Album Review: Turisas - Stand Up And Fight

There are those close-minded souls who are quick to pour disdain on metal that doesn’t rip their heads off and spit down their throats. Expansive melodic metal and, in particular, folk metal therefore often comes in for quite a rough ride, but this seems harsh on a band such as Finland’s Turisas who seem to pour their hearts and souls into recreating belting Viking tales of yore. Now if there was one set of characters who were more likely to rip your head off and spit down your throat than the Viking warriors then I’d love to hear about them.

Turisas delight in referring to their particular genre as “Battle Metal” (Hell, they named their first album it) and it certainly suits them to a tee. They play rampaging anthems that angry up the blood and their ardent fans, like their heroes, aptly turn up to shows wielding axes and baring skin ready for the fight. Such is their dedication you’ll often see them clad only in furs and facepaint (yes, even in the winter months), so they’re a pretty hardy bunch.

Their latest offering, Stand Up And Fight, which comes enveloped in a stunning Frank Miller-esque cover, picks up where 2008′s conceptual masterpiece, The Varangian Way, left off (in Constantinople actually), but moves quickly onwards to deliver stories that speak to us on several levels. “In general, the songs are much more universal and deal with topics that can be placed just as tightly into the modern world as in the 11th century Byzantine Empire.” explains frontman Mathias Nygård. “Stand Up And Fight has much more to offer the contemporary listener.”

From the opening volley of “The March Of The Varangian Guard” to the ridiculously catchy title-track (one listen and you will be humming it for weeks), it is clear that the production is cleaner, the orchestral touches have become more prevalent and there is plenty more pomp and circumstance being carefully slotted into place. It’s down to the fact that, for the first time, there are string and horn sections hand-picked from leading symphony orchestras to accompany the band’s regular offering of guitars, keyboards, percussion, accordion and violin, and that makes this music on an epic scale; the album seriously sports the kind of bombast that is usually only to be found in grand film scores.

“βένετοι! – πράσινοι!”, which roughly translates as “The Blues! The Greens!” (the two opposing parties of the Roman/Byzantine Senate), feels straight away like this album’s tonal piece – the keystone track that “In The Court Of Jarisleif” became for their last album. Comparing the two certainly shines a light on the changes that Stand Up And Fight offers. It’s a vast, mainly instrumental, piece that inserts you, not dancing a jig round a campfire as “ITCOF” did, but standing with mouth agape in a great echoing hall with fanfares firing off in all directions. It is, essentially, an invite to the coronation of Turisas and, if I’m honest, it feels a little overblown. There are hints of guilded Dragonforce and Within Temptation here where previously has stood the muck and brass of Korpiklaani and Finntroll. This theme continues with “The Great Escape”, as bowed strings lead the way, and for the tender, bitter tang of the operatic “End Of An Empire”, but the fighting down-to-earth spirit still cuts apart the rollicking sea shanty “Hunting Pirates” and, naturally, that killer title-track.

Whichever song you pile into there’s always Nygård’s deep, emotive vocal to guide you along, a vast ocean of extravagance and drama lying behind it and rich, orchestrated strata and choral harmonies blasting through it. Only the most ardent of haters could truly fail to see the potential for this music to be coupled with an all-singing all-dancing stageshow but, having said that, here’s hoping they bring it back to the pit for the next album because this one feels a little too much like they’re trying to plunder Broadway rather than the battle-hardened spirits of their fanbase.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/turisas-stand-up-and-fight

Album Review: Crowbar – Sever The Wicked Hand

The importance of showcasing great technique by combining it with intricate song construction seems to be paramount to survival in today’s modern metal scene. Many newbies appear to come with craft and execution pre-loaded, yet always seem to be forever searching for a personal identity and often turn to over-complicating their sound to find it. Sadly, in many instances, what their music is basically lacking is true grit and it leaves one lusting after something more base; an enduring sound that beats with a primeval heart. Crowbar are reliably one of those bands that I always turn to when this desire takes hold and with tracks like “Isolation (Depression)” and “I Only Deal In Truth” to show off, from their new album Sever The Wicked Hand, they have produced probably their sludgiest, shit-kicking fix of an album ever.

