Album Review: Servers – Leave With Us

In an age when an embattled music industry has sucked up hit after hit, record labels and their artists have found solace in the art of advertising. A brash band t-shirt, a solid tour slot, an enticing line of blurb, one fanatical album review in the right place and a strong social media presence. Any of these things can be the making or breaking of a band these days. With that in mind, you’d honestly believe that the UK trio Servers were rank amateurs. An instantly-forgettable and distinctly internet-unfriendly moniker, a face-concealing “promotional” snap and music video and a few lines of biographical waffle about cults – that’s pretty much it. It’s certainly a back-door approach to self-promotion.


Take a closer look though, because lurking back there in the shadows is an absolute behemoth spouting musical ear-worms that boast grit, melody and muscle. Some groups may mesh a couple of genres together to create something fresh and dynamic – Servers are an octopic rock band with a groping arm in every pie. They are the very definition of the band you simply cannot pigeonhole. Song by song, their chameleonic music takes in grunge, dark rock, screamo, sludge, cult metal, new wave, industrial and punk n’ roll – there are even a few 70s prog touches here and there.

The keystone here is vocalist/guitarist and former GU Medicine frontman Lee Storrar. His “all is lost” melancholics and soaring Jaz Coleman-esque (Killing Joke) throat-ripping wails lock themselves seamlessly onto his portly chugs and wild riffs, but there is solid support from Ant Nettleship’s pounding drums and Lee Wilde’s fizzing bass. This here is a debut album loaded with viperous intent, an intoxicating dark quality and shedloads of melodramatic attack.

Opening with bleak menace, ‘Save Me From Myself‘ is two-parts Cancer Bats and one-part Five Finger Death Punch. It burns with an intense heat and Storrar’s hoarse yelping rises to a scream with the crecendoing chorus whilst the pistoning rhythm rumbles beneath like a detached and hopelessly lost soul. ‘Universes & Supernovas‘ and ‘Run With The Foxes‘ are their two epic firecrackers with vast riffs that will suck you in. Both Foo Fighters-esque in construction and tone, they feature big, sparkly choruses that will aggressively weld themselves to your brain. Wedged between them the intensely gothic, Icicle Works-friendly comedown of ‘Claustrophobia‘ is utterly thrilling and it’s tonal brother, the dark, sultry creature that is ‘King Things‘, is a pulsating beauty with a powerful “breathe in, breathe out” suckerpunch.

‘Mega High‘ ups the ante as Lee Wilde’s fat bass strings combine with Storrar’s buzzing, sludge-flinging guitar to take them powering into Orange Goblin and Fu Manchu territory. This gives licence for the vocal to dial up the snarl and caterwauling as the shit-kicking rock licks come out to play. The joy of the stomp is used to great effect for the raging bluster of the QOTSA-esque ‘Do Gooders‘. Here, their bleak cult ethos that they seem to thrive on adds another more sinister tone to their appeal.

Layered deep enough to give it a potent attack, the strong production also slaps on a slick finish and yet it’s been handled lightly enough to give it real character. Listen closely enough and beneath the power and precision, there is still the odd pop and crackle that bursts forth. No matter which track you shuffle to, there is a resplendent joy prevalent in the construction and an undeniable swagger in the delivery. Here is an album that you sense is alive and breathing. It’s dark purpose may be there in the background but, thankfully, it has not been consumed by it. Rather it stands silently within the crowd, yet with arms open, ready to wrap you in its warm, loving embrace.

When the songwriting is of this kind of quality, there really is no need to go through the standard ritual of self-promotion. If the South Yorkshire trio continue along this path, focusing solely on the creation of the music alone, the rest will simply take care of itself. As their final track clearly points out with its (rather tacked on) spooky soundbite from the “Heaven’s Gate Cult Recruitment Tape” – “The only chance you have to survive is to leave with us”. One listen to this album and you will surely want to follow Servers to the ends of the Earth.

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2014/01/24/servers-leave-with-us/

EP Review: Colossus Of Destiny – In Lesser Brightness

Who fancies a nice, big, juicy steak?

If you’ve got your hand up then allow me to point you in the direction of Colossus Of Destiny. With a band-name that comes from a Melvins’ live album and being bona fide fans of the Relapse roster, it’s no surprise to discover that this Parisian quintet are all about the meat. With velvety-rich production, beefy drumming, fat strings and a chomping vocal attack that hits like a bloody mallet, In Lesser Brightness is a T-Rex T-Bone of a record.

