Album Reviews

[katina]

Thanks for your review on Cobalt- Gin, I listened it in Youtube yesterday night...WOW!!!

Now that I have recovered......I can´t believe that Cobalt are just two people:
Erik Wunder a multi-instrumentalist and Phil McSorley the singer, also soldier in the US Army, who has done numerous tours in Irak. That is amazing.
Cobalt-Gin really transcends the genre of Black Metal.

[binnie]

It's certainly intense, isn't it!

Glad you checked it out - definitely not for the feint hearted, but it is a remarkable record (although an ugly one) - some of those riffs are remarkable.

[binnie]

Meshuggah – Koloss

To describe Meshuggah as ‘heavy’ is a bit like describing Paris Hilton as ‘stupid’ – it doesn’t really begin to scratch the surface of the depths that lie beneath (or don’t, in the case of the latter). The Swedes brand of heaviness is extreme even for extreme metal, the musical equivalent of being crushed. Frenetic polyrhythms, 8 string guitars which deliver barrages of polymetered riffs, and frankly insane time-signatures combine to deliver a wall of sound so abrasive even Gengis Khan would wince. It’s inspired stuff, and always impactful. But Meshuggah have been delivering this kind of sonic mastery for 2 decades: is there a sense that the law of diminishing marginal returns is beginning to set in?

Not in the slightest. For Meshuggah have always evolved their sound. Where last record – the equally maniacal ‘Obzen’ – was an air-tight, meticulous display of power which killed through a mechanical precision, ‘Koloss’ sees Meshauggah at their most streamlined. The tempos are – for the most part – slower, there is groove aplenty, and no-one is getting out alive. At these tempos Meshuggah will choke you until you submit to the sheer blackness of its heaviness. The jarring rhythms of the drums, guitars and Jens Kidman’s vocals a syncopated into one gigantic, industrial-strength rhythmic killing machine which is coloured in darkened hues through Frederik Thordenal’s ambient leads, dark melodies and terrifying mechanical atmospherics. Opener ‘I Am Colossus’ is sloooow, a sledgehammer thunder of a riff which your ancestors will be able to feel. Heavier than anything and featuring a malign menace and Wagnerian grandeur, this song is as monstrous as the angry deity it describes. ‘Marrow’ is the sound of tectonic plates grinding against one another and features and riff that should not be, whilst ‘Demiurge’ is almost tribal, balancing the primitive and the mechanical in its anaconda like grip of a riff and ‘Do Not Look Down’ combines a bouncy riff, ethereal melodies and sonic thud into a giant crunch of metal. By the time you get to ‘Behind the Sun’ you wonder why most other metal bands don’t just give up – this is a vision of divine power which renders awe. If these tunes owe much to more recent outings like ‘Catch 33’ and ‘I’, ‘The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance’ hearks back to the band’s thrash heritage, pulling apart extreme metal’s heritage and re-making into something more clinical and deadly.

Alongside At The Gates, Neurosis and Fear Factory, Meshuggah are probably the most influential metal band of the last 20 years. ‘Koloss’ reminds us why. Asking whether it is there best album is purely a matter of ascetic preference, but what is clear is that this band shows no sign of resting on its laurels or of heading the ‘djent’ scene which their music so clearly inspired. Easily one of 2012’s best – and most important – albums, this is metal at its most complex, deadly and awe-inspiringly heavy. Trying to capture their impact in words is as futile as trying to resist their brilliance.

[binnie]

Down – IV Part 1: The Purple EP

Down is perhaps the only ‘supergroup’ in the history of rock ‘n’ roll to make music which is greater than the sum of its parts, and can rival the glories of its member’s day jobs. Ever since ‘NOLA’ dropped in 1995, we’ve always known that this beefed up, crunchier version of Sabbath were something truly special. Heavy, emotive and – most crucially of all – honest in their approach to their craft, between them Phil Anselmo (Pantera), Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity), Kirk Windstein (Crowbar) and Jim Bowers (Eyehategod) consistently brewed the raw essentials of heavy metal to deliver superb song after superb song across the band’s first three records, culminating in the darker, less aggressive and more doom-laden approach of ‘III: Over the Under’ in 2005. Seven years on, and the band have decided to release 4 EPs instead of an album proper.

