Chances are that despite their 10-year existence and their recent UK Tech-Fest performance, you may still not have heard of this lot. Judging by the amount of sparks that are flying off the Greek metallers’ latest full-length and their peers’ early reaction to them it’s a situation that will soon be remedied.
Textures’ Jochem Jacobs is already a fan which is no surprise when you consider the parallels that can be drawn with his chosen music scene and even his own band.
You see, Tardive Dyskinesia have an unfettered view of metal, so even if you’re not a specific fan of the progressive or technical stuff, you’re bound to suddenly find yourself nodding along due to the band drawing from such a wide range of sources. Motorhead, Gojira, Maiden, Meshuggah, Devin, Dragonforce – they’ve got all angles covered.
The first four tracks might just turn your brain to mush with its multi-part constructions but the deeper you dig, the simpler and less invasive the songwriting gets. “Insertion” introduces their passion for fast skidding chords. It’s a technique that pops up at regular intervals and by “Fire Red Glass Heart” one that has developed into spasmodic, polyrhythmic djent. It all soon releases into harmonised vocals then spinning off into techy runs and stoner roars before dropping into a slow-build of riff-picking. Smacks of Gojira and Textures are its bedrock but it’s the explosive lyric “You can run but you cannot hide” that provides the ultimate smack to the chops.
“The Electric Sun” mashes Baroness’ sharp tones into Purified In Blood’s visceral delivery before dissolving into a Skyharbor-esque progressive wash.
Those hunting for a real crusher should skip straight to the Meshuggah-worship of “Self Destructive Haze”. It’s the aural equivalent of dropping a stink-bomb on a packed escalator. Even here amidst the bag of nails gargling and battering chugs they find a moment to breakout into a passage of uplifting chimes with accompanying vocoder. Listen very closely and you’ll pick out the true stars – the insane drum patterns and interlocking slap bass notation.
As the album hits its middle, the band start opening out the structures; reducing the speed of their attack. Soon we’re wading into moments such as the arm-waving chorus of a “Thread Of Life” (inspired by Way Of All Flesh-era Gojira or I’ll eat my hat), the instrumental middle-switch and “Everlong”-aping rawk (yep, Foo Fighters) of “Concentric Waves”, the string-taps, arpeggios and jazz sax of “Savior Complex”, and post-rock noodling (a la Heights) of “Chronicity”.
The final shaking of Tardive’s creative box of tricks is saved until right near the end – “Echoes 213”. Its a track that ripples with expansive guitar soloing, progressive arpeggios, fluid rhythms and cosmic touches which provide the gentile comedown into dead air. It would be remiss of me to not also mention that, whilst listening, I was reminded of the kind of Deconstruction-level Devin Townsend production. That is about as fine a compliment that I can give.
So, are we excited?
I am! Personally, the listening experience was a lot like the band had thrown down my vinyl collection and then reconstructed it from the shards. Yet, I’d be happy to point out that Harmonic Confusion is full of originality too. Sure there’s a wealth of inspiration here but it ain’t imitation. Tardive manage to reinvent their source material and keep each part flowing in the same direction to the same destination point. If this doesn’t get them noticed by the big players, then… well, I’ll eat my other hat.
Canadian musician/producer Devin Townsend is an enigma. His career and discography is mind-boggling both in the quality and variety of material within, but also the sheer volume. To date, he has released something approximating 25 studio albums (9 as a solo artist and 16 in collaboration with others), and that is before we begin to scratch the surface of his early musical career. If you're not a metalhead though, the chances are you won't even have heard of him. By Jove, are you missing out.
Take this latest effort as an example. Shorn, literally (see right), of his extreme metallic leanings, we find him back teaming up with his self-titled 'Project' to continue his exploration of the arena-filling euphoric rock that so endeared 2014's Sky Blue release to his fanbase. Essentially, what we have here is part-symphonic rock, part-pagan folk with short stabs at both dream pop and power metal. Digging in, we find another chapter has been added to "The Devin Townsend Book Of More Is More". Now that hasn't always been the case, but this is new Devin here; clean, sober and loving life. In fact, he's really opened up to the point where he's now collaborating with his band. It's a process that he has described as "more streamlined, more efficient and more fulfilling". Essentially that means he churns out a load of rough material, brings it to rehearsal and the band help him smooth it all out.
Anneke Van Giersbergen is back adding her infectious, joyous vocal to the mix. Here though, surprisingly, she is used more sparingly, adding harmonies to lift the vocal blend rather than performing a reprise of the starring role she took on the band's last release. So less is more? Huh? Certainly, those thrilling bursts from her that bubble up through the mix, pop like little, effervescent fireworks. Less may actually be more effective! It's almost hard to imagine a Dev album without her now. Wouldn't it be like drinking flat Coke? That gospel choir fill is also back making things "epic" and here he uses them to flood the senses - just don't try counting the layers.
