Album Reviews

[binnie]

Trivium – Vengence Falls (2013)

There was a time (c.2004) when Trivium were expected to be the ‘next big thing’ in metal. It didn’t happen. But no-one could deny that they’ve served up some incredible music in the decade or so since their inception. ‘In Waves’ (2011) was an absolute monster of a record which removed much of the clutter of early recordings and focused on putting the juicy riffs and soaring melodies first. ‘Vengeance Falls’ continues that story x10. In the hands of producer David Draiman (aka the bell-end from Disturbed) the band sound focused, their song-dynamics are sharper and more precise; and Colin Richardson’s (aka the best metal producer in the world) mix makes them sound heavier and more powerful than they’ve ever sounded.

Opener ‘Brave This Storm’ welds the best bits of thrash and metalcore into one big, sweaty-bollocked monster of a song which sums up everything that this record is about: intense and relentlessly melodic. The title-track may be the best thing the band have ever recorded, with perhaps only Shadows Fall making metalcore-based music sound this fresh in 2013; ‘To Believe’ is awash with crunchy, punchy heaviness and a chorus which screams ‘anthem’; and ‘Incineration: the Broken World’ builds and builds and builds into something truly bombastic. ‘Strife’ features two riffs that metal’s biggest and best would be proud to wield, whilst the song itself shows a very classic sense of dynamics and melodies – indeed, it is the balance in Trivium’s compositions which impress most on ‘Vengeance Falls’. Even the lesser moments – ‘Through Blood And Dirt And Bone’ – possess a captivating intensity as a result of not being over-cluttered (the band’s chief sin on previous albums like ‘Shogun’).

This is, quite simply, the best album that Trivium have ever made. The ‘best’ metal in this decade is often seen to come from the progressive and avant garde, but it’s worth reminding ourselves that straight-up, in your face rippers possess the spirit of metal’s heart. If talent was the true determinant of success, they’d be sitting with Avenged Sevenfold at the top of metal’s tree, for this, surely, is what the centre-ground of Heavy Metal should sound like in 2013.

[binnie]

Black Spiders – This Savage Land (2013)

Well, this is a LOT of fun. Any band that pens a tune called ‘Balls’ is always going to raise a smile or three, and album number two from British metallers Black Spiders is music to swig beer too, music which will make you holler your throat red roar as you forget all about Monday morning. Mixing stoner rawk, more than a dabble of 70’s classics and straight down the line British metal, this is powerful music chiseled by blue-collar bruisers who make the kind of sounds that made you love the heavier side of the life in the first place. ‘Knock You Out’ is full of swagger, ‘Young Tongues’ is fuelled by a mixture of bombast and grit, whilst ‘Put Love On Its Place’ if proof that it’s still possible to be original with a hard rock take on a love song. Timeless music by a bunch of hairy dudes who couldn’t care less about fanfare, with songs like ‘Stick It To The Man’ you know they’re on your side – you’ll not do much better for shits and giggles in 2013.

[binnie]

TRC – Nation (2013)

For metalheads – easily the most conservative of music fans – the word ‘crossover’ is anathema. Conjuring awful images of baggy-pants, hip-hop wear, spikey hair and designer-goatees which reigned in the Nu-Metal era (c.1996-2002), it is a term automatically geared to receive a ‘that not metal!’ reaction. ‘Dio wouldn’t do that!’ You get the picture. But then you remember the brilliant cross-over acts, the bands who genuinely widened metal’s vocabulary – the Faith No Mores, Ministrys, Korns, White Zombies and Cro Mags of the world. Hell, metalcore – metal’s most popular subgenre in 2013 – is a crossover of metal and hardcore. ‘But, DIO WOULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT….’. Well, you can’t please ‘em all.

TRC are a British band who weld the hulking power of thrash metal guitars to elements of distinctly urban music – grime, hip hop and more than a healthy dose of punk. The vocals are bellowed in distinctly cockeny yoof accents, which in truth add to the menace. Purists will hate it, but then again they hated Slipknot, too. Yet even they would have to admire the sheer, relentless aggression of ‘Nation’, the epic riffs and crunching grooves. For those with more open minds, this is a record of staggering – oh my gawd I can’t believe it’s THIS good – proportions. Put it this way: plenty of metal bands claim to have origins in the school of hard knocks, but this is the real deal. Deprivation, yearning, urban discipline, there’s nothing contrived about the likes of ‘Three Letters, Four Seasons’ – you can smell the brick and concrete. That honesty is expressed in perhaps the most inventive set of lyrics this reviewer has heard in quite some time (probably since last year’s equally staggering British album by While She Sleeps).

