Album Review: Death Destruction - Death Destruction

When I want to spin some tunes I’m often faced with a perplexing choice, ending up with me asking myself that most ludicrous of questions – what mood am I in? As a reviewer, some of the time I don’t get the choice but, when I do, I usually go for something ambient, richly-layered and rhythmically complex in nature; my “thinking man’s music”. Then there are those other moments (that usually involve some form of exercise) when I don’t need to get cerebral, I need to get neanderthal. For those moments, I’ll tend to turn to something with an in-your-face groove that makes me want to contort my face, thrust my arms at the sky and go absolutely nuts (embarrassing when you’re out for a jog). My go-to list of bands for this isn’t long, but I believe it just got longer.

Sweden’s Death Destruction were originally just a mere by-product of a particularly intense Evergrey studio session, so for guitarist Henrik Danhage and drummer Jonas Ekdahl to persevere with the material enough to want to turn it into a completely separate band is one hell of a brave move. Naturally, to complete the line-up, they turned to a couple of buddies and quickly secured the services of vocalist Jimmy Strimmell (Dead By April) and bassist Fredrik Larsson (Evergrey/Hammerfall). The result? A debut that has a groove on it the depth of the Mariana Trench and a vocalist who sounds like a fly-by from a fleet of F-22 Raptors; believe me when I say it’s a real face-melter. The music comes with a hefty bite of New Wave Of American Heavy Metal, speckled with the occasional smudge of black and blue. This is pit music for the masses.

The bloodcurdling scowl that Strimell sports is simply awesome. It’s fairly one-dimensional but you can’t ignore his passionate delivery. He has a tendency to do these low rising whoops when saying words so that “you” becomes “yoiiiiiieeeeeoooouuu”. Fine at first but, be warned, it can get a little annoying. During “Silence” he turns it up to “inhuman” level, with the lyrical patterns making it sound kinda like he’s trying to sing Lamb Of God’s “Fake Messiah” to the music of Five Finger Death Punch. Behind all this macho posturing, you’ll find some brutal music. It’s weird. I feel like I could reference every band in my collection here. Take “Kill It” and “Mark My Words”. For the former, I’m thinking Soulfly dancing to the tune of Austrian Death Machine and, for the latter, it’s Pantera trading blows with Devildriver. “Day Of Reckoning” is, simply, the sound of a Randy Blythe-fronted Down and swaggers along boxing ears at every turn.

There is also a grudging element of expansion which comes with tracks like “Hellfire”, bringing out a hint of black metal with it’s minor chords and spooked ambience, and “Kingdome Come”, with breaks and a yawning two-key riff that leaves an indelible mark. It’s not enough to suppress the energy and passion with which they play, nor is it trying to re-invent the wheel. What it does do, though, is unsettle the rhythmic flow of the album somewhat – try the dark stomping of “Chained In Thoughts” on for size and see what you think. When this happens, you’ll find an over-reliance on blast-beats and whacked-out soloing to keep the sense of attack at a consistent level; something that doesn’t quite pay off. This is only a debut, mind, so they’ve still got plenty of time to commit to a direction for future full-lengths.

By no means is it a deal-breaker and with song-titles like “Kill It”, “Fuck Yeah” and “Sea Of Blood” it was never going to be an overly taxing body of work. So much of it does, admittedly, come from that well-thumbed Heavy Music For Dummies manual but that’s not always a bad thing when it’s done so effectively. There’s a fine clutch of gang chants, choral repetition and call-and-response. (i.e.; Call: “Can I get a fuck yeah?” Response: (gang chant) “Fuck yeah!” Repeat ad infinitum.) If you just want pit-worthy power loud enough to level a war zone then Death Destruction are still most definitely the band for you. They have surely made one hell of a workout record. Stick this on in the gym and you won’t just come out ripped, you’ll most likely break every piece of equipment in the place.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/death-destruction-death-destruction

EP Review: 65daysofstatic - Heavy Sky

Emerging from the debris of the recording sessions for latest album We Were Exploding Anyway, comes this craftily-compiled EP featuring six brand new tracks (and one new edit), because surely nothing is too good to throw away. The band obviously feel strongly enough about how special these songs are, as they’ve compiled limited edition artwork for the release and are offering two tracks (unavailable elsewhere) to folks who place a pre-order. Another sign of how serious they are about the content comes with the announcement that they’re about to take it out on tour. So it must be all killer and no filler, right?