It’s a beast that digs in early and signs off in style. Opening the six-track EP up with “Dismay In Empty Eyes” and its crashing wave effects, sonorous riffs and cascading toms, they cleverly strip their attack back only to build it all back up again. As a multi-part behemoth, it’s hugely reminiscent of Steak Number Eight’s progressive thunder. It is the ultimate statement of intent. Closing proceedings, the lurking melodics of the title-track and its chaotic brother, “Naked & Unbound”, are similarly brave in structure. Here, the band tug at antagonistic threads that shine a spotlight on Jérémy Le Formal’s drumming as he drives the staggering motion ever onward when it seems the songs may implode.

Conversely, their shorter tracks, like “Unleashed” and “Get Lost”, seem determined to blindly batter away with the guitars ripping out some fairly hefty sludge metal, taking them tramping down the same paths as bands like Bison B.C. and High On Fire. Deep in the mix, Guillaume Taliercio’s bass still displays a magnificent wanderlust whilst vocalist Adrien Guilmoteau has a crack at tearing off a slice of that Matt Pike snarl. Here in the record’s mid-riff the tracks lose some of their individuality as their fleshier parts tend to bleed into each other which is a shame.

A future album release should help nail down whether their intentions are to favour pace and power over a softer, more experimental touch. That opening track here suggests they do, indeed, have the songwriting nous to help them, should they so wish, build up an exciting, expansive style. Whichever way they go, it’s clear you’re going to have to bring a big plate and a sharp knife if you want to dine at Colossus of Destiny’s table.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/01/colossus-of-destiny-in-lesser-brightness-hellbound-records/

Album Review: Murmur – Murmur

After plunging the depths with their raw, feedback-abusing, drone-heavy and, at times, utterly inaccessible debut album, “Mainlining The Lugubrious”, this Chicago quintet have pulled back their black metal curtains and allowed in a little more light for their sophomore self-titled.

They have undoubtedly veered towards more of an intensive drone and psych experience, with only suggestions of their former Nachmystium and Burzum stylings shining through. Expect plenty of rhythmic anomalies, staccato attacks and even a little touch of punk nous thrown in to the mix. Tracks such as “Bull Of Crete” and the hellish dirge-into-mayhem of the two-part “Zeta II Reticuli” and “King In Yellow” form the bloodied fists of malcontent. It’s like finding the atonal nadir where These Arms Are Snakes’ vicious howls meet the avant-garde lunacy of Kong.

Retaining their love of ambience, you’ll discover amidst the dying paroxysms, dark bleatings and discordant noise, fresh shoots bursting forth from the dangerously jagged 11-minute monster, “Al-Malik”, and the soulful Latino flourishes of “Recuerdos”. Elsewhere, the album is only memorable for its lack of hooks, curiously liquid segueing between tracks and inconsistent tonal patterns.

What does ring true is their choice of bonus track. If Murmur’s ultimate fetish hadn’t been obvious before then the closing cover of King Crimson’s “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 2″ will nail that thought into your mind. Faithfully performed (though without the original’s kitsch instrumentation or warm blue tones) it seems a shame they neglected to insert as much of their heroes’ gnarly groove or deap-seated psychoses into the rest-of the album.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/01/murmur-murmur-season-of-mist/

Feature: Johnskibeat's Best 20 Albums Of 2013

2013 has seen large growths in the, quite frankly, already sweaty regions of punk n’ roll, progressive metal and retro blues rock. Naturally, this has made me a very jolly fellow. You might be able to spot a few of the more impressive additions in my all-singing, all-dancing end of year list. Happy xmas to one and all!

20. Iron Tongue – The Dogs Have Barked, The Birds Have Flown

Iron Tongue roughly feed their country affectations and hefty, blues-tinged rock through the chomping maw of old school doom metal to inspire Steve Von Till to comment that The Dogs Have Barked has… “a power and an edge and soul that rarely exists in music today”. [Review Here]

19. Gorguts – Colored Sands

Those 12 years of waiting between albums were worth it. The vast leaps made in production quality mean Gorguts have given us the gift of a powerful and precise shock to the system. Colored Sands is gritty, powerful and effortlessly precise and with songs like the epic title-track tearing us asunder it really is harem-scarem technical death metal of the finest quality. [Review Here]

18. Karnivool – Asymmetry

The essence of their post-rock forbears has always weighed heavy on Karnivool‘s work and, unsurprisingly, their third long-player Asymmetry shows all the same hallmarks. Song by song they draw upon the karmic power of giants like Tool, Deftones and The Mars Volta to grant us the opportunity to gaze upon yet another stunning, colour-streaked soundscape. [Review Here]

17. Motörhead – Aftershock

This album is proof that Motörhead are adapting beautifully to old age. It’s a little flabbier and it has a few more wrinkles, but this still comes with plenty of snarl amidst the laconic blues and gravelly rock n’ roll. Aftershock may not have come from the same dark hole that spawned Overkill or Bastards but it’s right up there with them. [Review Here]

