July 1, 2023 2023, Blog related, reviews Post a Comment

Metal Thoughts + New Music Catch Up

The Metal Meat n’ Potatoes

It’s been an interesting past few weeks here at The Metal Pigeon, most notably because I finally got to see the legendary Helloween live on May 13th in what felt like a truly once in a lifetime event, but also because I feel like I’ve been listening to more metal in a concentrated span of time than I have in a long, long while. Actually to that point, as much as I’ve been enjoying stepping off the new release reviews treadmill that nearly derailed this blog entirely with burnout over the past couple years, there is a big drawback. Namely, that in being more casual about discussing new music, a lot of things I want to discuss have started piling up rather quickly. I have a breezy overview of much of the new music I’ve been listening to further down below, more a collection of overall impressions rather than detailed reviews. However, first I wanna talk about something I heard Justin of The Metal Exchange Podcast say on an older episode of the show covering Avantasia’s The Metal Opera, their first 10/10 rating for an album on the show.

He talked about how despite loving that album, he felt he hadn’t spent enough time with it over the years, having potentially wasted time on other albums that were mediocre in the intervening years, and how it was important to get back to the “meat and potatoes” of what great metal was to him. To listen to those albums more, spend more time with them. I really identified with that comment, because it seems so obvious, but I’ve always had this slightly guilty feeling when I indulge myself in listening to classic albums I’ve long loved, because that voice in my head says “hey what the hell are you doing… you should be paying attention to new music… new, new, new!”. But I’ve mentioned my Judas Priest’s Turbo indulgence over the past year, revisiting that album repeatedly and appreciating it anew. I sort of extended that into the wider Priest catalog slowly but surely, and have gone back to just jamming those records for fun… ditto for classic Maiden albums. Look, Maiden is my favorite band of all time, but I couldn’t remember the last time I had played their older studio albums at all before this past month and a half, when I’ve been playing them unapologetically and appreciating them all over again.

The Metal Exchange podcast has had a lot to do with this, as I’ve been playing the classic albums they’ve covered on their show as I’ve been working my way through their older episodes. Justin’s revelation on that episode about revisiting the great albums more frequently is right on, a truth that I’ve been slow to work my way back to, but in relistening to all these classic Priest and Maiden albums, among many other veteran artists, I’ve been reminding myself of what I grew up loving about this genre in the first place. I think when you get bogged down in that new release listening cycle exclusively, you run the risk of losing sight of that, particularly when you hit a spell of albums that just don’t move you much, or are examples of the aforementioned mediocrity. Actually, in revisiting these metal touchstones of the past, I’ve felt it’s been head clearing in a way for me to better receive new music from newer bands, a bit of stepping backwards in order to progress forwards I guess. This might only be of interest or relevance to a few of you who’ve felt yourself caught up in similar listening habits, but I’m guessing you few know exactly what I’m talking about here.

Speaking of veteran artists, Helloween has been a big part of this revisiting the classics process over the past two months, in fact methodically going through their catalog was a big part of the prep for the show I caught in Dallas. They played a mix of stuff from their career, including some stuff from their fantastic recent self-titled reunion album, but the songs that caught me off guard with how much I enjoyed them were the off-beat choices, such as “Perfect Gentleman”, and damn… “Forever and One”. That one really shook me, seeing Kiske and Deris handling lead vocals together in a spectacular, goosebump inducing duet. It was an emotional apex during the show, and I kept thinking back to old interviews I would hear via Dr. Metal’s Metal Meltdown radio show back in the late 90s, when musicians in the know would tell the Doc that a Helloween reunion would never, ever happen. So seeing those two together on this Deris era classic was a little surreal in the moment, and definitely a highlight of what was a spectacular show in general. On the drive back to Houston, I went through Deris era albums that I’d not listened to in ages, Master of the Rings, The Time of the Oath, Better Than Raw, and also a long time favorite, The Dark Ride. They sounded so much fresher than I’d have expected, the Turbo effect in action.

Yesterday when driving to our Saturday D&D session (nerd!!!!), I was listening to the Scorpions’ odd 2011 release Comeblack which was half re-recordings of their most classic cuts, and half covers of old rock songs that I suppose were influences on the band back in the day. I had previously only given the album a cursory glance and dismissed it as a pointless release. But I gotta say, I found myself really enjoying it, the re-recordings especially, because it was so interesting to hear these classic Scorps songs I knew by heart in a studio context without the distraction of crowdwork and cheering on a live album, yet still different from the original recordings whose very nuances I’ve had burned into my memory by now. Klaus enunciates the lyrics better here, the guitars attack in a way that more closely emulates their live attack, and freed from the sonic idiosyncrasies that characterized the old Dieter Dierks production style, I was hearing these songs in a brand new context. It wasn’t better or worse, just different. It was another reminder that there was as much value in delving into the musical archives so to speak, as there was in making sure you continually check out new music to keep your synapses firing and challenging your tastes.

Some New Music Chit-Chat

So onto the new stuff then, the cream of which has had to elbow and fight its way past not only recent release competition, but also my incessant need to hear every live version of “The Clairvoyant” on a random Wednesday afternoon. So lets talk about the albums that managed to hold their own against heavy consumption of Maiden, Priest, and Helloween:

Immortal – War Against All: I didn’t really think that Demonaz would be able to top 2018’s first post-Abbath release Northern Chaos Gods. That was a top ten album for me that year, a really powerful statement from Demonaz and Horgh about what they could put together on their own. Now, a few years later in a post-Horgh Immortal, Demonaz is able to stand on his own via unleashing an album that I think is somehow even leaner and meaner than it’s predecessor. When I think on the quality and innate Immortal-ness of these two albums and consider Abbath’s recent output in his own band, I have to admit that I’m questioning just how integral he was to the band’s songwriting approach over the years. For certain his ability as a guitarist left it’s mark on those classic albums, but I’m starting to suspect now that the key architect to the band’s sound was Demonaz after all, and it’s maybe long past time for him to get credit for that.

Cloak – Black Flame Eternal: The classic yearly out of left field surprise that really shouldn’t be a surprise given that I do remember listening to this band on their prior two albums over the past few years pre-pandemic and thinking that they were solid, but solid apparently doesn’t do enough to work it’s way into my memory, so enter Black Flame Eternal, in the running for the most satisfying extreme metal album of the year thus far. The description of their sound on Metallum is a bit odd (gothic/black metal) because while there are certainly gothic overtones ala Tribulation layered over the top of these songs, at their core this is some of the strongest black n’ roll I’ve heard in awhile. And I really mean the roll part too, these songs often built around rockin’ riffs that have an accessible headbanging bent to them. There’s little in the way of any kind of wall of sound/tremolo wave traditional black metal soundscaping here, and maybe that’s why this sounds so fresh and exuberant even in the dead of summer where my mind usually craves more of a hard rock/trad metal sound. No duds whatsoever, I could easily envision “With Fury and Allegiance” winding up on the best songs list down the line, and yeah, just a blackened record that really rocks, hits hard, and doesn’t ever bore me, I love it.

Gatekeeper – From Western Shores: I remember giving Gatekeeper’s debut album a few years ago a spin when their promo from Cruz del Sur landed in my inbox — I think I had just realized at the time how much that label was putting out stuff that was capturing my attention and I gave them the benefit of the doubt. The only thing I clearly remember about the listening experience (apart from the band’s very raw sound at the time) was that I felt the band had moments of potential but overall it wasn’t quite sticking with me. Clearly with how much I’ve been enjoying From Western Shores over the past few months, I’ll have to firstly go back and check out the debut to see if it wasn’t just a wrong headspace thing, and secondly, give the band serious props for possibly realizing said potential. I agree with the chorus of opinions I’ve heard from people I’ve discussed this album with saying that the new singer is a far better fit for the band, Tyler Anderson’s pipes sounding a bit like a more stoic, less outlandish Eric Adams. Despite the much improved production, fatter guitar sound, and tight mixing, there are still rough edges to Gatekeepers attack, but I’ve come to realize that’s more of a defining facet of their sound at it’s core. I find it charming, and it does work in a weird way to lend mystique to these songs in a Manilla Road kinda way. This whole album is a epic, rocking, somewhat weed smoke tinged vibe and it’s worth checking out.

Foretoken – Triumphs: A pretty solid, widely overlooked sophomore album from a Virginia based duo dishing out some finely crafted symphonic/folky melodeath fusion with a touch of blackened vocals just to further blur the lines dividing genres. There’s a trad metal sound to their guitar attack that I appreciate, a Priest-ian edge that chugs at the right time and a steely, flinty edge to the rhythm guitar tone that is sweet to hear. The interesting tidbit behind the production here is that Jacob Hansen is at the controls for the mixing and mastering, a guy who’s best known in the metal scene at the moment for his role in prog-power metallers Pyramaze and in being the producer du jour for numerous melodic vocal adorned bands of various subgenre types (I mean, he’s Amaranthe’s producer for starters). And of course Hansen has done work with extreme metal vocal bands in the past, but not that many in comparison, so this is an interesting record to listen to with that in mind if you’re a nerd about these things, which… if you’re reading this you likely are (it’s okay).

Enforcer – Nostalgia: I’ve been uncertain of how I felt about Enforcer for the longest time, initially being really impressed because my first exposure was seeing them live in a support slot for a tour I can’t even remember the headliner for. They were such an electrifying band on stage, but dang it if they couldn’t quite manage to capture that same feeling on record for me. I just wrote them off as being one of those great live bands that you really only took in live (Midnight falls into this category for me) and didn’t spend a lot of time with their studio output. Their last album, 2019’s Zenith was intended to be a change of pace from their proto-typical speed metal inspired sound, and some argued that it leapt far too deep into the pool of 80s commercial hard rock. I didn’t mind the attempt, but the execution felt off. So four years later, they’re sort of going back to their roots, but a little of that experimental mindset from Zenith still lingers, and I’d argue to far better effect. The title track here is the kind of thing the Scorpions would’ve knocked out around the Savage Amusement era, a perfectly articulated 80s hard rock power ballad that is honestly just gorgeous. But beyond that, they’ve somehow worked out the kinks to infuse their traditional sound with the arena hooks they were trying to achieve on the last album, and that makes Nostalgia easily the most compelling release they’ve delivered thus far.

Grave Pleasures – Plagueboys: So not a metal record at all, but if you’re a fan of bands such as Idle Hands/Unto Others, psychedlic trippy old school era The Cult, and maybe even Depeche Mode vocal aesthetic, this might be something to look into. I guess I do have to admit that at times I wish Grave Pleasures would turn it to eleven and really crank out some riffs, but in fairness, there’s nothing here that suggests they had any ambitions to be a heavy band in the sonic sense. It’s just that everything else about this album screams weirdo goth metal and I can’t help but love that. Some unexpectedly delightful guitarwork on this record, beautiful solos that often have unexpected melodic twists and turns. A love it or leave it kinda affair I’ll admit, but I think it’s a beautiful album.

Cruachan – The Living and the Dead: The other Irish metal band of some renown (I kid, I know there are starting to be worthwhile metal bands coming out of Ireland lately), Celtic-folk metallers Cruachan released this way back in March, and while I had it on heavy rotation all those months ago, it’s slowly drifted it’s way back into my recent listening as I have sort of taken stock of the halfway point of the year (I briefly thought about writing a midyear report, but nixed it because I feel like that influences me too much when assembling the end of year lists later). This is a band that I used to love way back in the early 2000s heyday of the folk-metal explosion, and just kinda spaced out on for the rest of the years in the interim. I think this is the first album I’ve heard from them since The Morrigan’s Call in 06, and better production notwithstanding, they sound exactly how I remember them which is fantastic. You guys know my feelings on folk metal, I love the stuff that rings of grit and an authentic spirit, not canned corniness. This is one of those slightly uneven albums where I do favor some songs more than others, but overall it provides a rich listening experience, particularly in its more syrupy sweet acoustic moments.

Keep of Kalessin – Katharsis: I know I talked at length about this on the MSRcast a few episodes ago, so I won’t go into much beyond stating here that I genuinely found so much to love about this album. I’m not sure what the consensus opinion has been overall, because it met with some criticism in my metal circle when it came out, but I’m not that familiar with the band’s discography as a whole to judge if they dipped here (doesn’t sound like it to me). This is one of those records that had moments throughout where I found myself having that familiar feeling of “ahh this is why I love metal so much”. And records like that seem more rare the more stuff you listen to and the longer you’ve been a fan, fighting being jaded I guess. That means a whole heck of a lot to me, and songs like “Journey’s End” just hit that emotional core for me in a way that few bands have managed. I really took notice of this band with this one.

May 19, 2023 2023, Kamelot, Metallica, reviews Post a Comment

Metallica and Kamelot Return!

Kamelot – The Awakening:

So I was planning to do a rather technical deep dive on this new Kamelot album, titled The Awakening (lets note that this is not in fact a concept album based on the famed Kate Chopin novel of the same name, although that sounds like a promising idea in general for any symphonic metal band), but after spending a considerable amount of time with it over the past few weeks I’ve realized that maybe a blow by blow dissection of this album isn’t what anyone, let alone myself, want or need. I’ll just be up front in saying that this isn’t a masterpiece by any means, but to it’s credit its a step in the right direction after the abysmal affair that was The Shadow Theory in 2018 (but after a five year gap, its certainly not a big enough step). Let’s just do this simply, by breaking down what Kamelot did right here, and what they did wrong (or more accurately have continued to do wrong).

First the positive stuff: Tommy seems increasingly unleashed to maximize his vocal talent and accentuate his strengths, a welcome change from how stifled and constrained his performances felt on the last album. It’s not a coincidence that the best songs here are examples of this in action, in particular the glorious opener “The Great Divide”, as old school power metal as the band have leaned in a long, long time (interestingly enough Jani Liimatainen is one of the co-writers on this tune, which might explain the classicist feel going on that we’ve heard him bring to the table with Cain’s Offering, The Dark Element, and last year’s collab with Tony Kakko). I’ll also single out “Eventide” as one of Tommy’s smoothest verse to chorus transitions, and there’s something irresistible about the ease of his vocal uplift on that soaring hook. Equally impressive for different reasons was his performance on “The Looking Glass”, where he did some different things with his vocals, taking a little more of a theatrical bent here and there that reminded me of the way his predecessor Roy Khan told a story with his intonation and delivery on all those classic songs. To cut to the quick of it, the band sounds way better when they lean towards major key, soaring power metal where Tommy gets to shine and flex his chords a bit.