Well, kicking off with a bit of a duff extra we find that ‘Tiger Girl’, having been cut down from an admittedly lengthy 10:37 to a mean 3:36, has its emotional peaking effect blunted somewhat. Allowing yourself to dwell and soak up the rhythm is often far superior to the short, sharp hit. A bad start then but, thankfully, the remainder of the EP is jam-packed with crackers.

‘The Wrong Shape’ ebbs and flows dynamically and, as such, is somewhat reminiscent to ‘Crash Tactics’. Comparison between the two actually results in this new release sounding just that bit stronger. ‘Pacify’ crawls into view, sounding much like the bone-chilling opening to Baroness’ ‘Rays On Pinion’, like a hundred fingers running their way round a hundred glasses, whilst ‘PX3′ expounds further on that progressive element pulling in a wholesome heartbeat bass to help out the manic piano. ‘Beats Like A Helix’ grabs great fistfuls of computer-generated beeps and throws drum and bass at it, whilst ‘Guitar Cascades’ is a collapsing, submerged, massively cathartic wall of noise. The real find here, though, is ‘Sawtooth Rising’ which is exactly the one missing element from 65DOS’ exploration of dance music that so inspired ‘WWEA’. It’s colourful, rich, buoyantly building, exceptionally brutish and fused with the classic buzzing signature of mind-melting euphoric trance.

So instead of finding six that didn’t deserve to make the cut, ‘Heavy Sky’ marks the brilliant completion of a stunning and, clearly, devotional body of work.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/11/65daysofstatic-heavy-sky/

Album Review: Floodstain - Slave To The Self Feeding Machine

Floodstain are tough-talking Dutch metallers who, according to their website, were "spawn out of the dark bowels of a town nicknamed 'Hell', a place dominated by gray skies and endless rain, where boredom gets killed by vandalism, drugs and heavy sludge rock." On closer inspection they appear to have originated in Hellevoetsluis, a small village in Southern Holland, although they currently cite the sunny climes of Alfaz Del Pi, a peaceful resort in Costa Blanca, as their MySpace location. So I think we can take all this PR posturing with just a small pinch of salt (although we do love that "horns" cursor).

What we do have to take seriously is their colossal riff engine spewing angry, dark sludge into any spare lughole it can find. Jozz, the vocalist and, amazingly, lone guitarist, layers up his own outpourings to evoke Down's Phil Anselmo at his most vitriolic, whilst bassist Bobysan and drummer Vesso balloon out the bottom-end. They eagerly diversify the aggression to echo both the stoner wall of fuzz of Fu Manchu ('The Slumbering Titan Slayer') and the magnificent roar and balls-out grunt of High On Fire ('Suicide Pep Rally'). Despite all this early bluster they are clearly at their happiest when settling on the driving groove of Corrosion Of Conformity ('Ice Pick Lobotomy'), and sound oddly ineffective when the walking bass and softened build of the title-track take us on a more rocked-up, QOTSA-influenced path - the halfway drop-off into a heaving abyss of jerking, psychotic Pantera hat-doffing soon gets the party restarted.

There's sneaky touches of Sabbath-esque musicality to be found in 'Crooked Teeth' and 'The Slumbering Titan Slayer', that rise up from the deluge of riff-slinging, but they are merely fleeting and by the time you've finished the bad trip of the bonus track's anomalous radio static and sirens, these moments are long forgotten. I could spend all day name-checking bands that this reminds me of; there really is no trick here. If it's meaty and it rocks, Floodstain will amp it up to the eyeballs and beat it black and blue until it cries bloody tears. The liner-notes even see them paying homage to "Budweiser" - the supposed "king of beers". Their early material (they've been going at this for ten years now) was full of promise (do check out the awesome 'Asphalt Blues' on their MySpace) so instead of all these aforementioned influences, that clearly run deep, we'll be hoping for a little more of their own personalities next time around.