16. Extol – Extol

Construction meets deconstruction as Extol lay waste to our perceptions of what is sonically possible. By turns, scrawling, visceral and beautiful, this magnificent spot of post-everything allows us a glimpse of the endless possibilities when boundaries are shattered beyond repair. [Review Here]

15. The Dillinger Escape Plan – One Of Us Is The Killer

Antagonistic short spurts of bloody hate, this contextually profound lump of chaos is DEP at their most vindictive. Just beware those misleading pop hits – those are there to tempt in the suckers amongst us. How mean. [Review Here]

14. Cult Of Luna – Vertikal

Patience is the key. The stylized emotional flow throughout is spasmodic, yet thought-provoking and utterly engaging. Beware, because when these beasts get their gnarly on, Vertikal‘s neanderthal sludge can become the monster of your nightmares. [Review Here]

13. Deafheaven – Sunbather

The ultimate sonic lightning bolt out of blue, Sunbather smears the visceral guts of black metal onto the blank canvas that is shoegaze. For an hour, they effortlessly fuse their songs together to do nothing less than break our hearts in two. [Review Here]

12. Funeral For A Friend – Conduit

Trimming a little off the sides and adding plenty of honest and committed metalcore power to the melting pot, FFAF give us yet another welcome stepping stone on their path back to glory. [Review Here]

11. Hatebreed – The Divinity Of Purpose

A stunning assertion of dominance designed to incite total mayhem, this hardcore behemoth provides sheer brute force to beat down the doubters. Predictable? Maybe. Empowering? Oh my god, yes. [Review Here]

10. Spirits Of The Dead – Rumours Of A Presence

It was inevitable that after producing such a brilliant debut, SOTD would become one of the finest of the current crop of retro bands. Rumours Of A Presence rams that thought home by worshipping at the twin altars of doom and prog; reinventing their forbear’s artistic touches to fit a thoroughly modern template. [Review Here]

9. Clamfight – I Versus The Glacier

Not just a pretty name, Clamfight‘s latest is one hefty statement of intent. First they ram it home with absolute power. Next, they open it all out into strong, hook-laden tracks and then they take their collective foot off the accelerator. Impressive stuff. [Review Here]

8. Palms – Palms

This ambient-minded supergroup’s debut is littered with moments that remove your capacity for resisting emotion and motion – your heads will nod, your hair will stand on end and your spine will shiver. [Review Here]

7. The Ocean – Pelagial

It is not by chance that you can sense the increasing depth, pressure and diminishing light as you progress through this album. What we have here is a conceptual masterpiece with genius to be found in both its shifting, beguiling, expansive post-metal wash and in those thick, dark brushstrokes that produce such thunder. Performed live, it has transformed The Ocean from an all-too-wieldy wall of screaming sound into an absolute tour-de-force of atmosphere. [Review Here]

6. Dark Buddha Rising – Dakhmandal

Mile-thick chants that sound like they come from the throats of a coven of hooded giants. Know that Dark Buddha Rising’s latest, no matter how gloriously trance-inducing it may seem, is pure evil and as such it should be restricted to small amounts and is definitely for personal consumption only. [Review Here]

5. Pelican – Forever Becoming

Rather than lament guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec’s decision to move on, Pelican have come out fighting and their fresh, beefed-up approach has resulted in a conveyor belt of riffs and wave after wave of warming euphoria to bathe in. Acceptance and absolute absorption in the rhythmic drive is essential; achieve that and you’ll reveal an absolute tour-de-force. [Review Here]

4. Secrets Of The Sky – To Sail Black Waters

Secrets Of The Sky fearlessly dive into their subject matter of death with real abandon and without restriction. By doing so, they treat us to monstrous production and five forms of vocal attack. The combined force of this results in an atmospheric, doomy, subversively black, richly progressive and bollock-janglingly heavy debut that marks these Californians out as real forgotten heroes. [Review Here]

3. Steak Number Eight – The Hutch

Prepare for luminescent flourishes à la Torche, Isis-rich thundering and cherry-picked moments from the entire Baroness’ discography. Prepare for slack-jawed, clean vocals, thick, rotational riffs and dark melodious washes. Then, as malcontent is piled upon upon disillusionment and ‘core edges are sharpened, prepare to acknowledge The Hutch as nothing less than the organic masterpiece that it is. It is SN8′s “coming of age” album; a deal-maker. [Review Here]

