Feature: Johnskibeat's Best 20 Albums Of 2015

1: My Sleeping Karma – Moksha (Napalm)

Moksha is total instrumental immersion from the first warm blushes of the mesmerising opener “Prithvi” to the closing twinkle of “Agni”. There’s a cotton-wool effect going on that dampens each and every note, cosseting you in down, absorbing you into its arms. Long, languid, gentle-warping notes intensify the mix of psychedelic trance, stoner and post-rock by bringing to bear a rich variety of Rajastani string, percussion and wind instrumentation. Engaging at every turn, the tracks consistently bear fruit, stretching the experience with a mind-boggling degree of layers. In a word, faultless.


2: Between The Buried And Me – Coma Eliptic (Metal Blade)

Since the birth of his solo career, Thomas Giles Rogers, has strengthened his vocal performance no end and BTBAM are reaping the rewards. With Coma Eliptic they continue to yank the wildest of genres together, everything from polka and bossa nova to death metal. However, what is different this time around is the simplified vision and consequently the interconnectness of each part. The music gently segues together with a single tone in mind. What that does is create continuity within each individual track and across all tracks. The joy of “The Coma Machine” is both explosively progressive and consistently engrossing but its relationship with “Famine Wolf” and to an extent the powerful “Option Oblivion” is undeniable. Even the beguiling dark two-minuter “Dim Ignition” breaks boundaries. In my mind, this is none other than BTBAM at their peak.

3: Periphery – Juggernaut (Century Media)

On release, Juggernaut hit me like, well, a juggernaut. Right smack between the eyes. Rabbit in the headlights. It is a concept double-album which could incite you to violence. It will make you both wince and weep. Even after playing, it will lodge itself permanently in your psyche. The story, told in heart-rendering first-person, will break even the hardest of you. Containing the groove, psychedelia, hardcore and jazz all ripped through with rhythmic conflict and dark lyricism, it truly is an essential piece of psychological musical warfare. You have been warned.


4: Heights – Phantasia On The High Processions Of Sun, Moon & Countless Stars Above (Basick)

Ignore their somewhat erratic output – this is no ordinary side-project. Sharing a drummer with cult post-rockers Tesseract doesn’t count for shit. Yes, getting my hands on this was a case of luck rather than judgement, but that doesn’t alter the impact it has had upon me. It’s an instrumental work of sheer beauty that will see you speeding through the cosmos like a meteorite, pausing merely to marvel over the joy, colour and sparkle that Heights inject into their compositions without ever resorting to repetition; without ever sinking into use of force to get their concept across. Phantasia… is an utter delight from Big Bang to Big Freeze.




5: Enslaved – In Times (Nuclear Blast)

With their usual unrestricted vision, Enslaved have created a wonderful, drive-dominant, hook-laden album filled with chugging gallops, dark roars and menacing anguish. It is a work that will suck you in then cast you adrift. Replete with invention throughout, the highlight arrives at the album close. “Daylight” is the band at the peak of their powers throwing out choral builds that warm the heart. And it comes all washed through with strong echoes of Devin Townsend’s epic structuring, tones and textures – well, I’m sold.


6: Man The Machetes – Av Nag (Indie Recordings)

Whipping along at a dizzying pace, this sophomore effort from punk n’ rollers Man The Machetes draws its power from revelling in visceral heft. Standout moments come with the stepdown in pace to the crawling lead and sweet rock-a-bye riff on “Tung Luft” and with the crafty, constructive forethought that has gone into the humdinger “Orkenmarsj”. Their time is now; come join in the dance.


7: Acid King – Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere (Svart)

Lapping up the echoing majesty of such bands as Monster Magnet and Orange Goblin while sourcing the wild electric fuzz of St. Vitus, Acid King offer up an absolute peach of an album. Live, the tracks are mind-blowingly intense, yet here wrapped up in the smooth dynamics of the studio the music actually becomes even greater than the sound system upon which it plays. Then, just when you thought they couldn’t get more monstrous or distortion-hungry, vocalist Lori goes and twists her tonsils around “Laser Highlights” and take this beast to an even higher plane.




