Album Review: The Drift - Memory Drawings

It’s been three years since The Drift released their debut album, ‘Noumena’, but this is purely down to the number of pies that each band member have had their sticky fingers embedded in - one of these includes Danny Grody’s ultra-prolific post-rock band, Tarentel. The boys did, however, manage to fit in an extensive tour across North America and Japan which has inspired a ruthless efficiency for song-writing that is apparent on this new release. Recorded directly to analogue tape with producer Jay Pellicci at the helm, the mix is used as another instrument to shape each song, channeling the mythos of late 60’s jazz and late 70’s dub classics.

Full of ethereal charm and sweeping instrumental soundscapes ‘If Wishes Were Horses’ features a soft, fluttering trumpet, replacing the need for a vocal, rising and falling to form the track’s heartbeat. ‘Uncanny Valley’ introduces shades of afro-beat and disco-soul that weave their way to the surface injecting new life to a recurring pattern. Much of what is on offer winds its course down the same eroded river bed and considering its gentle nature it could easily be viewed as repetitive ephemera. For me, however, it could just be the perfect album to wash away the stresses of a hard day as it floods your senses with its miasma of intertwining strands of ambience. All you have to do is simply allow yourself to drift along.

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DVD Review: Iron Maiden - Live After Death

It’s taken Iron Maiden a whopping twenty-two years to release visuals to accompany what is regarded by many fans as the finest live metal album of all time. ‘Live After Death’ was recorded over four sold-out nights at Long Beach Arena, California during the middle of their epic World Slavery Tour. The tour itself was to promote the 1984 ‘Powerslave’ album and took in 193 shows and took the best part of a year to complete. Included is the second part of ‘The History Of Iron Maiden’ (the first part is on ‘The Early Years’ DVD release) providing excellent insight into the details of the tour; ‘Behind The Iron Curtain’ charting the remarkable story of how Maiden became the first major Western band to play the Eastern Bloc at the height of the Cold War; ‘Rock In Rio’ where they played a gig to a staggering 300,000 people; and tour programme artwork, photo stills, videos from the album and other tour-related ephemera. It’s quite a package then!

From the very beginning and the opening lines of Churchill’s famous war-speech the hairs on the back of my neck are going haywire. Comparing what the band are doing now with what they were doing back then it’s amazing to see how little has changed. The current line-up is virtually the same with only guitarist Janick Gers missing. It’s lycra and leather, studding and sweatbands - check out drummer Niko McBrain’s garish ‘Flash Gordon’ gym kit - and is all looking a bit glam, with vocalist Bruce Dickinson sporting an 80’s school-girl fringe, but once the band blasts into ‘Aces High’ and he starts belting out that soaring, vibrato vocal this all pales into insignificance.

The lighting rig and rest of the stage set has been superbly designed to fit equally well into a stadium or a small club and comprises richly-coloured hieroglyphics and pyramids to match the album’s Egyptian theme. At one point Dickinson appears on the amp-stack wearing a feathered-mask, which he confesses to having bought from a shop selling homo-erotic paraphernalia! There is flames and fireworks, dry ice and sweeping spotlights and whenever their mascot, Eddie The Head, makes an appearance, wrapped in bandages, it whips the crowd up into a frenzy.

Bassist Steve Harris spends most of the gig in a classic metal pose, one foot up on the amp, determinedly gunning down the crowd with his bass-head. Guitarists Dave Murray and Adrian Smith trade mind-melting solos whilst jumping about the stage, but it’s Dickinson who’s the most active, running tirelessly around like a maniac. Drum-riser to crowd to amp-stack, he introduces each song with a roar, yelling out alternately the name of the city, the state or the venue - “Scream for me Long Beach, screeeeam for me Long Beach!” Compared to the album, there are small additions to Dickinson’s interplay with his audience between songs which only serve to increase the feeling of actually being there. There’s also an extra track, ‘Sanctuary’, to enjoy.