‘Purple’ is the first installment. At 6 songs and 33 minutes, it is a teasing affair which leaves you yearning for more. Fans will be pleased to know that there is no radical departure in sound – it’s still the Sabbath-inspired doom metal of ‘III’ – but there are some noticeable changes in the nuances of the approach. The production is raw and lo-fi, a shade down from the metallic bluster of the first three albums, and a mix that pushes to vocals up front robs the guitars of some their bite. The performance is also looser, more jammed in places, and onus is more on feel rather than craft than at any point in Down’s history, with the band’s Southern Rock influences a little more pronounced than in the past – this is still boulder-crushingly heavy, but heavy is clearly not the be-all-end-all this time round. The artwork is spectral and eerie – the dark side of the trip, if you will – and the lyrics are darker, less aggressive, and (even) more world weary than usual. This is a natural evolution for Down, who now sound a lot more like Cathedral than was imaginable on their first two crunch-filled albums.

These changes will please and disappoint fans in equal measure – it’s all a matter of subjective preference. What is indisputable, however, is the sheer quality of the songs on this EP. Briefly put, they fall into two camps of 3: strong; and stronger. The real gems are ‘Witchtripper’ – which could have been on ‘Paranoid’, propelled as it is by a choppy riff and a melody so joyous in its celebration of metal it comes straight out of Ozzy’s heyday – ‘The Curse Is A Lie’ – a monster of a tune possessed of a truly evil thud and boulder-splitting riffs – and, best of all, ‘The Misfortune Teller’, which features a serious of riffs that could blow the balls off a buffalo at 100 yards and a hook which makes you ready to squeeze the world’s juice down your throat – epic and anthemic in equal measure. ‘Levitation’, ‘Open Coffins’ (which sound like Saint Vitus with their eye of concision), and ‘This Work Is Timeless’ are all good songs, but perhaps in places fall short of the band’s A game.

Put simply, if you don’t find yourself headbanging to this then the metalhead in you is long, long dead. Down wear their ‘metal legends’ tag lightly – but with their seeming effortless ability to make songs that are crushingly heavy and instantly singable, it is a tag to which they are more than worthy. ‘Purple’ may only polish – rather than expand – their halos, but few records released in 2012 will give you more pleasure.

[binnie]

From the vaults: The Dillinger Escape Plan – Ireworks (2007)

Few bands can claim to be as influential as The Dillenger Escape Plan have been in the past 10 years. Of the hordes of groups who have copied their approach – short, sharp shocks of intensity delivered through a hidden hand of virtuosity which thrusts together a relentless barrage of riffs, melodies and time-changes – few have been able to do so in such an infectious and compelling manner. The Dillinger Escape Plan are certainly as experimental as they are baffling, but they have always had the capacity to key things on the side of palatable by writing hooks strong enough to pull listeners through the musical torrents.

The songs here are all very different but could only have been made by one band: ‘Fix Your Fix’ is an incendiary mix of Fugazi and Faith No More at their most demented; ‘Lurch’ combines the intensity of early Rollins Band with dizzying, epileptic time-changes; ‘Sick On Sunday’ is kaledoscopic jazz metal; whilst ‘82588’ is most like the band’s early work, a demented whoosh of bludgeoning riffs, warp-like time-signatures in which the entire band combines into one iron first of rage. But it’s not all about the crazy. ‘Milk Lizard’ grooves through the complexity, channeling Glassjaw and At The Drive In to blossom into a cornucopia of melodies which find beauty in a very ugly tale; ‘Mouth of Ghost’ has a free-form, floating presence; and ‘Black Bubblegum’ sounds like a broken Mo-town song – beautfiul and chilling. Vocalist Greg Puciato is the Mike Patton of his generation, crooning, scatting of screaming as the mood requires, and keeping the sound human amidst the tidal wave of polyrhythmic complexity.

‘Ireworks’ is not The Dillenger Escape Plan’s best record (check out ‘Calculating Infinity’), but it is probably their most accessible. One of the best – and most innovative – bands in the world in all of their insane glory.

[binnie]

Kiss – Monster (2012)

‘I rode the highway to heartache/ I took a trip on the ship of fools’. Right from the off, you know what you’re getting with Kiss: slab upon slab of cheese and cliches served up with so much abandon they actually become empowering. Roll out the pyro, turn up the volume, and be prepared to vomit up the over-indulgence of glitz and glamour, Kiss are back in town with a new record. Why bother in 2012, you ask? Its sales won’t add much to the Ki$$ coffer$, and when the inevitable tour rolls round everyone will only want to hear the ‘70s hits anyway – isn’t ‘Monster’ redundant before its even out of the CD case? Not so – because its remarkably good and more fun than you’ll have with pretty much any record released this year. ‘Hell or Hallelujah’ – the song from which those lines are taken from – is a cracker of a rock ‘n’ roll song, so good in fact that you’ll actually look forward to these make-up drenched pensioners playing it on tour: big chorus, anthemic lyrics, and rock with plenty of roll.