It’s not just the aggression, it’s the force with which that aggression is expressed. ’10,000 Hours’ - awash with the dialect of the current lost generation – is an intense take on overcoming; ‘Between Bridges’, a take of rejecting the 9-5 life for something better, could be a smash on the radio if given the chance such is the strength of the hook (provided courtesy of Tiffany Page); the pitbull fury of ‘We Bring War’ could match anyone, and features a menace behind the metal that reeks of Biohazard. So. Fucking. Intense. And the highlights just keep coming…………………

UK metal is in a golden era right now. Gallows, Bleed From Within, Bring Me The Horizon, Heart of A Coward and Tesseract breaking through to join established legends still delivering the goods (Anathema, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, I could go on….). Even amidst the angry sea of talent, TRC stand out for all the right reasons. Honesty, passion and aggression – ‘Nation’ will be near the top of my albums of 2013.

[vandeleur]

I got aftershock by the heed, didn't disappoint . Good spot binnie

[binnie]

Korn – Paradigm Shift (2013)

The news that original guitar player Head had returned to the fold (following an acrimonious split a decade ago) had many longtime Korn fans hoping that album number 11 would see a return to the Bakersfield quintet’s classic, mid-‘90s sound. ‘Paradigm Shift’ will disappoint those fans: this is no backward-looking, nostalgia trip. It is, rather, the most focused and consistent album that Korn have made since ‘Issues’, waaaay back in 1999.

A band who – like ‘em or loathe ‘em – widened the sound of metal at their inception, and continued to do so with the dub-step infused ‘Path Of Totality’ (2011), Korn show no signs of becoming sterile (musically speaking, that is – but more of that later). Whilst there is no dub-step here, electronic programming is in evidence – at times, the guitars are not the driving force. ‘Paradigm Shift’, then, is a long, long way from the unbridled power of the band’s debut album (indeed, when they come close to that sound – as on ‘Lullaby For A Sadist’ – they sound least convincing) – but, it is also far, far more captivating than the formulaic soft/heavy, soft/heavy song-structures of their mid-career commercial zenith. In short, long-shorn of the Nu Metal genre which they spawned, Korn sound vital again: ‘Punishment Time’ and ‘Never Never’ have a very ‘80s electronica vibe about them, Jonathan Davis’s vocal-lines feeling like something after Depeche Mode. And, in truth, so many of these tunes could be singles. ‘Pray For Me’ demonstrates that Davis is quite the hook writer, and is awash with the rhythmic quirks which made Korn’s darkness so downright eerie; ‘Victimised’ demonstrates that the sheer weight Korn still impresses after two decades; and ‘Love & Meth’ – the clumsy title aside – is the sort of swirling morass of melody that they’ve always done so well. It’s unnerving, but uplifting – the likes of ‘Paranoid & Aroused’ being a new take on Korn’s weird little world of heaviness.

But for all of the development here, at heart Korn have not fundamentally changed. In one sense that’s a good thing – most metal is riff focused, Korn remain a beat first band; most metal is macho-overload, but Korn remain prepared to be vulnerable; most metal is about showing-off, yet Korn are more about feel and aesthetic than ripping your face off. But in another sense, it reveals a short-coming in Korn – for all the musical development, lyrically we’re still at the ‘woe is me’ end of things. Whilst it’s unfair to say that Davis is still talking about his childhood, it is fair to say that the wounded-soldier approach to lyric-writing is a well-worn path. Perhaps branching out here would help Korn develop.

It would be ridiculous to end on a criticism in the face of a record this invigorating. Korn sound epic again – the songs pop and pulsate, and the whole thing crushes in its bass-driven heaviness.

[binnie]

Death Angel – The Dream Calls For Blood (2013)

The ‘Big 4’ of thrash may have received the status of ‘legends’, but in the 21st century it is the smaller numbers of thrash’s first generation who are putting out the best music. For Death Angel – always one of thrash’s most experimental and innovative bands – ‘The Dream Calls For Blood’ marks a late career high. Whilst their 00 reunion records were admirable if patchy, ‘Relentless Retribution’ (2011) was something of a stormer, a seething, fire-brand of a return to form. ‘Dream…’ carries the torch and then some, embracing the sheer fury and maniacal aggression of thrash’s roots in very modern dress – indeed, Jason Sureof’s production here adds some serious clout to the band’s sound without even sounding close to clinical. Put simply, this record rips your head off in a way in which a band nearly 30 years old should not be able to – it is proof that (alongside Testament), Death Angel are one of the few US thrash bands who can compete with the current crop of German and Scandinavian behemoths who sit at the top of a genre stacked deep with talent.

