Fading Waves - The Sense Of Space

I first became aware of Russia’s Fading Waves when I heard their impressive contribution to Slowburn Records’ split-EP with Starchitect. With the band’s brainchild, Alexey Maximuk, working his magic, both behind the production desk and in front of it, it was his talent for songwriting that most stood out. His stark concept and bleak lyrics struck quite a chord with my own dark side. Of the seven tracks on show, most were short, sharp and yet, ultimately, incisive. So, when it came to the announcement of the band’s debut album, The Sense Of Space, it was trepidation that replaced my inital excitement when I noted there was to be only five tracks, with four of those over nine minutes in length. Could Maximuk stretch his songs that far and still achieve the same impact and clarity of vision?

Well, The Sense Of Space tries a bit of everything, opening gently with fluctuating ambient pop, before exploring the wilds of post-rock and into the chaotic worlds of progressive, doom and death metal. As the album progresses, you can hear the tracks rebounding off a series of different markers; influences that prove just how deeply Maximuk is affected by his own emotional response to music.

The elegaic introductory piece, “Air”, scuffs up the dust of Renfro, Hammock and Cloudkicker, whilst “Flashes” (featuring the distinct, lilting vocal of Anastasia Aristova wending its way around shifting patterns) marries Mono’s sense of drama to the ethereal melancholy of Katatonia. You can almost hear the gearbox grind as they yank the stick and find a progressive metal punch to match the roaring cries of Alexey Morgunov. It’s No Made Sense meets Russian Circles via Isis. Then, the foot comes back off the gas as “Perforate The Sky” and “Through The Veins” drift into view, gurning and posturing as they infliltrate the more driven realms of Pelican and The Ocean.

There’s a damaged quality to the way Morgunov’s screams have been set back in the mix, with the scaling, hollow electrics brought forward to leave the rest fighting for attention in the middle. Each instrument is given its own degree of dissonance which adds dimension, granting the music this fascinating spatial quality. Sadly, the songs themselves are far less of a fascination; development is there but, when it does occur, it’s at an agonisingly slow pace.

One oddity I wasn’t quite prepared for is the higgledy-piggledy nature of the album. Although the concept of “air, senses of flight and endless space” seems easy enough to comprehend, the implementation of it is far harder to slot into place. Each chapter here, every soundscape, seems to come from other stories, other concepts – call me ignorant, but I certainly struggled to accept The Sense Of Space as a single work of art – its more musical crazy paving! The songs also feel overly lengthy, grinding their way down blind alleys, scrambling frantically at sheer walls. Fading Waves are clearly adept at creating invasive music, music that’s emotionally-draining, but apparently struggle to maintain a decent level of consistency. So, whilst I’m delighted to say this album flies it’s flag with pride, and is still worth a listen, it’s definitely a step backwards. I fancy a return to those hit-and-run tactics they seem so good at.

5/10

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2012/02/fading-waves-the-sense-of-space-slowburn-records/

Album Review: Overdown - Ethereal

By pitching their sound somewhere between the tempestuous, polyrhythmic death metal of The Faceless, the melodic, punched pinballing of Textures’ latest and the fluctuating moods of Vildhjarta, Madrid’s Overdown are going have to engage their brains and flash some real skills to make themselves heard amongst the rapidly-expanding clutter of bands writing progressive and technical metal today.

There sure are some pretty decent tracks lurking in their debut long-player, Ethereal. “The Charm Of The Sirens”, for instance, is ripped with the kind of base-level addictive chorus that will see the crowd surging forward at their live shows – especially if Threat Signal’s Jon Howard makes an appearance, as he does here. It bursts forth from the wandering miasma of fascinating, spaced-out layering that surrounds it.

Tracks like “Genetic” and “Don’t Let Us Fall Into Temptation” match the scarring rawness of Julián del Sol’s vocal roar to the duelling guitar squall and well-timed mini-beatdowns. Sure, the click on the kick pedal is inevitably going to receive some hate, but the charged atmosphere of these bruisers will invigorate; veins will pulse on foreheads; we’ll be ready for action. And at the other end of the scale? The closer, “Gliese 581c”, is an oddity of gentile beauty.

