New Music To The Rescue: Aeternam, Conception, Myrkur, and more!

With life settling into a strange and slower routine, I’ve had time to listen to stuff that came out in March and early April that I didn’t quite get around to right away with all the craziness happening a few weeks ago. It’s been a nice distraction, but also genuinely exciting in its own right because there’s new music from some big names covered down below, well —- big names in my book anyway. That includes blog favorites Aeternam, as well as the return of the mighty Roy Khan in Conception! Keeping these relatively short because I have a monster Nightwish review coming soon next in my more typical lengthier approach, and there ended up being quite the handful of releases in this update. Let me know what you think in the comments section below, what new or old music have you all been checking out lately?


Aeternam – Al Qassam:

I have been excited about a new Aeternam album ever since I saw them in Austin on their opening slot supporting Orphaned Land and Tyr on their 2018 North American tour, having been made a fan of theirs shortly before with the 2017 release of Ruin of Empires. They of course made that year’s best albums list, and we’ve promoted them fairly heavily on MSRcast in the past few years so I’d imagine most of you know about them already so I’ll spare the bio. Aeternam have their own approach to the arguably unfortunate but seemingly accepted genre tag of oriental metal. Their largely melodeath with hints of thrash approach is tempered with ample doses of Middle Eastern melodicism that is often delivered via lead guitar motifs rather than the largely string driven approach of their peers in Orphaned Land. That means that Aeternam’s sound is denser, thicker, and brutal in passages even though it’s still capable of being richly melodic even during more furious moments. You hear this contrast straight away on “The Bringer of Rain”, a song that’s equal parts rage filled aggression and epic, soaring, melodic majesty. On “Ascension”, vocalist/guitarist Achraf Loudiy slams straight into a vicious riff and guttural roar from the three second mark, taking us for a ride that spans fierce, pummeling riffs backed by martial percussion and tribal drumming by Antoine Guertin. It’s easily the heaviest moment on the album, maybe the band’s heaviest moment since Moongod’s “Hubal, Profaner of Light”, yet still is structured around a twisting, sharp angled melodic through line. This is largely a far heavier album than Ruins of Empires which albeit suitably headbanging in its own right, was more of an exploration of the band’s cinematic side. On Al Qassam, it feels like the band are taking what they learned there, and marrying it to the straight ahead thunder of their 2012 classic Moongod, the fusion producing an album that’s both true to their sound and daringly experimental.

The latter side comes through in most of the songs here, even if they’re meant as breaks of sunlight amidst an otherwise darkened, metallic storm. Case in point is “Hanan Pacha”, a remarkably epic track built on throat-ripping vocal aggression from Loudiy and awesome riff interplay with his new lead guitarist Maxime Legault (who was in the band when I saw them live but is making his first recording appearance with them on this album). But this assault ceases towards the middle bridge of the song, with Loudiy clean singing over gorgeous acoustic guitars, inspired melodic flourishes from Legault and an epic string backdrop, all before swooping back down into a tunnel of pure brutality to close it out. Speaking of Loudiy’s clean vocals, he’s simply never sounded better at it than on this album, particularly on the should-be-a-single “Lunar Ceremony”, which starts out with an impassioned performance by him that is boldly upfront in the mix. This confidence in his abilities might be what prompted him to try singing this track entirely in cleans, a first for the band on a heavy song, demonstrating that they can mold and shape their sound in varying degrees. Despite the lack of guttural vocals here though, Aeternam avoid sounding in any way like their contemporaries in Myrath (not that it’d be a bad thing persay, I love Myrath), because of course, its all about the minor key laden riffing here, and that doesn’t fade into the background just because clean vocals are in the mix. On the most mellow cut on the album, “Palmyra Scriptures”, Loudiy is joined by Orphaned Land’s own Kobi Farhi who lays down a characteristically beautiful vocal performance in English, a striking counterpoint to Loudiy’s own Arabic language vocals. And I was really impressed by the creativity and breadth of songwriting shown in “Celestial Plains”, as varied and expansive a song as I’ve heard Aeternam ever cook up, built on grandiose orchestral cinematics, major chord clean vocal harmonies, all while still structured around a dramatic series of riff progressions. This is an excellent album by a band that seemingly doesn’t know how to make a bad one. They know their sound, they clearly love the style of music they’re creating, and so do I.

