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Tag Archive: Katatonia


black-sabbath-13Black Sabbath

13

01. End Of The Beginning
02. God Is Dead?
03. Loner
04. Zeitgeist
05. Age Of Reason
06. Live Forever
07. Damaged Soul
08. Dear Father

[06/11/13]
[Vertigo/Universal]

DISCLAIMER: This track by track review was written as a one time run through listen of the new album at the exclusive listening event in L.A.. This is not definitive nor refined. A more cohesive review of the album will be released when it is available.

Now that we have that out of the way, let us explore this sensational piece of heavy metal history. 13 is the first new Black Sabbath  album since 1995′s Forbidden, the first with Ozzy Osbourne since 1978′s Never Say Die!, and the first with Geezer Butler since 1994′s Cross Purposes. In the current age where comebacks have been a growing trend, few others have me more excited than the return of Black Sabbath with Ozzy on vocals (though it’s sad that Bill Ward will not be on the album, who was replaced by Rage Against The Machine/ex-Audioslave drummer Brad Wilk). With so much controversy and disagreements conflicting their highly publicized reunion that was shown last year, things were put off to a point where it seemed like things might never work out. Thankfully, they did.

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lethean

Katatonia‘s 2012 offering Dead End Kings was a fantastic album that graced many of our year end lists here at Heavy Blog, as well as many others around the metal community. It’s the type of dark, brooding atmospheric metal that fans of Katatonia have come to expect. And while the release was nearly six months ago, the band have just unveiled a video for the track ‘Lethean’ off of Dead End Kings. It’s available through the Swedish site Rocknytt.com, right here

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deadstation-five-important

Hey everybody, it’s Shjon Thomas and Ryan Mattheu from The Deadstation!  We’re a dystopian progressive metal band based out of Boston, MA.   The awesome guys at Heavy Blog have given us the opportunity to write another article on whatever we wanted…  so we put on our thinking caps and tried our hardest to narrow down the infinite possibilities to ONE idea.

We decided to list five bands that are, in our humble opinion, the FIVE MOST IMPORTANT bands in metal right now.  These bands are the ones who are shaping metal music of the future, by kicking major ass in the present.

We have to reiterate though that this is just our opinion, and that we are not stating it as fact in any way!  Everybody will have their own opinion on this subject, and they are all just as valid as ours.

In fact, why don’t you post YOUR list in the comment section below!  We love to hear about what bands people are digging these days.

If you’re interested in checking out The Deadstation, you can download our free EP “Episode 01” here.  It was mastered by the one and only Jens Bogren (Devin Townsend, Opeth, Katatonia)!

So anyways… here we go!

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Persefone

Persefone aren’t a band we’ve talked about all that much, but are a band that every fan of extreme prog should be listening to. Sounding almost like an even more brutal version of Between the Buried and Me with even wilder traditional prog flourishes, Persefone are poised to release their fourth album Spiritual Migration this March. The humble Andorran band are stepping up their presence, signing to a new label (ViciSolum Productions), having their album produced by Jacob Hansen (Volbeat, Mercenary, Pestilence), and getting glorious artwork for the effort done by the prolific Travis Smith (Opeth, Katatonia, pretty much every band you’ve heard of). This release was already highly anticipated around these parts, but this all just sweetens the pot.

The tracklist for Spiritual Migration is as follows:

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Opeth Tour 2013

Opeth and Katatonia have quite a history behind them as being super friendly and a bit incestuous (alright, maybe that’s not quite the word I’m looking for; members of both bands did form infamous death metal group Bloodbath though). They’ve both been billed together countless times, touring the States last year together. Now it would appear that we’re getting the exact same tour again this year, which is a good thing because I missed it the first time!

Check that tour itinerary:

04/18 Buffalo, NY – Town Ballroom
04/20 Worcester, MA – The Palladium (New England Metal & Hardcore Festival)
04/21 Quebec City, QC – Capitole
04/23 Halifax, NS – Halifax Forum
04/24 Moncton, NB – Casino New Brunswick
04/26 Guelph, ON – Guelph Concert Theatre
04/27 Allentown, PA – Crocodile Rock
04/28 Clifton Park, NY – Upstate Concert Hall (feat. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, etc.)
04/29 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall Of Williamsburg
04/30 Norfolk, VA – The NorVa
05/02 Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Culture Room
05/03 St. Petersburg, FL – State Theater
05/04 Athens, GA – Georgia Theatre
05/05 Raleigh, NC – Lincoln Theatre
05/06 Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
05/08 Lexington, KY – Buster’s Billiards & Backroom
05/09 Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue
05/10 Flint, MI – The Machine Shop
05/11 Joliet, IL – Mojoes
05/12 Cleveland, OH – House Of Blues
05/14 Fargo, ND – The Venue
05/15 Des Moines, IA – Wooly’s
05/16 Sauget, IL – Pop’s
05/17 Lincoln, NE – Bourbon Theatre
05/18 Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
05/23 Tucson, AZ – The Rialto Theatre
05/20 Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre
05/21 Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre
05/23 Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
05/24 Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy
05/25 Agoura Hills, CA – The Canyon Club
05/26 Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst

I’ll see you cats in Lexington.