It’s been six long years since their release but, joyously, it’s a return to the Broken Glass days and that deep, thought-obliterating groove that plugs their music directly into your soul. That’s a fine base to be kicking off from but there’s more. By gathering members of Soilent Green, Goatwhore and Kingdom Of Sorrow around him, Kirk Windstein (Down/Kingdom Of Sorrow) now has pretty much a finger in every pie of the Deep South’s sludge metal community and, consequently, there is most definitely a wider range of tracks on show, from songs with an aggressive, fast attack to melodically-heavy numbers and subtler release come-downs. There’s also the fact that songs like the throbbing “Cleanse Me, Heal Me”, “A Farewell To Misery” with it’s chiming opening and chanting oratorio, and the splitting hardcore of “The Cemetery Angels” (featuring the line “You gave me wings and took the sky away” coming direct from an Alcoholics Anonymous book) indicate that the now sober Windstein is keen to use the album as a way of releasing his own inner demons. “I’m not dead yet and have been sober for four months, and I have this whole new outlook on life and a brand new spin on everything”, he explains. We do certainly benefit from this extra infusion of passion which evocatively drives the whole thing forward.

The opening three tracks leave you feeling emotionally spent as they batter about inside your skull with “Liquid Sky And Cold Blade” building up a brutish dirge so complete you’d swear that, if it were a sparring opponent, you’d collapse with exhaustion from repeatedly unleashing shots before it fell to the canvas. Following, “Let Me Mourn” has that Alice In Chains lament-fueled groove that Crowbar slip into occasionally where the vocals team up and the guitars pluck upon an invisible elastic doom. It bears a striking similarity to “Coming Down” from the Lifesblood For The Downtrodden album in that it chugs so hard it’s as if it’s sobbing itself dry. By the time “Echo An Eternity” rolls around you’ll be picking up odd traces of progressive dark rock as walking patterns over gunge-slicked guitar oddly bring Ihsahn’s latest opus to mind.

What Crowbar have taught us with Sever The Wicked Hand is that they have again proven themselves to be a class apart, finding the perfect middle ground between technique, structure and, most importantly, gentle variation within a consistent construct; a band that we can always rely on to produce brilliant simplicity of delivery at a time when metal has never been more complex.

Also online (with preview samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/crowbar-sever-the-wicked-hand

Gig Review: Twin Atlantic @ The Haymakers, Cambridge 25/01/11

The rise and rise of Glasgow’s Twin Atlantic continues unabated. Taken at face value, you’d say they were happily stomping along in the footsteps of Ayrshire’s Biffy Clyro, but the differences between the two bands are just as marked as the similarities are. Listen carefully and you’ll realise the Weegies are actually the more musically creative ones these days.

Despite this, you’d be a fool not to believe that the fact both bands aren’t afraid of banging out songs in their own Scots brogue, coupled with the “incestuous scene” (as frontman Sam McTrusty refers to the world of Scottish alt-rock), has only helped to boost their fanbase.

After watching their mini-album Vivarium released to rave reviews, Twin Atlantic are on the brink of releasing their first full-length and this European tour of the smaller, barrier-less venues may just be their last chance to truly connect with each individual supporter. At this rate, six months down the line, who knows what size stage they’ll regularly be playing on.

Tonight they’re keen to break out new material, despite the album being several months from release, and open with ‘Edit Me’. It’s a raging torrent of rock attitude with a solitary, yet effective, stop-gap lurking in the middle that fires the crowd into action.

They step off the pedal for the chiming epic ‘What Is Light? Where Is Laughter?’, which allows us time to take a look up and marvel at McTrusty’s chiselled features, newly-cropped hair and stubble. His energy isn’t to be found wanting either and he’s keen to impress upon us how delighted he is to be there. “This is our first time in Cambridge and we’re blown away by how many of you have come out”, he grins before describing the city as having “a nice little community”.