Heaven Shall Burn – Of Truth And Sacrifice:

I know that anything that resembles metalcore has tended to elude coverage on this blog, and that’s largely because I just think most of the genre is derivative to the point of exhaustion. But I have had some quiet appreciation for the style’s founders, as seen in my opening up about enjoying Hatebreed a couple years ago when their last album came out. I’ve felt the same way about Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn, having found myself impressed with footage of their sets at various Europoean metal fests, and enjoying a couple of their earlier records in small doses when the mood struck. I haven’t listened to a new Heaven Shall Burn record in ages, but this one landed in my Spotify recommends and honestly, I’ve been coming back to it again and again. I’ve likely missed a transition point somewhere, but I don’t remember this band being as heavily melo-death steeped as they sound on this new album. Amidst the pure andrenaline fueled fury in tracks like “Thoughts and Prayers” and “Eradicate”, there’s a surprising nod to Scandinavia in the syrupy melodies found in “My Heart and the Ocean”, and “Children of a Lesser God”. In the midst of the latter, the band slow things down to an Insomnium-styled moody, textural, introspective passage. Its followed up by a Fear Factory-hearkening industrial tinged assault in “La Resistance”, both songs featuring unexpected twists, a recurring theme through the album. Others will know the context better than I, but the band is experimenting here in a surprisingly expansive and unabashed manner. That they’ve gone for the double disc length approach with nearly 100 minutes of music on offer is a risky play, but I’ve found that my attention span hasn’t waned throughout it and that when its over I’m perfectly fine with hitting repeat and letting it fly again. This might be a surprise recommendation, but I think everyone should give this one a chance no matter their stance on metalcore.

Lucifer – Lucifer III:

I’ve kept a curious eye on Lucifer for the past few years, not only for the presence of the man behind Entombed’s Left Hand Path in Nicke Andersson, but for the earthy yet ethereal vocals of frontwoman Johanna Sadonis. I got into them after becoming a fan of the now defunct 60’s hard rock revivalists Purson, at that band’s one Houston gig actually in 2016 from the advice of a fellow attendee there. Lucifer had released their debut the year before, and it was intriguing enough, not quite as gripping as Purson, but I thought their throwback, occulty hard rock had potential. Fast forward to now and their helpfully titled third album, and I think they’ve finally realized a fully fleshed out version of what it is they’ve been trying to do. The improvements are subtle, but I hear growth in the intelligence of the songwriting, such as on the complex yet straightforwardly catchy “Midnight Phantom”. Sadonis and Andersson have gotten better at building up to the delivery of their memorable hooks, particularly with slowly escalating verse-bridge transitions, complemented by wonderfully dirty, buzzy riffs from Martin Nordin. Its at once heavier than anything they’ve done, yet still hits the same satisfying pop notes that they brought to the table with “California Sun” from their last record. We even get some metallic-doom level aggression on “Coffin Fever”, the extra heaviness being spread across these nine songs. Sometimes they run into the same problem that handicapped their first two albums, the meandering, lack of a payoff that characterizes a song like “Leather Demon”, but its not enough to sink what is easily their best album to date.

Myrkur – Folkesange:

Some of you might remember that I was so enthralled by Myrkur’s sophomore album Mareridt, it wound up making the top five in my 2017 Best Albums list. I wrote in that review that it succeeded in employing a more creative and natural folding in of the black metal elements than her debut album. But what really drew me back to it over and over was that she greatly expanded the depth and variety of the rustic, darkened folk music that was woven throughout the album. She’d introduced it on her debut of course, but it was kept separate from the black metal tracks, little interlude esque slices of respite amidst the Ulver-ian fury. That she found a way to integrate both elements was really exciting, and I still think its one of the best folk-metal albums in recent memory, vicious and entrancing in one package. Its kind of a surprise then that she’s chose to sharply veer away from that merging of her two musical worlds on its follow up, the appropriately titled Folkesange. This is a purely Scandinavian folk music album, with a lot of it’s gorgeous instrumentation played by Myrkur (Amalie Bruun) herself —- piano, violin, mandolas, lyres, and something called a nyckelharpa (sort of a Swedish hurdy-gurdy apparently). She layers these instruments together on tracks that are a mix of reworked old folk songs and some originals written in a traditional style. The only one I know for sure that Bruun crafted herself is the leadoff track and first single “Ella”, a richly evocative piece of music that throbs and pulses with a quality of ache and yearning I’ve come to associate with the music of Loreena McKennitt. I’ve got a suspicion that she’s also personally responsible for the excellent “Leaves of Yggdrasil”, which moves at a haunting, almost stately pace, Bruun’s truly spectacular vocal both ethereal and earthy. She’s brought in Heilung’s Christopher Juul to helm the production on this album, and he clearly understands these instruments and how to record them in such a way as to preserve their room filling texture. And it all largely works really well, I’ve enjoyed having this on lately, particular when I needed to chill out. I found the inclusion of her take on Joan Baez’s rendition of the Scottish ballad “House Carpenter” a weird, distracting choice however (it’s not bad, but it doesn’t really fit either), but its a minor quibble. This is, admittedly, a strange album to review in the regular sense, because there’s nothing metallic about it at all, so I kinda don’t know what to tell you there. Either you’ll be into this or it’s just not your cup of tea, I can only say it’s worth the time to find out.

Dynazty – The Dark Delight:

I don’t think I’ve ever written about Dynazty before, a band I came to know only due to vocalist Nils Molin’s prominent role as Jake Lundberg’s replacement in Amaranthe. In that role, Molin does a solid job, but in between their screamer Henrik Englund and of course Elize Ryd’s roles in the vocal department, we don’t get to hear much of Molin’s range, with his spots frequently coming in the form of vocal counterpoint to his fellow singers instead of a lead vocal role. In Dynazty however, Molin reveals himself to be an excellent, versatile singer, possessing a smooth tenor, a voice that sounds at home alongside hard rock and more power metal inclined fare. I was impressed with him on 2018’s Firesign, and perhaps even more impressed with his performances here on The Dark Delight (not in love with that title… sounds like a brand of dark chocolate but oh well). But Molin isn’t and shouldn’t the only focus here, because Dynazty is a pretty good band in their own right, with guitarists Rob Love Magnusson and Mike Lavér capable of seamlessly blending melodeath groove riffery with a looser hard rock inspired feel. This combination results in a sound that is capable of being thicker and darker along the lines of Kamelot or recent Pyramaze, but Molin can lift things into more soaring, shimmering, AOR territory with his vocal melody writing chops that remind me of, well, Jake Lundberg. Lead single “Waterfall” is a perfect example of this, a song that starts out in groove-riff territory but bursts skyward with the sudden onset of Molin’s strong chorus, all without the benefit of a transition bridge (that this works is a rarity in my experience). I’m absolutely loving the heartstring plucking power ballad “Hologram”, not only for its unusual lyrical bent that eschews sentimentality for a more abstract emotional perspective, but for Molin’s impeccable chorus, built on an interplay of a massive major key vocal hook and punctuating symphonic grandeur. Elsewhere on “Heartless Madness”, we hear that hard rockin’ sound that was so prominent on Firesign that seems to have been pushed a little bit to the backburner this time around. That’s okay though, because even in delivering a darker, more metallic album this time around, Dynazty still retains that AOR hard rock DNA in their songwriting, and damn, do I need that right now. This is a quality album, don’t miss it.