Elsewhere, the main problem is the lack of track-to-track cohesion. Rather than an album, it feels like three EPs thrown together – 5FDP-lite ballads that give way to grim All Shall Perish ear-melters. In a nutshell, I give you “Shattered Breath”. It divides it’s time between serenading you and ripping your face off. It’s as if soft rock breathed out hard rock which breathed out a screaming metal bastard. It’s an utter lunatic of a track.

They even have a crack at cutting out the really heavy sections and leave us with the stumblingly morbid atrocity of “Rain”. Oh, and that track goes on for seven minutes – every time the track rolled around and the guitar solo kicked in, I found myself gnawing my own fingers, desperately resisting the desire to mash at the skip button. The segueing between the constituent sections of “Ether Ruins” is slightly neater but match it up to any tracks that the Basick brigade of Aliases, Visions or Circles recently managed and it falls short of impact.

They try all manner of electronic distractions, emotive pianos and squealing solos, even tricks like walking the sound from speaker to speaker, but nothing can seemingly save each track and, by design, this album from mediocrity. And their worst faux-pas of all? By opening the album with their weakest track, “Sumeria”. It opens with a formulaic, echoing, heartbeat thrum, and an oddly-warping arpeggio that skids into a technical metal smorgasboard ripped with tone-deaf screams and cleans. Given the spasmodic nature of the song construction, which in itself is unsettling, you are left with little but the gutless chorus accessible, so the listener clings to it desperately like it’s a sinking ship.

A well-read movie critic once eloquently described the first Transformers flick as the equivalent of director, Michael Bay, “beating his chest and waving his penis at us for a couple of hours” – a brilliant summation of a man who chose not to include a similar standard of character development, plot implementation or transition to that which he achieved in either The Rock or the Bad Boys movies. This pretty much sums up how I feel about Overdown and their album Ethereal. If the band has the skills but no dedicated plan on how to implement them, this is what you get. It’s maddening. Fingers crossed then, that for the next album, the Spaniards will spend as much time working their minds as they have working their willies.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/overdown-ethereal

Album Review: Corrosion Of Conformity - Corrosion Of Conformity

Pepper Keenan is another of those men with fingers in pies. If Down were the apple of his eye, then Corrosion Of Conformity would be his sweet, sweet potato. His determined commitment to one or the other inevitably leads to a clash of interests and, sadly, this self-titled album is missing his influence. Despite rumors to the contrary, the band have finally buckled after one too many album-less years and forged ahead to create a new opus as just a three-piece, with Mike Dean leading the charge on vocals. As a kind of makeweight, it’s a thrill to see drummer Reed Mullin back on board, so recreating the line-up that produced the band’s breakthrough album, Animosity.

If you follow the band’s timeline and line-up changes, it was inevitable that this release was always going to be a return to the days before Keenan helped tweak their sound. So it is that much has changed, one of the agitators being the harsher recording which has been stripped back to the barest of bones. However, what this shift of stance has done is kickstart that 80s punk/hardcore vibe which so set fire to their early career; back when their albums bulged with virile, feisty ragers that gobbed in your face. The trio have also found time to chuck in a 70s rock n’ roll vibe to boot, perfect fodder for Woody Weatherman’s hungry guitar, until they’ve reached, by hook or by crook, the crossroads where Terror meets Voivod via Orange Goblin, Black Sabbath, Saviours and Wolfmother. Yep, try sticking that lot on at once and see what you get.