The cameras have total stage access with front and back shots, a drum camera and a sweeping arm that swings back and forth over the fans. Close-ups, long panoramic pans and views from the pit, it’s all there. The epicentre of this awesome show is the 13-minute masterpiece, ‘Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’, adapted from the drug-addled mind of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Somewhere mid-song the stage is flooded with a swirling mist which rises to waist-height before pouring off the stage-front. The three guitarists stand motionless centre-stage, captured in beams of moonlight, gently picking out the rhythm as a deep spoken voice intones the poem’s lyrics to the sound of creaking timber echoing off the walls of the arena. The bass lifts, Dickinson returns to the stage and the crowd roar their approval at the ultimate combination of theatrics and heavy music.

The only things I can fault the DVD for are the occasional repetition of visuals, due mainly to the sheer volume - four hours worth - of material on offer, and the differences in quality between the main show and the extras which throws the poorer product into a harsh light. Without these extras though you wouldn’t know about the time Dickinson got a face-full of guitar; you wouldn’t know that the band played ‘Smoke On The Water’ at a Polish wedding; and you wouldn’t know about the time when McBrain went swimming mid-song before returning to his kit dripping wet. I could go on about why you should be parting with your hard-earned cash but, to put it in simple terms, you simply won’t find a more compelling chronicling of a band on tour, a band so at ease with themselves, and a band at the ultimate peak of their powers.

Album Review: Motion Picture Soundtrack - The Shapes We Fear Are Of Our Own

With Motion Picture Soundtrack’s last release, the 'Departure EP', appearing late last year it‘s no surprise to find that this debut album 'The Shapes We Fear Are Of Our Own', features the same haunting, nihilistic approach to songwriting. This time round, though, the band have not one, or two, but three producers on board. Paul Schroeder (The Stone Roses, The Verve), Bob Ludwig (Rage Against The Machine, Tool) and Cenzo Townshend (Editors, Bloc Party) - I don’t know about you but that sounds like a case of too many cooks to me. I think we can safely assume that certainly Ludwing’s input has resulted in a heavier product whilst Schroeder and Townshend (both who featured on the EP as producer and mixer respectively) would be the ones wrestling their sound back towards the contemporary.

In essence, MPS are an eclectic mix of Editors, White Lies and Placebo and who come across as both disarmingly sincere and simpering at the same time. With lead single ‘Glass Figures’, for instance, there is an attack that invigorates as it crescendos, yet resorts to falling back into line along a well-trodden path, far too readily. Strikingly clean, yet lazily repetitive guitar sits beneath Alastair Blackwood’s urgently emotive, morbid musings with the damaged whole echoing climactically from beginning to embittered end.

Often the band seem happy pounding away at a few repetitious chords, perhaps to engender a poppier sound, but when they do flick about between song parts they manage to create luxurious layers of rhythm and texture. Simultaneous fierce undercurrents, jangling mid-range and falsetto peaks feature within tracks like ‘Make It Through The Night’ or ‘Whiterooms’ which tug upon a Coldplay/Keane loose seam until the whole thing happily disassembles itself. Heartier fodder sweeps in with tracks like ‘I Clipped Your Wing’ or ’On Earth (As It Is In Heaven) which are anchored down to a bruising bass and thunderous piano combo whilst all around piercing vocal crashes at the listener in cresting wave upon cresting wave.

The real disappointments here hide within the lack of momentum and the dearth of stop-gaps. Each song keeps to the same vague pattern that echoes the others around it. The last three tracks fight desperately to escape the familiar arrangement, but that wavering vocal drags it all kicking and screaming back into line. Sure, there are peaks and troughs on show here, but in the end it just feels like one big featureless ocean of sound. Whilst you’ll crave the sight of an iceberg or an island, I was simply finding it a struggle to stop from drowning.