The other band members seem a little squeezed on this tiny Haymakers stage with bassist Ross McNae and classically-trained guitarist Barry McKenna often disappearing behind the cumbersomely large speaker stacks. Lurking at the back, the moustache and striped t-shirt combo of drummer Craig Kneale is almost cartoonish – think Popeye, Animal (The Muppets) and Ron Mael (Sparks) all rolled into one. As the quartet batter out their more well-known songs like ‘Human After All’, ‘Better Weather’ and ‘Caribbean War Syndrome’ those gathered move from a respectable stance of quiet appreciation and head-nodding to mouthing lyrics, whooping and fist-clenching.

McTrusty lifts his game further by evolving a deliberate, vicious twitch before delivering his more potent lines (“Blow these fuckers away!”, for instance, from ‘Caribbean War Syndrome’) and, for ‘Audience And Audio’, sinking to his knees to lash out a solo. “Shhhh!” he playfully admonishes, during a break between songs, before following with “This is the warmest/drunkest day of the tour so far” as if those two perceptions go hand-in-hand. Someone responds by shouting if he wants a drink, to which he appreciatively orders “a JD and coke”. It seems they are connected after all!

Each song feels more vital, more anthemic in a live venue. It’s a joy to witness the multiple nuances like McKenna’s electric cello (and his jumping around while playing it), McTrusty’s basic effect of tapping his guitar lead on the connector (to create the on-off buzz that opens the show-stopping ‘Lightspeed’) or the harrowing emotion that sits on the players’ face as they perform their subtler numbers. This all builds to create an unstoppable force, so when they unleash another newbie, the smoother, less anarchic ‘Apocalyptic Renegade’, the crowd are happy to greet it as one of their own.

As a parting gift, McTrusty dedicates the final song, their trump card ‘You’re Turning Into John Wayne’, to McKenna’s passport offering us the information that they’re heading to Germany now and their are seven of them, but only six passports. “You make up the punchline”, he quips before bringing the house down with the line “Have you lost your latitude and longitude?” I’d like to think those who took a risk and ventured out tonight won’t think so.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/01/twin-atlantic-the-haymakers-cambridge-250111/

Album Review: Ultraphallus - Sowberry Hagan

Those Belgian noiseniks Ultraphallus are rashly experimental. Their challenging, sensory warfare sits on the crossroads where the paths of Nadja, Bleach-era Nirvana, Sunn O))) and Kong all meet up. Now, if that sounds like quite an odd collection of names to stick into one sentence you’d be right. But then actually getting to grips with the abrupt track-by-track changes of direction of Sowberry Hagan is a task in itself. Whether they’ve been brave or stupid is ultimately your call, but hopefully I can help with that.

The album was recorded on a Liége farm in just four short days. Four days of instrumental speculation with banjo and saxophones popping up amidst layers of white noise, samples and field recordings. Listening to the whole shebang you’d have to hope that it wasn’t a working farm. The cockerel wouldn’t get a look in!

Ripping through a multitude of techniques they assail us with a spot of white noise, not unlike a grotty recording of a macabre horrorshow, for ‘Pathological Freemind Verse’ before obliterating us with bawled punk as into the the snapping maw of ‘Right Models’ we go. Dropping tempo to settle into their more familial groove of badgering doom, vocalist Phil Maggi begins to psych us out with his best unhinged lunatic impression for the soul-sucking ‘River Jude’ and then menacingly half-whispers in our ear through the plonk-a-thon ‘Indians Love Rain’.

For ‘The Red Print’ (a track where the level of cotton wool disorientation will have you trying to un-pop your ears throughout) the band seem determined on drowning the dying guest vocal of Eugene Robinson (Oxbow) beneath the surface of a boiling ocean of sound. He manages to heave himself up to deliver a line, then splashes around a bit, until they drag him back under. This goes on with him re-emerging just breathless moments later until, agonisingly, he finally disappears beneath and we enter an underworld of psychedelic warblings.