8: Caligula’s Horse – Bloom (Inside Out)

Jim Grey’s vocal is utterly beguiling and here, progressive technicians Caligula’s Horse, have created the perfect vehicle to show it off to its full potential. From elegaic, melodic numbers to big grooves with addictive choruses to malevolent pieces filled with hate-fuelled lyricism. Bloom is riddled with passion – it lets in a little light and a little darkness and is well worth your attention.


9: Wildlights – Wildlights (Season Of Mist)

Riddled with the uplifting braggadocio and enslaving hooks of Audrey Horne’s moxy and Torche’s power-driven post-rock, this startlingly adept debut is emphatically boisterous, consistently driving and engagingly addictive. It is effortlessly light, airy and voraciously catchy. It glows with an inner fluoresence, blazing a trail for others – I urge you to follow.


10: Secrets Of The Sky – Pathway (Metal Blade)

Oozing mournful, subtle introspection, yet bursting with gloriously-consuming black-edged terror and shrewd metal crunch comes something akin to the storytelling of Agalloch, Anathema or Alcest whilst drunk on Sabbathian doom and Opethian melancholy. This Californian quintet strictly adhere to their concept and unveil an opus that feels like a worn pathway to something truly sinister.


11: Intervals – The Shape Of Colour (S/R)
12: The Atomic Bitchwax – Gravitron (Tee Pee)
13: Kontinuum – Kyrr (Candlelight)
14: Steak Number Eight – Kosmokoma (Indie)
15: Arcturus – Arcturian (Prophecy)
16: Bauda – Sporelights (Prophecy)
17: Death Alley – Black Magick Boogieland (Tee Pee)
18: Vattnet Viskar – Settler (Century Media)
19: Ecstatic Vision – Sonic Praise (Relapse)
20: Intronaut – The Direction Of Last Things (Century Media)


Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/12/albums-of-the-year-2015/

Best of 2014: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/feature-johnskibeats-best-20-albums-of.html

Best of 2013: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/feature-johnskibeats-best-20-albums-of_17.html

Best of 2012: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/feature-top-ten-albums-of-2012.html 

Lists: Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of Selections, Part 2

Here's a few more of my contributions to those "Best Of" Selections from Heavy Blog Is Heavy...

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Debut Albums

In January of 1970, appropriately on Friday 13th, a hitherto unknown group of musicians released a debut album that shook the world, inspiring millions for years to come. With vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler drawing inspiration for its dark lyrics from horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Dennis Wheatley, and guitarist Tony Iommi latching on to Butler’s love for Gustav Holst’s ‘Mars’ to develop the riffs, in hindsight, it almost seems inevitable that it caused such a storm. The press reaction that followed only served to stir the pot – “We strongly advise those of a nervous disposition NOT, repeat NOT, to listen alone” screamed one. Staring at the washed-out cover art of gravestones, a watermill and a white-faced, cloaked woman staring back is fair warning enough.


Of course, within lies the harrowing. Rain. Thunder. A church bell. That dark tritone that constitutes the standout riff – the diminished fifth… the augmented fourth… diabolus in musica… the Devil’s Interval. Something infinitely bleak, menacing, unholy lurks within. Sinking deeper you’ll discover talk of a “figure in black”, “Lucifer”, “eyes of fire” and magical wizards walking our streets. The multi-part, multi-toned majesties of ‘Sleeping Village’ and the stop/start riff-reprising ‘Warning’ instantly teach us to expect the unexpected where the Sabbath is concerned. “Heavy metal”, yells Ozzy amidst the riotous rumble of ‘N.I.B.’ and lo, a genre is born. Has there ever been a finer debut?

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Final Albums

This qualifies on the tenuous fact that it was Jim Morrison’s final album before he died. Later albums were released containing recordings of his vocal, but those contained tracks that he never wanted to put out. With Ray Manzarek and Bobby Krieger completing all missing lead vocal tracks it comes as no surprise to discover that those albums didn’t exactly set the world on fire. A band without it’s heart or soul is no band at all.