There's strong hints from his back catalogue, from Sky Blue, Epicloud and also Infinity. In fact, originally featuring on that 1999 Infinity album, the opener is a remaster of the song "Truth". That, coupled with an inspired remix of Ween's "Transdermal Celebration" bookend the album. The former re-introduces Dev's calling card; his ultra-high production values and those big, expansive layers. The latter is catchy as hell and is certainly worth inclusion if just for the lush line "Laid on the lawn, he's already home when the morning rain hits his face". Despite it's spaced-out crystal backline, it does feel disconnected from the rest of the album and should be viewed as a bit of a bonus track. Certainly, that 5-minute cosmic, multi-part extended wash smacks of showing off.
In fact it's a slight over-simplification, but you could almost divide this album down the middle. The best tracks do all seem to come straight off the bat. "Stormbending" features Dev at his most heartfelt, belting out his lyrics like his chest is bursting with pride; determined to expand our minds and souls with lines like "Time is a human construct / A new world below the waves". The warbling guitar solo looms large here; a mere hint of its increased use later on. It is back firing behind the strutting pomp of the chugging strings that drive "Failure". The volume of it certainly adds a burst of grunt to Dev's wandering vocal. You do get the sense that he's more interested in building the sonic crush this time round than throwing out unique vocal tricks. It is driving us assuredly down a fantasy/power metal road.
Then, like two magnificent sunbursts we get "Secret Sciences" and "Higher". The catchy riff and superb build of the former invigorates, opening with the intriguing line "Yesterday I woke afraid / unable to discern if the fears were even tangible" before revealing the concept with "Let it go anyway / Let it be a part of yesterday". Essentially the man is preaching that we must love our selves and our kind and to do that we have to be the bigger man in any problem situation; to change our own perception. It's a theme that spreads itself from this core track, threading its way throughout the album. Behind it all, we are wonderfully re-introduced to Anneke and a sublime walking bass guitar riff. That explosion into the chorus is a joy and when the vocal drifts back in the mix there is a creeping top line lead to pick out the hooks.
On to that other doozy, "Higher". From gentle beginnings - an opening hush that echoes elements from 2011's Ghost and even Foo Fighters' own experiment with the soft on 2005's In Your Honor - we hit the exclamation to go "Higher! Higher! Higher!". Rest assured, by the time it hits the track's apex, we're experiencing a mid-section hitting manic technical jazz guitar, complete with brash sweeps, roars and down-tuned chug-obsessed guitar. It all bristles with the same glorious madness that his 2011 Deconstruction album was built upon. Here though, the band always keep the song's heart close by returning to the light at regular intervals. Those final orchestral movements offer Dev the chance to bring the choir to the fore and they lead us back to the track's climax. Is this not the very definition of "epic metal"?
There are a few weaknesses to consider and those do come in the promised latter half of the album. "Stars" certainly provides the same sort of initial comedown as it's neighbour. Deliberate, but here it is less ambitious. The chord structures begin to feel a little anachronistic; the slumbering vocal hush yearns to be adored. But still that walking middle-eight in repose is a killer cut-away. These little moments of genius make such simple songs essential. The main vocal certainly knows when to take a backseat in the mix to the glorious warmth of the choir. What doesn't run so smoothly is the continuous full-bore hit that the title-track attempts straight after. The baritones in the choir set the mood and then Anneke takes over and the oppressive flood of the thing begins to melt away. But does it go anywhere, does it say anything or is it mere filler? It seems you can be crushed by heavily-layered mood music. Who knew?
One final thorn is left but all I'll say is have a listen to the song "Have I Told You Lately?" by Van Morrison, Rod Stewart or any other artist, before listening to "From My Heart" and try not to marry the two. It's impossible, right? Even a heart-warming message like that isn't worth an eight-minute run time though.
So yes, it's a cracking release from DTP but it's not without fault. You certainly get your money's worth though and only a fool would hesitate before recommending it. With an insanely-successful career like that behind him, you can be sure that an on-point Devin Townsend is a goddamn genius. Out-of-synch, he's merely essential listening.
“Well I know what I just said. For those of you who came with us, everything is OK” intones the voice and just like that this sophomore provides the perfect link to their debut and we’re off.
Having shown us just a glimpse of their new wave leanings on their debut album, Servers have expanded this thread now to include a synthetic swagger that tip-toes between the worlds of dark pop and industrial rock. It has made for a cleaner, more vibrant sound. However, their vast grooves are now less impacting having been flattened to create simpler, more accessible structures that seem over-reliant on a singular hook. Is this a dangerous game they are playing here?