For the old school metal warrior with a penchant for retrospection, this self-titled will be like being wonderfully dragged back in time. The flurry of hardcore aggression that crawls over “Leeches” and the snot-smeared punk attitude of “Psychic Vampire”, “River Of Stone” and “Rat City” (God only knows why Tenacious D’s “Car Chase City” keeps coming to mind when I hear this) properly kick out the jams to connect with the spirit of those early COC albums. Dean’s reverb-soaked vocal goes on to peak at cosmic levels for “Your Tomorrow” before reaching a disengaged, querulous low during “What You Despise Is What You Have Become”. It’s all an experience that may prove a little confusing for those newcomers to the band. Fear ye not though, my stoner friends, for there are still little moments of bliss to be found – here, within the wallowing, mellow blues of “The Doom”, then here, following the curiously Soundgarden-like swagger of “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here” (where Dean summons some fiery Cornell passion into his aging vocal cords), and here, attached to the luxuriant, twangy instrumental of “El Lamento De Las Cabras”.

Try comparing their last release and my personal favorite, 2005′s In The Arms Of God, with this collection though, and the whole charade begins to fall apart. Dean’s sharper, less-attractive howl is a tough thing to accept when you consider what might have been. That hole left by Keenan’s linear guitar skills and deep, throaty power (the perfect accompaniment to the band’s more recent shift to breathing forth heavy-lidded, dirty blues and gurgling psych soliloquies) is gaping. It’s all to do with personal taste, of course, but Keenan just seems the far stronger singer, even when it comes to smashing up the neighborhood and breaking the speed limit. With Dean dredging the music of times past, this just feels so… dated.

So it seems, then, that your level of enjoyment is probably going to be dictated by when you first fell in love with Corrosion Of Conformity. If you’re someone who prefers a dash of Pepper with your chow, then this crackerjack-strewn skid-pan might be a bit too much to stomach. However, if you’re a fan of that early-COC punch, then this will be exactly that, a shot in the arm.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/corrosion-of-conformity-corrosion-of-conformity

Album Review: Lamb Of God - Resolution

This month Lamb Of God’s enigmatic frontman, Randy Blythe, launched a campaign via his blog, Randonesia, to be America’s next President. Considering the timing of the announcement, with the release of the band’s new album Resolution just days away, it’s quite clearly a tongue-in-cheek PR stunt. The question here though is will the album prove as determined as his campaign?

Historically, these Virginian heavyweights rarely fall short when it comes to honing real quality. As their album output has developed from sinister slabs of misguided anger into a study in the art of attack, they have built up a portfolio of killer material second to none. Following the raw bludgeon of their early efforts, including most notably As The Palaces Burn, where speeding cantankerous hardcore was doused in that signature cyclical death metal groove, they went on to hit the motherload when they also threw anthem-fuelled hard rock onto the flaming pile. Cue the utterly masterful assault course of Ashes Of The Wake which fed us neatly into the instant addiction provided by, first Sacrament with those half-spat shards and endorphin-loaded hooks, and then Wrath with its exploratory flashes of brilliance and swaggering ability to create memorable monsters. Consequently, the longing for Resolution and the continuation of discovery has become steadily unbearable.

Resolution divides its time between disconsolately hammering your brains out with spiked aggression and then piping through deeply-rutted rhythms that toss and turn themselves into yet more hook-in-mouth bloodlust. It takes the old, uncomplicated malevolence of As The Palaces Burn and combines it with the hands-to-the-heavens glory of Sacrament and Wrath. All this means yet more of those verses that jaggedy-jaggedy-jaggedy along, before rockstar-pausing to explode with a wham-bam-thankyou-mam into the colossus that is the chorus. Randy Blythe owns these parts with his earth-shattering whoops and throaty rasps that invigorate with their intensity, each one containing coherent, slick lyrics that demand repetition and naturally provide the opportunity for plenty of heartfelt hollerbacks. When they grubbily fall flat it is disappointing to find these sequences flooding a track to bursting point yet again but, when they shed the dirt and fire on all cylinders, there is nothing in metal today that gets the blood pumping faster. Such is the fine line that Lamb Of God now find themselves treading, though only a true hater would dare suggest that, given their history and the talent on show, they are a one-trick pony.

