the elephantine “I Am Colossus”. The whirling vortex created by the continuous double-kick of Tomas Haake drills ever downwards. He’s back with more pummelling crush for “Swarm” which will make your skin creep. Behind the thunder drums, the crawling guitars go batshit mental to recreate the sound of a billion insects screaming out of the sky to poison and devour you. You won’t forget this one in a hurry, already a future classic, and as such it eats Machine Head’s recent insectivorous offering, “Locust”, for breakfast.

These are the kind of tracks we expect from Meshuggah; it’s when you dig deeper that you begin to find their mixed bag of tricks. There’s the Primussian slapped funk of “Don’t Look Down” which gets a harder, dirtier make-over for “Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave It Motion.” Check out that spiralling solo and those semi-distant atmospherics on the former, or that trippy, warbling guitar on the latter and tell me these psychos don’t pay attention to their surroundings.

“Behind The Sun” finds them stretching each note, grinding them into a murky wall of sound, generating a backdrop that sounds as complex as their cover appears. The band appear to be sucking up a doom/black metal quality to go with their vindictive death metal patter and they save some of that primordial darkness for “Demiurge”. However, be warned, this one’s a real howler of a track if you’re seeking a similar spark. It’s so lacking in charm you may as well listen to the sound of your own heartbeat through a stethoscope for six minutes instead.

And that’s Koloss in a nutshell. For every blinder, you get a duffer. So, whilst “Marrow” lurches and energises with its pinged guitar slaps overwhelming alongside clean, scrambling solos and fuzzball chugs, you get the bafflingly, mighty attack of “The Hurt That Finds You”. With tightened snare and bags of crunch, it’s a song so sharp it hurts and yet it’s all for nothing when it seems the destination is Nowheresville.

Judging it from afar, it’s easy to spot the dirge-like hammering and prolonged sections of extreme technicality of Nothing running through Koloss, and yet the band still find time for the kind of dark, mesmeric groove and changes of tempo that you’d associate more readily with obZen. And yet, there’s something new here; something infinitely more enigmatic; a dangerous edge bordering on a barren, post-apocalyptic atmosphere. Whether that is something that will inspire their legion of admirers remains to be seen but, considering how the metal scene has so easily fallen back in love with mood-metal, I can’t see it hurting them.

There, and I didn’t use the D-word… not even once.

(6/10 John Skibeat)

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2012/03/meshuggah-koloss-nuclear-blast/

Album Review: O.S.I. – Fire Make Thunder

Working from home is every man’s dream. Wake up, crack a beer, watch some daytime TV, do some work for a bit, wash the car, a bit more work, fire up your non-specific games console, a bit more work (if you haven’t been sucked in by Skyrim‘s charms yet again), then down the pub until bed. That’s (allegedly) how the Office Of Strategic Influence (O.S.I.) operate.

Of course, O.S.I. is a band and not a government office, so there’s no need for us to get our knickers in a twist. O.S.I.‘s main men are prog-rock Wunderkinds Jim Matheos (Fates Warning, Arch/Matheos) and Kevin Moore (Chroma Key, ex-Dream Theater). There’s is a long-distance partnership. Both the writing and recording for fourth album, Fire Make Thunder, (in fact, all except the final overdubs and mastering process) is done at each musician’s respective home studio. Even the drums get a home-recording – this time at sticksman, and final piece in the puzzle, Gavin Harrison’s house far away in London. With their various other projects all ticking over nicely this is clearly an arrangement that works to their advantage.

Following their frankly stunning debut album (so good it warranted a recent re-release) they have been steadily churning long-players out on a regular basis. Their last couple have seen the band produce subtler, more mellow albums that stand accused of sacrificing hooks for emotion, but Fire Makes Thunder aims to correct that imbalance. Tracks like “Cold Call”, “Guards” and “Big Chief II” all wallow hard in the groove and serve up plenty of riffs and catchy lyrics that had me helplessly mumbling along whilst en-route to my various destinations, headphones askew from gently nodding in time. Others like “Indian Curse” or “Invisible Men” drop the pace and spark moments of deep contemplation with their crafty use of psychedelic, synthetic layering.

