Album Review: The Advent Equation – Limitless Life Reflections

My love for technically-demanding modern metal means I often find myself writing words that might convince those browsing the web that I am concocting some magnificent, scientific conundrum. In the past, I have come across albums by The Omega Experiment, TesseracT, The Mars Volta, The Mercury Program and The HAARP Machine. Now, here I am writing about The Advent Equation. It’s enough to quantum your mechanics.

These particular modern metallists come from Mexico. Yep, the home of tequila and tortilla. It’s often thought of as a bit of a metal deadzone, though when you consider it’s vicinity to the noisy hotbed of North America that’s always seemed surprising. Early run-throughs of Limitless Life Reflections prove The Advent Equation are obviously keen to put that idea to bed with their accomplished combination of prog, death and tech metal. Seriously, you’ll struggle to believe this hasn’t come from the cold heart of Scandanavia (I’m not in the least surprised to learn it did pass through Jens Borgen’s Fascination Street Studio at one point on it’s journey).

Take “Afterlife Evolutionary”. It opens with a tumultuous broil of drums setting the rhythm, over which is laid a bloodlusting death roar, quickfire finger taps, dramatic piano and cutaways into melodic synth. From here, we are dragged through a rapid series of menacing, instrumental affectations and lurching timing changes. And that’s just one track. It’s clear that getting to grips with this ever-changing mixture of musical techniques and emotional tones is going to be no easy task. Other tracks like the floating melancholy of “Visons Of Pain” and “Hopeless” don't dig down so far and are less obtuse in their design. They are recognisable songs and, as such, are a little easier to gain a foothold on.

Tracks like “Glimpse Of What May Be” and “A Descent Into The Unreal” will grab you with their depth of sound. The three-part vocal harmonies and hammering switchbacks that underscore it all are intense, anthemic and at their apex, truly awe-inspiring. However, with so much that meanders and lollops around these momentary snatches of genius, it’s hard to fully get behind the songwriting – “On Darkness”, for instance, sweeps from the dull, inane and metronomic into an overpowering smack of twinkling synth and back again through an unnatural series of segues.

The album, as a whole, is best thought of as a series of tonal shades ranging from black to grey and back again. Opeth and Enslaved influences run close to the surface throughout this chameleonic collection of death-led monsters and lighter harmonic pieces with piano-dominated and stringed acoustic sections, though it’s also not hard to spot the connection with several of those aforementioned more tech-minded acts. The rhythmic anomalies and ambient texturing are, in fact, key to driving home the heart of the piece. The question is: are you hungry for Mexican? – a trip to their SoundCloud page should give you plenty to chew on.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/02/the-advent-equation-limitless-life-reflections-self-released/

Album Review: Betraying The Martyrs - Breathe In Life

Melodeathcore. Is that even a genre? Well, it goes some way to describing what you can expect from the French sextet Betraying The Martyrs. It has to be said the prospect of this debut album has aroused a sizeable amount of interest with fans of modern metal slavering at the prospect of them building on the promise of their stunning EP 'The Hurt, The Divine, The Light'. Since then, though, a change of personnel with new vocalist Aaron Matts and guitarist Lucas D'angelo stepping in has led to a real colossus being born. This is music that will tear you apart with startlingly fresh-sounding bursts of power and then turn round and somehow soothe your frazzled senses by firing familiarity at you.

Their sound sticks a big dirty finger in the same holes that Winds Of Plague and Hope For The Dying, have been plugging of late; that whole sweeping symphonics meets hearty, visceral attack vibe. Being a Christian band, their music also comes with the inevitable well-meant messages which, depending on how observant you are, may either inspire or disaffect you. If it gives the band a passionate focus to really lay into their component parts, then you can always look to that as being the positive in such shenanigans. Passion in performance being, after all, the key to really making the biggest impact.

Their intro blusters in like the soundtrack to some blood-lusting, historical war movie. Symphonic strings, rippling piano arpeggios, fearsome chanting and drum-rolls all round. It stirs the blood and sets the scene for the onslaught of 'Martyrs' which blasts forth our first glimpse of Matts' gigantic death vocal, crammed with the most fulsome of lows. It grasps and shoves our heads into stirring ivory-key builds and emotion-soaked clean vocal which, upon first inspection, appears anything but out of place. There's an extra dimension which comes grunting spasmodically through in the technical guitar parts; parts that echo the djenty qualities of bands like Periphery and TesseracT. It's a repeating pattern that is only added to by the addictive hooks - the soulful choruses and flamboyant mini-beatdowns - in 'Man Made Disaster' and 'Because Of You'.

Now... have you ever wondered what atmospheric metal dubstep might sound like? Check out 'Liberate Me Ex Inferis'. It drags you in with a big industrial swirling, reminiscent of something Jean-Michel Jarre might produce, then rapidly transforms into a vast beast inhaling and exhaling through a gas mask. It's one scary-arsed sound but even this is out-mentalled by the crashing track that follows. 'Leave It All Behind' crushes and drives itself into steep climbs before stalling to loop and spin crazily out of control. It's a bone fide lunatic and it should come with an optional straitjacket.

Track after track the band dig at your senses, sinking their instruments of torture into flesh time and time again. Not taking the somewhat suspect wholly-clean soft rock number, 'Azalee', (yes, a soft rock number) into account, the band's only real weakness is at the points where the softer, heartfelt vocal parts step out from knitting together the dark and the light. These moments come when the music dips and they step forward. These are also the moments where their rise and fall begins to sound quite similar in construct from track-to-track. When they're in there with the bottom-end pit-worthy powerhousing (on tracks like 'Life Is Precious') there isn't a problem but, when they aren't (for instance, 'Leave It All Behind'), they sound repetitious and far less addictive than they should be. They become without doubt the focus (the parts that unite the crowd; the singalong; the fists-to-the-sky moments) so that's where the songwriting needs to step up another notch for future albums. Other than that, I'm just... well... speechless.