We always knew he was a legend-in-waiting but, by actually getting fully-involved in the whole process of making an album (i.e.; not nipping off to indulge in his other projects whilst the band lay down the backing tracks), Randy has finally revealed his true value to the band by injecting more haranguing invective and raw-throated intensity than ever before. He warms hugely to his lyrics here, tugging at themes of self-destruction and isolation, with the album title left implying something much wider than just the political statement that the cover and a couple of the tracks suggest, and he delivers them with the conviction of a madman. The other tour-de-force here is Chris Adler. His rampaging drums do the work of two; an army of machine-gun peppering kicks loaded into a world of polyrhythmic intersplicing that will leave you gasping for air. He is a machine and with Resolution he finds yet another level to impress at.

Dug in amongst all this we get yet more progressive elements to savour. They lurk in tracks like “The Number Six” and “King Me” and add something spicy to the melting pot. The former plumps for gang chants and half-whispered messages (redolent of Faith No More’s “Crack Hitler”) whilst “King Me” is on a whole other level. There’s more portentous, hushed vocal but here it’s given an operatic backing (producer Josh Wilbur’s suggestion which should be roundly applauded) and the soaring dark heart, where Randy turns himself into an anvil-topped storm cloud, boiling and bubbling into a destructive twister that threatens to rip the top of your head off and suck out the contents, is mesmeric. When he finally blows himself out, you can actually hear the man collapse.

Other more intuitive tracks like the thrashy rumblings (where Megadeth meets Agnostic Front) of “Guilty” and “Visitation”, the hunk of molten metalcore that forms “Cheated”, or the jerky, bawled punk of “Invictus” provide solid, if unspectacular, padding to absorb the smack of the money-shots like “Desolation”, “Ghost Walking”, “The Undertow” and “Insurrection”. They may be the album weak points, but they aren’t those obviously jarring dips in quality that your average album carries around as bulk.

In fact, considering the quantity of variation within, from the long doomy opening blast, via the snatch of acoustic riffing, to the snippet of clean vocal harmony, there is much keep you coming back for further listens over and over again. In fact, you’ll be amazed to hear they’ve even managed to Crowbar in (pun intended) some bluesy stoner rock with “To The End”.

All this and yet the flow of the album is superb with parallel tracks linked together with re-worked riffs or just fiendishly simple wordplay and, with fourteen songs to run through, there’s plenty of bang for your buck. Okay, there is still the sense that they’ve held back, yet again, on really twisting our melons with something from left-field, and pound for pound it’s not got the star quality of say Ashes Of The Wake or Sacrament, but then it’s not lagging too far behind. An essential purchase, though? Well, put it this way, if I was an American citizen, I’d be voting for Randy!

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/lamb-of-god-resolution

Article: Writer's Picks For 2012

I was recently commissioned to highlight a couple of bands with forthcoming albums that, for the coming year, were getting me a little hot under the collar. I plumped for these two...



When a new musical style begins to form, it’s rare that many take notice until it is well and truly established. This hardly seems to have been the case for the onomatopoeically-termed genre of ‘djent’. It first appeared in the early noughties, inspired by the signature palm-muted string hammering of the Swedish metal band Meshuggah, and has rapidly grown into a goliath with new bands piling on board each and every year. India’s Skyharbor and England’s The Safety Fire are two you may not yet have come across. Both have debut albums popping up in 2012 and both promise to be real game-changers. Having seen and heard the the former’s numerous little burps and squeaks popping up on various media sites of late and having experienced the latter’s storming “Sections EP” and explosive live show, I for one am already experiencing palpatations at the prospect of the pair taking djent to the next level.

Skyharbor will release the debut album ‘Blinding White Noise: Illusion & Chaos’ worldwide via Basick Records in early 2012.
You can listen to a sample of what they do here: http://soundcloud.com/skyharbor7

The Safety Fire will release their debut album ‘Grind The Ocean' via InsideOut Music on February 27th, 2012.

This short piece also appears online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2012/01/best-fit-2012-preview-writers-picks/