Kamelot falters however in the same frustrating way they’ve been faltering artistically for the past many albums now (a decent chunk of Haven being an exception), that being their insistence in continuing their edgy, darker musical approach that just seems entirely at odds with Tommy’s entire personality and vocal presence. This stuff worked when it was introduced way the hell back in the Roy Khan era with The Black Halo, because Khan was a convincing vocalist for that particular approach, his voice deep and resonant enough to put genuine grit and gravitas to his vocals and the characters he was inhibiting. Even on the somewhat criticized Ghost Opera and Poetry For the Poisoned, where they continued that style, he was able to craft vocal melodies that made incredibly dramatic magic with his lower registers. At the time it was a refreshing change of pace for power metal at large, with few bands save Tad Morose and a couple others daring to dabble in anything less than polished and shiny Euro-power. However when Khan left, Thomas Youngblood and company stuck with this artistic palette, I’m guessing because it had delivered to the band a more marketable image that they could associate with rather than the regal toned power metal of their Fourth Legacy thru Epica era. We see evidence of this in the maddingly similar music video visual styles they’ve employed over the past decade plus, with one virtually indistinguishable from another. It’s all this edgy futuristic sci-fi goth, post-apocalyptic yawn inducing dreck, and the music of course has to fit that image.

I’ll admit that I had some slight hopes that after going through a five year gap between albums during which we all collectively went through the pandemic, that Kamelot might do an abrupt change, take the chance to shake things up a bit. You’d figure all that time sitting around in dour circumstances would inspire the band to do something else, anything remotely different in style and tone, but I guess not. In Kamelot’s case it really couldn’t hurt to consider the old adage that sometimes one needs to go backwards in order to go forwards. A little of that old school magic could really reinvigorate their sound (I’m talking about a full embrace of it, not just the drips and drabs that they’ve scattered across this album). The faux tough guy hardo act with songs like “One More Flag in the Ground” has never resonated with me, and by this point after a decade plus full of the stuff they’ve spread it so thin it barely has any substance left. The irony is that commercially the band has slipped over the past couple releases in markets like the USA and the UK where that kind of thing is largely aimed at. The chart positions and sales have gotten lower and lower. Kamelot, I’m urging you — embrace romanticism again, reconsider your entire visual approach, crawl out of the darkness and breathe some fresh air again. I suspect there’s quite a few of us who’ll be waiting on the other side.

Metallica – 72 Seasons:

Alright! Twelve years of The Metal Pigeon and my second Metallica album review! It’s a milestone of sorts I’d say, although one loaded with a ton of criticism that I’ve largely already written about at length and won’t reintroduce here anew. Deserving still of criticism is the band’s rate of fire on new music output, it still takes them ages, and I still think that works to their detriment in the grand scheme of things, but I think we’re past the point of no return on that front. Too much time has passed and the band is too set in their way of working (or rather, mostly touring). All that said, I think I had the same vague sense of trepidation with the approach of Metallica’s newest, 72 Seasons, as most veteran metalheads — with a jaded, arms folded stoicism. As far as advance singles go, “Lux Æterna” wasn’t the worst choice that they could’ve put out, though it does sound far more fitting within the context of the album. I’d say the most valid criticism of it as a single is that it was the obvious choice from the tracklist, the shortest, most radio format friendly cut (a mere 3:25 run time), and out there on it’s own it felt a little underwhelming as a preview, whereas on the album sandwiched right in the middle of things, its a blast of excitement when it hits.

Were Metallica truly gutsy, they would’ve picked the album opener title track “72 Seasons” as the lead off single, because not only is it the best song on the album as a whole, but I’d argue it’s the best singular tune the band has delivered since some of the more smoky, deep cuts off 1996s Load. That deep rumbling Trujillo bass intro leading into a rollicking, thrash-tinged sequence is one of the more adrenaline pumping starts to a Metallica album in long memory. I love that Hetfield’s barking vocals here sound like vintage angry Hetfield circa 89-96, deep and booming but with that sharp, slicing bite that gave so much of classic Metallica cuts their visceral, emotional impact. And really, the whole band just slams in this song, Hammett even delivering a rare interesting guitar solo here that works as a minor detour and melodic complement to all the aggression surrounding it. Lars turns in a fiery, well thought out attack caught halfway between groove and solid quasi-thrash pummeling — its not flashy, but it doesn’t have to be and frankly shouldn’t because as is it serves the best interests of this song. I really love this song, and it just bowled me over the first time I put the album on, putting a grin on my face as I drove around pumping my fist to a new Metallica album which was a small joy to realize while it was happening.

The band follows it up with two damn near as convincing gems in “Shadows Follow” and “Screaming Suicide”, creating the band’s best three song opening salvo since Justice (I wasn’t ever wild on “Sad But True” so The Black Album doesn’t qualify for this). Regarding the former, this sometimes flip flops with “72 Seasons” as my favorite cut on the album, there being something really satisfying about Hetfield’s cadence on the vocal lines during the verses, that sharp spittle flying bark and bite attack. His lyrics here are also truly some of his best in ages, for all three of these songs really, but I can’t help but love that line “On I run / still my shadows follow” — it’s such a simple idea thematically, but so eloquently phrased as to create a picture in your mind that most of us can relate to I’d think. Actually I’ll expand on this lyrical discussion by stating that I think this album is Hetfield’s finest batch of lyrics as a collective whole since the Load album (which barring a few songs was a masterwork of lyric writing on Hetfield’s part in my book). Much has been discussed, largely by him, of his personal trials and tribulations that have changed things in his life since Hardwired, and it’s refreshing to hear him approach these subjects in a way that avoids clunkiness, awkward word choice, instead feeling like a direct conduit with his raw emotions.

Things hit speed bumps when we reach “Sleepwalk My Life Away”, “You Must Burn!”, and “Crown of Barbed Wire”, three mid-tempo set plodders that make you eyeball that 1hr 17min runtime and wish that the band had a more vocal editor in the studio during the album sequencing and urged them to leave those for b-sides. The riffs here seem to be aiming for a groove metal adjacent approach, but rather than locking you into said groove, I find myself growing angsty at how plodding they feel, how unfocused and fuzzy everything comes across. Working as a palette cleanser to those middle of the tracklist duds is “Chasing Light” which has one of the most effective, sharpened choruses on the album with a fantastic vocal trade off hook. I also loved “If Darkness Had a Son”, where we get that classic sounding Metallica vocal hook from James, a call and response out of the darkness that is written with precision and maximum earwormy-ness. The album has a strong closing run overall really, “Too Far Gone?” and “Room of Mirrors” are rockin’ songs that have specific parts I find worth coming back for, and I always find myself nodding my head along.

Much has been made of the very Sabbath influenced doom tinged closer “Inamorata”, the album’s lengthiest song clocking in at over eleven minutes, the band’s longest song in their career. I’m giving it semi-high marks because it does present something kinda unique among the album and in Metallica’s career in general, harkening back in a way to their cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Astronomy” they did on Garage, Inc all those years ago. As for the length, there is a mid-song bridge dropout where everything comes to a hush, only to build back up into a cascade of rather gorgeously phrased guitar parts that seem like a true interplay between Hetfield and Hammett. It’s not a song I’m losing my mind over, but I did enjoy it and applaud the band hitting a different stride here. Speaking of Hammett… he’s the weak link on this album, because with a few exceptions including “Inamorata”, his solos are so repetitive, full of overpoured wah pedal and seemingly directionless phrasing. He’s come out swinging against the criticism lately but I think it’s warranted — because seriously Kirk, I get that you think it’s a direct line to your emotional gut, but it’s tiresome for everyone else. I’m surprised the band doesn’t suggest he ditch the pedal, if only to offer some sonic variance for the sake of introducing freshness when that guitar solo hits. It’s weird to single out a member for poor performance on a Metallica album and not have it be Lars, but the Dane was absolutely solid this outing. And props to Hetfield on a fine return to form, as much as he can get these days anyway. I was incredibly surprised at how much I enjoyed this.

March 27, 2023 2023, reviews Post a Comment

New albums from Insomnium, Enslaved and other new music thoughts!

There have been a few big names out with new records in this first quarter of the year, of particular note the Finnish melodeath titans Insomnium and Norway’s Enslaved, who if you’ve been following for any length of time will likely be aware of their far too proggy black metal approach over the course of the past decade plus. Despite my blah-dom over Enslaved’s recent albums (more or less anyway, there’s usually a track or two that has been worth hailing at least), I’m still interested in what they’re putting out if only because of the memory that still lingers of what they’ve delivered long in the past (I mean Axioma was thirteen years ago at this point, Ruun even longer!). The two bands are also embarking on a US trek that sees them getting as close to me as Austin, and I briefly considered going, but the list of other shows and events I’m attending in April is a bit too much to squeeze in another out of town trip (already heading up to Austin earlier in that week for another event). I will commend the bands on putting together a seriously value laden tour, two headliner worthy bands going the co-headline route is smart and something more bands really need to get together and do now that ticket service fees just seem to be skyrocketing higher and higher (gotta give The Cure’s Robert Smith props for shining a spotlight on this topic with his recent skirmish with Ticketmaster). Co-headlining packages makes a tour more feasible for the bands involved, helps fans save money and not have to pick and choose gigs, and just seems to be a win/win all around.

Insomnium’s newest, Anno 1696, is a lot like Winter’s Gate (2016) in that it’s based on a short story by bassist/vocalist Niilo Sevänen, this one loosely based on or inspired by the Torsåker witch trials (which by the way… brutal stuff), and in my opinion featuring a sound that also borrows a bit from the band’s more extreme blackened leanings on that album. It does not go full bore black metal however, keeping things reigned in a bit more in the traditional Insomnium mode, but this is decidedly a darker and more aggressive album than Heart Like A Grave (2019), which was an album I absolutely adored (it made that year’s top ten albums list). Like that album, this was largely a Marcus Vanhala written affair, with Sevänen handling lyrics, but founding guitarist Ville Friman popped back up on two songs and Jani Liimatainen contributed to a pair as well. I’ll admit that I miss the days when Friman was the creative musical force behind the band, his last real album wide input coming on Winter’s Gate and particularly Shadows of a Dying Sun before that. He’s scaled back his involvement largely due to his day job and that’s understandable, and to Vanhala’s credit as Heart Like A Grave has shown, he has been more than capable of fitting right into the Insomnium style and writing to suit this band’s creative approach rather than bringing over ideas from Omnium Gatherum. And I’ll be honest, Shadows was a bit of a letdown overall, but the best parts of that album had Friman’s very distinct tell-tale DNA, that unmistakable way of expressing melancholia that characterized so much of classics such as One For Sorrow and Across the Dark.

Friman’s songwriting is heard here on the album highlight “Lilian” and on the companion EP (included in the deluxe edition of the album) cut “Stained In Red”. Where the latter is set to a surprisingly fiery and aggressive uptempo rhythmic assault and splashes of melody thrown around like wild paintbrush strokes, the former is a tried and true Friman classic, all cascades of aching melodies draping over a storming progressive riff sequence. I really have trouble putting together in words just why Friman’s writing style is so affecting, but to me it’s what makes Insomnium’s sound so special, similarly to what Jesper Stromblad did for all those classic first five In Flames albums. But my two other favorite cuts from the album are a Vanhala tune in “Godforsaken” and a Sevänen/Liimatainen collaboration in “Starless Paths”. The former features accent vocals by Johanna Kurkela (aka Mrs. Tuomas Holopainen) and contains my favorite elegiac lead guitar melodies and a gripping, emotionally wrought outro vocal melody sequence. And “Starless Paths” really has to be one of the band’s best ever epics, the longest song on the album here at nearly eight minutes, it is built with several distinctive movements and never feels like it’s dragging or repeating itself, a genuine surprise (also the most Winter’s Gate adjacent moment on the record).

There’s enough dynamic variety on the album as a whole to keep things engaging throughout, songs such as “The Witch Hunter” and “The Unrest” having really earthen, rustic acoustic passages that are really effective at tempering all the aggression they’re sandwiched between. My only real meh reaction on the album unfortunately came on the collaboration with Rotting Christ’s Sakis Tolis in “White Christ”, which wasn’t a terrible tune, but felt a little plodding with nothing to offer in the way of mighty hooks or melodies (Tolis felt a little under utilized as well, I’m not exactly sure what he was supposed to bring to the song considering how lively he sounds in his main band and how muted he came across here). But over all, Anno 1696 is a solid, at times very good Insomnium album, though not living up to the dare I say masterpiece territory that Heart Like a Grave was knocking at the door of. They should try to get the three extra songs from the limited edition on the streaming services, because I do feel that despite increasing the overall tracklisting from a tidy eight to eleven, they do add quite a bit to the overall experience and don’t feel like mere b-sides left on the cutting room floor.

I have a bit less to say about the new Enslaved album Heimdal, and not because I dislike it entirely, though I still have an overall less than enthusiastic take on it as a whole. To get into what I liked about it straight away, it sounds like they have brought a slightly deeper guitar tone to the album than the relatively cleaner one they were using on Utgard, and that’s a good thing. It actually works well with the Sabbath-ian riffs they have going on in the opener “Behind the Mirror” and the strangely arranged “Forest Dweller”. I quite liked the latter, surprising even myself because it does contain one of those morose, flat sounding clean vocal passages that Enslaved has become so fond of that normally try my patience. I wonder if all the acoustic guitar here and there and strange, otherworldly arrangements make the song feel a lot more akin to folk metal that’s making it stand out to me as an album highlight. The best riff on the album belongs to “Kingdom”, that repeating intro figure is damn excellent and despite some detours into bumpy territory, the song largely remains engaging throughout. I enjoyed the urgent aggression on “Congelia” and the strange Nintendo sounding keyboard accompaniment that bounced alongside the riff midway through (I do think they could’ve tightened this song by a minute or two and made it better). And well, frankly the last three songs on the album I tend to zone out on each pass through so I guess that’s an accurate indicator of my interest level for those. I dunno Enslaved, you do you I guess, and I’ll keep hoping you’ll ditch the progressive meanderings and just get back to something that feels vital, urgent, and headbanging worthy.

