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Tag Archive: Opeth


 Dillinger Escape Plan - One Of Us Is The KillerThe Dillinger Escape Plan

One Of Us Is The Killer

01. Prancer
02. When I Lost My Bet
03. One Of Us Is The Killer
04. Hero of the Soviet Union
05. Nothing’s Funny
06. Understanding Decay
07. Paranoia Shields
08. CH 375 268 277 ARS
09. Magic That I Held You Prisoner
10. Crossburner
11. The Threat Posed By Nuclear Weapons

[05/14/13]
[Sumerian/Party Smasher Inc.]

At this point in their careers, one would expect seminal mathcore giants The Dillinger Escape Plan to slow down a bit and fully embrace their inner Faith No More more extensively. This isn’t necessarily to the fault of Dillinger or an expectation that they’ve created and fostered in themselves, but is an expectation based on real trends with similarly influential bands who have risen in fallen in the decades past their initial breakout. If you take a look at some of the metal’s biggest bands — In Flames and Opeth come to mind for their respective subgenres — it’s not uncommon for bands to soften with age. Needless to say, this doesn’t apply to The Dillinger Escape Plan, who in their fifth album One Of Us Is The Killer are at their most volatile since 1999′s Calculating Infinity.

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Extol

You all likely know the story by now; Extol are an influential progressive metal band out of Norway that disbanded in 2007 and reformed to much praise in 2012 with the promise of a new studio album. We even interviewed frontman Peter Espevoll while the band were wrapping up work on their new album. Their comeback couldn’t have come at a better time! Extreme prog is more popular than ever, and their influence has grown even more obvious, with The FacelessAuthotheism pulling pretty heavily from the Extol playbook.

After the long wait for details and new music, the band have finally delivered. Extol announced this week that their new self-titled album will be out this summer, and have given us their first new song since 2005 with ‘Open the Gates.’ Listen after the jump.

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Anciients – Heart Of Oak

AnciientsAnciients

Heart Of Oak

01. Raise The Sun
02. Overthrone
03. Falling In Line
04. The Longest River
05. One Foot In The Light
06. Giants
07. Faith And Oath
08. Flood And Fire
09. For Lisa

[04/16/13]
[Season of Mist]

To simply discuss Anciients as only the sum of their parts would be to do them a complete injustice. Here on Heart Of Oak this Canadian quartet take on a sludgy sound that is equal parts technical and progressive, with bands like IntronautBaroness and even Opeth all being submerged and absorbed into their murky swamp waters. Still, in execution, Heart Of Oak is so much more than that, it’s a meticulously crafted and instantly satisfying piece that may be the biggest surprise of the year so far.

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Dark Tranquillity - Construct

Awesome news! Swedish melodeath titans Dark Tranquillity have finally finished recording their 10th album, which will be titled Construct. They’ve sent it out to famed producer Jens Bogren (Opeth, Soilwork) for mixing, and it will be out on the 27th of May (in EU, 28 in USA), presumably on Century Media. They’ve also posted a teaser, which you can view below. It’s mostly hype, but there’s some actual new song in there too, starting at about 2:15 on the video. Every Dark Tranquillity album is great, and it seems like this one will be no exception. I also am a big fan of the new direction they seem to be taking, which is an evolution from their last few albums. Also, the artwork by guitarist Niklas Sundin looks great as usual. This album is one of my most anticipated released for the year, so expect to see more information about it as it becomes available.

-NT

bandcamp beatdown

Behold, the resurrected Bandcamp Beatdown! Being that I’ve taken control over this weekly column, I’ll be doing it a bit differently. There will only be one band per column, as I’d really like you all to get to know each artist before moving on to a new one the next week; too much too fast gets disorienting and you might miss out on some great jams! Bandcamp Beatdown will be published every Tuesday and is not exclusively a metal-related column. That being said, the rules for making it to this article haven’t changed at all aside from the addition of Rule #4. They are-

  1. They must have some form of release on Bandcamp.com.
  2. Their release must be available for free or as a pay-your-own-price download.
  3. They must be good.
  4. The release must not be demo or pre-production material, though live material will be considered.

I will also keep up the tradition of not covering very well-known artists on this page, since the whole idea here is to turn you on to some new music. If you know of an artist I should be covering here, leave a link to their Bandcamp in the comments section below! I will absolutely get around to listening to it.

Got it? Alright, then let’s move on to what you’ve really come here to read.

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Existem – Years of Winter

3079122048-1 Existem

Years of Winter

01. Equals
02. Slay the Giant
03. Corruption, Pt. 1: Balance
04. Corruption, Pt. 2: Ruin
05. Years of Winter
06. Solace
07. Natural State
08. Canyons
09. Ocean
10. She Speaks
11. A Message from Earth

[08/14/12]
[Self-Released]

Existem’s Years of Winter flew way under the radar upon its release in late 2012, where it has slowly been headed toward the surface of notice. Fortunately, the inattention paid to the record isn’t a testament to its quality at all. This review serves the sole goal of informing you that this is a record you should care about by a band you should keep an eye on; they’re going places.

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steven-wilson-video

If you didn’t know already, Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree‘s latest solo release The Raven That Refused To Sing is incredible — a sprawling, expansive journey through every dark nook and cranny that makes prog rock so varied and interesting. It’s a testament to just how good a songwriter Wilson really is that he can so seamlessly weave together so many different approaches to the word ‘prog’ and cause, say, Emerson, Lake And Palmer and Rush to sit comfortably next Opeth and The Mars Volta.

The finale to the album, ‘The Raven That Refused To Sing‘, is just one aspect of that — alongside the dark and sombre visuals, swells of strings and piano meet Wilson’s croon in one of the most beautiful and emotive pieces you’ll hear all year. It’s a story that will tug at your heart strings. So while you’re clearing the manly tears from your ears and trying to come up with as excuse as to why you were weeping all over your laptop, maybe think about getting the Kleenex in before this drops on the 25th of February through KScope Records.

[via The Monolith]

- DL

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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Ghost

Before I knew any better, I thought ABBA were just a silly disco band based on their one-hit wonder over ‘Dancing Queen’ in the United States. In their homeland of Sweden though, it seems that ABBA were a massive hit, often referenced as being influences among many metal musicians hailing from the country, including Opeth‘s Mikael Akerfeldt. This puzzled me (“why would a death metal guitarist care about disco?”), so I decided to finally seek out their other tracks, and as it turns out, they’ve got some pretty cool tunes. I remember one such song, ‘I’m A Marionette‘ which was quite epic and theatrical, a song cool enough to be in a James Bond soundtrack.

Wouldn’t you know it, Ghost have covered the track in their own style, with the always awesome Dave Grohl on drums no less! You can listen to the track below:

For reference, here’s the original, which I actually prefer.

The band’s fortcoming sophomore album Infestissumam is due out this spring on Metal Blade/Rise Above records.

[via Metal Insider]

- JR

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