Now I’ve been in love L.A. Woman for a long, long time. It’s not just their masterpiece ‘Riders On The Storm’ that swings it, it’s the laconic shading and stone cold groove that the album is wrapped in. There’s the laid-back driving nirvana of ‘Cars Hiss By My Window’ and the gentle sashaying of ‘Hyacinth House’ on through to the staccato hep of ‘Been Down So Long’ and the jinking groove of ‘Love Her Madly’. From the downbeat to the upbeat, the album flows through the full range of blue emotions better than any other. And if you’re looking for a song to fall in love with, then you can do a lot worse than Jim’s love letter to the seedy underbelly and bright lights of Los Angeles – the title-track itself. Here, the lithe rhythm, dramatic structure and gorgeous lyricism all underpin that rickety Hammond organ and rocking vibe. The album is no less then a complete and utter joy.

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Doom

Back in the late Noughties, the doom cognoscenti were thrown into a state of temporary disarray when the proposed formation of a supergroup containing Dale Crover (Melvins’ drummer/vocalist), Al Cisneros (Om’s bassist/vocalist), Scott Kelly (Neurosis’ guitarist/vocalist) and Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich (The Obsessed vocalist/guitarist), legends all, was rumoured. When Shrinebuilder finally formed and delivered their self-titled debut, their only album to date, there was nothing less than a volcanic eruption, literally (one actually blew it’s lid in Iceland and the fallout caused the cancellation of a European tour).

The Wino/Kelly mix of earth-shattering string dissonance and part-howl, part-croon gifted mighty tracks like the mighty ‘Pyramid Of The Moon’ and ‘The Architect’ with a thrilling taste of life inside a thresher. Crover must have almost annihilated his snare for the raging “Solar Benediction”, yet it was Cisneros grotty basslines that marked this record out as a cut above. It was his constants that allowed the music to drift into sequences of mystical noodling, providing the perfect platform for Wino to plug up any gaps in sound with wah, extravagant slide and morphing melody.
With it increasingly looking like the band will never reunite for a follow-up, this album has become an invaluable source of inspiration and enlightenment. No excuses then — buy, borrow or steal this gem and turn your brain into mush today.



Full selections online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy.

Feature: Johnskibeat's Best 20 Albums Of 2014

1. Monuments - The Amanuensis (Century Media)
The Amanuensis takes a burgeoning genre and raises the bar for the rest. Seriously, you’d be hard-pressed to find another modern progressive metal album that could match this for impact. The band have refined the array of techniques they displayed on debut Gnosis and added the vocal gymnastics of Chris Barretto to their line-up. It's not an exaggeration to say that he takes the album to a whole new level. Throughout “Origin Of Escape” and the epic “Quasimodo” he’s tearing out lumps from your lugholes by firing out elongated roars that he bends into long, base-to-peak crecendos. During “Horcrux” and “I, The Destroyer” he fishes out those bowel-loosening piq grunts of his and for the remainder he’s scraping the skies with a sweet, melodic drift that gently echoes and swirls around inside your skull. On this performance, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better fit for this infectious band. This is a completely, crushingly epic goliath of tech and groove; wall-shuddering, space-flooding both by design and in performance.



2. Servers - Leave With Us (Undergroove)
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. Their debut is an absolute behemoth spouting musical ear-worms that boast grit, melody and muscle. Tracks like "Universes And Supernovas" and "Run With The Foxes" come bursting at the seams with vast riffs and big, sparkly choruses that will aggressively weld themselves to your brain. When they cool their heels they produce stuff like the intensely gothic, Icicle Works-friendly comedown of ‘Claustrophobia‘. Welcome to your new favourite band.

3. Zodiac - Sonic Child (Napalm Records) 
Straight out of left field this one. By opening with an intensely moving spoken passage telling of the utter joy of music, Zodiac grasp your attention and retain it from the first note to the last. The no-nonsense unencumbered groove that drives this album slackens and quickens to purpose but at every moment it pushes forward through the genres of blues, soul, country and rock n' roll. "Just Music" hauls some 70s kitsch out of the closet whilst "A Penny And A Dead Horse" digs out the good old boy slide guitar to suck you into a dizzying world of galloping horses and chain gangs. So leave your hang-ups at the door, come on in and just lose yourself, even if only "just for a little while".