Apart from spending time with the big names (ICYMI, I did a deep dive on the new In Flames album last update), there’s been a mix of new releases worth talking about however briefly. On the symphonic metal front, I actually thought the new Xandria album The Wonders Still Awaiting, the band’s first with new vocalist Ambre Vourvahis is fairly strong. It’s eerie just how similar their situation is to Nightwish’s during the Tarja to Anette transition, because former vocalist Dianne van Giersbergen was similarly of the classically inclined vocalist mode that has so defined Tarja, and Nightwish made the switch to a more mainstream adjacent vocalist in Anette Olzon. To her credit Vourvahis does possess some quasi-classical vocalist ability, though seemingly out of van Giersbergen’s league, but she makes up for it with a voice that’s adaptable to either pop or rock, even handling the extreme metal screams on the record. This has naturally lent a bit of a shift to songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist Marco Heubaum’s approach to new material, writing stuff that’s far less classically influenced. It’s how Nightwish pushed the classical stuff to be window dressing on Dark Passion Play and to a lesser extent, Imaginareum during the Anette era. Don’t get me wrong, I loved what van Giersbergen brought to this band, and her second album with the band, Sacrificium was a minor symphonic metal masterpiece, genuinely inspired and the kind of thing that breathed a little new life into an old formula. But it’s a wise move here, if you can’t outdo that album nor get a better or on par vocalist in the mold of van Giersbergen, don’t even try, just pivot into different direction. I think there will be a faction of their fans who aren’t enthusiastic about where they’re heading with Vourvahis, but just as many who will be along for the ride. I’m not saying this is the band’s best effort by any means, but the band avoided disaster here (who am I kidding, the band is all new members anyway, I’m talking about Marco specifically).

I found myself surprisingly just as enthusiastic about the new Delain album, largely I suspect because I’m not sure what I was expecting here really. Their new vocalist Diana Leah sounds rather good, she’s a talented singer and has a natural warmth in her tone that I quite enjoy. The guest vocalists Paolo Ribaldini and Marco Hietala (yep that one) do inspired appearances as well, and the songwriting is as tight and compact as the Martijn Westerholt has been known to deliver. I’m not an expert on this band, despite having seen them live at least six or eight times by now (have lost count it’s been so many), but one of my sneaking suspicions was that Charlotte Wessels might have been responsible for a lot of the lyrical cringe that prevented me from really engaging with their work in the past (“We Are the Others” springs to mind… good god). Now I’m not saying Wessels time in the band wasn’t without it’s merits, 2014’s The Human Contradiction was a solid record. But the new album, Dark Waters, might just be the best thing I’ve heard under the Delain banner, leaning into it’s fairly straightforward symphonic metal meets pop approach without apology. The aforementioned guest vocalists make a duo appearance on “Invictus” and damn if it’s not a really good song, just pompous grandeur with enough metallic teeth marks to convince someone they got bit. Put it this way, if I somehow see Delain on a package tour again for the umpteenth time, I’ll pay attention this go around instead of hanging in the back for most of their set.

Alright so a more rapid fire rundown of recent new stuff:

Riverside – ID.Entity: I think I’ve flirted in the past with the idea of Riverside being the natural successors to Porcupine Tree in the heavier prog-rock side of the prog spectrum, but they’ve really claimed that title with this new album. It’s simultaneously sad and exciting to say that I enjoyed this record way more than the recent Porcupine Tree reunion album. There’s just something very direct and punchy about these songs, despite all their very progressive time changes and veering off into different directions. It’s like Riverside are capable of doing all those very prog things while still keeping the reins on a song’s fundamental groove, riff, or melodic throughline. Go check out “Friend or Foe?” and tell me that’s not a damn hooky riff.

Lovebites – Judgement Day / Galneryus – Between Dread and Valor / Ethereal Sin – Time of Requiem Part. 2: Unleashed in the East! Erm…in other words, a handful of new albums by some storied Japanese bands in the power metal/symphonic power vein. I’m assuming everyone knows about Galneryus already, and the new album is a solid slice of what they do best. I really enjoyed the hell out of it even though I do acknowledge some of the production issues here that have the r/PowerMetal gang bent out of shape a tad. The new Lovebites is incredibly exciting, and songwriting wise it flows way better than their last two records (which I felt were great, but had a lot of jarringly awkward transitions). There was some fear that with founding member/bassist Miho leaving the group a few years back, they’d lose some of that NWOBHM/Iron Maiden influence that has so characterized their sound, but I don’t hear that here. If anything, I just hear a band that’s refined their sound to flow better, without sacrificing the jagged edges that give their attack the bite it’s always had. I’ll admit however that I was far more intrigued by the new album by longtime symphonic power/melodeath outfit Ethereal Sin, a band that’s new to me (thanks Christian!). This sounds like a mashup of Lovebites and Serenity In Murder, and I’m here for it — genuinely one of the more viscerally exciting albums I’ve heard this year. Search for it on Spotify by artist name because the album and song titles are listed in Japanese, but do give it a shot, I keep coming back to it.

Marauder – Metal Constructions VII: So this weirdly titled slab of old school metal was a happy surprise, a really well executed no frills, ample aggression filled collection of stuff that reminds me of equal parts Metal Church, Accept, and Armored Saint. A song like “Strike Back Again” hits that perfect sweet spot of furious, headbanging rage and impeccable melodic vocal melodies with well crafted supporting guitar melodies. I said this title was weird, and yeah there aren’t Metal Constructions I-VI that predate this album (shrug), but Marauder is a band that’s been around for awhile now… long enough to be called veterans anyway.

Frozen Crown – Call of the North: This is a rebound from 2021’s Winterbane, which was a worrying moment for this young band, but thankfully guitarist/songwriter Federico Mondelli sharpened his knives here. It’s a solid power metal album that accents the melodic two lead vocalist approach that Frozen Crown aims for, with Giada Etro sounding solid but my hat tip going to Mondelli’s lead vocals scattered throughout, with his moments on “Black Heart” really showing just how good he can be as a singer. I had fun listening to this overall, even though it didn’t blow me away like Crowned In Frost did in 2019.

That’s it for this update, there’s more albums I’ve listened to in the past few weeks/months that I just haven’t gotten enough time with or had “sink in” yet that will likely be covered in the next cluster-y update like this. Also the new Kamelot has only been out a week so I’m still ruminating on that one for a possible deep dive and the new Keep of Kalessin is raising my eyebrows as well so look forward to something on that.

March 1, 2023 2023, In Flames, Melo-Death, reviews Post a Comment

Foregone Conclusions: Have In Flames returned to their Gothenburg roots?

There’s been such a steady murmur of anticipation about this album that I simply couldn’t ignore it like I had the past couple In Flames albums. Of course the single that started all this chatter, “State of Slow Decay”, was released way the hell back in summer of 2022, and it’s undeniably Gothenburg-ish, At the Gates-ian trademark riff sequences got everyone’s attention and had metalheads all over nudging their friends to ask, “Have you heard the new In Flames?”. But I was cautious, refusing to listen to the single itself, but reading opinions from people who had and reading comments online here and there. When a couple months later they released the second single from the album, “The Great Deceiver”, this low grade buzz became audibly louder, and I felt myself digging in harder, because I wasn’t about to let this band make a fool of me like they had for years and years straight when I’d eagerly buy each new album in the post-Reroute to Remain era hoping that it would be the one where the band would turn things around (for the record, I stopped after 2011’s Sounds of a Playground Fading… god that album title, yeeesh).

Recently however, I gave into curiosity as the album release drew nearer and listened to both of the initial singles one night (they went on to release three more in between then and release day… dudes, that’s about half the album, a bit much no?). I was reticent about sharing my opinion on them until I heard the album as a whole but I had to admit that I understood why folks were either intrigued and even a little hopeful. Hell even the album art was suggestive, far more metal-esque than anything they’ve slapped on an album jacket since I dunno, are going back as far as Colony here? Why am I being so cagey about this dumb album you wonder? Because at one point, In Flames really meant a whole heck of a lot to me, I discovered them a few months after Clayman was released and within a couple weeks had already acquired the entirety of their back catalog and would spend the next year obsessing over them and anything else coming out of Gothenburg past and present. The pinnacle was seeing In Flames do a headlining gig that December, a tale I detailed in an autobiographical piece a few years ago. Their music helped me through a rough time and I was incredibly attached to those first five albums, so I gave them a lengthy benefit of doubt when it came to future output, even though it mostly left a bad taste in my mouth.

Now having had time to process Foregone in full over the course of a week, I think that it’s fair to say its the band’s best album of their Reroute to Remain-present day era. It is arguably the best modern In Flames album alongside Come Clarity (and perhaps even slightly edging it), but it is most certainly not a return to “form” if what we mean by form is the sound of their classic first five albums. And I’ll emphasize that last bit, because anyone trying to convince you otherwise is either lying to themselves and you, or doesn’t really understand the difference between the band’s musical approach during their classic era to everything that came in the wake of Reroute (whose album title only looks more precient in retrospect). The difference, in a nutshell, is as follows: Classic era In Flames (Lunar Strain thru Clayman) was written with lead guitar melodies and/or riff sequences as the central motif of a song, often times serving as a hook or refrain, while vocalists Mikael Stanne and subsequently Anders Friden screamed around them. Modern In Flames (ie anything Reroute and onwards) is written around Anders Friden’s vocal melodies as the central refrain, leaving the lead guitars to work around his (often clean) vocal parts. Clayman is a bit of a transition album between these two eras, because while tunes like “Swim”, “Square Nothing” and others were firmly in the old school In Flames mode, you saw the band experimenting with Anders led songs such as “Only For The Weak”, “Pinball Map” and “Bullet Ride” (and because he was only tentatively trying out clean vocals here, these were largely screamed choruses and didn’t sound all that shocking or out of place).

So when I listen to the first single here, “State of Slow Decay”, I get that people flipped out about the Gothenburg elements, but despite those (and they are warm and familiar to hear, as strange as that might sound), I still hear a song built around an Anders’ clean vocal chorus, which lands like a sinking stone. It’s just not a good hook, it takes all the energy that was ripping through the verse segments and pumps the brakes on everything hard, coming across as anti-climatic more than anything. A more suitably old school adjacent track is the third single “Foregone Pt 1”, which seems to pivot around that very Whoracle/Colony riff during the verse build up, and even though we get the expected Anders led vocal chorus, its actually fairly intense and energetic in it’s shape and his aggressive delivery. This is definitely the closest they’ve gotten to touching upon that old school spirit and it was genuinely a thrill to hear it — this is really what I wanted The Halo Effect’s debut to sound like. Worth mentioning here is the unconventionally patterned “The Great Deceiver”, where I did get a bit of whiplash to a sound that really reminded me of something that could’ve been on Clayman, with Anders semi-clean/largely screamed chorus and a really simple yet deft and effective riff pattern that is one of the most addictive things they’ve cooked up in years. If the rest of the album was more in line with the approach taken on these two songs, I think people would be flipping out about this record way more than they were hoping to.

The truth is that this album is largely rooted in the sound of modern In Flames, with a noticeable step up in the overall aggression levels (I had to go back and slog through I, The Mask and Battles to determine that for godssake). And in fairness, I do enjoy some modern In Flames, the aforementioned Come Clarity was a relatively decent post-Reroute Jesper Stromblad era album (though it’s not aged nearly as well as I’d hoped), and I liked some sporadic songs from the albums that followed after that), and I can honestly say that there are a few modern In Flames songs on Foregone that I think are legit some of their best in that vein. As far as clean vocal Anders goes, I don’t think he’s ever sounded as good as he does on “Pure Light of Mind”, his vocals hitting an quasi-falsetto tone in the verses and a really solid, modern rock approach that actually suits him in the chorus which is itself an incredibly satisfying vocal melody. It’s that rare semi-power ballad that the band have tried before but never been able to quite pull off, and the clean vocals here are a boon to the song, not a hinderance. Similarly effective is “A Dialogue In B Flat Minor”, where Anders goes clean on the pre-chorus and chorus together, and though some may find those lyrics in the refrain a bit corny, it somehow works as a memorable earworm. I could easily see many hating this song with a passion, it’s so close to everything we tend to detest about modern In Flames (and it could be that I’m just a sucker for a really well written hook and am giving it a pass on the cringe factor).

Elsewhere on the album however, I found that most of these songs weren’t all together that remarkable, at times walking that fine line between boring and aggravating. A song like “Cynosure” really sounds like something that could’ve fit into any of their past six albums, with a few cool musical elements grabbing your attention, but the band failing to mold it into a cohesive whole. Ditto for “In The Dark”, where thick growling vocals can’t mask a dreadful hook, and the mid-song abrupt transition fails to make up the deficit (though I’ll admit the twin guitar solo towards the end is a nice moment). And did anyone get real “The Quiet Place” flashbacks when hearing “Meet Your Maker”? I can’t help but hear echoes of that song every time this track comes on (as you might have guessed, not exactly a ringing endorsement then). I didn’t mind “Bleeding Out” nearly as much, even though Anders leans a little too close to that whining tone in the chorus here that I can’t help but be irked by at this point. And “End the Transmission” is a decent album closer, built on a chunky riff that segues into a rather unusual pre-chorus/chorus that works despite sounding clunky on the surface. There actually aren’t any songs I completely dislike on the album as a whole, but most of this stuff falls in the category of “Eh, it’s alright”. In short, there’s nothing here that genuinely excites me.

In the past few years, I’ve avoided listening to pre-release singles by metal bands for the most part, usually because they’re a flawed indicator of the album as a whole and I don’t want my opinion going in to be negatively influenced. In the case of Foregone, listening to those first two singles a couple weeks ago might have worked in my favor because they really helped realign my expectations for what the reality was likely going to be, in comparison to people’s fanciful hopes. I’m actually glad that I didn’t hear the instrumental album opening track, “The Beginning of All Things That Will End”, as my first taste of this album — because that actually is the best song on the album in terms of going back to the sound of those first five In Flames albums. It’s not earthshaking either, but I’ll always associate the sound of prettily melancholic Scandinavian folk melodies played on acoustic with a somber cello swooping in underneath as a trademark of those hallowed Stromblad driven classics. Had I heard it first, I would have really been let down by the rest of Foregone, and this review might have been angrier and harsher, but as it is, that instrumental just makes me sad. Because it’s clear that Anders and Bjorn (Gelotte), the remaining two members from that classic era, know what they would have to do in order to really go back to that old sound (they got damn close on “Foregone, Pt 1”), but for reasons known only to themselves, they simply won’t do it. And maybe they genuinely can’t, not for a whole album. Maybe that DNA left when Jesper left the band… but he’s not putting it to use in The Halo Effect, and dammit, no other band has come forward to claim that incredible sound and do it anew, and I’ve been craving it’s return for over twenty years now and am still hungry.