Always keen to experiment – 1987’s ‘Ultra Violence’ was followed by the decidedly progressive ‘Act III’ and ‘Frolic In the Park’ – Death Angel have often been accused of been too inventive for their own good. Here, they bring the thrash – dark, aggressive and relentlessly powerful thrash. Opener ‘Left For Dead’ is ‘fuck me!!’ fast, a torrent of full-tilt smashing power; ‘Caster Of Shame’ is beyond furious; and the title-track should by all rights be a metal classic – sounding like a battalion of iron-clad warriors marching in unison, this is metal at its most crushingly heavy. But Death Angel have always possessed too many songwriting chops and a sense of melody for this to be an exercise in puerile heaviness for its own sake. ‘Son Of The Morning’ and ‘Fallen’ feature some HUGE choruses – always the Achilles heel of thrash – and showcases vocalist Mark Osegueda’s talents with aplomb. It is refreshing to hear a thrash band with a singer rather than a growler, and the injection of Dio-style melodies only serves to make this music more affecting and memorable, inspiring hollering and moshing in equal measure.

But perhaps what makes ‘Dream…’ so impressive is the control which Death Angel exercise over their compositions – where so many bands do not know how to edit themselves, Death Angel serve up song after song of taut, lean and focused fury. Rob Cavestay and Ted Anguilar riff like mothers throughout, and explode in a serious of ripping solos. For a band to be THIS ambitious after this many years is very refreshing indeed – you just hope that Death Angel get the audience they deserve.

[ELVIS]

Wow...

[binnie]

Free Fall – Power & Volume (2013)

The title says it all. This is cranked up, kick-out-the-jams rock ‘n’ roll with both eyes (and ears!) focused firmly on the glories of yesteryear. Further proof that the true home of rock ‘n’ roll in 2013 is Sweden (where so many blues-drenched axe-wielders have emerged in recent years), Free Fall contribute another fine record to the cluster of Garage Rock bands currently on the up (Witchcraft, Graveyard). Sounding an awful lot like 1970 – a time where the boundary between Hard Rock and R’n’B was still very, very blurred), ‘Power & Volume’ avoids sounding little a carbon copy of the two ‘Classic Rock’ acts which most modern retro bands rip off so shamelessly: Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Instead, we get and much wider palette of the blues-inspired first wave of modern rock. And the results are quite a treat indeed.

‘Free Fall’, for example, is the caustic R’n’B of The Who and Humble Pie; whilst the slow-burning ‘Attila’ possesses an oddly Eastern twinge which demonstrates that 1967-72 was always about waaaau more that Les Paul thunder and bluster. It is something very special indeed. ‘Love Bombing’ is the sound of raucous yoof, a sleazing and teasing slice of gristle for the soul, and ‘Midnight Vulture’ will make you feel like a badass before exploding into a seemingly spontaneous jam section powered by pure electricity. Guitar-player Matthias Barjed is equipped with more than a little of Ritchie Blackmore’s demented side, and slashes and swathes all over these songs. It’s powerful and invigorating stuff. But it’s not all world-class – ‘World Domination’ and ‘Damnation’, for example, quickly run out of ideas.

‘Retro’ is often a dirty word. It needn’t be. Free Fall serve up music that is authentic, rather than pastiche, and ‘Power & Volume’ is an album which will serve as an addition to your record collection rather than a fleeting player which serves only to remind you of the bands from whom it takes its queues. A patchy affair, certainly, but one which bleeds rock – in contrast to so much of the music made in the digital age, this is music made with warmth and rawness, and sounds like dry desert ground parched with yearning.

[Von Halen]

Binnie, I'll be interested to read your review on the FFDP Volume 2 disc. I think it's better than Volume 1.

[binnie]

Alter Bridge – Fortress (2013)

By the time you’ve gotten to the end of ‘Cry Of Achilles’ – the grand, hulking six-and-a-half minute opus which kick starts Alter Bridge’s fourth record – you know you’re listening to something special. Huge arrangements, riffs which are bigger still, and chorus which kicks in like a Tyson left-hook all signal that this is a band stepping things up in all departments. But the ‘Metal’ department has seen the largest surge. Last time out – ‘III’ (2010) – Alter Bridge served up a record packed with 4 minute anthems, a richly melodic affair which garnered not inconsiderable attention from the critics. ‘III’, then, was a helluva record – but it was a little constrained by strict adherence to traditional song structures. Here – as on Alter Bridge’s second album, ‘Blackbird’ (200) – they let it all hang out. And then some. In Mark Tremonti they have one of rock’s most under-celebrated axemen, and he serves up serpentine, taut riffs and solos with enough shred to excite, and enough melody to inspire. In Myles Kennedy they have, quite simply, the most versatile rock singer of a generation. Inject those ingredients into a record awash with expansive, buck-fucking heavy, songs and you’ve got a potential gem of a record.

