Tag Archive: metal

Ulcerate – The Destroyers Of All

Filed Under: Reviews

Feb.15, 2011

Ulcerate

The Destroyers of All

01. Burning Skies
02. Dead Oceans
03. Cold Becoming
04. Beneath
05. The Hollow Idols
06. Omens
07. The Destroyers of All

[01/25/11]
[Willowtip Records]

When flicking through a list of recent metal albums for something that might appeal I stumbled upon this release by New Zealand based Death Metal outfit Ulcerate. Though Death Metal, at least in its purer forms, has never really been a passion of mine, it is the apparent incorporation of Post Metal into their sound that caught my eye, not to mention some pretty glowing reviews from other online critics. I am a huge fan of Sludge and keeping that in mind, I will be reviewing this album from that perspective, so apologies in advance for my ignorance in certain aspects of this release.

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Tags: death, metal, post, sludge, Ulcerate

What I Hate About Metal: Terrible Transitions

Filed Under: Editorials, RAGE

Jul.23, 2010

Now don’t get me wrong, I really do love metal for the most part, it’s one of my favorite genres of music! There are a few aspects of it however, that I really can’t stand. I loathe them. One of the worst of these aspects that I hear over and over and over again in metal today are absolutely terrible transitions. There are many different kinds of awful transitions, but in this post I’m just going to focus on bashing one particular type of transition, the kind I hate the most. Lets get started.

Metal Band X is writing a song, they have Riff A and Riff B. How do they get from Riff A to Riff B? Well it’s quite simple really. Once Riff A has reached is climax with every member of the band playing/screaming at full force, every band member suddenly stops playing besides one of the guitarists. The said guitarist then begins playing Riff B alone. Maybe they’ll play it once, maybe they’ll play it 4 times. It depends on how long Riff B is I suppose. Anyways, after the guitarist does their thing, the rest of the band jumps back in and they all play Riff B together. Transition completed. Simple as that.

It’s really not so terrible, until you realize that this type of transition typically occurs lets say….10-20 times on your average metal album, and it gets pretty stale.

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Tags: art, crap, metal, music, rant, transitions

The Eyes Of A Traitor Unleash Lo-Fi Music Video For New Song

Filed Under: New music, Upcoming releases, Video

Jun.29, 2010

British metal act, The Eyes Of A Traitor unleashed their new music video for “Come To My Senses” exclusively on Metal Hammer‘s website today. The video itself is pretty much the band playing in different areas with a sort of washed out type look. The story is supposed to be about the band trying to figure out what to do with their low budget video but really, the story doesn’t really matter at all here.

What DOES matter however is that “Come To My Senses” is a previously unheard song, a GOOD one at that. The band also happens to have two more new songs on their Myspace off their upcoming release, Breathless, which comes out July 12th.

Tags: Breathless, British, Come To My Senses, metal, Metal Hammer, metalcore, The Eyes Of A Traitor

Arthur von Nagel of Cormorant: The Epic Heavy Blog is Heavy Interview

Filed Under: Interviews

Mar.23, 2010

Spawning from the bay area, the band Cormorant broke forth into the metal scene by creating two unique releases titled The Last Tree (an EP) and Metazoa. With a fusion of talent, diverse influences, minds, and immense passion the band Cormorant have gained love and fans across oceans without ever playing outside of their native California. In a few moments, you’ll be reading my attempt at picking the brain of Arthur von Nagel, the long winded, kind, and very intelligent bassist and vocalist of the band.

The teeth of lions sown by the wind,
Spurned by the salt of the
Earth’s fallow and barren skin,
Find fertile ground in me.

Rains of red poppies
Burst from the blue.
Fireflies and harpies
Beat their wings anew.
The wine from man’s fountains
Imparts courage to implore:
“Gods, step down from your mountains.
Fish, rise up from the shore.”

Cormorant - Salt of the Earth

MW: How old were you when you first got into music, and how did the interest come about?

AvN: My first musical memory was my mother taking me to see Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. I was 3 or 4. Looking back on it now, the whole production was very metal. Huge sets, bombastic music, crushing drums, horses, betrayal, myth, swords, blood. All it needed was Manowar. I regret that I fell asleep halfway through, but then again the damn thing was four hours long. I still love opera. I’m looking forward to the San Francisco Opera’s take on Faust later this year.