Also online @ MTUK = http://www.metalteamuk.net/aug11reviews/cdreviews-betraying.htm

Album Review: Figure Of Six – Brand New Life

Who knew that metal was a numbers game? I’m blazing through Figure Of Six’s third album, Brand New Life, again and thinking it sounds an awful lot like Five Finger Death Punch has been spot-welded onto One-Way Mirror. There you go then… 5 + 1 = 6. As you may have guessed, this is my first taste of FO6, and it’s left me wondering how I’ve not come across them in any of the 7 years they’ve been knocking around.

A bit of intense research reveals that they are an Italian sextet, naturally, who have always worn their late-90s hard rock and early-00s nu-metal influences like badges of honour. Brand New Life is proof, however, that they’re not entirely mired in retrospection. Here, they have also incorporated more current trends for warm, gently warping samples and vicious synth attack to beef up their standard of melodically-rich, pounding metal. Based on that description it’s no surprise to find the seemingly omnipotent Tue Madsen (The Haunted, Mnemic, Sick Of It All) producing.

Thickly-chugged guitars and brutish bass sidle up to the whack-whackety-whack of the snare to create an impressive groove. The rhythms wedge open gaps for the samples to divebomb in and out when they’re not integrated from the start. The sordid threesome of “Take Me Now”, “Losin’ My Mind” and “Lady Enemy” brush shoulders with the mind-expanding, industrial-edge of One-Way Mirror and The Interbeing, whilst the title-track and “Losin’ My Mind” nestle up to the muscle-bound powerhouses of Soilwork and Mnemic.

The only trouble is that, above all this, you’ve got a vocal that is all-encompassing and, as Enrico “Erk” Scutti is the only vocalist listed, I’m presuming he has double, nay, treble-layered it, as it rattles around inside your skull like a determined moth against a lightbulb. It has that irksome (or Erk-some, if you like) effect of homogenizing the tracks. He seeks unobtainable notes when he’s not hammering out the same ones over and over. Occasionally tracks like the slower-paced “Siren’s Call” (Scutti’s peculiar pronunciation of the word “siren” is guaranteed to glue itself to your brain) or the palm-muted, distortion-loving grunt of “War From The Inside” get them out of a hole at just the right time, but then they go and drop some almighty clanger like the Euro-pop ugly of “Something”. Not only does the backline lope along like a sickly, three-legged camel, not only does it contain the utterly abhorrent line “You don’t have to feel so paralyzed when you’re in my paradise”, but Figure Of Six have also decided, in their infinite wisdom, to make it the final track on the album. This, then, is the lasting flavour they want you to take away with you is it? – sadly, I’d hazard a guess that you’ll be washing your mouth out with soap after tasting this little doozy.

Apart from a quartet of perfectly palatable tracks in the middle, Brand New Life is a disappointing throwaway album of bland filler – judging by the lukewarm response to their 2008 album, Aion, this may not come as such a big surprise to many. I guess, with all these numbers flying about, there’s only one that matters in the end, and I’m afraid it’s not all that generous this time around.

Also online (with samples and score out of 5) @ The New Review = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/figure-of-six-brand-new-life

Review Archive: A Life Once Lost - Iron Gag

Although this album isn't a new release, having come out in September last year, it will be a fantastic reminder on what to expect on A Life Once Lost's (ALOL) forthcoming support slot on Seattle-based Himsa's 'Summon in Thunder’ European Tour, which starts at the end of this month. The Philadelphian metalcore quintet will be on the road with other support acts Too Pure To Die and Ted Maul (UK only).

“Riffs and spliffs” is how vocalist Bob Meadows described the making of ‘Iron Gag’. He is not wrong. From the first track ‘Firewater Joyride’ it is an album of ascending, groove-laden, drop-d riffs, and heavy chugging breakdowns. It’s easy to imagine how thick the smoke was during the recording sessions. It’s a vicious and more personal album from previous efforts and you can hear all the band’s different influences throughout.

ALOL have said that they had a game plan for this album. After touring for 2 years on the back of ‘Hunter’, they wanted to get straight in the studio and create some kind of monster. If you listen to ‘Detest’ you will hear the result of that put straight onto the album. Known for their ferocious live shows, you can really hear the pummelling double-bass drums beat hard alongside crunchy guitars, squealed pinch harmonics and one hell of a sick solo. Other stand-out tracks such as ‘Worship’ and ‘The Wanderer’ have crowd pleasing shout-a-long choruses and on the penultimate track, ‘Silence’, guitarists Robert Carpenter and Snake Sustaine play stop-start riffs that have a whiff of metal-titans Meshuggah.

Fans of ALOL will notice a subtle change in Bob Meadows vocals from previous albums. Of course it is well known by now that Randy Blythe (Lamb of God) was essentially Meadows’ vocal coach on this album, and compared to the vocals ALOL on ‘Hunter’, Meadow's has been coached well. The guttural snarls that permeate each song are now coming from a deeper, darker place.

Iron Gag contains few respites from the continuing barrage of angular gargantuan riffs, grumbling overdriven bass, battering rhythm section, and rasping vocals. And that is how it should be.