4. Intervals - A Voice Within (Basick) 
By making a sudden switch-up to a combination of rhythmic backline and glorious, moving vocal interplay, Intervals have produced a work of real joy, passion and pomp. Mike Semesky, now on lead vocal, craftily wraps his eye-popping, hugely emotive lyrics around the spasming instrumentation in such a way that you'll find them worming their way into your cortex. From the fast-slow pomp of "The Self Surrended" to the all-conquering "Atlas Hour", this album is undeniable proof of just how perceptive and unrestricted by the concept of genres, our modern metal bands have become.

5. Skyharbor - Guiding Lights (Basick) 
Sounding smoother and sleeker whilst staying inventive and demanding, this latest model from Skyharbor takes the band away from their bumpier, grittier debut. Driven by the triumphant, emotion-soaked vocal of Daniel Tompkins, the album delves deep into the realms of post-rock and dream pop. Earworms like "Evolution" and "The Constant" suck you in, whilst the sheer beauty of "Halogen"s construction and the heart-rending pain that inhabits "Patience" will demand continuous repeats. The organic ebb and flow of the album ties neatly in with the themes of life, evolution and entropy. It is a work of art that will toy with your senses and reduce grown men to tears. This band are going places and Guiding Lights is proof that sharing their future journey will be something of a delight.



6. Cavorts - Got Your Brass (In At The Deep End Records) 
Jumping on the screaming punk n' roll bandwagon, Cavorts have leaped from the shadows to produce an album with more conviction than Cancer Bats, more nous than Kvelertak and more punch than Feed The Rhino. They've achieved this by opening out the song structures and firing out more barbarous hooks and crushing riffs than you can shake a stick at. If tracks like "Wait On", "Put Down The Hammer" and "Save Some Things" don't have you forming invisible oranges and shouting the lyrics to the skies then there's something inherently wrong with you.

7. Animals As Leaders - The Joy Of Motion (Sumerian)
A step forward away from the inaccessible complexities of earlier albums, this perfectly-titled songbook still opens with music that's as manic as a warzone, where bullets are replaced by notes. There are strafed leads that descend into an absolute cacophony before abating into the most gloriously laid-back infectious moments of jazz, electro and post-rock. Within the space of two tracks you are taken from the Earl Klugh-esque, low-slung jazz guitar of "Another Year" to the addictive slap funk majesty of "Physical Education". If this were hooked up to a graphic equalizer it would create only the most achingly beautiful of shapes. There you have it... The Joy Of Motion.

8. Craang - To The Estimated Size Of The Universe (Pink Tank Records)
As a debut album, quite frankly TTESOTU is astounding. There have been plenty of releases of late riding the retro gravy train but this four-track concoction of space, stoner and psych is quite unlike anything that has come before. Yes, some of its content may bear a passing resemblance to Hawkwind, Zappa or Pink Floyd but it actually draws strength from far more contemporary sounds than these. Take “Butterfly” for example. It digs out the kind of sick, splattering riff that Fu Manchu or Orange Goblin might have conjured and rides it until it sinks so far into your consciousness that you cease to notice it any more. You can feel your own pulse begin to syncopate, realigning itself with the music to create a new cadence for you to live by. There is definitely no hiding from the enigmatic joy, passion and crushing presence that this album carries.

9. Evil Scarecrow - Galactic Hunt (Deadbox Records) 
Music and humour are two beasts that can cause sparks when combined. There's the simple shits n' giggles kind - bands like Tenacious D and Psychostick - and there's the lunatic fringe featuring goliaths like Rammstein and Devin Townsend. Aligning themselves closer to the latter, Evil Scarecrow tackle everything from genetically-modified mutant-robot crabs and the brilliant concept of losing a priceless library book called "The Book Of Doom", to paying tribute to the interactive virtual-reality world that was late-80s kids TV gameshow Knightmare. With razor-sharp wit, a very special guest and now stunning production to boot, Galactic Hunt (say it fast) is proof of just how far they have come in their quest to find our funny bones.