February 1, 2023 2023, Charon, Finland, Gothic Metal, The Metal Pigeon Recommends 1 Comment

The Metal Pigeon Recommends — Part Four: Charon

In keeping with my approach for the blog in 2023 to stay away from the reviews treadmill (for the most part) and let my intuition as a metal fan guide how and what I write on this site for a change, I’ve walked into the new year uncertain of what I was going to discuss next here. I waited for inspiration to strike really, listening to mostly sports talk radio, podcasts, and random non-metal music in the gaps in between. Recently, while driving to work on a cold morning, I felt the out of nowhere urge to jam some Charon, the oft-forgotten Finnish goth metal band whose sound was largely inspired and tied to that of fellow countrymen Sentenced (incidentally, the last band I profiled for this series many years ago). I pulled up Spotify’s “This is Charon” playlist and let it rip.

It struck me while sitting there in traffic jamming to these songs that this was a band that no one ever really talked about anymore, a thought that saddened me. Charon might have got caught in the shadow of Sentenced, and understandably so, but they put out a handful of pretty strong gothic metal records of their own, and more importantly, their presence in the international metal landscape helped to solidify this sound as distinctly Finnish, related yet quite different from goth metal godfathers Type O Negative. So in keeping with the still relatively short-lived tradition of this series, I’m presenting below ten cuts from Charon in chronological order to serve as a convincing introduction or gentle reminder that this band is worth checking out, remembering, and celebrating.

“4 Seasons Rush” (from 2000’s Tearstained)

Charon’s sophomore album Tearstained was the beginning of Charon as we all grew to love them, that’s not meant to be a slight on their debut, 1998’s Sorrowburn, but that album was their transition from the band’s early death metal roots (much like their peers in Sentenced) in that they were finding their footing, trying to figure out how to write for melodic vocals while still retaining some minor vestiges of their extreme roots. On this album, they had a better idea of how to write for the deep, gravelly singing voice of JP Leppäluoto, who himself was allowed to have a greater runway for his vocal melodies — his impact being immediately felt on the album’s best song, “4 Seasons Rush”, an emotional onslaught of a tune crafted with tension building and release in mind. JP affects an almost warbling, uncentered approach in the verses here, as if leaning towards overdramatic pastiche, only to roar back with his raw and real anguished vocal in that ultra powerful chorus. That chilling cello that serves as an unnerving segue outro from the refrain is one of the more unexpected yet inspired moments in the band’s catalog.

“As We Die” (from 2000’s Tearstained)

I think it’d be fair to call Tearstained a relatively uneven album — frankly there were moments where you felt like some songs needed a longer bake, but it did have a handful of strong tunes and “As We Die” was top of mind for me when considering the record as a whole. And while it wasn’t as inventive as “4 Seasons Rush”, it was a sublime slice of goth-rock/metal (whatever you think it deserves to be tagged as), built on a steady rhythm and purposeful chord progression to let JP’s vocal delivery carry the load. It’s really the depressive lyrics that pull you in here, talking about lovelorn despondency and just general malaise. Charon eschewed the sardonic word play of Sentenced or the unabashed romanticism of HIM on the lyrical front, instead working with a blunt directness in their lyrical approach that cut straight to the heart.

“Bitter Joy” (from 2002’s Downhearted)

I love the downward rhythmic tumble in the chorus of this overlooked gem from the band’s 2002’s gothic masterpiece Downhearted, all set up with a rather straightforward groove based riff sequence with weird synth effects thrown in for texture (surprisingly effective too). My favorite minor detail here is how JP’s vocals careen right through the ending of the pre-chorus with the lyric “My heart is all for open – for you two” and when the rest of the band crash back in a full second later, that impact is so damn satisfying in a visceral way. So much of really good gothic metal is about riding a feeling and emphasizing the punctuation marks whenever they come. That’s why a song such as “Bitter Joy” with it’s relatively simple, uncomplicated riff sequences can still impact you in a massive way via subtle details such as timing and intention.

“Craving” (from 2002’s Downhearted)

A slice of quintessential Finnish gothic metal, and one of the songs that exemplify JP as one of the genre’s best most expressive vocalists (dare I say even better than Sentenced’s Ville Laihiala from a purely technical standpoint), from the clarity of his enunciation to the utter outpouring of emotion heard in his voice during this excellent chorus. Founding guitarist Jasse von Hast was on a songwriting tear across Downhearted, penning three of it’s most stellar songs, splitting the writing duties with fellow guitarist Pasi Sipilä. While Sipilä has kept a low profile since Charon ended in 2005, von Hast went on to form the death-doom outfit Tomb of Finland where he’s continued his creative streak as a songwriter in delivering some pretty great records (we covered them on our podcast this past year). For both guys however, their songwriting work in Charon tends to get overlooked, with most of the band’s accolades going to JP (deservedly so, don’t get me wrong). Together they knocked out one of the finest gothic metal albums ever written here, and deserve to be acknowledged for it.

“Little Angel” (from 2002’s Downhearted)

Here it is, the band’s apex moment, a song that not only rocketed to nearly the top of the Finnish singles chart but remains one of the subgenre’s most compelling songs ever penned. This was another von Hast penned song, and it’s a credit to his versatility as a writer that someone so rooted in extreme metal is capable of crafting a song this entrenched in gothic angst and glorious drama. It’s not just that “Little Angel” is memorable, it’s about how and why it’s so memorable (and no its not because of the very brooding and suggestive music video, check it out). This is one of those songs that legitimately has three separate hooks, each uniquely addictive for reasons unto themselves. The verse is based on a synth groove and JP’s solitary compelling vocal melody, and it focuses your attention on the pseudo-maniacal lyrics with clever poetic framing (“Pain… / Fire…”). The sudden drop into the chorus with guitars crashing in is purposefully jarring, but the clever twist here is that they only deliver this chorus by itself at first, segueing right into another verse before adding a little guitar color towards the end to differentiate this go round in your mind — and then that downright epic, aching lead guitar motif rips through your heart, revealing itself as the true melodic hook after the chorus. A post chorus for the ages then.

“Desire You” (from 2002’s Downhearted)

Another von Hast classic on Downhearted, this power ballad was built on a pulsing bass line and gentle, floaty chord sequences, supporting a beautiful duet with JP’s gravelly accented vocals paired against the dark wine colored tones of frequent Charon collaborator Jenny Heinonen. The push and pull within this song is what has made it so compelling to me over the years, being one of those growers on the album that I didn’t appreciate upon release but have come to love since then. That being the juxtaposing dynamics between hushed quietude and a layered blanket of riffs — an effect that gives emotional weight to the build up and a cathartic release of tension. The lyrics here are spare, devoid of flowery diction, a seemingly deliberate choice that worked incredibly well given the context. Charon were never recognized as a particularly literate band, JP and company choosing to write lyrics that were more blunt than most of their goth rock/metal peers, but they knew how make it feel natural and even purposeful.

“In Trust Of No One” (from 2003’s The Dying Daylights)

There’s only one song on this list here from 2003’s The Dying Daylights, and that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy this album as a whole, because I think it’s a solid record for the most part, but it had the misfortune of being sandwiched between Downhearted and Songs for the Sinners and that’s left it looking a little more underwhelming in comparison. There’s some really fantastic material on the album though, “Religious/Delicious”, “If”, “Every Failure” to mention a few, but “In Trust Of No One” is head and shoulders above the rest in terms of memorability. One of the band’s most uptempo, rock n’ roll injected tunes, Sipilä builds this around an Iron Maiden inspired circular lead motif that sort of sets the tempo and the tone throughout. I love the rhythm guitar shading on the pre-chorus, a deliberately simple chord progression that fills in so much sound and injects so much vivid color into that space. Not gonna avoid it, this was their most Sentenced sounding moment, it could’ve easily passed as one of that band’s tunes. I won’t hold it against them though, a great song is a great song.

“Colder” (from 2005’s Songs for the Sinners)

My favorite cut from Songs for the Sinners, the band’s 2005 swansong, “Colder” reigns supreme not only as one of the band’s greatest ever tunes, but a sterling example of just how powerful music in this stylistic vein could be when executed to its fullest. Little touches like guest vocalist Jenny Heinonen’s beautiful melodies as a recurring motif and her harmonized backing vocal add a lush depth to JP’s lines in the verse sections, giving this song a distinct character all it’s own (particularly in that Charon chose to avoid the beauty and the beast vocal archetype that was really popular around this time). I love the complexity heard in Sipilä’s lead melody during the post-chorus sequence, adding a bit of intensity right after an already passionately delivered chorus. This is also the band’s finest set of lyrics, vague and mysterious in intent yet still full of concrete and direct imagery that grounds it. There’s something magnetic about this song, one of those songs you replay over and over again when you first hear it, and even years later when you’re revisiting it.

“Deep Water” (from 2005’s Songs for the Sinners)

Following directly after “Colder” on the tracklist, “Deep Waters” always stuck with me due to the little details that popped up throughout, the repeating clean guitar that chimed up below that crunchy riff, the offset silence in the post chorus outro, and of course that downright awesome lead guitar melody that was the song’s true hook, hidden away behind one of JP’s more theatrical vocal performances on a Charon song, kinda akin to the stuff he’s been doing lately in his career in various different avenues (dude is a celebrity on Finnish television as a theatrical singer). For a large part of his time in Charon, he stuck to a gothic rock/metal mode, and we really didn’t get a chance to hear just how versatile of a singer he was until stuff like Northern Kings and Raskasta Joulua. This song was a brief glimpse at where he’d end up, and one of the many gorgeous slices of ache on Songs for the Sinners.

“House of the Silent” (from 2005’s Songs for the Sinners)

One of the band’s most lengthy and complex tracks ever (relatively speaking of course, this is a band that usually sat in the three to four minute range), it was also one of their most mournfully beautiful. Charon spent more time speaking about lovelorn anguish than pondering on the meaning of existence, but here they seem to merge the two, speaking about a “silent house where the love in bloom died”. By the end of the song, we’re not entirely certain either way whether JP was singing about the end of a relationship or the end of a life, so intertwined is the imagery of both in these lyrics. The depth of this storytelling occurs within the guitar interplay of Sipilä and then new guitarist Lauri Tuohimaa, who both go wild on the instrumental bridge with a gorgeous melodic motif and inspired soloing all around it. That their playing ushers along the fade out towards the end seems fitting, the final song on the final album of a band that was going to call it a day, albeit unknowingly at the time.

January 7, 2023 2022, Best of, Blog related 1 Comment

The Metal Pigeon’s Best of 2022 // Part Two: The Albums

The annual best of list here at The Metal Pigeon has been an ongoing tradition since I started the blog way back in late 2011. In all those years of writing up lists, I’ve never had as hard a time putting one together as I have for 2022 — not for a lack of fantastic albums, but because of a surplus of them. The ten albums below are culled from an initial pool of twenty-ish nominees, down to a more manageable sixteen, from which I agonizingly forced myself down to my traditional ten. The cuts were hard to make, but harder still was the ordering of this list, particularly the top five (those two at the top in particular I flip-flopped over a dozen times easy) for which I made myself a little crazy re-ordering this way and that. I think that speaks volumes about the sheer quality of the albums on this list however, because most years there are very apparent front runners for those top five spots at least and I’m usually very decisive about it.

It was a really great year for metal, and a much better year for me as a metal fan largely because all the healthier new habits I’ve adopted after 2021’s near burnout have made me a smarter music listener. It’s time to extend that to blogging as well, so expect less of a reviews focus here in 2023 (I already started scaling back in 2022 if you hadn’t noticed) and more of an actual commentary from my perspective as a metal fan (more in line with the actual tagline for the blog!). I want to be more beholden to my own internal musings about metal rather than having to adhere to the release calendar, which is just a treadmill that never seems to end and really risks burning you out. I’ll still have plenty to say about really important records for sure, and will have recommendations to throw your way, that won’t ever change. Speaking of which, let’s get on with just that — If you love metal of any stripe, you’ll find something to really enjoy on this list (likely some of you already know most of these), and be sure to take a glance at the first part of the Best of 2022 feature covering the best songs of the year.

1. Xaon – The Lethean:

This will only be the fourth time in the history of the blog that the same band has captured both the top spot on the best songs and albums list in a particular year. It will be however the third year in a row that a band has managed that feat: Therion did it in 2021, Seven Spires did it in 2020, and before that Avantasia was the first to do it in 2016, but it’s a rarity for a reason, because band’s rarely deliver both an iconic song and a flawless album in one go (and it’s worth crowing about when they do). I had no idea who Xaon were before The Lethean was introduced to me via my cohost Cary on a random late summer episode of the MSRcast, and the song we played on the show (the aforementioned best songs list topper “If I Had Wings”) lingered long in my mind after we finished recording. When I eventually checked out the rest of the album, I don’t think I expected it to reach the same heights as that beautifully epic masterpiece of a song, but somehow, Xaon managed to create a front to finish work of art that not only thrilled me with it’s intensity, but challenged my idea of what progressive metal could sound like and more importantly achieve in terms of it’s visceral emotional impact. That progressive tag by the way is my own inclusion, because although they’re labeled as symphonic death metal on Metallum, to my ears they have more in common with an artist such as… Subterranean Masquerade than they do solely with Fleshgod Apocalypse or Septicflesh. This comes through straightaway in the songwriting, via an unorthodox approach to the way these guys approach arrangements and song structures in general, sometimes even forgoing traditional verse/chorus/bridge sequences altogether. They seemed to arrange their songs into something akin to movements at times, such as on “The Hunt”, with its ever mutating riff sequences and unrelentingly punishing percussive rhythmic attack, all while gorgeous orchestral melodies spiral off on their own accord. The effect was jarring but utterly hypnotic and compelling, the end result being that I just had to hear it again, and again, and again.