The album as a whole is, at first glance, an exercise in various claustrophobic techniques. Adeptly, Ultraphallus smother us with the pillow of neurotic drone (‘Torches Of Freedom’), try to strangle us into submission with hedonistic, industrial doom (‘Suspense Bird/Human’), or break our spirit with fistfuls of discordant sax over scathing noise (‘Cinghiale’). And if they’d left it there, we’d be initially thrilled but ultimately unfilled. By presenting escape routes through the likes of ‘Right Models’, the banjo and birdsong 12-second blast of ‘The Crumbled’ and the grunge-tastic riff that inhabits ‘Golden Fame’, the whole experience becomes something else: an exhilarating thrill-ride into the unknown that makes our hearts beat faster and gives us a feeling of light-headedness as neurones fire us into something approaching happiness. Sowberry Hagan is justifiably, heroically brave.

Also online (and officially recommended) @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/02/ultraphallus-sowberry-hagan/

Album Review: The Bridal Procession - Astronomical Dimensions

The Bridal Procession are a band transformed. In three short years, they have been through a whole catalog of line-up changes which has resulted in them morphing from playing run-of-the-mill deathcore to peddling overtly complex, gothic death metal; a band with a penchant for juxtaposing aggression with melody by integrating rich orchestration and dark, apocalyptic elements into the mix.

For Astronomical Dimensions, their debut full-length, it is apparent that this Parisian quintet (including their live drummer) have managed to draw a couple of very influential moths to their flame. We have Alexander Dietz (guitarist for Heaven Shall Burn) responsible for tracking and Tim Lambesis (lead vocalist for As I Lay Dying) handling the mixing with Daniel Castleman at his own studios. No doubt, these names have prompted others like Alan Douches at West West Side and the Siege Of Amida label to get involved. The result is a pretty gobsmacking package.

At the time of writing, without the information to hand, I’m assuming it was probably the case that their go-to guy, Junior Rodriguez, was the drummer on the album but, with all the big names involved with the project, you’d love to believe that someone like Tim Lambesis stepped up. Whoever sat behind that kit is one talented individual. The oblique changes of rhythm, the multitude of different fills, the tom-rolls and, especially the rimshots (hats off to the production team who must have spent ages adjusting the levels to inject the right amount of warmth into them) are top-notch. In fact, if you listen carefully, each band member wears their impressive technical ability like a badge of honor. At times, there’s almost too much to going on at once and the sentiment of the track gets lost – the drummer’s too busy pounding out another complex fill just as the synth dribbles out another ludicrously epic lead.

“Shroud Of The End” is the perfect track to showcase their sound – a kind of death metal opera reminiscent of something Winds Of Plague or The Breathing Process might venture into. It is divided between emotional synth sweeps that climb to whining peaks and a throat-scouring attack (vocalist Steve Garner spewing forth cutting lyrics pinpointing modern societal collapse) behind a battering ram of guitars. All around this focal point orbits a proclivity to dip into the more progressive side of things. Take the four-minute instrumental title-track, oddly reminiscent of The Ocean’s recent output, or “Pillage The Scavenger” which chimes in with an Eluveitie-esque folk metal intro and trudges out, having donned Primordial’s corpsepaint, a fully-fledged war machine.

Like a volcanic mud bath, in its angrier moments, Astronomical Dimensions has enough sulphuric passion steaming from it to speak directly to you, sending shivers up your spine as it bubbles and bursts forth from the speakers. However, there’s an awful lot of overly eccentric, ephemeral gloop to wade through to get to that moment of clarity. The Bridal Procession have promise by the truckload that should be realized once they consistently manage to better integrate their theatrical page-breaks into their brutally punishing, horror story.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/the-bridal-procession-astronomical-dimensions