10. Devin Townsend Project - Sky Blue (HevyDevy) 
Bursting from the confines of Dev's Z2 package comes this utterly mind-blowing collaboration with Anneke Van Giersbergen. Sporting great diversity, at times, it wallows in sheer euphoric arena rock whilst at others it spasms into sections of electro, dance and pop. There's also the mind-blowing wrap-around sound of "The Universal Choir" to wallow in. What more could any fan of music want?



Others for your stocking:
11. Pet Slimmers Of The Year - Fragments Of Uniforms (Review)
12. Herod - They Were None (Review)
13. The Golden Grass - S/T (Review)
14. Jackson Firebird - Cock Rockin' (Review)
15. Inventions - S/T (Review)
16. Behemoth - The Satanist (Review)
17. Thomas Giles - Modern Noise (Review)
18. Alaya - Thrones (Review)
19. Mire - Inward / Outward (Review)
20. My Brother The Wind - Once There Was A Time When Space And Time Were One (Review)

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2014/12/albums-of-the-year-2014/

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2014/12/17/not-with-a-whimper-but-with-a-bang-heavy-blog-is-heavys-staffs-top-ten-of-2014/

Best of 2013: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/feature-johnskibeats-best-20-albums-of_17.html
Best of 2012: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/feature-top-ten-albums-of-2012.html

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: 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: 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/

Album Review: 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

Album Review: Descending - New Death Celebrity

Imagine a combination of DevilDriver’s turbulent groove, Gojira’s distinctive grinding action and Sylosis’ lust for both speed and melody – we could call them Deviralosis. That, my friend, would be my perfect metal band… the sound of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse riding out.

Now have a listen to some of the samples, just a mouse-click away, that accompany these words. The band that produced them are Descending. They hail from Athens in Greece and, as a truly modern metal band would, they genre-hop with the best of them. One album in the bag and after “a long period of intensive work”, with producer extraordinaire Fredrik Nordstrom (In Flames, Dimmu Borgir, Arch Enemy), they are now quite adept at fusing thrash, math and groove metal together to create the shape of a fist which they then use to batter you with. They also dabble in a spot of metalcore but more of that later. Their already impressive list of support slots (Testament, Gojira, Shadows Fall, The Haunted, Lamb Of God, etc.) proves just how hard their sound is to pin down.

From the get-go, the offbeat thudding of drummer Nick Vell’s feet serves to elevate the two-chord writhing action that lurks within “No Other Gods Before Me”. Throw in the swarming, layered death vocal of John Simvonis and his vocal compatriot, the bassist Noir, and you’ve got yourself a whole world of pain. Yet they can go heavier as “I Keep Returning” proves. It regurgitates an embittered, grimy veneer which empowers the choruses and brings an oppressive dark quality to the verses. Still heavier they go as this kind of damaging battery is scaled up tenfold in the mammoth crush that “The Energy” engages in. Reminiscent of Chimaira at their most violent, it provides the perfect foil to the colossal Gojira-esque powerchug stomp that rips a path through “Shared Planet”.

With so much punishment being served, the band’s purposeful move towards replacing some of this giant groove with pumped vocal hooks, lingering riffs and ‘core breaks was always going to be the album’s downfall. Tracks like “Suicide Promise”, “Until I Generate” and “How Much This Life Weights?” although catchy in the chorus, feel loose, pudgy and overwrought as the music increasingly lurches towards a kind of vaguely generic-sounding metalcore. “The Ghost Of Nation Past” pops in a disembodied old recording, a bar of clean vocal and loads up with screeching beatdowns, possibly in an effort to liven up proceedings, but from here it’s just a sinking ship.

Clearly, what we have here is an album with a multiple personality disorder – a vision divided down the middle. When they get heavy, they are an unstoppable force, slowly increasing the pressure in furiously inventive ways. When they slack off and get cute, they fall back into that familiar mold which has shaped so many bands before them. Descending’s talent is undeniable, their promise is palpable; they just need to fully realise it. My new favourite band, Deviralosis, is but a stone’s throw away.