A remarkable thing about The Lethean is that it sees the introduction of two new guitarists in the band’s lineup, those most crucial of positions (and also this being the band’s first album without former guitarist / songwriter Vincent Zermatten), with new guys Eerik Maurage and Klin HC making their debut on this album. Pretty astonishing considering their work here just goes for the throat in terms of riff intensity and complexity. But clearly the focal point of the band is vocalist and longest tenured member Rob Carson, who not only seems to be the creative focal point here but also handled the mixing and mastering of the album (no small feat, the sound design here is perfect). Carson might be my favorite vocalist discovery of the year, a singer whose range veers from a suitably gravely textured throat for screaming vox, and a clean voice that is capable of gentle, emotive melodies ala Steven Wilson or Mikael Akerfeldt as on the closing lament “Telos”. He’s at his most impressive however when he blends those two styles into something very much his own, as heard on “If I Had Wings”, “Wayward Son”, or “In Pyrrhic Seas”, a full throated, unhinged sounding clean metal vocal that sounds like Primordial’s Alan Averill meshed with Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes. The last few minutes of “And Yet I Smile” demonstrates his versatility in another unpredictable way, with a guttural meets clean vocal melody that would sound at home on both a Carach Angren and Orphaned Land record (his voice is damn versatile). There was not a single weak moment or minute wasted on this album, a rarity for a track list that exceeded the fifty minute mark (just barely by a minute-ish). It’s also an album that is very challenging to describe into words, because I don’t think I’ve ever quite heard anything like it. Yes it has the orchestrations and grandeur inherent in symphonic metal, and certainly it has the progressive death metal that would hook in fans of older Opeth or Amorphis or Edge of Sanity even — but this is an album that is so much more than the sum of it’s parts. Carson and company have molded these influences into something that is actually original, that seethes with primal energy and is also dazzlingly beautiful, and in the process have created the most thrilling and convincing metal album of the year.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2022)

2.  Brymir – Voices in the Sky:

In a perfect world, there would be a way for Brymir’s incredible, nigh flawless Voices in the Sky to sit atop the album of the year list on this blog, perhaps by being released a year earlier or later, but alas it had the misfortune of running up alongside that Xaon album and well, it will have to settle here. I’ll be honest though, in my stressing over the assembly of this list, it sat at the very top for about half of the various revisions and there were a few times were I toyed around with flipping a coin to see who would get the top spot. What I ultimately worked out however was giving the edge to The Lethean because it presented a band that was new to me who had a sound that I genuinely felt I hadn’t heard before, whereas Voices in the Sky is the perfection of a sound that I’ve heard Brymir making progress on throughout their career. Head to head, I went with rewarding the band that was entirely novel to me, but that shouldn’t lessen Brymir’s accomplishment here in any way. Their previous album Wings of Fire (2019) was an incredibly promising and sometimes frustrating listen — you could tell they were still trying to work out how to balance the disparate elements in their sound, that furious neoclassical infused Finnish black metal blitz with that sparkly, sugary power metal melodicism. They figured it out in full on Voices in the Sky, crafting a fully realized vision of what their sound should be, with instant classics such as “Fly With Me” and “Far From Home”, shining examples of that multifaceted, dynamic songwriting approach honed to a razor sharp edge. The “Herald of Aegir” was my personal highlight on the album, an ascending to the heavens skyrocketing banger that was framed by absolutely explosive epic vocal harmonies courtesy of bassist Jarkko Niemi and guitarist Joona Björkroth (these guys deserve the MVP award for their stellar work throughout the album as complements to lead vocalist Viktor Gullichsen). The songwriting throughout the album displayed admirable creativity and craftsmanship, with songs centered around precision hooks yet unafraid to be adventurous and zigzag in unexpected ways elsewhere. This album rocked with conviction and a genuinely fiery spirit, something rare and worth cherishing.

3.  Månegarm – Ynglingaättens öde:

This album was at one point the leading contender for topping the album of the year list, having a brief head start on the two above it. Despite being bumped down a few spots, it is far and away my favorite traditional folk metal album of the past decade, and that’s saying a lot considering we’ve enjoyed a folk metal renaissance over the past few years. Although Månegarm had been putting out fairly solid records throughout the years with a few stumbles and missteps, they seem to have stuck upon a rich vein of inspiration here. These songs interweave gorgeous Scandinavian folk instrumentation with metallic elements so effortlessly that it gives the entire album a rustic, earthen, and organic feel that has proven so difficult for bands to achieve (so many who try often fall into traps of gimmickry and silliness). The glue that makes it all work is the absolute earnestness that comes through in these individual performances, both musically and vocally, with singer Erik Grawsiö’s work here at the top of the list. He seems to effortlessly glide from charcoal black metal grimness to a gruff melodic singing voice, with forays into beautifully deep, layered folky harmonies. There is a stellar cast of guest vocalists here as well, all bringing strikingly different tones to these songs, of particular note being Lea Grawsiö Lindström (Erik’s daughter) and past collaborator Ellinor Videfors, who both turn in star turns on their respective songs (Lea’s appearance on “En snara av guld” being one of my songs of the year). Martin Björklund’s violin work throughout the album is key to it’s sheer beauty in many moments, a honeyed counterpoint to the often ferocious metallic attack that sounds way louder than a three piece metal band should. So crucial is the interweaving of the violin parts that I’m considering Björklund as important as guitarist Markus Andé, who is also having a career moment here himself. I can’t fully express just how gratifying of a listen this album was, and how damn difficult it made sorting out this year’s best albums list along with the two troublemakers above. Sometimes albums end up on this list that I just don’t get back to very often as the years roll by, but I feel in my gut that this won’t be one of those.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2022)

4.  Saor – Origins:

One of my most listened to albums of 2022, Saor’s Origins was the go to soundtrack for most of my summer when I wasn’t listening to you know, Judas Priest, Dokken, and Scorpions (ie summertime jams). Unlike the earthen warmth that permeated 2019’s Forgotten Paths and it’s more rootsy folk metal infusions, Saor’s singular member Andy Marshall expands his palette on Origins, incorporating not only specific Celtic instrumentation with bagpipes, but lush keyboard orchestrations that are cinematic in their arrangement. It’s fitting for an album that dreams of cloud streaked skies, winds rippling through mountains, and a sense of wide open spaces. What really surprised me was how spiritual this music felt, and how personal that feeling could still be when it was the near inverse of Forgotten Path’s inward looking feelings. Part of Marshall’s success in crafting his sound is his ability to create atmospheric folk metal that sounds naturally blended together — at no point do the folk elements seem forced or clumsily thrust in out of place. On “Aurora”, Marshall delivers an aching lead melody, these bent melodic lines that all of a sudden give way to a lonely bagpipe sounding solo that eventually reintroduces the lead guitar back with a melancholic counterpoint, the combination of which is one of the most epic things I’ve heard. I suspect the other big musical aspect of Origins’ success is the decision to scale back the purely atmospheric black metal in favor of a more mixed upfront, straight ahead metal guitar attack. The lack of waves of tremolo riff layering actually lends more space within the framework of these songs, allowing the folk elements to breathe more and incorporate into things a little easier. Atmospheric folk metal rarely sounds this cinematic and powerful at the same time, its a difficult balance to get right, but on Origins Marshall created an album that sets itself apart from the rest of the subgenre, and was easily one of the most beautiful albums of the year.

5.  Gladenfold – Nemesis:

One of just a few artists on this list that were completely new to me, Gladenfold came out of nowhere this year courtesy a random Spotify playlist placement and knocked me sideways. Their blend of keyboard heavy Finnish melodic death metal with generous swirls of Kamelot or classic era Sonata power metal has proven to be a revelation, and on Nemesis they’ve channeled this versatile, dynamic sound through incredibly assured songwriting. Alongside Xaor’s Rob Carson, Gladenfold vocalist Esko Itälä made the biggest impression on me this year for turning in a vocal performance that was not only surprising in it’s scope, but in just how well he was able to deliver all the varying facets of his vocal approach. Be it the gorgeous Roy Khan-ian rich smoothness of his singing on “Saraste” or “Where Mountains Mourn” where his deep, sonorous timbre created emotional swells that moved like gentle waves; or the sharpness of his melodeath growl on “Chiara’s Blessing” and “Revelations” that is a damn convincing blend of early Bodom era Alexi and Suidakra’s Arkadius Antonik and all shades in between. It’s rare to have a vocalist doing double duty on harshes and cleans where you’re satisfied at any particular moment — most of the time you find yourself wanting more of one style than the other. Itälä may have the most intriguing power metal voice to emerge in the last decade, because though I can sit here spitting out comparisons all day, the truth is that he really has a distinct tone all his own and I’m excited to see how he can develop it further. Not to ignore the band’s accomplishments as a whole however, because the performances here are incredible and the songwriting is masterfully crafted, full of depth and with intricate designs that build towards satisfying payoffs in hooks and musical refrains. This lushly layered album unfolded over a multitude of listens, as I was unable to escape it’s pull and kept returning to it again and again.

6.  Therion – Leviathan II:

The latest in the continuing trilogy of albums that are the closest thing to fan service you could possibly expect from a band that has made a career of doing things their own way (stubbornly at that), Leviathan II avoided being a let down in the wake of its stunningly awesome predecessor (and last year’s best albums list topper), instead living up to its promise of being a nod towards the band’s enchantingly softer, melancholic side. The rush of warm nostalgia that I get when listening through Leviathan II is something I have a hard time putting into words. If you loved albums such as Vovin and Deggial in the past and obsessed over them as hard as I did, you might be able to understand what I’m referring to. But its also the splash of gothic metal vibes that I get from tunes such as “Alchemy of the Soul” and “Lunar Colored Fields” that really hits me in the feels. It brings to mind forgotten bands from that mid to late 90s era when gothic and symphonic metal were budding seeds — and black shirt adorned Euro kids would huddle in tiny clubs with bad lighting and rickety stages and listen to music that made them feel like they were on a hillside full of flowers. The shining gem here is the best songs listee “Cavern Cold As Ice”, one of the most bright and beautiful uptempo Therion songs to date, recalling such disparate touchstones such as their old ABBA cover “Summernight City” and the title track of the Gothic Kabbalah album. That this album isn’t higher on the list, perhaps even at the top isn’t a slight against it’s quality, but more of a commentary on just how incredible the rest of the albums above it on the list were. I loved Leviathan II a great deal, perhaps just slightly under its predecessor where the band caught a little accidental inspiration by focusing more heavily on vocal melodies than ever before and created something truly fresh. This album by contrast revels in old school mid-late 90s nostalgia, and its for that reason that I love it to death.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2022)

7.  Dawn of Destiny – Of Silence:

Dawn of Destiny just doesn’t know how to disappoint really, with all of their albums since 2014’s best albums listee F.E.A.R. landing somewhere in between very good and damn great. Their mix of gothic metal and hard rock with tinges of power metal hits a sweet spot for me that is put over the top by the pipes of vocalist Jeanette Scherff. But despite the band delivering strong records in all these years since F.E.A.R., this is the first time we’re seeing them return to the Best of list in nearly a decade, which means that Of Silence is truly a special record, not merely a great one. Truth be told it’s hard to tell what happened here to elevate things, because Scherff is as impressive as she’s ever been, but the secret might be in bassist/songwriter Jens Faber just feeling himself creatively these days. He put out another awesome record in his side project with Henning Basse in Legions of the Night, their second in the past year, and those along with Of Silence just prove that he should be considered one of the premier songwriters in the greater melodic metal world right now (he’s not of course, just like Scherff being an underrated and overlooked singer, Faber is rarely given the credit he’s due). This album has some of the band’s best ever tunes, the gorgeous best songs listee power ballad “Little Flower”, the thunderously heavy “Judas in Me” with it’s Accept-ian riffs and rhythmic swagger, and the breathlessly rushing epic “Say My Name”. Not a weak song on this tracklist and front to finish just incredibly strong songwriting — one of the most rewarding albums I had the pleasure of listening to all year.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2022)

8.  Einvigi – Yö kulje kanssani:

It’s rare that atmo-black makes appearances on my year end lists, Alcest being the exception really, because most of the time I appreciate atmo-black for it’s pretty ear candy qualities alone, and rarely get into it on a more personal, emotional level. Finland’s Einvigi released an album this past April that was the exception to that, a record that was more concerned with expressing emotions on an intimate, personal scale rather than the grand sonic gestures of some of their contemporaries. What I loved the most about these songs was the emphasis on building them not around blasts of dissonant tremolo passages and heavily distorted fuzzy wash (there was plenty of it however), instead structuring them around looser, jangly guitar patterns reminiscent of alternative rock bands such as The Cranberries or Smashing Pumpkins. No kidding, there are times when I felt like this was what Siamese Dream might have sounded like if put through a black metal filter, with little splashes of Steven Street style production on it’s more clean guitar leaning moments. This was an album meant to be experienced together in one fell swoop, a thirty-eight minute emotional experience that struck chords of nostalgia, exuberance, sadness, and gratitude at varying moments. I’ll always associate this album with the first time I listened to it, taking an extended detour on a drive to the grocery store just to digest it all without interruption as a soundtrack to a bright sunny day. Points also need to be given to Einvigi here for crafting an atmo-black record that sounds nothing like their subgenre contemporaries from France or the USA, nor even the strains of Finnish black metal we’ve come to associate with certain influential bands from that country. They have a remarkably unique sound unto themselves, and here they wielded it not as a cudgel or battle axe, but like a paintbrush.