It may yet become tiresome, but the currently innocuous recycling of riffs and lyrics is a wonderful feature of the band. It ties tracks and albums together and draws comparison with the exquisite way Porcupine Tree do the same. Good examples here are the way “Guards” continues on from “Cold Call” by linking it back using lyrical content; or when “Invisible Man” picks up its big, heavily-fuzzed riff halfway through, it immediately recalls a riff that was used to great effect in “Bigger Wave” (from 2006′s Free). All these neat touches means the album flows beautifully from piece to piece, diligently threading emotional responses together. There’s true method in their madness, y’know.

The deft instrumental, “Enemy Prayer”, with its rinsed-out lead and bucking bass, rocks its listener from pillar to post with sections of delicate piano, wild tremelo and driven guitar, and stands up as one of their finest moments. Other album highlights can be find in the dreamy, waterfalling riff, background wash and dynamically-clipped vocal of “Wind Won’t Howl” and in the searing guitars which streak across Moore’s rich, menacing delivery (curiously reminiscent of Oasis’ Liam Gallagher) during “Guards”.

“Cold Call”, despite initially biting down hard with a fierce lick, after numerous plays, quickly gets repetitive and “Big Chief II” fails to initiate lift-off with a simplistically hard heart and with little else to stir the soul. However, despite these small failings, the album is an assured winner, proving that it’s not all beer, shits & giggles in the Matheos/Moore households, and heralds a welcome return to form for the band.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/o-s-i-fire-make-thunder

Album Review: Avatar - Black Waltz

Oozing pumping melodeath from every pore, Sweden’s Avatar are now on their fourth album and yet they are a band who have, up until now, slipped right through my fingers. Naturally, I was disappointed to discover they aren’t blue-skinned Na’vi from the planet Pandora but, having scanned the album title and proto-gothic freak on the cover, neither do they sound anything like Insane Clown Posse or the craptacular My Chemical Romance. In fact, there is a band that springs to mind when you add the album’s industrial overtones to their proclivity for thick black-make up, uniforms and all things Big Top, and that band is Rammstein. Now, that is a hard act to follow.

“All Is Lost” and “Torn Apart” kick off Black Waltz with the kind of rhythmic hammering you’d associate with a powerful steam locomotive haring down the rails. Sure, those metronomic drums fire up a sweet blazing trail, but it’s frontman Johannes Eckerström, in the engine cab, stoking those fires. Scouring his lungs for more and more power, he’s like a psychotic version of Randy Blythe (Lamb Of God).

With elements of Swedish compatriots The Haunted, Deathstars and Soilwork and, from across the border, Danish rockers, Hatesphere and Mnemic, they pile on the slick production and rip into their songs following a verse-chorus-verse pattern that brushes aside any overcomplicated sequencing or wild flights of fancy. Everything they’ve got is shoved whole-heartedly into the churning drum and bass, bottom-end groove. Tracks like “Blod” and “Smells Like A Freakshow” whack up the metal and, in doing so, become their fist-pumping anthems, whilst the nifty little riffs in “Paint Me Red” and “Torn Apart” add an addictive edge to spice up the deal.

With their simplistic construction and fondness for repetition, some of the tracks eke past the five-minute mark and, consequently, tend to turn a little sour – another case of over-egging a pretty straight-forward pudding. In the main, though, things are kept fast, fiery and attention-grabbing and the band have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to keep the album cannily varied.