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

Article: Desert Island Discs - 10 Of The Greatest Albums Ever Made

I don't like to think of myself as a geek, but knowing how often I've made a list of all my favourite things of various sorts, then I'd have to admit to being a little bit of a nerd-bucket. When it comes to music though, I think we all do it. As lovers of the artform, we are all eternally locked in our own private tribal battles over whether something is "the bollocks" or "just plain bollocks". To seal the deal, of course, we keep in our minds (or commit to paper) which few choons we'd take with us when we're journeying out on foot, by public transport or in the car or when we pack up to go on holiday.

Well, your "Desert Island Discs" list is your list of the ones you would take with you to a desert island, your own tropical sandpile, for an indeterminate amount of time. This is the place where modern civilization matters little and having your favourite music with you is the key to maintaining sanity. The whole concept might struggle to work in reality, what with battery issues and the like (I'm imagining some kind of solar powered MP3 player and a pair of headphones), but just go with it. This is your ultimate list - the, and I've expanded the format a little to suit here, ten albums that mean more to you than any others.

The list below are the ones I'd want by my side. I encourage you to consider them (take a chance and spin them, be it for the first or the hundredth time) when making your own minds up.


Nirvana - Nevermind (1992)
Album highlight = Lithium
How could you not take this? It changed the face of rock music. It brought a whole underground scene up and into the mainstream. Some actually attribute the death of hair rock to this very album. It certainly ended badly for it's creator but it doesn't change the impact it had on us, nor the infectious songwriting that lurks within it's baby blue cover. And yet, I still struggled to decide whether I'd take this or Nirvana's reactionary In Utero or their masterfully understated live performance as they went Unplugged In New York.

Metallica - "The Black Album" (1991)
Album highlight = Wherever I May Roam
You can keep your Master Of Puppets and your Ride The Lightning; this is Metallica's masterpiece. It manages to perfectly align anthemic melodies with addictive lyricism and backs it all up with a hefty dose of groove-heavy thrash metal. Every single track is a winner. There are simply no weak tracks. And next year, they're performing the thing in its entirety - Download Festival 2012 can't come soon enough.

Megadeth - Countdown To Extinction (1992)
Album highlight = Architecture Of Aggression
It's beyond me how far removed this album is from anything else Megadeth have created. Not even Rust In Peace comes close. When you consider that most bands struggle to stick two cracking songs side by side, it blows your mind to learn that Countdown's opening salvo manages five. Five of the greatest songs you'll ever hear, one after another. And this thing doesn't even seem to wane with age. It's still as staggering as it was 19 years ago. Yep, come next year, we'd better be lauding this bad boy's 20th anniversary.

The Doors - L. A. Woman (1971)
Album highlight = L.A.Woman
I've been in love with this album for a long time. It's not just "Riders On The Storm" that swings it, it's the whole laconic feel that the album is wrapped in. From the title-track's rickety Hammond organ and rocking vibe to the staccato hep of "Been Down So Long" and the blissed-out sashaying of "Hyacinth House", the album flows through the emotions better than any other I own. It's a complete joy.

Iron Maiden - Powerslave (1984)
Album highlight = Back In The Village
Maiden have played such a major role in my life - they've helped me through times both good and bad. No album of theirs is more deserving a place than Powerslave. I'd take Killers, Number Of The Beast, Live After Death and No Prayer For The Dying too if I had space. Both "Back In The Village", their finest moment, and the instrumental braggadocio of "The Duellists" demand I take this. Add on to that "Aces High", "2 Minutes To Midnight" and the epic "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" and you'd have to agree I made the right choice.

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger (1991)
Album highlight = Searching With My Good Eye Closed
I love the way grunge, as a genre, sucks up the mischievous stoner underworld and the fearsome rock middle ground. It's still alive today but no-one affected me quite like the combination of it with the vocal of Chris Cornell. He doesn't sing so much as he transmits emotion. Add to this, the fact that I experienced the most intense musical experience of my life whilst listening to this album being toured, and you can see why it's lying there in my trunk.