9.  Oceans of Slumber – Starlight and Ash:

This might be the biggest shock on this list, because I’ve been rather critical of Oceans of Slumber’s past few records, feeling like they were at times overwrought, overcooked, or even too heavy for their own good. The latter point is something the band themselves began to address on their previous album, scaling back their death/doom mode by several degrees and allowing vocalist Cammie Gilbert to take the reigns on a handful of songs, her vocal melodies leading the way. The band must’ve come to the same conclusion as me, because they’ve taken the musical seeds of those tracks and allowed them to bloom here in unexpected and satisfying ways. I wrote in my original review that this was the album I had always hoped Oceans of Slumber would make, but that it exceeded my expectations was something I’ll admit to not foreseeing. And the tag of “southern gothic” to describe the sound on Starlight and Ash is not only the most fitting descriptor for any record released this year, but really hits the nail on the head regarding what exactly is happening musically and texturally here. The album opener “The Waters Rising” is arranged with delicate piano and acoustic guitar lines, but a throbbing electronic pulse runs underneath, like the humming buzz of Houston’s streets and freeways. The sultry, jazzy R&B feel of the musical arrangements here are a complement to Gilbert’s vocal approach, which reminds me at times of Natalie Merchant and Tracey Thorn blended together — whereas in the past it’d seem like the music was fighting against her tonally. With the change in musical direction, Oceans tossed the progressive song lengths, trimming things down to more of a pop/rock format, a shrewd move that proved to keep things focused, concise and with the resulting aim to get to the emotional center of things quicker. It worked for me, this was one of those albums that really made me stop and pay attention and wonder in surprise.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Songs of 2022)

10.  Avatarium – Death, Where Is Your Sting:

I didn’t get a chance to review the newest Avatarium album at any point these past few months, but it ended up being one of my most revisited albums in the last quarter of the year for good reason. The band had started off on their debut with more of a doom metal sound back when Leif Edling was still in the band and ostensibly influencing their artistic direction, but since he left, the band has pursued a direction that owes more to 70s hard rock than say the utter darkness of Candlemass. That means brighter melodies, at times even major key anchored hooks and melodies — almost as if they’ve owned up to a hidden Fleetwood Mac obsession at times. The pair of albums that followed Edling’s departure were the band finding their way towards a sound that is fully realized on Death, Where Is Your Sting. This is their front to back first bonafide masterpiece, a smoky, crushed velvet draped hard rock record that smacks of vintage Whitesnake and Thunder with the unmistakable darkness of Black Sabbath and yes, hints of Candlemass. Vocalist Jennie-Ann Smith has been consistently great throughout her tenure with the band, but here she sounds liberated, her vocal melodies providing the melodic thrust throughout, as on the smoldering slow build of “Stockholm”, or the strangely uplifting title track. Her titanic belting performance on “God Is Silent” is Dio-esque in its raw power and yet precision control, she’s really just one of the strongest vocalists out there right now and hopefully will start getting the credit she richly deserves. More than anything, this album reminded me of what I loved and missed so much about hard rock all these years (a genre for which it was a lowkey strong year), particularly that when done right, it’s a direct connection to the gut in a way that metal sometimes can overcomplicate and miss that mark.

December 22, 2022 2022, Best of, Blog related 2 Comments

The Metal Pigeon’s Best of 2022 // Part One: The Songs

That time of the year again, and you know how this works, the Best of 2022 starts with the annual list of the ten best songs of the year, the ones that resonated with me throughout the year the most — either because they rocked the hardest, or they hit me in the feels the most. The initial nominee pool this year was running close to twenty songs, and to be honest, whittling down this list was pretty hard (though not nearly as hard as the albums list is proving, good grief). If there’s a theme running through the picks below, I think it’s largely that of the unexpected, those little elements of surprise that characterized each entry for either how they impacted me, or what the band was doing differently in relation to their own sound, or simply being unique gems all their own. Stay tuned for the albums list coming soon, and the big guest laden roundtable MSRcast year end episode where we’ll hash out 2022 at length and make sure you didn’t miss anything worthwhile!

1.   Xaon – “If I Had Wings” (from the album The Lethean)

On my first listen through Xaon’s The Lethean, I was already impressed by the time “If I Had Wings” appeared midway through the tracklist, but this was the singular moment that truly stunned me. A dramatic and articulate masterpiece of songwriting, one of those rare moments where a band’s grandiose artistic ambition is perfectly matched to their talent and ability to execute as musicians. I find this song so harmoniously perfect in it’s balance of shifting progressive metal elements, sweeping orchestral arrangements, and elegantly sculpted vocal melodies that it’s difficult to pinpoint a singular thing that I love about it more than any other. I will however point out vocalist Rob Carson’s sheer versatility, here encapsulated within this track’s five minutes and change run time, switching from an intensely manic melodeath scream, to a truly impressive clean voice reminiscent of a stronger, weightier Lars Nedland with a splash of Sebastian Levermann. And as you would expect from a track sitting atop this list, I loved the lyrical picture this track painted, particularly in that heartrending chorus, the song’s title acting as a poetic totem for yearning, anguish, and regret.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Albums of 2022)

2.   Dawn of Destiny – “Little Flower” (from the album Of Silence)

From the ever reliable Dawn of Destiny came this gorgeous gem, a power ballad built on an 80’s Heart-esque moody piano melody and lush synth fill that cascaded into a glorious refrain. There are two stars here, first the impassioned vocals of Jeanette Scherff, who is still outrageously underrated even after debuting with the band over a decade ago. Second is the inspired songwriting of bassist Jens Faber who has such a unique and identifiable style unto his own (so much so that I recognized his trademark way with melodies on the recent Legions of the Night release before even realizing it was one of his side projects). The lyrics he’s penned for the chorus here are anguished yet poignant, that shade of bittersweet that recalls hints of Sentenced or Charon. This song stayed with me throughout the year, one of those pieces of music that I’d get a yearning to listen to at random times and couldn’t shake until I did.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Albums of 2022)

3.   Avantasia – “Paper Plane” (from the album A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society)

There are more obvious standouts on the recent Avantasia album, the two really excellent Floor Jansen cuts for example, or the epic Bob Catley duet on “The Moonflower Society” — and I’ve seen a lot of reviews dismiss “Paper Plane” outright for various reasons (reminding folks of “Lost In Space” might be at the top of that list). I’ll even admit that it took me quite a few listens to unlock the poignancy of this tucked away gem, but once I did, it became the muted, reserved highlight of an otherwise wildly outlandish and opulent album. Ronnie Atkins of Pretty Maids is the guest vocalist on this song, and I’m sure most of you know that Ronnie’s been facing stage four cancer (it returned after being treated a few years back). He’s been on tour with the band recently, and has been open about his diagnosis in the press, so he’s clearly living life to the fullest right now. But I suspect Tobias had all this in mind when penning these lyrics, because to give them to Ronnie just lends them this incredible emotional weight. The beautifully light on it’s feet melody that underscores his vocals just adds to the bittersweet resonance of a song that makes you feel grateful to be alive and sad all at once.

4.   Månegarm – “En snara av guld” (from the album Ynglingaättens öde)

This beautiful violin led lament was that moment on this April release by Sweden’s folk metal disciples Månegarm where I stopped dead in my tracks and just listened. I still remember that moment, and since then both this album and in particular this song have been part of my metallic soundtrack to 2022. As a piece of songwriting, this song is beautifully constructed: the Scandinavian folk musicality that flows through it and creates imaginatively rich drama; and the powerful dynamics created with the careful placement of gritty, thick riffing and vocalist Erik Grawsiö’s charcoal coated vocals. Erik’s daughter Lea Grawsiö Lindström handles lead vocals in the verses, her plaintive tone a perfect foil for his blackened grim tones. The dynamic transition that hits at the 1:56 mark is simply one of the greatest musical moments from this year, just pure ear candy. For a song about the grizzly topic of forced marriage and murderous revenge, this was one of the prettiest tunes I’d hear all year, and an example of everything I love about folk metal at it’s best.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Albums of 2022)

5.   Therion – “Cavern Cold As Ice” (from the album Leviathan II)

One of the fundamental aspects of Therion’s current Leviathan trilogy-in-progress project is that it’s a purposeful look back at different phases of the sounds regarded as “classic”. This second installment in the trilogy was focused on the band’s more softer, melancholic side that was a major component of their late 90s work, and though “Cavern Cold As Ice” is decidedly one of the more upbeat tunes on Leviathan II, it hit me the hardest and stayed with me the longest I suspect due to a heady dose of fervent nostalgia. There’s something truly charming and utterly endearing about the combination of jaunty orchestral rhythms and lithe but substantial vocals courtesy of Rosalía Sairem that really sent me back to that late 90s era. I can’t quite explain why, but I get such a retro gothic metal vibe from this song, reminding me of obscure stuff like Dreams of Sanity and Flowing Tears (anyone remember these bands?). This will likely be a pick that will leave some scratching their heads, and I can only justify it as my essential comfort listening, but this song makes me happy.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Albums of 2022)

6.   Oceans of Slumber – “The Waters Rising” (from the album Starlight And Ash)

The smokey, streetlight reflecting opener to Oceans of Slumber’s truly inspired Starlight And Ash, “The Waters Rising” is perhaps one of the band’s most fully realized compositions to date. It’s built on the simplest of piano figures, a hypnotic synth based rhythmic motif, and pulled together by vocalist Cammie Gilbert with a jaw droppingly confident and engaging performance. Her voice is at times equal parts Natalie Merchant, Tracey Thorn, and Shirley Manson, run through a blues filter that speaks to the band’s southern geographical roots here in Houston. This is one of the more wildly aggressive cuts on an otherwise far more smoldering album, the heavy guitars towards the latter half of the song being one of the few moments where the band really let rip. It’s easily the band’s most memorable (and by that virtue, marketable) song, and they were wise to video it up.

(Also appears on: The Metal Pigeon’s Best Albums of 2022)

7.   Planeswalker: Sozos Michael & Jason Ashcraft – “The Forever Serpent” (from the album Tales of Magic)

Plucked from the middle of one of the strongest power metal albums of the year, “The Forever Serpent” was one of the most enduring songs of the year, sticking with me all the way from it’s release way back in January. Guitarist Jason Ashcraft (he of Helion Prime notoriety) welds this thing together with some aggressive riffing, but he largely cedes the melodic territory to the tremendous vocals of Sozos Michael, who was easily the draw here for me. Grand, adventurous, rousing — all fitting adjectives for this slice of cliched power metal goodness packed with all the genre’s best tropes: the Johansson-esque keyboard solo dueling alongside Ashcraft’s leads, the dramatic mid-song bridge sequence with Sozos leading the way out of the darkness. Could anyone imagine a song about Magic: The Gathering being this exciting? I guess once Visigoth tackled D&D anything’s possible. Sozos is making waves now as the replacement for Thomas Winkler in Gloryhammer, and he’ll be far more well known for that than his brief stint with Helion Prime. But this brief detour of a project should receive more attention, because this was not the only awesome song to be heard on it.

8.   Sabaton – “Christmas Truce” (from the album The War to End All Wars)

The remarkable thing about “Christmas Truce” off Sabaton’s WWI continuation album The War to End All Wars was that I caught sight of even their most cynical critics (shoutout to the r/PowerMetal gang) giving it props. It was, as they said, Sabaton’s (and thus by extension, songwriter Joakim Broden’s) most matured and accomplished songwriting to date, not only for the incorporation of elegant keys and a choir vocal, but for Broden’s blunt yet effective lyrical portrait of one of the more surreal stories to have emerged from wartime. For those of us familiar with Savatage’s Dead Winter Dead and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, you can’t help but hear a massive influence pulled from that collective musical wellspring. But that’s alright, because in an unexpected twist, the internet and YouTube reactor community has deemed this a modern day Christmas classic. And that’s a weird thing to say about a song based on WWI, but when you hear Tommy Johansson’s downright festive guitar solo, it starts to make sense. Some will scoff at this inclusion, but no song in metal from an album released this year made people tear up as much as this one did, and it takes a skilled songwriter to accomplish that.

9.   Jani Liimatainen (ft. Tony Kakko) – “All Dreams Are Born To Die” (from the album My Father’s Son)

This collaboration between former bandmates hit like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, no warning, no prior indication that Jani and Tony were even on speaking terms these days (certainly there were no public signs of bad blood either, but the silence after Liimatainen left Sonata Arctica was deafening in it’s own way). It’s a slice of that classic early Sonata sound from those first three unimpeachable albums, a song from that era that was seemingly lost and found and injected with a little of that newfound Insomnium-esque Finnish melodeath riffage that is Liimatainen’s day job these days. The combination is pure magic, and it’s not just myself who felt this way — just check the comments on that YouTube video for proof, with one commenter stating it’s “The best Sonata Arctica song in two decades.”. I couldn’t agree more, and it’s regrettable that we only got this one song out of this reunion collab, but it could be just the nudge both guys needed to perhaps collaborate together on a full length project again. Tony needs a writer like Jani, and Jani deserves a vocalist of Tony’s caliber (perhaps on a future Cain’s Offering, or hell, let’s just say it outright, Jani rejoining Sonata at some point?). For now, “All Dreams Are Born To Die” was one of the most joyful and incredible songs of 2022, and that’s enough.

10.   Sumerlands – “Edge of the Knife” (from the album Dreamkiller)

This electric slice of classic 80s metal reimagined is one of the sharpest shivs off Dreamkiller, an album that can be described as somewhat of a rebirth for Sumerlands. I had gotten to see them live back in April at the Hells Heroes fest here in Houston and they delivered one of the most intense and engaging performances of the entire weekend. It was a great showcase for new vocalist Brendan Radigan, whose channeling of Randy Rhoads-era Ozzy with splashes of Klaus Meine and Don Dokken gave new attitude to the older songs from the debut album, and of course, have shaped the sound here on the new one. Across the rest of the album, there’s subtle complexity to the songwriting that is a direct conduit from the debut, but on “Edge of the Knife”, its all about no frills, straight to the heart rockin’. John Powers and Arthur Rizk spit out Priest-ian riffs and hit that gear shift into Schenker-Jabs Scorpions territory when the chorus kicks in. Probably the song I pulled up the most in my car when I needed to just rock the hell out these past few months.

December 7, 2022 2022, Blog related Post a Comment

Wrapping Up 2022

So I figured that with November just about to slip away and our Spotify Wrapped already cluttering social media and Discords everywhere, that I’d take a bit to write up my own 2022 Wrapped feature as it were. The reality is that there were a large handful of albums that I just didn’t get to review properly on the blog this year for reasons related to real life busyness, and the very real factor that the metal release calendar was back-loaded this year. From highly anticipated power metal albums to intriguing new melodic death metal artists I’d never heard of before, the latter half of 2022 has been just a nonstop flurry of intriguing releases to check out one after another, and honestly its been a challenge to keep up. So rather than stress myself out scrambling to review them all here before the yearly best of lists have to go up, I figure I’d just do this a little more casually and talk about the stuff that’s really stood out these past few weeks and maybe what has continued to linger over the past year or resurface.