- JR

juular

I’m not going to go on about how great 2012 was for music, because everyone of my co-writers has already done that and then some. There’s no denying it was great, so let’s just move on. I’m writing this list pretty last minute, as I’ve had my choices locked in for some time, and I thought, “Hey, I’m not confused about anything, so I can push it back as far as possible”, and that was a terrible idea, as I’m now scrambling to get this thing finished, and having a hard time really talking about why I like these albums. However, I was the one who reviewed a lot of these, so if you find what I have to say on each individual one lacking, just go read  my review or the reviews of the other albums written by my fellow contributors.

Honestly though, I did not love 2012 as much as everyone else. Maybe it was the events in my personal life that caused me to have such a poor outlook on a lot of the earlier releases of the year, but it’s hard to deny the fact that I just did not connect with nearly as many metal releases this year as I did last year. It’s a shame, but not something I’ve overly thought about, because I’ve found other music to enjoy throughout the year. That being said, I did happen to find a good handful of great albums that I anticipate listening to for many years. Like I said, I’ve had my choices for my list picked out for some time, and that’s because I knew which albums I loved, and which albums I wanted to continually listen to for many years to come. I wasn’t wowed by a lot of the big name bands; I found Meshuggah and Gojira lacking a bit, which were two of my my anticipated albums of this year, but that’s okay. Sometimes you just can’t connect with certain albums. And even  though metal wasn’t all that great for me this year, I still love the genre, and it’s still my favorite type of music to listen to. Anyways, that’s why I listen to metal, and that’s really all I have to say on the matter, so here’s my top ten albums of the year.

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inhumed

If I had my say, there would be a top one hundred list, because I enjoyed so many different albums this year. I’ve changed this list fifty seven times over the past week, so this list is me finally making a decision. It’s honestly been harder choosing this list than it has been choosing classes for next semester. I must say that 2012 has shown that music has not totally gone down the drain, because there are still so many amazing bands I’m just now hearing about, and so many great albums to listen to. So, without further ado, here are the twenty best albums to come out in 2012, and the six best albums that would be twenty one through twenty six that just didn’t make the cut.

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thedeadstation

The Deadstation are good friends of the site. Ever since Gunnar gave them high marks, we’ve invited them to contribute to Heavy Blog and we’ve been running an ad on the site for their debut EP since October. When considering who to ask to contribute to our year end retrospectives, it only made sense to extend a guest countdown to these purveyors of prog. Below, TDS guitarists Shjon Thomas and Ryan Mattheu outline their picks for 2012, offering a touch of contrast from our otherwise collective overlapping selections!

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alucard

Some of you may be aware of who I am. AlucardXIX on youtube, amongst other websites. The guy who does all the Veil of Maya covers, the mind behind Encircle, and another writer on this here great ol’ blog. 2012 was both an interesting and disappointing year to me, musically. Some absolutely astounding albums came out this year, and some serious let downs as well (The Faceless, The Contortionist). Originally it was hard for me to pick a top ten; I thought about all the albums I’ve heard that I abandoned after a few listens, albums I loved at first listen and then wondered how I even thought that to begin with. I thought I could barely muster together 10 albums to begin with, but remembering back to the beginning of the year, I managed this humble fifteen:

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Denisovich

The first thing I want to say, as the newest addition to the Heavy Blog team, is what a privilege it has been to write with these guys over the past few months and to have the opportunity to perhaps expose more great Australian progressive rock and metal to the world.

Gushing aside, though, two things have struck me about 2012, the first of which has been the breadth and the quality of the releases by Australian bands, some of which appear on my list below.  Of those releases that didn’t quite make the cut, I was particularly impressed with, amongst others, Elysian‘s Wires of Creation, Okera‘s A Beautiful Dystopia, and Avadante by Kettlespider.  Promising EPs were also released by Gods of Eden and In Trenches, all of which bodes well for the future of music in this country.

The other thing that stands out to me, as I look down the list of albums that really captured my interest this year, is that 2012 has been a year dominated by mood, atmosphere and emotion.  Now, to be fair, I am generally drawn to vibe heavy music, but never before have I listened to so many doom influenced bands!

At the end of the day, however, I was in no doubt as to which three albums would vie for top spot, each one stylistically, technically and structurally progressive, yet still emotionally accessible, and I am sure that all three will remain stalwarts of my collection for many years to come.

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