Machine Head - The Blackening (2007)
Album highlight = Aesthetics Of Hate
Machine Head did the impossible with this album; they surpassed one of the greatest metal albums of all time - their own Burn My Eyes. You just have to listen to the majesty of "Halo" and the nail-gargling 10-minute multi-part "Clenching The Fists Of Dissent" to see how they did it. In fact, the album was so good they toured it for four whole years. Jesus wept, that's impressive.

Pearl Jam - Ten (1991)
Album highlight = Even Flow
Pearl Jam's debut has everything. It is an album so perfect in design and delivery that they will never top it. If they do, I'll eat my hat. Every single track has its own voice, its own vibe and its own place. Ten has sold 10 million copies and is pretty much on every list of greatest albums of all time. No surprise then that when it was re-released for its 20th anniversary, it sold 60,000 copies in its first week. It's a masterpiece.


Oh, and here's another ten albums I'd leave my clothes behind to squeeze in:
Faith No More - Angeldust (1992)
The Verve - Urban Hymns (1997)
AC/DC - Highway To Hell (1979)
Lamb Of God - Sacrament (2006)
Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh (2008)
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine (1992)
Isis - Wavering Radiant (2009)
Biffy Clyro - Infinity Land (2004)
No Made Sense - The Epillanic Choragi (2009)
Funeral For A Friend - Casually Dressed & Deep In Conversation (2003)
Mastodon - Crack The Skye (2009)
Chimaira - The Infection (2009)

Truth be told, all these are pretty much in order, but of course it's an ever-changing, ever-evolving list. Some are inked in, some are pencilled in. All are absolute works of art. You think otherwise, you know where I am.

Album Review: Riotgod - Invisible Empire

Listening to Riotgod, you get the impression that when Monster Magnet’s rhythm section, bassist Jim Baglino and drummer Bob Pantella, first discussed forming a side-project they must have been literally bursting with ideas for ground that they wanted to cover. The surprise here is that they were most definitely looking backwards not forwards. The players have clearly gorged themselves upon rock music’s back catalogue and are now fit-to-burst with a smorgasbord of different tones and textures.

The simple construction and swaggering cadence of the music helps knit the whole project together, but there is still plenty of track-to-track chopping about between styles. The guitars lay down most of the groundwork, but it is Mark Sunshine’s vocal affectations that provide the hammer to bash in the nails here. In doing so, he becomes the focal point that so identifies each change of direction. He’s there with a Stockdale-esque yelp when the band hit upon a cosmic jerkiness so reminiscent of Wolfmother, as they do for “Breed” and “Loosely Bound”, and he’s not averse to developing an affected Coverdale lilt for the surprisingly Whitesnake-a-like “Slow Death”.

At points through the swaggering “Fool”, “Tomorrow’s Today” and the menacing “Crossfade” you’ll hear some interesting grunge elements popping in. The band plunge themselves into recreating a kind of Pearl Jam meets Alice In Chains vibe with Sunshine finding time to piece together some Cantrell harmonies and they ram home the point with the standout track, “Firebrand”, which recreates the dark verses and soaring chorus that are so reminiscent of Soundgarden. Even the lyrics recall Cornell’s elemental writing style – “Nothing is spared from your wide open mind / Swallow and flower the seed.”

Having been birthed from such a vast stoner beast as Monster Magnet, it’s definitely a surprise to find hardly any heavy-lidded plodding and so many classic and alternative rock threads. You’d assume naturally that a band attempting to span both these genres, might struggle and end up producing a messy product but, save for the ostentatious acoustic “Gas Station Roses” and the disconcertingly haphazard psych break in “Hollow Mirror”, they do keep it all flowing along relatively smoothly.

They may have borrowed a couple of striking chord progressions and clichéd riffs here and there and Sunshine is certainly guilty of paying plenty of homage, but you’d balk at suggesting that this sophomore effort isn’t an enjoyable album because of it. Invisible Empire rolls along at a fair lick and is full of little treats along the way (the rock n’ roll punch of “Saving It Up” or the sweeping melodics of “Rebirth”, for instance). If you value invention over devotion then I’d suggest you steer clear of Riotgod. The rest of you, especially those with a penchant for grunge or rock music with a modish kicker, step right this way.