Well, the initial tracks like “Spells” and “My Friends Are Enemies” build from solid bases but do begin to crumble at the point of choral release. The slackening of rhythmic bite in the former track, from those rumbling drums loaded with tribal menace, is certainly an odd experience. The latter track is certainly spiky enough, ripped with dark fizz and a groovy electro-buzz but again the choruses feel slack. There’s definitely a need for them to punch more.
Happily, what follows brings the power. Yes, the bitter and twisted “To Hell With You” and the chant and chop of “Bodies In The Ground” set about revisiting the manic splatter of their debut with plenty of grunt and a vitriolic crush instigated by overdriven guitars. This power surge is ably complemented by some of Lee Storrar’s wildest roars. Acting like a shot in the arm it feels like we’re back on track. By regularly switching tempos, Servers take us on an emotional rollercoaster. “Unconditional” goes completely against the grain of the other tracks, picking up from a ponderous quiet verse to instigate a huge kinetic chorus. There’s a sweet orchestral intro to dissect, an addictive vocal hook and a bouncing heartbeat underscore too.
Then when all seems well, the band start meddling with formulaic pop constructions as “Our Lady Of Bad Counsel”, “I Will Make You” and “Codes” hit. The former drags us kicking and screaming back into the past with bursts of synth and a feisty but simplistic rhythm. It even drops in some driven, upbeat, punk-pop elements. Getting specific, “Codes” is just pure Zoolook-era Jean-Michel Jarre. That repeating beat sampled from a short vocalisation, so familiar, so incessant, smacks into lyrics that slowly recount the putrid stench of murder. Then, they find another gear and bring more orchestral and synth backup into the mix to offer an element of power metal.
By the time you hit the dull, blueprint candy of “I Will Make You”, you’ll sense that something made of purest slate-black evil is at play. The band have lightened the music to use as a tool to fool. Those taped interjections you’re hearing come from media broadcasts and interviews and are revelations from the the minds of deranged cult victims and their instigators. Conceptually and lyrically, it’s a pretty damn wicked and the inference is to play off the light music against the dark wordplay. Have they gone in hard enough though? The delivery does seem to fall short and those gentle suggestions feel too weak. Imagine the mayhem they could have created here. Each psychological exploration could have powered the music, exploded eardrums and bitten down harder. Would it be fair to point out this comes on the heels of Periphery’s truly heart-rending MK Ultra-dissection, Juggernaut?
Look, Everything Is OK is… OK. With its hints of nineties grunge and naughties’ alternative rock scenes, it certainly feels like a step backwards from the punch that so marked their debut. It’s shorn of so much of its sparking emotion. It’s poppier, less vicious, superbly aggressive in spots but even those points weaken the album by highlighting those bits that really aren’t. Hell, there is certainly a dark side to it and the more you persevere and the deeper you sink into it, the more visible its intentions become. “The world has gone to shit” screams the PR blurb, so why doesn’t this album feel like a fair representation of that mindset when to do so was clearly the band’s intention?
Pennsylvania’s Black Crown Initiate, like all good Steelmen, know how to
craft good metal. Bursting from the quintet’s take on progressive death
metal, you can hear inspired work from such gargantuan sources as
Meshuggah, Periphery and Between The Buried And Me. They employ a
variety of vocal techniques and splash them across a canvas of technical
heaviosity loaded with richly-layered atmospherics.
If their 2014 debut, The Wreckage Of Stars, was anything to go by, BCI
enjoy leaving scars. This sophomore delves deep into the human psyche by
laying bare Man’s history of inhumanity, terror, destruction and
genocide. It explores such emotions as hatred, lust, self-loathing,
pain, loss, hopelessness and sorrow. The suggested end game? A period of
serious introspection and self-discovery resulting ultimately in
suicidal self-sacrifice. You have been warned – it cuts deep this one.
It also marks a continued exploration of their sound as they delve into
their bag of progressive tricks fishing out music with multiple
structures and deft segues. The vocal hooks this time tend to come from
resplendent cleans rather than explosive death roars and the shaping of
the songwriting anchors the BCI ship on firmer, more familiar ground.
Which, of course, is not to say it won’t challenge the listener – fans
of their debut, in particular should expect the unexpected.
The natural drift of the album allows for their more intense songs to
play out first, so you should cover up early. With “For Red Cloud” and
“Belie The Machine” punching out mammoth staccato chugs and a barking
death vocal they actually echo the majestic, extra-terrestrial battering
that the Texan-Maryland trio Of Legends once supplied. The lyrical
wordplay agonises to the point of melancholia and keeps on heading ever
downwards. Barbarous, addictive rise-and-fall choruses fire home their
arrows with pinpoint accuracy. For example, “Our god is full of sorrow /
Our god is one of pain”, from the intensely experimental “Sorrowpsalm”,
or the brightly-coloured chorus of “We will meet at beginning’s end and
start again / Just in time for us to live, we’ll die again”, from
“Again”.