Stuff I didn’t get around to reviewing:

The first thing that immediately comes to mind as an album that got lost in the shuffle these past few months was Queensryche’s newest Digital Noise Alliance, which aside from the ridiculous word salad album title is genuinely the best album the band has made with Todd LaTorre, even better than their inspired but undercooked self-titled 2013 debut with him. They did a few smart things here: First off, they backed off the metallic approach they were hitting hard on 2019’s The Verdict; secondly, they once again embraced the accessible prog-metal elements that defined their sound to the ears of many fans, that being crisp, clean guitar tones, dynamic songwriting, tight melodies, and bright vocal harmonies to tie it all together. There were moments on 2015’s Condition Human where I felt like they were overthinking their prog sound a little too much, an over compensation for the drifting away from that territory in the latter Geoff Tate years. But here, songs like “Hold On”, and “Lost In Sorrow” ring with the same sort of charming, insurgent energy that ran through Empire, and Wilton’s leads sound kinda inspired even. LaTorre delivers, which to his credit is one of those unsurprising details now, his voice just made for the band’s songs past and present. I dunno… its not a perfect album for sure, there are some meh moments, but overall I found myself pleasantly surprised at how much bite this thing had in it. It was also cool to hear Casey Grillo’s drumming on an album again.

On the purely power metal front, I know a lot of time has gone by since the release of Dragonland’s The Power of the Nightstar practically two damn months ago, but you should know that I’ve jammed it a lot. Like alot alot. And I’ve gone through cycles with this thing, being entirely enthralled the first few times I listened to it just by the sheer virtue of having the band back, and being aided by there being some seriously great choruses in these songs (“The Scattering of Darkness” and the title track are magnificent), to finding myself giving it a more grounded appraisal after sitting with it for awhile. So its not as utterly spectacular as Under the Grey Banner, and I don’t think many of us expected it to be, but this is a strong power metal record, definitely a bit glossier than we’re used to Dragonland sounding, but with Olof Morck’s industry success with Amaranthe likely came a bigger budget for this project (to that point, Jacob Hansen engineered the recording). I will say that lyrically, this album suffers from what I’ll politely phrase here as Ayreon-itis, that being it’s insistence on detailing a plot to such a degree that the lyrics suffer from having to deliver a straightforward narrative instead of painting a picture with poetic phrases. It’s one of those things that negatively can hamper a power metal album’s ability to get you to sing along enthusiastically.

Continuing on the recent power metal front, France’s Galderia are finally back with their newest, Endless Horizon, and it’s a worthy follow up to 2017’s immaculate Return of the Cosmic Men (you’ll likely know “Shining Unity” from that album, which was one of the best power metal singles of the last decade). I think the consensus on Endless Horizon is that it’s a strong record, though of a bit of a grower in comparison to their previous two. I suspect that one of the reasons why is that the songwriting is a bit more contemplative than anthemic here, which I’m entirely onboard with. It’s expanding the band’s sound in a subtle but satisfying way — and that’s not to say there aren’t great anthemic power metal explosions here (“Striking the Earth” for starters), but I was equally as enamored by “Twenty One”, a jangly acoustic built introspective piece with warm melodies and Sebastien Chabot’s slightly sandpapery vocals reminding me of Steve Lee era Gotthard. All in all it was a quality release from one of the more overlooked Euro-power bands to have landed on the scene in the past decade. I think they’d have more momentum globally if they could just deliver albums faster than their current five year at a time clip, but maybe that’s just not possible for whatever reason.

On the extreme metal front, there’s been a lot worth listening to, particularly in the progressive death realm, but also with a few recent black metal surprises worth crowing about too. To talk about the latter first, I need to bring up this Stormruler album Sacred Rites & Black Magick, introduced to me via longtime follower of the blog Rob (@GodofMetal69 on Twitter). I’ve been lowkey addicted to this album ever since he recommended it a few weeks ago and I think it’s one of the most satisfying melodic black metal records I’ve heard in awhile. Stormruler are a duo from the blackened lands of St. Louis (I’m guessing they took the Rams move to L.A. pretty hard) and this is their second album in the span of under two years, their debut coming last May. They’re also signed to Napalm Records, which is an eye opener for sure, because you typically don’t associate modern Napalm signees with black metal of this kind, but I think the label is onto something with these guys. I love the Dissection influences going on here, it brings a heavy nostalgic element to this sound, and they do incorporate enough dynamic elements into the songwriting to keep these songs creatively shifting and morphing and never feeling repetitive. The album is an ambitious hour plus, but about eight minutes of that are these scattered instrumental interludes that are like segue pieces between the songs, in a style that I can only describe as maybe dungeon synth? As a complete listening experience, it oddly works, though I can see how some might find them annoying. It’s an incredible effort overall though and black metal fans should at least give this a look.

Right, the new Behemoth album, which I listened to initially on release day and yet didn’t get back to it until a few weeks later. So 2018’s I Loved You At Your Darkest got criticized quite a bit for what many felt was the band stepping out of their defined sonic territory… and while I wasn’t that fond of the album overall I didn’t think it was quite the disaster that some were accusing it of being. I actually liked some of the less aggressive, atmospheric explorations on that album, what I saw as continuations of the bands exploration of empty space and texture on The Satanist. On Opvs Contra Natvram, it seems like they’ve naturally readjusted a bit to incorporate a little more dense riff sequences, the album ultimately sounding like the merging of those previous two albums. The best song here is “The Deathless Sun” with its grandiose “I am nothing! I am no one” chanting serving as a vocal hook motif, but I also enjoyed the heck out of “Once Upon a Pale Horse”, with its Metallica-esque Hetfield-ian rhythmic strut. I didn’t have any of this enthusiasm for the Darkthrone’s newest album Astral Fortress however, a continuation of Fenriz and Nocturno Culto’s recent exploration into laborious repetition and slow sonic drudgery. I know opinions were split on this and some folks are really enjoying it… fair enough, but I sat through this record wondering what happened to the Darkthrone that rocked me silly on Circle the Wagons and The Underground Resistance.

I did finally listen to the new Bloodbath album, Survival of the Sickest, after sleeping on it for a few months. It’s as vicious as you’d hope and I enjoyed thoroughly while driving all over Houston in the pissing rain on Thanksgiving day (because what else would you listen to on a holiday?). It sounds crisply recorded but still loaded with enough grime and grit that you’d want an old school Swedish death metal record to have, which is about all you can hope for really. I enjoyed listening to this, I do think its a tad stronger than The Arrow of Satan Is Drawn… it feels, this is a weird thing to say, but “breezier” than that album? I guess I’m feeling like it’s just a quicker, looser feeling collection of material in comparison, but that could just be recency bias speaking. Oh and on the melodic death front, we played this band on a recent episode of MSRcast, but I’ll shout them out again here, that being In the Woods… who released Diversum only a week or so ago. It’s a really strong album that fans of Novembers Doom and Green Carnation will likely get into, a merging of progressive death metal musicality with incredibly strong clean vocals courtesy of Bernt Fjellestad (he had a brief stint in Susperia a few years back). Also I want to direct attention to Finland’s melodic death metallers Horizon Ignited who released Toward the Dying Lands earlier this summer on Nuclear Blast. They remind me of classic Gothenburg melodeath put through a Pantera filter (it sounds weird, but you’ll hear what I’m talking about), their music having a no-frills, straight to the gut quality that I surprisingly enjoyed.

There were a lot more records that I could’ve covered here that eh, look we’re just running out of time and space for. New Stratovarius (was pretty solid, but all their recent albums have been); new Lacrimas Profundere (not quite the gothic metal masterpiece I was hoping for but it had some great songs on it); the new Avatarium is their best album yet and totally worth the time if you’re into that kind of doom tinged smokey hard rock sung by a fantastic lady singer; oh and I listened to this new album called Woe by a band called An Abstract Illusion more than a handful of times and it’s one of those weird ones where I think I’m into it, and other times I wasn’t quite so sure (I think the mystery there was why I kept coming back).

Stuff that was interesting (to me anyway):

No doubt we’ve all heard the new Metallica single “Lux Æterna” by now — you know it’s not bad in that bare bones Metallica kind of way, reminding me of bits of “Fuel” (I know I know) and just the Load album in general in a wild way. After the overtly old school claw back feel of Hardwired, you’d figure the last thing the band would want to do is recall hints of their mid-90s outrage makers but here we are. Am I the only one hearing that sound? I saw the cover art for the album by the way… and I’ll echo Revolver Magazine’s tweet:

For real… how can a band with so many cool t-shirt designs over the years consistently release terrible album covers/concepts again and again? You’d figure that at some point they’d look at one of those Pushead designs they likely have stashes of and think “why don’t we just use one of these for the album?”. And look I get the concept here, 72 Seasons, the years 1-18 that are formative for all of our individual yada yada yadas, and I appreciate Metallica always aiming to be relatively original. But originality doesn’t necessarily equate to something that’s good, or a design that one would want to sport on a shirt or poster on their wall. Heck of a color choice there too, I believe it’s French’s Yellow Mustard? Of course the contrarians on Twitter all came to it’s defense. No. You’re all wrong, it’s terrible, and you’re all wrong.

On a more delightful note, Judas Priest making the Hall of Fame was worth it if only for the clip of Halford getting to sing with Dolly Parton. Much has been made of this online I’m sure, but there is something inherently charming about this duo and Parton’s own bemused reaction to it. That Priest got in on a category specific award of some kind rather than just the general voting seems to have been a sore spot for many (Halford included), but I think at this point going forward, folks will just remember that they got in and articles will reference them as having done such, and that’s kind of all that matters for an award that’s all about perception anyway. There is still a big part of me that is all in the “who cares?” camp regarding Rock Hall nominations, but there’s another part of me that can admit that it’s nice to see a foundational metal band get something like this, for the guys in Priest to look at their place in a pantheon with musical heroes of theirs that they idolized growing up (even if most of us don’t give a damn about The Beatles).

And in other good news, the Pantera “tribute” that everyone was deriding and saying was going to be disrespectful actually had a great start at the Heaven and Hell Fest in Mexico. Footage from the shows back that up, the setlist is fantastic, Zakk reigned in the pinch harmonics a tad, and even Phil sounded like Pantera era Phil was supposed to sound (no Vince Neil-ing it here!). I called it months back on the podcast, but I had a feeling these guys would be able to pull this off, it wasn’t exactly attempting to recreate a progressive rock masterpiece on stage — these are Pantera songs. Charlie can pull off the odd Vinnie Paul groove based time signatures, Rex is Rex and Zakk would be faithful to Dimebag’s exact riffage. People are excited to hear these songs live again and man… when there’s so much crap out there to get us down, let’s collectively celebrate something that should be making us happy. I know it’s a nostalgia trip, but as a metalhead growing up in Texas, Pantera brings back good memories. I know that’s a weird thing to say. And let’s call it a wrap on 2022… I’m sure there’s stuff I’m forgetting to mention but I’ll probably address anything else on the upcoming episodes of MSRcast (subscribe! We’re on Spotify too!).

November 22, 2022 2022, Therion Post a Comment

In Remembrance: Therion Conjures the Past on Leviathan II

As Therion fans, we’re right in the middle of a glorious time period where contrary to the past decade of mostly silence, new music is being released at a nearly year or two clip that hearkens back to their late 90s run of continuous yearly album releases. The band’s newest effort is part two of the ongoing Leviathan trilogy, of which part one premiered in January of 2021 and wound up topping last year’s albums of the year list in a landslide. At the time of it’s release, Christofer Johnsson detailed out in interviews the overall plan for the trilogy, with the first album being the more epic, bombastic songs, while the second album would focus on the band’s more dark and melancholic side (album three to follow is said to be a diverse album collecting the more adventurous, heavier, and even folk-ier songs from the Leviathan sessions). The overall conceit for the Leviathan era is that Johnsson eyed this as a final frontier for the band, having tackled all the ambitious projects they’ve wanted to in the past (particularly with the recent metal opera Beloved Antichrist), they set about trying to write material that their fans would have wanted, something previously anathema to their process. Johnsson has described it himself as the challenge of trying to write a classic Therion “hits” album, and you get the gist of what he’s talking about, of trying to reimagine the essence of their most beloved and popular songs (because yeah there’s no actual chart hits in the Therion catalog to speak of singles wise). It’s an idea that is as wildly ambitious to me as any zany French pop covers album or grandiose metal opera, largely because it’s so infrequently done even within the tradition bound world of metal, to purposefully attempt such a thing.

The Leviathan sessions yielding more songs than Johnsson had anticipated is what’s led to this one album becoming a trilogy, and I’m grateful for that, it seemingly making up for all the quiet years in one fell swoop. And more specifically to Leviathan II, this album’s focus on the band’s more softer, melancholic side is something that I really appreciate because so much of those glorious late 90s albums were loaded with music in this vein. Classic gems such as “Birth of Venus Illegitima”, “Clavicula Nox”, “Raven of Dispersion”, “Eternal Return”, “Ship of Luna” — just to name a few, these were the songs that really made me fall in love with the band when I first discovered them sometime in 2000-ish when I randomly stumbled upon the band in a record store. Don’t get me wrong, I love their metal side, from the early death metal to the symphonic metal bombast, but Johnsson has always had a magical way with the band’s softer melancholic side, writing beautiful melodies and crafting for them inspired arrangements. It’s within this dichotomy that Therion’s sound exists, making them one of the most compelling artists in the symphonic metal world (and legit pioneers deserving of that title). And though Leviathan II touches upon the same fundamental elements that characterized those aforementioned classics, it also picks up where its immediate predecessor left off in being a very vocal driven album, as opposed to the very instrumental forward nature of late 90s Therion.

There are a couple moments on this album where this Leviathan I / Gothic Kabbalah esque vocal melody driven approach meshes with that older instrumental forward style, namely on “Cavern Cold As Ice”, and the lead single “Pazuzu”. The former might just be the most instantly accessible song on the album, with uptempo metallic riffs setting a quickened pace and Spanish vocalist Rosalía Sairem’s plaintive, rose tinted voice narrarating the song with a hooky vocal melody and genuinely emotional inflection in her performance. It might be the most, how should I say this… snappy(?) Therion song ever recorded at a quick 3:25 run time, but in keeping with the Leviathan playbook, its direct and to the point even as it eschews sheer heaviness in favor of bittersweet melancholy. As wonderful as Sairem’s performance is there, Thomas Vikstrom shines on “Pazuzu”, his regal tenor and alternating rough hewn clean metal voice both combining to spectacular effect on a fantastic track. The guitar solo here at the 3:07 mark is the vintage Therion approach to guitars, right out of the Accept and Scorpions playbook of wild, tastefully articulated 80s metal tinged goodness. It’s an interesting choice as the first single because I think it’s a bit of a grower as a song overall, but it does have enough of a balance of uptempo rockin’ riffs and a haunting, mysterious aura that might make it the likely candidate to be picked if not the most representative of the rest of the album. As an interesting aside, they’ve also included an “AOR” version of “Pazuzu” here, with well… AOR styled hard rock vocals in place of the classical tenor in the original version, and its a coin flip in deciding which I prefer because both have their strengths. Eclipse vocalist Erik Mårtensson contributes to both, and I’m actually having trouble discerning which parts he’s singing compared to Vikstrom because their tones get fairly similar at points, but either way both guys deliver the goods.