Also online @ MTUK = http://www.metalteamuk.net/oct10reviews/cdreviews-fs.htm

Album Review: Mt. Desolation - Mt. Desolation

Mt. Desolation is the deceptively morbid moniker for the new vehicle featuring Keane’s songwriter-in-chief/pianist, Tim Rice-Oxley, and their bassist/percussionist, Jesse Quin. Calling on their contacts to help add flavour, they’ve drafted in The Killers’ drummer Ronnie Vannucci, Mumford & Sons’ banjo-player Country Winston and Noah And The Whale’s fiddle-player Tom Hobden. Their MySpace page describes this hotch-potch band, somewhat cryptically, as a mixture of Chinese traditional and Italian pop, although they sound more like a conglomeration of twee folk and giddy alt-country to me.

Tracks like ‘Departure’ and ‘Platform 7′ are devilishly happy-go-lucky tracks that swing with fat double bass, brushed snare and banjo – the former makes a feature of the freewheeling fiddle whilst the latter is all about the rhythmic plink of the piano. Other songs like ‘Bridal Gown’, ‘My My My’ and ‘State Of Our Affairs’ thicken the pace to venture down emotive paths as the softly-delivered vocals cut deeper – Rice-Oxley also craftily tweaks his delivery to add some quite poignant touches.

Taken with a pinch of salt, this eponymous album serves as a welcome deviation to the standard negativity of much that follows these particular genres around and it’s certainly great to actually hear the band enjoying themselves behind their instruments. But there are more serious moments when familiarity begins to merely breed contempt. There’s plenty that follows the same old predictable pattern; a style of songwriting that Rice-Oxley clearly feels comfortable with. The clinically-adept ‘Annie Ford’, for instance, unabashedly soaks itself in the filthy bathwater of former country music pioneers, lathering on sweeping pop licks with a rich hook and a hefty dose of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

By the time the epic croons of ‘Bitter Pill’ sweep into view, mid-album, you’ll be thinking of Mt. Desolation as a kind of countrified Keane. As breezily adept as this all is, it’s still somewhat disappointing to find just how short a distance the players are prepared to venture from their comfortable position in the middle of the road.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/10/mt-desolation-mt-desolation/

Album Review: Kelley Stoltz - To Dreamers

Listening to San Franciscan Kelley Stoltz‘ upbeat, shuffling rhythms, all bathed in gloriously warm tones, is like having summer beamed directly into your ears. Melody is paramount in everything he does, and for this he naturally heads back to the surf pop, merseybeat and skiffle sounds of the 50s and 60s. On previous albums, he’s managed to cram as much Beatles and Beach Boys’ sounds in as is humanely possible and yet, whilst those sounds are still there (‘Bottled Up’ is pure ‘Eleanor Rigby’), on To The Dreamers there are noticeable deviations with a more proto-punk fervour being displayed and curious psychedelic and melodic electronic touches scattered hither and thither.

Where as ‘Rock & Roll With Me’, ‘I Remember, You Were Wild’ or ‘I Like, I Like’ inspire shaking heads and shimmying hips with a pitching drumbeat, a warbling sax or a metronomic tambourine, tracks like ‘Keeping The Flame’ or ‘Fire Escape’ get noticeably scattergun with sharp guitar strikes, howling pedal effects and theremin interjections exploding the simplicity of the backbeat with coloured bursts of psychedelia. ‘Pinecone’ and ‘Ventriloquest’ then shift down a gear, placing us on a gently lapping shore whilst a pinged bass tosses skippers over the wave tops and hammered keys dig out the sandcastles.