These boys write proper songs, not just a jarring collection of words
and music, and in a genre like death metal that is a rare thing to find.
Naturally, that can be attributed to their technical metal leanings and
the willingness to cross multiple genres to create beauty amid the
brutality. It brings them more in line with bands like Monuments and The
Contortionist, yet even these comparisons don’t do them justice. Take
the title-track for example. It’s a simple design with a cyclical
structure onto which you can latch. Yet within lies sequencing that
progresses through a gentle opening swing of piano and string arpeggio
with a matching euphoric vocal clean. The explosive rip into a porcine
death growl then allows the bass to bubble to the fore to meet a
cushioned power rock solo. It’s organic design is truly disconcerting
when you consider each part separately.
They don’t always nail it and some tracks certainly require repeated
plays just to unscramble your brain and make sense of the chaos. I mean,
on what planet could you find strong hits of Sylosis’ shredding meeting
BTBAM’s manic seguing (see “Transmit To Disconnect”) or Skyharbor’s
lush choruses folding into the brutalising death of Annotations Of An
Autopsy (“Matriarch”)?
Selves We Cannot Forgive feels like BCI’s first true step into the
unknown. Here, they have engaged themselves fully in the songwriting
process, carving themselves an individual sound by exploring the range
of their own abilities. It should see them take ever more confident,
inspirational steps as they look ever deeper into their own selves.
Berlin’s Earth Ship are a band that crosses genres. Depending on your state of mind when you press play, you’ll hear something different each and every time.
Firing out two parts doom and one part southern metal, Earth Ship have managed to muster an album that collects, like music nerds, a vast range of their influences. Starting out with a driven, downbeat Alice In Chains vibe they steadily ramp up the pace and the power to peak at something equating to Kylesa’s whirlwind crush before bringing it back through thrash and blackened metal to settle back into a doomy groove.
Blasting off the wall of noise with a scowling bag of nails vocal, opener “Reduced To Ashes” melts an initially gutsy, visceral sound into a driven dual vocal that mimics the melancholic laments of the aforementioned Alice In Chains. At ts heart the jerking back-and-forth swinging rhythm is a simple structure by design, so it’s a surprise to find it repeating throughout the album. Following up, the title-track introduces itself as its tonal brother, attacking from a different angle with half-paced, down-tuned chugs creating an imposing force. This looser blueprint risks demoting it to mere filler but at least it warns you just how complex their constructive thought processes are.
Deeper in, the variation continues – morose, lush verses, driven with effortless power by twin vocals, melt into a roared death attack. Surrounding it they use an amalgam of High On Fire’s immense vocal grunt, Monster Magnet’s heady theatrics and Torche’s relentless cyclical riffing to shock and invigorate.
“Conjured” provides a wicked groove interspersed with harmonised vocal “aahs” and is both accessible and memorable. Then, diving into the abyss, “Monolith” offers up a suitably menacing, rumbling undercurrent with big blackened melancholic tones. Imposing its wrath upon the listener it echoes through to violating feedback. “In Fire’s Light” is even darker, heavier and throws ever more powerful hits. It also features the enigmatically repeating line “The sands of time are running low…”. Here, they sound like a beefed-up Purified In Blood.
Wading through, the succulent, thick layers envelop you. Whichever you choose to lock onto, be it the scrawling multiple-overlaid vocal, the demonic throat-scouring or the slow, persistent driven quality, you are always plugged in. And then there’s the moments when they revert to feeding in old school elements. One particular track that will give you a shit-eating grin is the thrashed-up “Castle Of Sorrow”. The fiery, metallic tang, of the thing throwing out curses in twin-speed attack with pillar-to-post riffage is a joy. Even the monotonous closer “The Edge Of Time” has value here with its long, weighty, sustained chord strikes and maddening Acid King-esque ethereal doom.
There are negatives to consider. These aren’t so much songs as they are a series of flavours. There is an over-reliance on sheer power when the variety of attack should be the star. With trigger points supplied by the guttural roared sections they do have a tendency to batter the eardrums a little too often. A solid wall of noise each time will only drive you in one direction. And the album does rely a little too much on needless party tricks. As an example, “Safeguard Of Death”‘s automaton vocal intoning instructions over and over will drive you nuts.
Earth Ship are essentially like getting all your favourite foods and putting them on a single plate. Consume each individual part carefully and you’ll love this experience. Mix them all up and it’ll taste like something you’d give to your dog.