“In Napalm” picks up a gothic bent as the band unite to deliver a whispered verse and accompanying chanted chorus, whilst the title-track goes even darker, riding snare rolls and walking us through a stageful of power-on, power-off, slow-quick theatrics (you have to check out the video, featuring circus act Hellzapoppin’, to really understand what’s going on here). Then, Avatar don a ten-gallon, chaps and chinks for “Let It Burn” and, from somewhere, find a dirty-ass blues groove and ride that buckin’ bronco for all it’s worth.There’s a few sticky moments, such as the 30 seconds of “In Napalm”s build that starts so quietly as to almost make it dead air, or the irksome twinkly chorus that kills the momentum of “One Touch”. Oh, and the near-as-dammit 10-minute, suck-it-up, harmonica-littered utter lunacy of “Use Your Tongue” wants bagging and tagging and throwing into a padded room. We’ll take it though for that killer line of “Good morning, good morning, good morning, rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine!”

I’m delighted to report, Black Waltz is a bit of a nutbar. The content seemingly rebounds off genres like a helpless pinball, but when it hits a bumper cap, it hits that cap with everything it’s got and that kind of commitment to the cause is a rare commodity. Yep, it’s a bit of a beast, so don’t be surprised to find Avatar breaking the machine with this one. Heck, they may not have anything like the wanton desire for destruction that Rammstein have, but you still wouldn’t want to be trapped in the same room as them. Hold on to your hats!

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/avatar-black-waltz

Album Review: Drawers - All Is One

The sheer volume of music out there, divided into a plethora of disparate genres and subgenres, never ceases to amaze me. As lovers of the art form we are all sweeping our musical metal detectors across these heaving, sonic haystacks, searching for the tiny needles in each that prick our attention. The idea, of course, is that we collect enough needles from enough haystacks to satiate our own desire. As we grab our needles to knit our own musical sweater, it’s so easy to forget the vast weight of bands we either fail to pick-up on, or do so and discard.

Drawers are a band who, amidst the trend for those one-word, pluralised bandnames and the resurgent craze for atmospherics and big riffs, are in danger of not getting picked up. It’s clear from, “All Is One”, their debut album about a sailor’s journey to meet his nemesis, that the band have sucked up many different flavours of sludge and stoner metal to produce a hard, smothering sound that’s heavy enough to suffocate.

They start aggressively with both “Capuut Mortem Ocean” and “Black Queen” ripped with the grumbling guitar tone of High On Fire and enamoured with a touch of the dark power of Purified In Blood. “Grey Sailor” piles some of Corrosion Of Conformity’s hardcore feistiness into the mix, dissecting the rhythmic groove into spasming sections. Mostly though, you’ll be hearing plenty of the low-keyed progressive fury of Crowbar and Down, especially in tracks like “Ivory Lighthouse”, “Red Ballet” and “Muddy Smoke”, both in the Anselmo meets Windstein vocal and the weight of dissonance, dissolving the chugs into a singular sound.

Tracks like the short-but-sweet “Blue Keel” and the more expansive “Silver Hand” dig down into cleaner waters adding another brief layer with a more pinched, proggy quality a la Baroness or Isis. “Silver Hand”, in particular, is a winner having retained the driven punch built up from previous tracks to offer a taste of both worlds. Another cracker is the raw power-play, “Golden Adieu”, which simply refuses to cede ground to allow you room to breathe.

With quite a few recognisable influences up front and centre, the task of projecting their own stamp on the project becomes increasingly more important as the tracks roll by. Sadly, by “Purple Ride” and “Electric Seat”, Drawers have succumbed to towing the stoner metal line, mimicking Down almost to the last detail in an attempt to suck up some of their signature, grime-slicked, deep Southern groove, wobbling along the same path, facetiously mimicking their bow-legged gait.