Dark Forest – Oak, Ash, & Thorn:

I’m a recent convert to England’s Dark Forest, having been introduced to the band as recently as late December with their 2016 opus Beyond The Veil, one of the most unusual and refreshing power metal albums I’ve heard in awhile. They have a unique sound, at once a mix of a rootsier, more rugged Falconer with splashes of Skyclad and a vocalist who reminds me of the versatile Bruce Dickinson we heard on his many solo albums. That vocalist, one Josh Winnard, is on his third album with the band, having joined the band in 2012 replacing former singer Will Lowry-Scott who was only on board for an EP and the band’s sophomore album (before him, founding guitarist Christian Horton handled vocal duties for their demos and s/t debut album). I haven’t gone back to see how Lowry-Scott nor Horton measured up at the vocal helm, but really I can’t imagine this band’s songs without Winnard’s rather distinctive vocals in the mix —- to me he’s that integral a part of their overall sound. Strike another similarity to Maiden and Dickinson in that regard. I think its fair to say that I haven’t been this intrigued and enthralled by a British metal band since Dragonforce. Their sound is difficult to pinpoint, but Oak, Ash, & Thorn provides examples aplenty, as on the surging, gloriously melodic “Relics”, a whimsy-folk infused song with Maiden-esque guitar patterns and an elating quality to its melodies. There’s an almost Elvenking-like playfulness to the lead off single “The Midnight Folk”, not only in its effervescent lead guitar motifs, but in Winnard’s almost punk-tinged approach to the vocals during the chorus. There’s always a slightly rough, jagged edge to his singing, and it really shows up here in a charming way (particularly in the “whoas” sailing in from the background) that reminds me of Damna’s approach. The martial percussion and machine gun riffing sequence that sits in the middle of the instrumental “Heart of the Rose” is another moment that exemplifies what Dark Forest can pull off so well, highlighted in those paintbrush strokes of bright, chiming guitar figures that adorn the rhythm track. Dark Forest aren’t polished. That ruggedness, that textural “roughness” you hear is a quality that’s at once purposeful and unavoidable. Its no wonder they’re signed to Cruz Del Sur Music, who gravitate towards non-traditional traditional artists in this vein. I enjoyed this record quite a bit, but not nearly as much as I did Beyond The Veil —- let that be your introduction to Dark Forest, and then come back to this.

Conception – State of Deception:

Well here we are, talking about one of the more surreal things to come across The Metal Pigeon inbox in recent memory in one of the strangest times we’re all collectively living through. I’m speaking of course of a new full length album featuring the one and only Roy Khan, who is back with Conception for their first album since their 1997 (at the time) swan song Flow. You’ll remember that I reviewed their single two years ago, my impression being largely favorable, though admittedly I was simply a little overjoyed to hear Roy singing again. Finally we have the first full length album with Roy on vocals since his Kamelot finale in 2010’s Poetry For The Poisoned, and while its a relief that he’s back in as tangible a way as this, your enjoyment of this album might depend a little on whether you are more of a Roy fan or a Kamelot fan, or of course, a Conception fan. I say that because with the exception of a couple songs/moments that I’ll get to below, this is first and foremost a Conception album. That means a lot of groove based, rhythm-forward, prog-metallic elements in the songwriting, as opposed to the symphonic accompanied stylings we were so used to hearing Roy sing alongside with in Kamelot. The first thing that leaps out when I think about State of Deception is that its decidedly a grower, a record that’s gonna take more than a couple listens to really gel for most of us I’d bet. There’s nothing as immediately hooky as “Flow”, “Reach Out”, or “Angel (Come Walk With Me)” from its predecessor, but Roy and his co-songwriter/guitarist Tore Østby deliver a couple gems here whose addictive qualities are a little more layered. The first among them is the lead off single “Waywardly Broken”, which rides on a classic Conception rhythmic riff progression and rumbling, pulsing bass line, and some tension building keyboard layering. Khan’s inimitable expressiveness is on full display here, and he sounds brighter, sharper here than he did on anything on the Dark Symphony EP two years ago (with the exception of “Feather Moves”, which weirdly seems to be lifted from the aforementioned 2018 single entirely, not even re-recorded, though it’s listed as remastered).