DVD Review: Unearth - Alive From The Apocalypse

Disc One is the restrictively short live show that Unearth played in Pomona, California last year and has been edited down to just 45 minutes. Despite this fact and the restrictions of the venue on shot variety it truly gives any prospective punter an insight into the manic energy and aural assault that is the band’s live material. It’s achieved by rapid cutting between cameras and sequential close-up work that includes both a view of fret and stickwork as well as allowing zoomed frames displaying both the emotion of the crowd and the band. And it’s not found wanting for sound quality either. Every instrument is clear and crisp with Trevor Phipps’ vocals particularly intense.

As a live band, Unearth make particularly fascinating viewing simply because of their unique capacity to surprise with their music (a twisted combination of thrash-metal and hardcore) and their onstage antics. The two guitarists Buz McGrath and especially Ken Susi are dual blurs of motion, leaping off amps, swinging their guitars around their necks, playing each other’s strings mid-riff, and even doing press-ups in between producing a sequence of shreds that would make Freddie Krueger proud. And amidst it all, standing stock still, Phipps simply stands and lets roar with an ear-shattering volley of lyrics before turning to the crowd and yelling “Don’t just fucking stand there!”

I could go through each song but I think you’re getting the message. It’s a pretty impressive show (and one I’m already wishing I was at) and perhaps that’s the thing. Not being there means it eventually ends up as a slightly disappointing experience. And it’s not just the brevity of it all. It’s rather dark and gloomy on stage, with the occasional burst of colour and this tends to produce a feeling after awhile that you’ve seen it all already. Thankfully, there is the magic of Disc Two still to come.

It’s a 75-minute documentary which provides a full history of the band from their humble beginnings playing clubs to the raging force they’ve become today. The genius here is the liberal use of opinion and information from the band’s contemporaries. The willing contributors include luminaries like Tim Lambesis (As I Lay Dying), Matt DeVries (Chimaira), Hoya Roc (Madball), Corey Taylor (Slipknot/Stone Sour), Dino Cazeres (Fear Factory/Divine Heresy), Brian Fair (Shadows Fall), Adam Dutkiewicz (Killswitch Engage) and ex-Pantera legend, (currently with Hellyeah) Vinnie Paul. They provide many of the most comedic moments as they recant tour tales and insights into the true personalities of each of the Unearth band members. Find out who flipped the tour van and who puked!

I won’t go in to any further details but it really is a superb watch and makes you wonder whether these lads were actually born with a cameraman attached! Without this insanely brilliant documentary this would just be another half-arsed and ultimately inconsequential release, with its inclusion this becomes an essential purchase for all fans of metal.

Album Review: Audrey Horne - Le Fol

This Norwegian rock quartet blend keyboards with guitars to produce a wall of sound that has seen them pick up multiple awards back in their homeland for their debut ‘No Hay Banda’. With this release destined for a wider audience and it’s quite possible this could be their year. A few line-up changes have seen Ice Dale, a former Enslaved guitarist, take up production duties, on top of which he continues to stamp his trademark of dark, fizzing guitar all over their music.

‘Jaws’ is euphoric, shining and shimmering with buzzed fearsome guitars, shattering rock drums and dramatic keyboard sections. “We still kill the old school way”, yells a chorus of Toschies. Rarely does the bass take on such a leading role in a band’s sound but here its steady throb is the bedrock for everything else to build from, resonant and foreboding. Check the opening bars of ‘Threshold’ as it picks out its insane dancing rhythm and you’ll understand exactly why it’s so important. ‘Monster’ is a step away firmly into the middle of the road with its gently swaying rhythm but it‘s only going to get run over standing there so clearly out of place. Thankfully ‘So Long Euphoria’ drags us back to the dark side with its brooding throb of guitars, mighty pings of bass, syncopated drum patterns and stylized, echoing vocals which shift back and forth between shifty, silent spoken warnings to urgent and desperate choral unisons.

Over-production has left it hanging precariously close to falling into the mainstream quicksand but it should be saved by the dark, festering and fairly eclectic underscore that is the album’s calling card. Perhaps capturing a rawer, more live sound should be the band’s next move, but this is a fine way to introduce yourselves to the world, as their rapidly increasing fan base will no doubt attest to.