Growing up there was always music. My father was into lots of late 60s counter-culture stuff like Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan, and King Crimson. My mother always had me listening to classical, lots of Tchaikovsky, Handel and Bach. We had a beautiful old jukebox stacked with French traditionals and classic rock songs. When I was a kid, I would fall in and out of love with different genres. I had a hip-hop stage, a jazz stage, a folk stage, and I even recall not being interested in music at all sometime in my early teens. I don’t know what I was thinking. Probably rebelling against nothing.

How did you decide you wanted to make Cormorant a band?

Brennan Kunkel (drums) and I met playing in a thrash/punk band when I was 16. It was fun but a bit limiting. We got bored. So we started creating quirky, poorly produced progressive black metal demos as a two-piece. While the sound quality was garbage and we had no idea what we were doing, there were some cool ideas there and a lot of those early riffs went on to become parts of Cormorant songs. We brought in Nick Cohon (guitars), a friend of Brennan’s from high school, and his style immediately clicked with ours. We recorded our EP The Last Tree as a three-piece. Apart from the song Ballad of the Beast, I don’t think we had quite discovered our sound yet. It was when we met Matt Solis (guitars/vocals) at an Enslaved gig that we were really able to fully realize that expansive, progressive style the EP hints at, and Metazoa embraces.

How do you go about mixing the influence from other genres in your music? Or does it just come naturally?

We don’t really think about it. It’s a natural thing. We’re just writing what we enjoy listening to. I don’t know what genre Cormorant falls into anymore anyway. That’s why we laugh along with the silly “Tiberian Ass Bastard Folk” tag fans have given us: it’s just as accurate as any of the more convoluted descriptions of our sound. “Progressive blackened death-folk NWOBHM?” I’ll pass.

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Embrace the Exivious

Filed Under: New music, Reviews

Feb.17, 2010

Exivious have gotten attention in “underground circles” from their first demo, but with the release of their self titled full length “Exivious“, they’ve stirred up quite a controversy (or they did, since I’m a bit late on this). The band features Tymon Kruidenier of Cynic fame on guitars along with Michel Nienhuis, Stef Broks of Textures fame on drums, and Robin Zielhorst of Cynic/Blue Man Group fame on bass. Jazz fusion/metal is nothing new. Atheist, and Cynic really launched the style back in the 90′s Florida death metal scene. But since then the genre has changed. Bands like Planet X, Continuo Renacer, etc. have taken a different approach by making the metal/jazz fusion combination a lot more jazzy. Exivious continue along this line with their newest release. There are some heavy riffs here and there but don’t expect anything death metal worthy. The riffs are still very memorable though. The guitars also have a lot of defined jazz fusion soloing with lots of legato technique, and a smooth horn like tone. The fretless bass Robin lays down is absolutely exceptional. He does more than keep rhythm, he makes the music sway, makes it pulses, makes it smooth. I’m not a drummer so I can’t say much here, but he certainly is good and has some nice fills and sounds great. This album should go down in history imo. Shit is fantastic.

5/5

-MW

Tags: Atheist, blue man group, continuo renacer, Cynic, death metal, exivious, jazz, metal, planet x, robin zielhorst, stef broks, tymon kruidenier

Christopher Lee is More Metal Than Thou

Filed Under: Audio, New music, Upcoming releases

Jan.01, 2010

Christopher Lee's old ass.

The legendary actor who stared in films such as “Lord of the Rings”, “Star Wars”, “Dracula”, and “1941″ is taking part in a symphonic metal album about Charlemagne. The orchestral backing will be done by Marco Sabiu, who has worked with Pavarotti, Ennio Morricone, and Kylie Minogue. Old people in metal is always awesome, especially when they’re esteemed actors. There are only some small clips on the myspage page, and they sound good if you’re into this kind of stuff. So check it out.

http://www.myspace.com/charlemagnemusical

-MW

Tags: charlemagne, christopher lee, film score, lord of the rings, metal, movie, star wars, symphonic

2009 in an Awesome Nutshell

Filed Under: Audio, New music

Dec.21, 2009

Here’s my best of the best, the worst, and the middle ground. I know it’s been a shit load of time since we last posted so I’ll make this a good one and explain my choices quickly unlike how I did on last.fm, so here we go.

1. Blut aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars

This is black metal at it’s finest, in very many ways. Everything works together to create atmosphere. A ridiculously disturbing atmosphere, which lets up, only to lock you back into the suitcase and throw you in the dungeon again.

2. Sunn O))) – Monoliths and Dimensions

This is a lot similar to the reason why I chose Blut aus Nord. The atmosphere. But it takes normal Sunn O))) to another level, and then some. It goes from the evil, provocative drone to something beautiful, and they did it well. Very well done infact.