And the fun keeps on coming like a porn star working overtime. ‘Shout Mercy’ is the pure rock ‘n’ roll bubblegum, the Beatles on amphetemines; ‘Back To The Stone Age’ is possessed of the power which only comes from rock music stripped down to its essentials; and ‘Wall of Sound’ – complete with bitchin’ riff – is a sleazy, oozing anthem. This is very much a Stanley record – he pens most of the tunes, sings his balls off, and produces – and the result is that the whole thing sounds HUUUUUGE. Hollywood huge. Indeed, the parallel is more than superficial – both tap straight into the American Dream in being a fiction that we’d all love to live. Take ‘Freak’, for example. On the surface it’s a terrible song: a man in his golden years talking about he’s rejected by society. But dabble on a little Kerry Bruckheimer magic and hey presto, we have a tale of overcoming, a schmaltzy ode to kickin’ ass and takin’ names. And Kiss make you believe it, just for a second. Yes, ‘Monster’ is ridiculous – what band featuring 4 old men in make up singing about sex wouldn’t be – but the fact is that Kiss has always been ridiculous – even in the ‘70s the artifice was as much a part of the art as the music, and, paradoxically, that means that they’ve aged better than all of their peers.

It’s not all great, of course. ‘Long Way Down’ is flatter than a wet fart, the Thayer penned ‘Outta This World’ is laughable enough to make Spinal Tap blush, and Simmons’s ‘Eat Your Heart Out’ is the bravaura of a 60 year old sex pest. But for much of the time here, what you have is a glorious rock record. Kiss never overcomplicate the music, and understand that power comes from feel more than it does finesse. Everything here is amped up to 10 and drenched in sugar and the result is so overpowering that it will blind your eyes to the cracks.

[Zing!]

Great review - thanks! Sonic Boom didn't do much for me, but 'Back To The Stone Age' kicks ass (the only track I've heard so far). Might pick this one up.

[binnie]

You should pick it up. Like any Kiss record, it's a lot of fun if you treat it for what it is.

I reviewed 'Sonic Boom' in this thread (first couple of pages, if I recall). Patchy, certainly, but there was some good stuff on it. What makes 'Monster' better is not just the tunes, but the ummph in the production. As I said, HUUUUUGE!

[Von Halen]

The new Kiss disc is very good.

[binnie]

Attika 7 – Blood of My Enemies (2012)

That this band’s drummer is called ‘Death Rock’ should indicate from the get-go that we are not dealing with affiliates of Mensa here. Nor – judging by the back of a beer-mat approach to songwriting and ‘more power’ approach to arrangements – are we dealing with musicians who think that subtlety is a virtue. This is metal at its most boisterous, boarish, sledgehammer-to-the-face powerful and you’ll know within 30 seconds if it’s for you or not. Featuring Evan Seinfeld (ex-Biohazard) on vocals and guitar, it was always going to be ultra-intense, ultra-aggressive and as cerebral as a porn star (which he is) gets. But Seinfeld – alongside Prong and Soulfly bassplayer Tony Campos – injects this project with some serious power. That the tunes are simple only adds to their impact – written at a low point in (guitarist) Rusty Coones’s life, the period of his incarceration before he turned things around to become a ‘famed’ motorcylce builder, the meat and potatoes approach to music making fits well with the relentless procession of ‘fuck you’ overcoming lyrics. None of this has anything to say about the human spirit (despite the pretentions of the band members), but at points it will rile you up enough to want to clip someone in the teeth – and if music affects you, it’s doing its job.

At the risk of sounding harsh, there is certainly plenty here that is both derivative and insipid. ‘Hellbound’, ‘Devil’s Daughter’ (yes, they did go there) and ‘Serial Killer’ (I’m not joking) all sound like Godsmack and mid-career Korn, which is to music what dry-wall is to art. But elsewhere there is some serious groove, evil grins and malicious intent. ‘Crackerman’ sounds like latter-day Life Of Agony, grunge without the shoe-gazing and smoldering with a rumble of bottom-end; ‘All Or Nothing’ is a sinister little anthem; and ‘Lockdown’, ‘No Redemption’ and the title track are all intense bursts of bouncy violence that will come in handy if you ever want to break something. If you’re prepared to take off your thinking cap for an hour Attika 7 will serve you well – ‘Blood Of My Enemies’ sounds what it is: four guys in a room blasting out simple tunes with conviction and without artifice. Memorable? Not particularly. But it is better than the cynics would have you believe.