‘Uninvited’, for instance, is a utterly remarkable slab of power – not unhinged in its heaviness (like most modern metal), it quakes and thunders in muscular, tightly-wound structures. ‘Addicted To Pain’ injects more than a little groove into its aggression, before serving up another whip-crack of a chorus; ‘Calm the Fire’ is the sound of the band’s inner prog screaming to get out; and in flat-out metal mode (‘Cry A River’ and ‘Further Than The Sun’) they are a sizzling proposition – these are tunes that will crush arenas. What staggers most is the sheer variety. ‘Lover’, for instance, is a long way from the bombast, a take on a ballad which proves that metal can do tender without added cheese; and the 8 minute title-track is a swirling morass of music, a Zeppelin-esque epic which acts the perfect closer to a sinewy, rich and utterly compelling album.

What Alter Bridge have proven is that is possible to serve up straight-up, almost conventional, hard rock in 2013 and still surprise and delight in equal measure. By re-arranging to core components of classic rock into their own unique synthesis, ‘Fortress’ is equally familiar and surprising – and you just can’t argue with those melodies. Some will argue that it’s over-long. Others will yearn for a band drenched in a more hedonistic approach to rock ‘n’ roll (Alter Bridge must be the band least-likely to trash a hotel room), and in truth if there is a criticism to be levelled at this band it is that they are constrained by over thinking things, which makes their record feel a little hemmed-in. But ‘Fortress’ is a special record of pomp, power and utterly dazzling songs.

[binnie]

Binnie, I'll be interested to read your review on the FFDP Volume 2 disc. I think it's better than Volume 1.

It'll be January before I get around to that one - it's one my Christmas list and Mrs binnie will kill me if I buy it beforehand

[Von Halen]

It'll be January before I get around to that one - it's one my Christmas list and Mrs binnie will kill me if I buy it beforehand

Oh my. I didn't realize binnie was henpecked!

You tell her you have a job to do here at the Army!

They cover "House Of The Rising Sun".

[binnie]

Amon Amarth – Deceiver Of The Gods (2013)

If you had to name the most consistently excellent metal band of the 21st century, Amon Amarth would be up there. Over the past 15 years, these Viking enthused beardy behemoths have served up album after album of crisp and blistering melodic Death Metal which perfectly befits the pillage and power of their chosen subject matter. Rarely has extreme metal sounded so…………………….immediate, so easy to hook yourself into and let it own you. ‘Deceiver of The Gods’ makes no radical changes to the band’s sound – the big riffs, twisted melodies, and frenetic beats of Death and Black metal are still the component parts – but it features ingredients of a consistently higher quality than both ‘Surtur Rising’ (2011) and ‘Twilight of Thunder’ (2008). Even by their own lofty stands, this is quite a feast of metal.

This time round the lyrics tap into the Viking God Loki (a cruel prankster) and his role in Ragnarok (the end times). The title track features a Slayer-tinged riff, Black Metal chorus and frantic speed, and pretty much commands BANG THY HEAD! Elsewhere the band serve up groove and crushing power at mid-pace – see ‘Under Siege’ and ‘Coming of The Tide’, both of which could be future live anthems – and manage to dazzle on the savage feast of riffery which is ‘Shape Shifter’. And there are a couple of surprises here, too. The presence of ex-Candlemass singer Messiah Marcolin on ‘Hel’ is epic – slooooow and incredibly powerful, this is one of the songs of 2013 and reminds you of the feeling you had the first time that you heard metal. And the epic, Bathory-inspired, closer ‘Warriors of The North’ is simply magnificent.

Nine albums in and Amon Amarth show no signs of mailing it in. Andy Sneap’s production is, as ever, bollock heavy, and the decision to mix in loads of bass gives this metal a particularly heavy thud. ‘Deceiver Of The Gods’ is 47 minutes of power packed with hooks to kill and some devilishly juicy NWOBHM style guitar melodies – in Amon Amarth’s hands, Death Metal really can be for the mainstream of metal.

Long may they reign.

[binnie]

If anyone wants me to review any golden oldies, I will (assuming I own 'em).

Dave's Bitch - I know I still owe you a Quireboys review, I've not forgotten......

[ELVIS]

Alice Cooper - Lace and Whiskey