2. The Safety Fire – Mouth Of Swords

Both soothing and vicious, Mouth Of Swords glows with a fluorescent vitality. The constantly burbling, rise-and-fall guitarwork, the crisp tone and accurate switch-up from ripped invective to soft melody is TSF at their finest. They have developed into a unique, inspirational force and the verve of this album has rightly set the benchmark, not just for them, but for much of their competition. [Review Here]

1. Man The Machetes – Idiokrati

Fast, bombastic, anthemic, groove-riddled and utterly addictive, Man the Machetes’ debut long-player Idiokrati is a behemoth of Norwegian punk n’ roll. From the fire and swagger of opener “Sluk Det Rått”, through the “Slagen” gang chants and short rhythmic pauses for breath to the joyful menace of “Hjemkomst”, these Norwegian’s prove themselves more incisive than Kvelertak and more explosive than Oslo Ess. Their album is the very definition of “grip it and rip it”. [Review Here]

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2013/12/16/farewell-2013-john-skibeats-top-20-of-2013/

Further musings on the soundtracks that rocked 2013 can be found here =  http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/12/albums-of-the-year-2013/

Album Review: Eye Of Solitude – Canto III

The concept of a guided tour around a city centre is, on the face of it, a decent idea. All the better if it’s a night tour of all the area’s more spooky haunts. I’d understand if this one isn’t your bag though – having some pimply pre-pubescent in a bleeding Scream mask jumping out at you can inspire one to violence. How about a guided tour down through the nine circles of hell, though? Yes? In that case, you’ve come to the right place.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century allegorical epic poem Inferno (the first part of his monster work The Divine Comedy), where his guide Virgil takes him down into the belly of the Earth, has played a hugely influential role in the development of the dark arts both directly and indirectly. It seems such a natural progression, then, for heavy metal bands (Iced Earth, Sepultura, Meshuggah, HIM, etc. ad infinitum) to look upon the visions of Dante as truly inspirational. London’s Eye Of Solitude, with new album Canto III, are the latest to have a crack at providing the ultimate soundtrack to his prose.

Click here to listen whilst you read...

From every angle, their soul-sapping, funereal doom is perfectly suited to the role and, quite honestly, if at some point during its running time you don’t feel overwhelmed then you have a harder heart than my own. I felt overwhelmed just looking at that gorgeous album cover (by Mortal Torment’s own Giannis Nakos) of Charon the ferryman navigating the river Acheron. I mean, just look at the intensity of the colours and the gentle tapering of the misty point where sky meets water.

Naturally attempting to live up to the imagery, one instantly knows the music is not going to be for the faint of heart. Take the lyrics. When they are delivered at little more than a skull-shaking rumble, all frustrating attempts to decipher those words that lurk behind it is going to be an impossible task. However, it does seem safe to assume that somewhere amidst the fear-mongering, the infamous (and much abused) line “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” (meaning “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”) will feature in some form.

So, wind up the volume, sink back and close your eyes and let your imagination run amok. Follow these instructions and you will discover that from the thunder and lightning as the first act “Between Two Worlds” opens, right through to the close of the sixth act as dawn breaks “In The Desert Vast”, Eye Of Solitude have created a gripping, at times bludgeoning and often torturous experience. When the double-kick isn’t letting rip and the infamous soul-sucking roar of lead vocalist Daniel Neagoe isn’t kicking you in the gut, the effective insertion of featherlight segues encourages your mind to wander off and explore the landscape that the music inhabits.

“Where the Descent Began”, for instance, is a track that features a pounding heartbeat effect, echoing footsteps, cries of anguish and a wedge of breathy vocal. There’s also guest spots from Anton Rosa on vocals and Dmitry “Casper” Rishko on violin (both from Russia’s Dominia). “He Who Willingly Suffers” features a gentle piano riff and a faltering spoken vocal, both so restrained and so doused in emotion that they will leave you reeling. “The Pathway Has Been Lost” has sobbing, whilst “I Sat In Silence” is all about Neagoe letting go of his very deepest, bowel-emptying growl.

The critic in me would have preferred a grittier guitar tone on the lead solos (they’re a bit too electro, a bit too synthetic), and an even tougher, meatier bite to the doom with a more intense degree of layering. Also, hearing more of the varying types of torture suffered by the sinners and their vocalised anguish would have ramped the fear up several notches.

Happily, Dante’s Inferno is this year’s current hot topic, thanks to Dan Brown’s latest adventurous novel. That particular release is a timely reminder of just how much frivolous tat on the subject there really is out there. Fear not though, if you are you still a lost soul who fancies getting closer to a taste of what hell is like then, next to the great work itself, Canto III is one of your better options. It is a distressingly cruel, grief-soaked and ultimately tormenting journey that Eye Of Solitude have presented here. You know you have sinned. Now prepare to regret and repent.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/12/eye-of-solitude-canto-iii/