[binnie]

Bury Tomorrow – The Union of Crowns (2012)

Metalcore has become a dirty word, a synonym for uninspired, generic and bottom-feeding by-the-numbers heaviness. It seems like a long, long time since Killswitch Engage revitalised heavy music from its post Nu Metal doldrums with a burst of precise, intense and melodic heaviness which seemed to signal the way in which metal could evolve in the 21st century without losing all sense of pop sensibilities – since KSE, of course, a thousand copyists have over populated the scene to the point where bands’ sound cliched simply by existing. But just when you thought you’d heard the death rattle, just when you thought it was over, a band like Bury Tomorrow comes along.

This is metalcore Jim, but not as we know it. Although all of the key ingredients – soft/heavy dynamics, clean/screamed vocals, breakdowns – are here, they are not telegraphed in a manner we’ve come to expect and, crucially, they are interspliced with gothic melodies and dainty guitar melodies which completely change to tone of the music, separating Bury Tomorrow from the rest of the pack. Put simply, it’s the songs, stupid. This is modern metal you can sing. ‘Redeemer’ contains some huge hooks and guitars which switch from riffy thunder to delicate melodies, ‘Kingdon’ is as dynamic as it is huge, an invigorating burst of metallic joy which demands to be listened too, whilst ‘The Maiden’ takes us into Stone Sour territory and throws in a curve ball of a beautiful mid-section. The band can do straight up violence, too: ‘Lionheart’ and ‘Royal Blood’ (what a riff!) show the bruising side of the band, whilst ‘Message to the King’ sounds like a deathcore band which is prepared to show its feminine side. With groups like this on the scene, 2012 must be a great time to be a teenager into metal.

If there is a problem, it’s that there are too many songs here (14 in total). You can have too much of a good thing, and perhaps excluding the likes of second tier tunes like ‘Knight Life’ and ‘Bitemarks’ do not sizzle quite as much as the rest of the material here. In the face of a record as strong as this, however, it would be churlish to end on a criticism. In Daniel Winter-Bates Bury Tomorrow have a world class singer who can take them into the big leagues. ‘The Union of Crowns’ is packed full of exuberant, poised and affecting heavy music with an eye firmly placed on hooks and melody.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Billy Talent – II (2006)

Pop-punk is the most difficult of genre’s to care about. A half-way house between genuine anti-establishment blitzkrieg and throwaway sensibilities, it often teases rather than pleases for those who love things loud and mean – a quick fix of saccharine pleasure which fails to provide lasting sustenance. Billy Talent are an exception to the rule. Serving up angsty 3 minute bursts of hook-heavy punk-rock which avoid the annoying goofiness of Blink 182 or the cloying mopeyness of generic emo 101, this is a band you can mosh too whilst smiling and not feel guilty about it later.

Softer and melodic than their debut (and also including more love songs), ‘II’ is a more confident, bolder affair with a wide range of musical references blending into Ian D’Sa’s guitar – maybe its because they been around forever (playing as Pez since 1993 and then becoming Billy Talent in 2001), but the furious melodies often conjure up such disparate sounds as Trapt, Papa Roach, The Specials and Bad Brains. And they don’t take any of it too seriously, which is refreshing. ‘Surrender’ is a silly little love song, whilst ‘Perfect World’ is just plain gnarly. The impossibly infectious anthem ‘Fallen Leaves’ is the perfect blast of suburban malaise, whilst the ‘political’ rage of ‘Worker Bees’ is a smiling sort of protest so humable that you quickly forget how trite it all is. Combining Green Day’s relentless energy with a dabble of Bad Religion’s bite, even if a particular tune doesn’t catch up it’s not around long enough to become irritating.

‘II’ – like most Billy Talent records – is the sort of record you borrow from your 13 year old kid and blast because it reminds you of being young. That’s no easy thing to do. With chorus’s as huge as these, it’s very hard to resist Billy Talent, and even easier to glance over the weak spots in their songs.

[ashstralia]

From a guitarist's pov.. Ian D'Sa is one helluva good player; he comes up with brilliant stuff imho.

Ya got the new Parkway yet, bin?

[binnie]

It's on the Christmas list, mate

I've been a bit slow with reviews of late (working too late) but there are 5 or 6 to come in the next fortnight or so (including what is easily the album of the year in a very, very good year......)

[Dave's Bitch]

What did you think of the new Aerosmith album binnie?