We hear some classic Roy vocal ingenuity in “She Dragoon”, boasting the heaviest attack on the album, and Khan ushering things along like the master vocal melody writer he is, this time using an alliterative twist on some of his lyrics that’s a technique I usually associate with pop acts like Lady Gaga and Chvrches (that’s not a negative comparison in my mind, it’s just something new out of the playbook for Roy). There’s a transcendent moment here, at the 3:49 mark where gorgeous backing vocals deliver an earworm of a hook, while Roy accent sings over the top. Its propulsive and exciting, the kind of thing that made me sit up and take notice the first time around. And I really love “The Mansion”, a slow grower of a ballad that might be the most Kamelot-sounding thing here, complete with a guest vocal drop in by Elize Ryd. That chorus is classic Roy though, all uplift and ethereality, with the keyboard orchestration sweeping us along in a rapturous accompaniment. The lyrics here are a nice reminder of the kind of skills Roy has in this department, with creative imagery and inspired storytelling. Of course, here he’s not dealing with the typical Kamelot-ian epic concepts that some of us might really crave (raises hand), but Conception was never about that kind of thing anyway. I wasn’t as wild about the second single “By The Blues” however, and not for a lack of trying either —- but so many listens on, I just can’t shake the association I’m getting here with Dedicated To Chaos era Queensryche (or more accurately, Tateryche). The lyrical choices might have a lot to do with that, because some of the diction here just seems a little out of Roy’s wheelhouse. Maybe that’s just the lyric snob in me resurfacing again though. It should be said that there’s really only seven new songs on offer here discounting the repeat track and the minute long intro track —- it has me wondering if the band wasn’t thinking of the EP and this album as one long project completed over spans of time that had to be broken up into pieces due to crowdfunding reasons. It does leave me with a sense of slight dissatisfaction however with State of Deception on the whole, because it’s a quality Conception record, but it could have been much stronger.

Autumn Harvest Pt II: New Music From Thrawsunblat, Amaranthe, Brainstorm, Wolfheart and More!

The new releases are plentiful throughout October, and fortunately I’ve been better about keeping on top of them this year than I have in the past. Some of these are albums I’ve been looking forward to for most of the year, the new Wolfheart being chief among them. I will admit to being extremely curious about Amaranthe’s Helix, their first post Jake Berg release and debut of new clean singer Nils Molin (of Dynazty fame). Some of you might remember that I wasn’t that keen on their last record Maximalism, which saw Berg’s input and role greatly diminished and as a result led to his departure (which had the silver lining of resulting in a really fun record by Cyhra, his new band with Jesper Stromblad). And of course there’s a new album by Germany’s trad metal stalwarts Brainstorm, a band I’ve been a fan of since way back in the early 2000s during the Metus Mortis / Soul Temptation era. There’s something appropriately fitting about these guys delivering a new record this particular year when I think power metal is in the midst of a sweeping artistic resurgence, a reminder that there are still older bands who have stayed relatively consistent with their style when many of their peers started incorporating hard rock / AOR stylings. But does the new album stack up against the staggering amount of excellent releases by newer power metal bands? I’ll tackle that and other burning questions in the reviews below!


Thrawsunblat – Great Brunswick Forest:

I’ve written about Canada’s Thrawsunblat before, with the band’s 2016’s album Metachthonia landing on that year’s best albums list. Borne out of the incense smoke of Woods of Ypres, former Woods guitarist Joel Violette along with Immortal Bird vocalist Rae Amitay (here on drums) have been quietly releasing amazingly strong blackened folk metal records since 2013, and its been interesting to behold the range of this project, from maritime folk infused charm to blistering black metal fury. Their folk aspect is at once inspired by and very removed from the European folk that we commonly associate with the idea of folk metal, with Violette embracing his native roots of all things Canadian and pushing to the fore folk music of Northeast Canada and in particular the Atlantic coast. I’m only passingly familiar with that kind of music, but I gather that its related to that strain of New Englander lyrical folk song that I’ve found across the years, not quite sea-shanty material but musically joyous all the same. The black metal sieve that Thrawsunblat run this folk music through results in something that is rather unique across the folk metal landscape, one very different from other North American black metal artists that are mostly from the Pacific Northwest.

