Album Review: Izah - Sistere

This Dutch sextet’s promo blurb describes their debut as a “72-minute long musical narration through darkness and light, hope and despair”. Within they pummel the listener with a combination of sludge-packed crush, barren post-hardcore and black metal affectations before soothing them with post-rock atmospherics. Through the use and abuse of multi-part songs, rammed with attack-and-release theatrics, gentle ebb and flow, recycling arpeggios and an array of harmonies and tones they paint a sinister picture of a world gone awry.

“Indefinite Instinct” opens to a battering gale-force wind, before ticking over into hollowed-out, reverb-loaded, gargling roars. As the bass finally kicks in the space floods with colour and the track comes alive. There are the first rumblings of emotional discord as taped newsreels are freed to paint the canvass with real anguish and torment. We get a man protesting his innocence (“I don’t know what crime I’m supposed to have committed”) as the Cult Of Luna-esque progressions build layers in the background. “Demise, demise” roars the vocalist Sierk Entius as a series of effects and radio signal scrawl bring the piece to a close.

Considering his past experience, it seems reasonable to assume that producer Jochem Jacobs (ex-Textures) may have had something to do with the repeating themes that feature and he certainly handles the eclectic and complex layering with aplomb. There are shocks in store like the sudden, aggressive attack that mark out “Duality” and “Finite Horizon”. The former, themed around the horrorshow that was the Unabomber, utilises industrial drumbeats and Cavalera-esque groove that acquiesces to reveal a sinister background thrum. It is all so reminiscent of the dark progressions that feeds the music of No Made Sense and Kongh. “Finite Horizon”s groove rapidly decays into a screwy pattern of ISIS-esque clean vocal harmonies and tones, panicked riffs and tribal rhythms. Finding something for your senses to acclimatise to does become a chore when the ground beneath your feet moves so often. It seems a shame when each constituent part alone, would be so effective.

Thankfully, the 30-minute title-track properly hunkers down to fully dissect a singular concept. Here the story of a sobbing couple torn from each other’s arms yanks at your heart – “We belong together!”. There are strong black metal overtones with continuous double-kick and Dalek-like, atonal shrieks before the body of the track moves into elegant slow motion. At 20 minutes there are trumpets and a gentle deconstruction into radio scrawl, feedback, roaring amps and whale sound. It is the equivalent of the band leaving the stage only to return to play out a warm wash until “lights out”.

Sistere is a fearless debut that strides along exuding an elegant majesty. The band’s ability to combine sounds and feed each one into their melancholic concept is impressive. All the while they dig into their disturbing box of tricks improving the flow and engendering a sense of purpose. All this proves just how in control of their own destiny they truly are. Nordvis have bagged another winner here.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/02/izah-sistere-nordvis/

Album Stream: Hummune - Crafted In Darkness

If, like me, you've been lamenting the recent break-ups of the epic, progressive metal bands Isis, No Made Sense and Deftones, Hummune have just released their debut long-player with the potential to plug some of the gaps. Here's a full album stream for you to muse over, Crafted In Darkness. Have fun!



My bro, Aaron, has the review covered here: http://thenewreview.net/reviews/hummune-crafted-in-darkness

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: No Made Sense - New Season/New Blues

Once in a while a band comes along and lays one on your chin from completely out of nowhere. In shock, you check up on them and find a band devoid of egos, with no mission statement, with no burning desire for you to join their MySpace, their Twitter feed or “like our Facebook page, FFS!” These are the bands that you usually end up treasuring more than most because they care what their music sounds like far more than what they look like whilst they’re doing it, and care more about enjoying themselves than making money or influencing people. Hold onto these moments because these are also the bands that can just as quickly slip through your fingers. No Made Sense are one of these bands. Their, quite frankly, stunning debut, The Epillanic Choragi, a darkly conceptual work loaded with cryptic titles, was released on Basick without fanfare a couple of years back, around the same time as bands from the same small city of Reading, UK, were releasing big-hitting, attention-smothered albums on big, noisy labels (specifically, Sylosis’ Conclusion Of An Age on Nuclear Blast and Malefice’s Dawn Of Reprisal on Metal Blade).

Now No Made Sense are back with New Season/New Blues, an album of individual tracks and ideas and, consequently, an album of many colours and tastes. They’ve recorded it live and the production is certainly a lot rougher, with gritty, piercing vocals and clanging strings that clamber over each other. It has resulted in a less-polished but heartier end result that places them closer to what they could capably produce live. Joe Battimelli’s bass, in particular, doesn’t so much boom as pop and spit whilst Leo Dennett’s guitar takes its opportunity to crunchily explore layer upon layer of trembling riffs and calloused, knotty chord repetitions.

Tracks like “No Gain From Seeking” and “I’ve Not Been”, in particular, show a move towards the more flamboyant psych-inflected rock of bands like Baroness, Muse and Porcupine Tree whilst “Lying On My Own” gives you a blast of that howling punkish fervour that These Arms Are Snakes were so famed for. It doesn’t mean the band haven’t lost their ability to dwell at the doomy post-metal altar of bands like Neurosis and Mastodon. Then, with songs like “Four” and “You Might As Well” they conjure up complex, soul-sucking vortices to prove they are still one of the few groups with the skill, patience and intelligence to fill the gaping hole that Isis ripped when they called time on their career.

There are more sides to this band than a dodecahedron. “Half Of The Wall” offers slowly decaying white noise sands and distant futuristic sounds of computer banks streaming data until both eventually crack and allow the opening duo of power chord and fuzzed-up bass that form “Silence” to break through their weakened binary security. This is a track that follows a similar pattern, with the same impact, to Russian Circles’ grooviest material (think “Station” multiplied by “Carpe”. Dennett fingers riffs, impelling them on, until they embed themselves into your synapses; until you find yourself helplessly spasming along to the music.

New Season/New Blues is the equivalent of slowly shovelling a pick n’ mix bag of candy in your mouth. Some flavors you’ll instantly adore, others you’ll discover are an acquired taste. One second your face will screw up as Dennett misanthropically softens his vocal to a half-spoken whispering (on “Down” and the opening of “You Might As Well”), the next, your cheeks will glow and a feeling of utter bliss will drop as the final riff of “No Gain From Seeking” boots up, and again when the band offer a trip back to the beauty of “Milachi’s Depths” (from their debut) for “Lying On My Own.” These are the moments in music that we live for and it’s what singles No Made Sense out as men of genius.

“Sleep” has the intensity of “Silence” but is a lot more open to frenzy. It is genuinely brilliant mayhem and it rocks my little world. The gradual increase in tempo until they are speeding towards a certain death seems somehow representative of their sudden and scarily well-concealed decision to go out with a bang. Yes, you heard right, the twist in the tail is that No Made Sense have casually released this gem of an album into the ether at the same time that they blogged this throwaway statement – “Also, you might not hear from us again for a while. Or maybe ever. So, thanks and stuff.” Dig a little deeper and it appears they all have different ideas on where they want to take their music, so you may be seeing their names attached to new projects very soon. Wherever, they choose to go, you can be sure good things will follow. No Made Sense might have remained resolutely underground but for those lucky few that know of their existence, if this really is the end, it’s been one hell of a thrilling ride.

The full album is now streaming and available for pay-what-you-want download here.

Also online @ The New Review = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/no-made-sense-new-season-new-blues