Multi-instrumentalist Stoltz has a small degree of help here, but the majority of what’s on display is performed by the man himself. His live band step in on a couple of tracks and there’s a delightfully buzzy cover of ‘Baby I Got News For You’ where “Big Boy” Pete Miller steps in to sing and play (on the same valve amp and guitars that he used on his 1965 original). Unsurprisingly, this track fits snugly into the album amongst all the other jostling nods to that particular era of gentile music. You can’t help but smile as each track kicks in and takes you spinning back down that time wormhole yet again. To Dreamers is, indeed, the perfect title for an album, innocently dedicated to all those nostalgic souls that yearn for a return to a time when things were just that little bit less complicated.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/10/kelley-stoltz-%E2%80%93-to-dreamers/

Album Review: Spirits Of The Dead – Spirits Of The Dead

Norway’s Spirits Of The Dead have clearly combined their love of 60s rhythms and 70s psychedelics with a fiercely contemporary take on blissed-out, wonderfully progressive rock that echoes bands like Wolfmother, Porcupine Tree and Dead Meadow. Employing echoing vocals, vibrantly upbeat drum patterns and heavily-fuzzed guitars, they twist and turn their way through a debut album that, the majority of which, they managed to bring together in just six productive days in an Oslo studio. Taking care to add and tighten up what they had meant they also spent time with Christian Engfeldt at Grand Sport Studios and also employed George Marino (Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix) to undertake the final mastering process at Sterling Sound in New York.

The variation of each track is impressively vast and is often to be found veering away suddenly mid-song. One minute we’re lurching from some summertime psych-flecked surf-pop (‘The Waves Of Our Ocean’) to a morbid dose of sludge-fuelled, burnt-out prog (‘Red’) with such lyrics such as “I ache for redemption / The river is red / As you ride me from my deathbed”. It certainly takes a few listens to get used to all of SOTD’s multiple personalities.

Standing out from the pack are the title-track itself and the opener ‘White Lady/Black Rave’. Amidst the dizzying downtempo wash of the former, lies a three-note riff heavy enough to raze skyscrapers, to level cities, nay, to crack the earth. So infectious is the groove, I found myself miming the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” to it. No-fooling “Rock, Paper Scissors”. Fuck. The latter track is pure Doors. A rollicking rhythm jostles us along as a latter-day Ray Manzarek hammers at his Hammond to the sound of Jim Morrison howling piercingly, frazzled syllables from beyond the grave.

By digging deep into the history of music they manage to conjure up touches of The Grateful Dead, David Bowie, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and even E.L.O. and these all spring to mind at different moments as you enthusiatically progress through the album. Almost inevitably, it gets you wondering on that band name. Did they actually set out to invoke the spirit of past, deceased musicians? Whatever their motif, the design is impeccable and, at this rate, they will surely be haunting us for many years to come.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/10/spirits-of-the-dead-spirits-of-the-dead/

Album Review: Wino - Adrift

Scott ‘Wino‘ Weinrich has powered through the last four decades in a blaze of ear-bursting, buzzing psychedelics as he’s set about forging a successful career in the doom metal genre, fronting bands like Saint Vitus, The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan and, more recently, Shrinebuilder. To find him entering his fifth decade keen to switch off his amps and tone down his booming roar of a voice is a bit of a shock to the system. This latest solo album sees him detached from the melee, stripped down to the bones and bursting with a bluesy, emotion-soaked, rasp of a vocal backed up by little more than a swathe of delicately-layered, razor-sharp, acoustic strings...

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/10/wino-%E2%80%93-adrift/

Album Review: Swashbuckle - Crime Always Pays

...You couldn't accuse 'Crime Always Pays' of being anything other than embedded in the world of eyepatches, poopdecks and talking parrots, but here the band have let loose some pretty nasty-looking demons. Like their first two albums, the song-titles alone ('Surf-N-Turf For Piratical Girth' is a particularly fine example) are enough to convince you of their commitment to the cause but, at the same time, they've ramped up the volume and, similarly, the production quality, not one but three notches, to produce a classy crossover sound that will have you banging your head until your tri-cornered hat falls off....