All that being said about the band’s rich folk influences, Great Brunswick Forest is a surprising album for Violette and Amitay to release right now as a followup to what was a roiling, furious black metal affair in Metachthonia. Picking up where the band left off from the plaintive maritime folk of “Goose River (Mourner’s March)” and the gorgeous gem “Maritime Shores” from the Wanderer album, the new record is an entirely acoustic endeavor, except that it doesn’t behave like the way you’d expect a typical acoustic recording would. That means instead of ballads and forlorn laments, these songs are uptempo,  jaunty affairs, bright and bursting with chiming guitars, lively violins, and a swinging percussive attack. The album starts out with its most representative model of this in “Green Man of East Canada”, a song that owes its lyrical influence directly to folk music, with its tale of two strangers pausing to speak near a darkened wood. Violette is a sharp, nuanced lyricist, and you can tell that he really loves the vein of woodsy Canadian folk that he’s clearly tapping into here, relishing it with every line and stanza; “I’m no stranger to these lands, / Though they’re not my own. / I left with the changed tides /  To call this Brunswick kingdom home”.

Things get more adventurous musically with the aggressively uptempo “Here I Am A Fortress” and the chaotic frenzy heard in “Thus Spoke the Wind”. The former boasts some tremolo-esque acoustic guitar patterns amidst the most traditionally black metal song structure on the album, and the cross pollination of style and instrumental medium is strange to behold at first, but its such a well written song that you become accustomed to the jarring juxtaposition quickly. A key component in making experiments like this one successful is the fiddle playing of one Keegan MC, who is all over this album and really becomes the musical glue and stylistic motif throughout. He has a way of engaging his instrument to create moments of dissonance that support the acoustic tremolo sections and give them a dose of ringing, electric vibrancy. But its Amitay who steals the spotlight in “Thus Spoke…” with her unleashing a battery of what you might term acoustic blast beats during the middle instrumental passage, pushing the way forward for tremolo style acoustic guitar riffs and slicing fiddle blasts to barrel forward in the album’s heaviest, most astonishing section. It was a little chaotic to make heads or tails of at first, but now the song is a favorite of mine, and I always seem to pay attention to that instrumental break.

The absolute show stealer of a song here however is “Via Canadensis”, where I think Violette sneaks in some subtle electric guitar throughout to add some muted crunch to what is a joyful, perfect slice of folk metal. I get a very strong Woods 5 vibe from this song, and musically it wouldn’t have felt out of place on that album where David Gold played around with contrasting musical and lyrical clashes. Lyrically though, this is Violette at his most positive, singing during the refrain “On we go — to the standing stones we’ve yet to raise!”, and that lyric takes on a mythic quality during the nearly a capella mid-song bridge. Similarly, I love the lyrical sentiment and supporting musical sweep that pins together the second half of “Dark Sky Sanctuary”, where Violette delivers his most smooth vocal melody yet in a hooky, Vintersorg-ian chorus. Like the folk metal legend himself, Violette’s vocals are probably going to be hit and miss for some, but frankly most of these songs wouldn’t sound right with another singer, having been attuned to his voice in the writing process. But “Dark Sky Sanctuary” is the exception, as I could hear this slice of folk-pop magic being sung by anyone and everyone, including a female voice (hopefully at some point YouTube will yield a cover version of this). This a magical album, particularly in its arrival at this time of the year when autumn is making its strongest entrance in years. I can’t predict where Violette and Amitay will take Thrawsunblat next, but I’m absolutely over the moon about where they’ve been throughout their career.