Also online (with track samples) @ The New Review = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/riotgod-invisible-empire

Album Review: Megadeth - Th1rt3en

The toys have been thrown out of the pram, Ellefson has emptied his pockets, Mustaine has found God and now they’re back together, playing and recording music, and all is well in the world. Not only this, but the band are producing show-stopping performances once again, joyously bringing out more of their classic material for headline tours and rising to meet the challenge of playing their part on the Big Four circuit. A perfect time to be heading back into the studio you would think. Then, under pressure to deliver, they go and write an album called Th1rt3en (unlucky for some) and commission cover art that sees mascot Vic Rattlehead showing his back to you. Throw in all the furore kicked up by Mustaine’s gleeful comments about getting out of the band’s Roadrunner contract and the rumor mill is back up and churning away nicely.

I’ve always sworn blind that Megadeth’s peak was in the early 90s, so I was delighted to find that Th1rt3en recreates the same patterns that inhabit the albums from that era. For a start, Th1rt3en is less frenzied than Endgame. It’s hardly laid back, but it’s certainly less of a speed-fest and prefers to thrash out over a mid-paced rhythm, all the while tossing in strong flavors of power metal and rock n’ roll as it travels. The songs have tighter, catchier riffs that all point us directly towards each chorus, where Mustaine picks up the baton and runs in circles repeating the song-title until it lodges itself, irretrievably, in our brains.

Two songs in and I’m recalling parts of Rust In Peace‘s “Hangar 18″ in the key changes, the sharp tongue of Countdown To Extinction‘s “Architecture Of Aggression” and Youthanasia‘s “Reckoning Day” with its ripped chords. The build into the chaotic and brilliantly complex “Sudden Death” is classic, a spiralling solo and a thrilling, skidding riff that pans around your head. Following, “Public Enemy No. 1″ is all bluster and purpose with Mustaine intent on tattooing the four title words to your forehead. All this promise and yet, after a good few run-throughs, it all begins to sound a bit lacklustre. “Whose Life (Is It Anyways?)” turns out to be a limp-wristed shadow that falls apart when it drops the pounded beat (no word of a lie, it reminds me of David Lee Roth’s solo material), “Guns, Drugs & Money” wallows so long in its own filth that it simply forgets to evolve, and the mind-numbingly repetitious “Wrecker” manages to sound more Mötley Crüe than Megadeth.

There’s just so very little bite or sense of foreboding in a lot of this happy-go-lucky rock music they’ve created. Megadeth’s unbeatable sense of pervasive gloom and urgency of delivery is what defines them but save for a handful of tracks, it’s just not present. Their precious dark minor chords are suddenly thin on the ground and, “Millennium Of The Blind” excluded, even the fire of Mustaine’s famed political angst seems to have been extinguished. Who ever thought we’d hear Megadeth dishing out lyrics about life in the “Fast Lane” to a rock n roll backdrop, or hear them goading us with pop swill like “Black Swan”. Mustaine repeatedly offers up the most cumbersome of lyrics – “The soil is red now that you’re dead” from “Deadly Nightshade” or “Like a severed arm washed up on the shore, I just don’t think I can give anymore” from the title-track, and don’t get me started on the rhyming words that are shoehorned in during the chorus of “Public Enemy No. 1″. Johnny K, producer and major contributor, I’m looking at you.

Unfortunately, amidst the carnage caused by so much weak material dragging the album down, superb tracks like “Never Dead”, “New World Order”, “Millennium Of The Blind” and “13″ might just get missed. The former couple are driving, lurching, spitting demons with solos to absolutely die for, whilst the latter duo are heartfelt, colourful anthems. Amongst all the hubbub and flim-flam surrounding the band reaching the landmark of a 13th album, let these tracks not be overlooked. At the end of the day though, it does seem, rather than concentrate solely on delivering an album full of decent music, Megadeth, in some vain attempt to get their tracklisting up to the magic number 13, have gone and produced more filler than killer.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/megadeth-th1rt3en