The most classic sounding song here is clearly “Lunar Colored Fields”, with its gentle soprano vocal introduction and subdued, evocative string arrangement sounding all the world like something that would’ve fit perfectly on Vovin or Deggial in all their heavily instrumental glory. The choral vocals that spring up when the song steps up the tempo a bit in the middle bridge are vintage Therion, dramatic and impactful while still casting a regal glamour over the soundscape. That uplifting, ascending choir at the four minute mark recalls shades of something like “The Wondrous World of Punt” from Sirius B, sharing the same sonic feel of spiritual ecstasy that makes for a transcendent listening experience. Similarly the elegant and mysterious balladry of “Hades and Elysium” has that distinct late 90s Therion feel, and I think it might be my personal favorite on the album for its sheer simplicity and utter beauty. Longtime Therion soprano Lori Lewis and Leviathan I’s star alto/soprano Taida Nazraić team up on this song and exchange gorgeous vocal passages to weave together the dreamy starscape that blankets across every second of this piece. Lewis is a Therion institution, her continued presence on Therion albums even though she’s not a part of the live lineup anymore is credit to Johnsson knowing he shouldn’t let go of a killer talent if at all possible. Nazraić is heard on four songs across this album, and though she doesn’t have a star turn like on Leviathan I’s “Tuonela” or “Die Wellen der Zeit”, her presence is heard in impactful moments throughout. Of particular note on “Hades and Elysium” is the flute playing of frequent Haggard musician Cătălina Popa, who I remember from her excellent work on the recent Suidakra releases.

On the heavier side of this melancholy drenched album, there’s a few noteworthy cuts worth pointing out, particularly “Codex Gigas”, a meaty and cleverly structured slow burn built on doomier riffs and thundering percussion. Vikstrom owns this song, his rich vocals full of drama and splendor in that killer chorus, one of the most satisfying hooks in recent Therion memory, particularly towards the finale when he’s joined by the Hellscore choir in all their glory. The heaviest jam here is “Midnight Star” where thundering riffs anchor aggressive verse passages with Chiara Malvestiti’s operatic singing gliding over the top, and Vikstrom swooping in like a hawk during the chorus with some of his most heavy metal sounding vocals ever. The song abruptly changes it up halfway through into a quieter, moodier introspective passage, with ghostly choirs, spare chord sequences, and a gradually building grand finale that gently subsides with an accordion sounding folk finish on the keyboards. Similarly on the bizarre and heavy side of things, we get some near death metal vocals on “Lucifuge Rofocale” (courtesy of one Chris Davidsson apparently… Johnsson himself has long retired from handling vocals himself), a first for a Therion album in years (perhaps Sirius B / Lemuria was the last time this happened?). The vocals here by all involved (including Hellscore Choir’s founder Noa Gruman in a solo spot) are incredible, but the highlight on this song is lead guitarist Christian Vidal’s smoking solo that leads the outro, a complex, highly articulate figure that at one point syncs up with the choir in the background to satisfying effect. It’s been hard for Vidal to really shake off the shadow of Christian Niemann to my ears, the latter just cast that large of a presence on Therion’s music during his era, but Vidal has really begun to make his mark on the Leviathan albums.

I’ve thus far neglected to talk about the first two opening songs here, but that’s not because I find them inadequate, on the contrary they’re all incredibly sharp in their own right, but their uptempo nature threw me for a loop initially when I was expecting the album to open with that softer melancholic side. That aside, “Aeon of Maat” is a meaty, solid opening punch in the Therion tradition of prior openers such as “Rise of Sodom and Gomorrah” and “Seven Secrets of the Sphinx”, a rockin’ uptempo affair that’s built around a hooky riff-vocal dynamic. It’s actually more of a spiritual sibling to Leviathan I’s opener “The Leaf on the Oak of Far” especially for it’s 80s metal meets classical musicality aesthetic. The following song “Litany of the Fallen” is a far more reigned in cut, with a bright choir sung chorus shining through the chugging guitars of the verse sequences. Both it and the also choir heavy “Marijin Min Nar” might be my least favorite songs on the album, not because I think they’re bad, but they’re just outshined in contrast to their surrounding songs and perhaps because I’ve been so wowed by the individual vocal performances on both Leviathan albums so much that having a choir handle the leads instead leaves me feeling a bit detached from them (no slight on Hellscore choir of course who are tremendous). For the last song I’ve neglected to mention, I really enjoyed both the violin parts and lead guitar figures on “Alchemy of the Soul”, a meditative piece of music that is sublimely beautiful in moments and also hooky in that very direct, no frills way that Therion have been employing a lot throughout the Leviathan project at large.

To sum things up, I’ve come away very satisfied by Leviathan II, though it’s hard to compare it directly to it’s predecessor given that its song makeup is so purposefully different. It’s delivered what Johnsson promised it would, a reimagining of the band’s melancholic, softer side via new songs, and reminded me that Therion are one of the most unique sounding bands in metal history (haters be damned, a lot of people have dismissed Therion over the past decade or so because symphonic metal got flooded with bands who were inspired by Nightwish and Within Temptation, and Therion somehow got shoehorned in with them… which only points out the sheer ignorance of those doing the criticizing). There are songs on this album that I’m going to keep going back to time and time again, just as on Leviathan I and hopefully on Leviathan III. I’ll admit the fanboy in me is very nervous at all this talk from Johnsson about how this is the band’s final challenge… does that mean he’s envisioning this being the band’s last few albums? I certainly hope not. I wrote in my original review of Leviathan I that this purposeful look back at their classic sound has seemingly reinvigorated the band’s creative spirit, and that in a funny roundabout way, they’ve actually made music that sounds fresh, inspired, and even treading on new ground at moments with all the lead vocal heavy performances. They’re on a creative tear right now and I hope Johnsson realizes that and keeps the music going for a long time to come.

November 3, 2022 2022, Avantasia, reviews, Tobias Sammet Post a Comment

Getting Paranormal with Avantasia

Running at three year release intervals since 2013, Tobias Sammet is back with the ninth Avantasia album, the ostentatiously titled The Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society (henceforth on this blog referred to as Moonflower Society), the follow-up to 2019’s German chart topper Moonglow. I was eagerly anticipating this release of course, I’ve been a fan of Tobias’ since before Avantasia was even a thing, discovering Edguy way back in 1999 after their Theater of Salvation and Savage Poetry re-recording releases here in the States. Really when I think about it, Tobias is perhaps the person whose career I’ve followed the longest from it’s inception, with my only missing Edguy’s arrival on the worldwide scene in 1997 by two years. His music has been a part of the fabric of my life for going on over two decades now, be it in either band, and with Avantasia in particular, he single handedly introduced me to a host of other singers whose bands I went on to check out and became a fan of. Every Avantasia album has either at best yielded album length masterworks, or at the very least offered up a handful of absolute gems worth revisiting over and over again. In short, I’m a massive fan and Tobias’ has had a major influence on me as a metal listener.

But being a massive fan shouldn’t blind one to faults, and Tobias isn’t immune from this either, his very singular, blinders-on focus simultaneously the source of his unbridled genius, and ultimately the cause of the myopia that sometimes limits his work. One of the interesting things about Moonflower Society is that it is a direct sequel to Moonglow, a continuation of that album’s thematic concept and storyline, even down to similarities in the cover art style. It brings to mind memories of the 2010 simultaneous release of The Wicked Symphony and Angel of Babylon, and like those two albums, here exists the urge to run a direct comparison to Moonglow by virtue of their interconnectedness. Like that album however, Moonflower Society has truly inspired moments of that aforementioned genius, from the jump too, smashing through the gates with the pensive, moody, Queensryche-ian paced “Welcome to the Shadows”. It’s a similar atypical opener to a power metal album in the same way that “Ghost in the Moon” was a gradually unfolding epic opening track on Moonglow, as opposed to the usual anthemic rocker we’re all expecting at that spot. Also like its predecessor, the title track here is a gorgeous slice of pomp and drama, this time with the immortal Bob Catley running shotgun on vocals, his finest Avantasia moment since “A Restless Heart and Obsidian Skies” on 2016’s Ghostlights. Built on a Neal Schon-ian rhythmic riff, Tobias and Bob explode in a co-lead vocal during the refrain that is classic Sammet, with perfectly phrased lyrics meant for maximum hook factor and loaded with adrenaline pumping emotion.

One of the few new faces in the guest vocal lineup, Nightwish’s Floor Jansen is also the not so surprising homerun hitter this time around, with both of the tracks she duets on perhaps being the album’s best songs. There’s the uptempo, cathartic “Kill The Pain Away”, where Tobias juxtaposes a fairly straightforward rocking tune against a backdrop of Nightwish-ian symphonic bombast, a subtle but shrewd move to place Floor in a setting that is familiar to those who know her voice. The chorus is skillfully constructed, a speedy hook line that conjures up an incredible sense of urgency that matches the intensity of the lyrics (“Nobody there to kill the pain away…”). Even better is her appearance on the utterly magical “Misplaced Among the Angels”, a classic Sammet power ballad that rivals his best work in this vein, possibly even equaling past gems such as “The Story Ain’t Over” and “Farewell”. What his detractors of this more accessible song type get wrong when they peg it as “pop rock” is that it clearly owes more to classic AOR, not only the obvious Jim Steinman influence, but that late 80s / early 90s Bon Jovi melodicism, built on subtle turns of phrase and simple melodies artfully sketched. I love that kind of stuff and grew up on it so a song like this is comfort food to me, but I’d argue that this song transcends those descriptors based on the lead vocal performances by Tobias and Floor. It’s refreshing to hear her in a musical context that’s comfortable once again, because where she’s been sadly misused on the last Nightwish album, here Tobias sets her up with a vocal melody that highlights her strengths as a singer. She’s an obvious but inspired guest vocalist for the project as a whole, and I wondered for awhile if she’d ever get asked to do it considering she has been all over the Ayreon universe for awhile now.

I was also really moved by the Ronnie Atkins guested “Paper Planes”, a sorta kinda power ballad that took a few listens to really blossom for me but when it did, wow… it packed an emotional wallop. Given Ronnie’s health situation, there’s a serious gravitas to the lyrics in this song, particularly in the chorus where both men join together to sing “Flying away like a paper nothing / As I twist and turn, I’m light like a paper plane / Carried away like a trace of nothing / May the wind blow me its way like a paper plane”. Short but insistent piano phrases and moody guitar flourishes from Sascha Paeth are the perfect accompaniment to that whole passage — the effect is sombre, reflective, melancholic yet not dour. No lie, I think its one of Tobias’ best lyrical efforts in his career to date (and yeah, he’s not known for being a wordsmith for sure, but he stumbled on something really graceful here). And of course, long time Avantasia guest Michael Kiske sounds like a perfect fit on the very classic power metal speed run of “The Inmost Light”, basically a Helloween inspired moment for both singers to shine on like they have on past gems ala “Wastelands” and “Promised Land”. If I was slightly less excited by it, it’s likely because it feels like something I’ve heard before that wasn’t offering anything refreshing or new, but that’s a minor critique I suppose.

The biggest culprits for criticism however are equally tied into the guest vocalist choice as much as the songs in question just don’t hit the mark either. The only other new addition next to Floor is Ralf Scheepers on “The Wicked Rule the Night”, and although he delivers vocally like he always does, it’s a case of simply not fitting the band’s sound and vibe. Avantasia just shouldn’t get that heavy, it sounds stilted and awkward. And it was certainly a daring move six years back on Ghostlights to bring the much maligned Geoff Tate on board — Tobias however weaved together some black magic and made Tate’s cut on that album (the awesome “Seduction of Decay”) something that really turned our collective heads. Tate joined the touring company of the band, and also contributed to three songs on Moonglow, all three of which failed to ignite the same spark that his first appearance managed. They weren’t bad songs at the very least, but I’m afraid that “Scars”, the Tate cut on this album, might actually warrant being called below average, and I think it’s largely because Tobias just didn’t have much in the way of inspiration when it came to writing for Tate this time around. That’s the risk you run when you have repeat guests — a problem Tobias runs into with Eric Martin as well, who is on his third Avantasia album appearance as well and surfaces here on the decent but nothing spectacular “Rhyme and Reason”. It’s an awkward vocal moment for him, and seems to miss the mark in taking advantage of his more loose and bluesy tenor the way he was able to on 2013’s “What’s Left of Me”.

And look, I’m not arguing that Tobias shouldn’t have returning guest vocalists, because guys like Catley and the mighty Jorn Lande really feel like a part of the fabric of the Avantasia sound at this point. Jorn’s two moments here (“I Tame the Storm” and the Kiske joined “Arabesque”) are pretty good, not my favorite slices of Jorntasia but certainly enjoyable enough in the moment if not exactly hugely memorable. But I do feel like we’re coming towards an impasse where Tobias has to force himself to not simply add the touring company of Avantasia as the defacto vocal cast for the next album, which he’s essentially been doing for the past few records now. I believe he can and should separate the two, and find suitable replacements for the touring vocal roles to the best of his ability (a connected guy like him shouldn’t have a problem with that). But Avantasia needs to get adventurous again with the guest singers, in the same way that Arjen Lucassen seems to challenge himself to seek fresh voices for his projects. There’s a wealth of talented singers in the power metal scene who would be awesome picks for a future album, both veteran names and younger faces like Temperance’s Marco Pastorino, or hell Seven Spires Adrienne Cowan (how she, as a member of the recent touring company did not end up on this album is beyond my comprehension). Tobias believes this is the best album he’s written, and I don’t doubt his belief. But I hope he also believes that he needs to challenge himself every so often, to take some risks and see where it leads creatively. After all, wasn’t Avantasia itself such a risk twenty two years ago?

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