3. Isis – Wavering Radiant

I don’t know how to explain this, it’s just fucking good. As silly as it seems.

4. Portal – Swarth

This is possibly the most evil album ever. This shit makes Satan look like a bitch. A lot of atmosphere here too and excellent use of 8 strings.

5. Human Mincer – Degradation Paradox

This is kind of a big step for brutal death metal. It would have been bigger if Wormed didn’t release Planisphaerium yet. Anyway, this is one of the few brutal death album that use brutality as a means, and not an end point to start at. It’s very smart, well done, and has purpose. Phlegeton needs to be vocalist more often.

6. Devin Townsend Project – Addicted

Devin Townsend is obviously a brilliant musician, and when he said he was going to do a pop record I was a bit baffled. But this is just an extension of the interesting ideas he has coming into flesh. It’s how pop sounds if a really angry, confused, drug addict metal musician would make it. It’s him exploring new territory, and it’s actually pleasing.

7. Despondency – Revelation IV (Rise of the Nemesis)

Similar to why I chose the Human Mincer release. It’s brutal death with a purpose. I feel something from it and the songs stick with me. Not only that, but it’s a massive step up from the crappy God on Acid album.

Honorable Mentions (In no particular order.)

Cormorant – Metazoa

This takes a lot of interesting ideas, good musicianship and songwriting and throws it over a post-black foundation, and it’s good. Arthur is a pretty cool guy too.

Cannibal Corpse – Evisceration Plague

It’s just a standard CC album. All the tracks are extremely listenable death metal and have great riffs, and bass lines. The title track is especially bangin’.

Obscura – Cosmogenesis

This is basically Death if they were interesting or Pestilence on the Spheres album if it wasn’t ruined by bad production, guitar tone, and vocals.

Between the Buried and Me – The Great Misdirect

It’s a BtBaM record all right, but it’s not quite the album that Colors and Alaska were. I was really expecting more. Desert of Song is a fucking terrible song too. That really knocked it down here.

Dagon – Terraphobic

I usually hate melodic death metal, but this album sticks with me. It’s interesting, they have a H.P. Lovecraft reference for a name and they love the ocean. Every riff is a keeper, the bass is tight and has growl and the duel vocals are awesome. These guys put on an amazing show as well. I wish the tiny crowd was more into it when I saw them. They deserved that.

Vomit the Soul – Apostles of Inexpression

This is just what deathcore should be, watered down catchy brutal death. That’s what it is, and it’s a step in the right direction for the shit genre. It’s also only like 10% deathcore at most.

Dying Fetus – Descend into Depravity

It’s a kickin’ album with some wicked switches between technicality and breakdowns. I really like the vocals too.

Lividity – To Desecrate and Defile

This album isn’t very special, it’s just really fun.

The Biggest Dissapointments

Nile – Those Whom the Gods Detest

This isn’t Nile at all. It’s just crappy death metal. What happened to Annihilation of the Wicked and In Their Darkened Shrines?

Mastodon – Crack the Suck

This shit really, really sucks. It’s the worst (real prog, not what all you idiots think when you call Obscura or shit like Veil of Maya prog. Because they aren’t.) prog metal album I’ve ever heard. The first two songs are remotely entertaining but nothing special. I liked the banjo. The rest of the album is like improv by a bunch of drunk high school kids. It never goes anywhere, the songs drag, it sounds like crap. Another band turned to poop.

I hope to be posting more on this. I had actually forgot about it until I made a comment on metalsucks today.

-MW

Chugging Their Way to the Score of a Movie.

Filed Under: New music

May.25, 2009

Xerath are a prog metal quartet from good ol’ mother England. They’ve been chugging their way to a deal with candlelight records and have finally released their debut album ” I “ which is available now. This band fuses Meshuggah style chug riffs, with harsh thrash like vocals and a heavy orchestral back ground. They dub themselves filmscore metal, or chugscore due to the fact that they sound like an action movie score. Not everything is a chug, so don’t worry. You’re not going to get constant triplets and odd timings for 12 songs. They have traditional riffs, squealing pinches and solos and all that fancy stuff that all you fancy people like. I haven’t heard the album yet, only the songs on their myspace titled “False History” and “Reform I” which are fantastic and lead me to promote this album. They’ll have shirts coming out soon, and as I said the album is out now so hop in your lorry and grab a whole load of these and give me a copy.

Xerath at myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/xerath