It’s odd that an album whose song-titles feature an array of colours should seem so undeviating, but it’s an album that undoubtedly has an enormous heft to it. It’s for this reason that, despite its lack of variety and tendency to copycat, fans of any of the aforementioned bands should get a kick out of this. For the rest of you, as it stands, if your detector gets one whiff of these Frenchmen right now, it will simply short-circuit and Drawers will find themselves sliding back down to the bottom of that haystack.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2012/02/drawers-all-is-one-slow-burn-records/

Album Review: Band Of Skulls - Sweet Sour

Southampton’s Band Of Skulls are a band on the cusp of something special. Their debut album, Baby Darling Doll Face Honey, nicely egged on by a couple of impact single releases, took them to some exciting places, and this latest long-player is already receiving some high-profile attention. Radio 1 has been blasting out the promo singles on a regular basis and, tuning in, it’s pretty easy to see why.

A quick glance at bassist/vocalist Emma Richardson’s Rorschashian inkblot artwork, this time around, is your first indication that Sweet Sour is going to rock harder than their debut. It has developed into something far more sinister than the blossoming glory of their debut. I’ve fallen into her trap by assembling its imagery into either a dissected, bloodied chicken corpse or, possibly, an Alien facehugger about to impregnate the viewer. Whichever it is, she’s nailed the album title in one startling image.

Certainly, the top end of Sweet Sour is all about the crunch. Guitarist/vocalist Russell Marsden has said “We wanted to write material that’s primed for where we’d got to. Beefier songs for bigger stages”. They are certainly that, with tracks like ‘Bruises’ and ‘Devil Takes Care Of His Own’ loaded with lurching, grimy riffs that pepper the songs with crafty precision, the rhythm ensconced in a methodical structure of attack and release.

They may be pulling the now-familiar shapes of rock bands past, but they have avoided the trap of merely echoing the mould that bands like The Vines or Jet once slid themselves into. Instead, BOS simply refuse to pile it all into the mix at once. Rather, enigmatic gaps in the music are added, the tonal quality becomes a malleable presence, and the pace is slowed to a crawl. It’s this kind of skillful songwriting that bolsters the effectiveness of the repeated lines which become the addictive hooks to be nailed home. It’s rock with added nous: the kind last seen active in the inventive minds of The Black Keys and Nine Black Alps.

Take the the boom-boom-tiss and falling arpeggio string taps of the title track or the steady two-chord repeater-riff that pads its way through to the key hushed strapline of ‘Devil Takes Care Of His Own’. Think Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’ getting down and dirty with AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’ and you’ll be half-way to understanding just how powerful these songs are.

Somewhat disappointingly, surrounding these top-end tracks lies a patchwork of hit and miss. ‘Wanderluster’ walks you down a dead-end of tentative echo and formulaic patterning before insulting you with a prosaic, posted-in chorus. ‘Lies’ crumbles beneath its own assuredness, circulating a couple of times before panicking and falling on the sword of brevity. Then, stepping back on the gas, they dredge up hints of The Subways with a soul-shaking groove, as memories of deliciously playful boy-girl harmonies are reignited, for ‘You’re Not Pretty But You Got It Goin’ On’.

The pace drops toward the album’s close, allowing the listener to sink back down within Band Of Skulls’ downier side. Tracks like ‘Navigate’, where Richardson beautifully steals the mic, ‘Hometowns’ and ‘Close To Nowhere’ all shift your perceptions of where this band fit in the wider scheme of things. Marsden recently nailed it with the words “Songs are your weapons. We’re the Swiss Army Knife of bands”. They can catch you napping with a real rocker like ‘Bruises’ or effortlessly disarm you with something like ‘Hometowns” whispered, yet super-sharp line “It’s just kids having more kids for fear of being alone” which comes from behind a veil of pastoral flute and gently tinkling stringwork.

As expected then, there’s some sweet and some sour; a description with a double meaning, applicable to both the album’s emphasis and its quality. Regardless of how fast the album grows and fades from your playlist, Band Of Skulls have cracked enough noggins here to really cause an industry ruckus. The countdown to lift-off has begun; twinkling in the distance, stardom awaits to receive them.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2012/02/band-of-skulls-sweet-sour/