I had just sat down to review Bloodshot Dawn's self-titled offering from earlier in the year and within the first few minutes of "Beckoning Oblivion" I was about to write off the whole album, when I got kicked in the head from this amazingly furious riff, and I sat up and listened again, then I heard another awesome riff, then a killer solo, then I couldn't help myself. I sat down and gave this album another listen. This time a serious listen, like when you're in the record store (kids, there was a time when the ONLY time you could sample amazing music before buying it was in the record store when your buddy was working the counter and there were no other customers) and your buddy has recommended this awesome album from a band you've never heard of but he swears they are better than your current favorite band. more
Make Them Suffer were going to obliterate my already industrial deafened ears with their awesome brand of blackened deathcore and announce to the world that they are the new force of the underground metal sound. Alas, it was never meant to be. As soon as we got into the venue, which took 15 minutes of driving around the outer-suburban wastelands of Pakenham to find, we discovered that Make Them Suffer had cancelled, citing illness within their ranks as the culprit.
To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. To suggest that I could spend the rest of the evening not thinking about the fact that Make Them Suffer were not playing would be a complete and utter lie. So I had to make a choice right there and then. Do I say goodbye to my hard-earned $10 entry fee and take the gang home and wonder what could have been or do I suck it up and put up with a line-up that would never live up to my lofty expectations? In the end I made the choice that any other fan in my shoes would make. I hadn't heard any of the bands on the bill so my unconquerable musical curiosity won. more
Okay, so I've got this blog thing worked out to the point that I can hold a coherent conversation with the "blogasphere" and not get twisted up into a pretzel-shaped donut....
Well, I'm not in the mood to post a review or complain about anything so I'll do the next best thing and post a link to an awesome song. Hopefully someone out there in the blogasphere will like it and say something....more
When I was younger I was never a fan of melodic death metal.
I was entirely engrossed in the death/grind sound bands like Napalm Death and Carcass were churning out by the bucket-load. I wasn't interested in anything but absolute brutality in music. That young man's need for the guitars to rip your head off your shoulders is still entrenched in my brain. As with all things, when one reaches a certain age ones needs change.
And so I found myself searching the metal scene more and more for that something special, that awesome blend of head-smashing brutality and my new, more mature musical need to hear awesome music. And so we come to the album at hand, Before The Dawn's latest masterpiece "Rise Of The Phoenix". This album is actually a few months old (released April this year) but as I've said before I have a pile of recent albums I would like to review. more
I get out of the shower after my weekly basketball game, and sit down with my humble blog, fully intending to review some masterpiece I have stashed away on my hard drive since the beginning of the year. As soon as I get comfortable, I have to decide what album to review. Before I even open up the media player, the thought comes to my mind, most of the albums on said hard drive have been listened to a billion times in the past few months, and I really couldn't be bothered listening to them again.
So what do I do? I turn on the internet radio on my humble laptop and hope and pray that some decent metal comes out the other end. This is the problem I have with modern metal, and to a large extent music in general. Of the 90 minutes I've been listening, I've heard one song from a band I've never heard of which merited a search for their material on facebook or youtube, just to ensure I actually did heard a good song. the remaining 85 minutes have been a frustrating glimpse into the current state of our beloved metal scene.
If there's one thing that totally drives me crazy when discovering new music its having to wait until the band finishes their album. The tasters that are becoming the norm for pre-promotion of an album are a great idea, but they leave me with such a sick feeling in my gut.
I want so much more than the one song.
Such is the case with Enshine.
This from their youtube page: Enshine, Jari Lindholm (ex-Slumber/Atoma) project with vocals of Sébastien Pierre (Inborn Suffering, Fractal Gates, Cold Insight). This track is taken from our upcoming first album, mixed and mastered, just searching for some label soon. We'll compose together by the first days of september a new album. The logo is temporary.
Ignore the fact that there is precious little information that the band has released, I am completely overwhelmed by the two tracks they have showcased. The guitar sound is totally original, very similar to Burzum in its trance-like quality, with the haunting layered sound which Anathema do very well. the structures are straightforward, but that is a good thing. The simplicity of the overall work is engaging and enthralling. Words are not enough to describe the sonic masterpiece these two awesome musicians have created.
This was the result of many years of frustration as a musician in the metal scene. I was completely unable to find any like-minded artists to create the music I wanted to hear, so I decided to write my own music and get some of my mates to help me out.
The recordings never really saw the light of day, but I am proud of what I tried to do. I still have a couple of songs kicking around my head, and maybe I'll find the time to record them. When I do I'll post them here for posterity.
I'm totally loving the latest album from Ensiferum "Unsung Heroes". This masterpiece of viking metal is comprised of 10 anthems to the warrior spirit in us all.
Plenty of awesome righteous riffing and majestic soaring compositions. The keys are never overdone, and actually bring another dimension to the music that really wouldn't be possible if they weren't there. The vocal delivery is very mature. Offering to us interpretations in English and Finnish, the growls and screams are in the right places, and the sung vocals are just right.
I actually can't think of anything else to say about this work of triumphantly majestic metal.
I'm still trying to work out this blog thingy, but with time and perseverance I'll get there. I'm currently going through all the stuff I want to achieve with this thing, and the one thing that stands out to me the most is to promote awesome music, no matter where it comes from.
Just finished listening to the brand new Enslaved album "RIITIIR"...I love the progression this band has made ever since the beginning of the whole Norwegian black metal thing. The music is completely engrossing and the vocal range, from growls and screams to a masterful delivery of clean singing, all combine in a unique way that I've yet to find anywhere else on the planet.
A more indepth review will be forthcoming shortly...
Not since I was 19 have I put pen to paper (in internet terms that would be....gee I don't know what the internet term for that is...) for the sake of airing my own quirky musings on the state of music and associated subject matter.
I suppose I should start from the beginning, but that's a lot of history to cover in my first post so I'll be brief...
Let's just say I'm turning 42 tomorrow, getting my first tattoo (for my birthday), have an adoring wife who I am still madly in love with after 19 years of marriage, have two fantastic daughters who challenge and frustrate me no end, but who I could not imagine living without.
I come from a long and distinguished background of rebellion and sedition, having first heard ACDC's anthemic single "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" in the car outside Sunday church. While the sentiment Bon Scott was trying to impress on my 8 year old mind went in one ear and out the other, I immediately fell in love with the belligerent, unashamedly disobedient rock sound the band was torturing our family station wagon stereo speakers with. From that day forth I swore I would listen to as much rock as my hungry pre-pubescent body could handle...
...fast-forward to September 2012 and here I am at 11:20 at night listening to Swallow The Sun's entirely brilliant album "The Emerald Forest And The Blackbird" in the headphones, cranked up to already unhealthy volume levels. Having survived, and been intimately involved in, every single known sub-genre and underground movement extreme music could possibly generate in my lifetime, I made the decision to re-enter the global circus known as the "media" to share with the internet community my opinions and observations.
As I decide what to do with this monster I've just created (bringing to mind a laughable image of Frankenstein's laboratory with me at the helm) I think after 34 years of rock and metal adoration, interspersed with more than a few years of goth and trance thrown in, I probably have accumulated enough "been there, done that" cred to feel comfortable to share it with the rest of the world.
For now, I'll just keep doing what I've been doing since 1977 and tell the world what I think, regardless of whether you agree with me or not.
Saying that, here's my latest love interest, an awesome band from Perth, Australia, who are currently touring and who I'll be taking my kids to see, where I'll probably do more moshing than they will.