Full review = http://www.metalteamuk.net/sep10reviews/cdreviews-sb.htm

Album Review: Jason Simon - S/T

...It’s not often you hear an album without a full set of drums, but here the sloth-like in-and-out wash of the chords (on ‘Hollow Eyed And Howling’), an unfussy brushed snare (on ‘What You Put Into Your Head’) or the simple metronomic shake of a tambourine (on a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘As I Went Out One Morning’) will certainly still have you nodding your head along. When you consider the gentile psychedelics that Dead Meadow are famed for, it’s no surprise to find Jason Simon plundering down-tempo, turn on-tune in-drop out music but it’s still a delight to find him revelling in such uncomplicated, stripped-back songs such as these.

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/09/jason-simon-jason-simon/

News: Sonic Dice R.I.P. 2007-2009

For the last couple of years, together with my good friend, we've been running a dot.com alternative music review website called Sonic Dice. As it turns out, it was a hugely successful project but as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. We quickly managed to build up a great amount of input direct from the music industry, enabling us to run the website for free, gather a large team of reviewers around us and, hence, update the content on a regular basis.

I particularly was blown away by our achievements, highlighted by the influx of great bands wanting us to review their albums and shows and granting us the opportunity to interview them. I'll never forget interviewing Killswitch Engage, Soulfly, Unearth, As I Lay Dying, Gojira, Turisas, Suicide Silence, Darkest Hour, The Answer, Bison B.C. and Full Blown Chaos all in the name of Sonic Dice. As a fan of metal, that meant a great deal to me personally.

We'd like to thank everyone involved for their input and kind words when we finally were forced to shut up shop. We'll continue to work with them, no doubt, even if the relationships have to be tweaked somewhat. Today is certainly a day to be proud, not sad.

Album Review: Moby - Last Night

Finally released to a UK audience (Australia got first dibs back in late March) album number nine sees Moby returning to the upbeat groove he plundered so successfully on 1999’s ‘Play’ album. This one takes the theme of an all-night party in New York and allows us to join the conga line as he and his various guest MC’s pummel you with delightful disco beats and effervescent keyboard trills.

There’s no pause for breath, no subtle intro; you are going to be up dancing on the first beat as the repeating theme, the sweet soul singing and the steady funk beat of opener ‘Ooh Yeah’ hits. There’s a dark change in the middle which allows for, ah yes, there it is, the return of the dance theme. This is so formulaic, so precise, but oh-so-wonderful. Ah, Moby, with this delightful electro hedonism you are really spoiling us! It’s followed by the pulsing soft-sway of ‘I Love To Move in Here’ with snatches of crowd-cheer and topped off with the rap-back of MC Grandmaster Caz, co-writer of the classic ‘Rapper‘s Delight‘.

Much of the album is rooted in club nights past and should therefore appeal across the board. ‘Everyday It’s 1989’ is my cringe track as it takes me straight back to those uncomfortable teenage moments of the day. Raving like the screech of Black Box, it’s swimming in memories, smarting with sunshine, but repeated plays reveal a sickly sweetness that’s just a little too strong. For others it’ll be something else, no doubt. The hip-hop of 419 Squad’s guest vocals on ‘Alice’ is all lurking bass, grime and guts and is the pimp to the glamour whores of ‘Hyenas’ and ‘I’m In Love’ with their smoky, sensual vocals. They shimmy but they lack the razzmatazz that Moby usually nails on so effectively and will help most fall into their chill-out chairs a little too early.

‘Disco Lies’ will have you up again strutting your stuff, as our favourite forty-something self-confessed simpleton properly gets his groove back. ‘The Stars’ will keep you on your feet, a euphoric anthem of nostalgia with pistoning bass drum and hi-hat work, a mashed piano and just a pinch of latin thrown in for good measure. Then it all gets too much and we are forced to crash out again as ‘Degenerates’ drags the whole thing into a melancholic warping wash of industrial noise. If you want chill-out “choons” to properly enlighten then hook yourself into the shifting sands of ‘Sweet Apocalypse’ or the sultry jazz vocal of Kudu’s Sylvie on ‘Last Night’.

Despite the glorious highs this album won’t be quite the classic everyone was hoping for. It doesn’t define its respective genres but allows us a retrospective glance back and a wry smile. Perhaps a better way to put it is this; joining Moby on his clubbing tour of NYC has been fun, but it hasn’t changed my life or made me crave a repeat visit.