Brainstorm – Midnight Ghost:

So we all have our comfort foods right? Mine would be mundane but occasionally essential things like sourdough bread with real butter, soft chocolate chip cookies in bar form like my mom used to make, or whole wheat toast spread with peanut butter and a drizzle of honey with a cup of coffee —- actually this is starting to sound like the ramblings of one that has recently begun another bout of carb kicking (dammit). But thankfully here’s my metal equivalent of comfort food back with a new release to help take the edge off, as Brainstorm has been consistent in familiarity and quality for the better part of two decades now. Its a little over-simplifying to refer to them as meat and potatoes metal, because underneath those chunky riffs and earwormy choruses is a Nevermore-esque progressive technicality. Singer Andy B. Frank is one of the most underrated/overlooked vocalists in metal, capable of an operatic tenor, as well as a gritty, Jon Oliva-esque snarl perfect for the kind of heavier trad that Brainstorm specialize in. They’re a perfect “centering” band, for those times when you feel you’ve gone too far on the avant-garde/blackgaze/ambient/noise/funeral doom end of the metal spectrum or perhaps too far down the Rhapsody/Freedom Call side and need a reminder of metal at its most melodic AND heavy; so you queue up a classic like Soul Temptation or Metus Mortis (or better yet, this still exceptional live set at Wacken 2004 that is the epitome of everything wonderful about our genre) to get yourself right.

Its commendable that Midnight Ghost is the band’s twelfth release, as they’ve been knocking out records at far more regular intervals than most metal bands, at times even delivering two in back to back years. Whats absolutely astonishing however, is that this may very well be the most inspired and accomplished album they’ve ever made, in a recording career that started way back in 1997. Because the core of their sound hasn’t changed over their career, aside from a more welcoming embrace of the choral vocal backed chorus and a touch more symphonic keyboard dressing, I’m speaking to the quality of the songwriting. This is evident in the instant ear-worm gratification of “Ravenous Minds”, as classic a Brainstorm song we’ve ever heard with Frank’s vocals delivered with a sense of empowering belief. He has such staggering strength as a vocalist, singing here with a wildly confident display of his range, from gruff lows to Queensryche-ian highs in that spectacular chorus. At this point, Frank knows the pivot points around his vocals so much that you can hear that awareness reflected in the songwriting, particularly in that everything flows around his crafting of the vocal melodies. You hear it in the string and piano intro to “Revealing the Darkness”, the melody previewing Frank’s epic, arcing vocal during the chorus. Founding guitarists Torsten Ihlenfeld and Milan Loncaric rattle off a machine gun spray of punctuating bursts that are always book ended by a meaty riff to round out a verse section. Its that commitment to heaviness that separates Brainstorm’s dalliances with prog-metal from that of bands such as Dream Theater and Seventh Wonder.

Speaking of other bands, I can’t be the only one who hears a real Iced Earth Horror Show era meets Judas Priest Firepower vibe on “Jeanne Boulet (1764)”, from the aggressive, neo-thrashy attack to the “iter” ending of the lyric in the refrain, its a mash-up of sounds that are pieced together in a very different way for Brainstorm. Its been interesting to hear these influences pop up on this album and bleed through Brainstorm’s normally solid musical wall that they’ve spent a career erecting around themselves. From the moment I first heard them, this was a band that didn’t necessarily wear direct influences on their sleeves, only the general gist of those influences. That they sound more relatable to other German metal bands of all subgenres than say Maiden or Priest or Metallica is a testament to the way they’ve carved out a sonic niche of their own. Frank reminds me more of Mille Petrozza, Rage’s Peavy Wagner and a touch of Hansi Kursch than anything, but even those three singers combined aren’t an accurate representation of his vocals. I can’t believe that I’m getting to say this about his work on Midnight Ghost, but its thrilling to declare that he’s never sounded better. Brainstorm knows what they’re about, and their artistic success depends almost entirely on Frank’s inimitable talents, and its thrilling as a fan to hear them unexpectedly deliver an album this confident and masterful so late in the game. Far from comfort food, this is a meal at that really expensive steakhouse you’ve been waiting and saving for. One of the best albums of the year – write it down.

Amaranthe – Helix:

I won’t even pretend that I wasn’t highly curious about the state of Amaranthe circa 2018 in their post Joacim Lundberg state. Lundberg if you didn’t remember (or preferred not to… you haters) was one of the Swedish sextet’s founding vocalists, their clean male vocalist who had as equally big a hand in the songwriting as guitarist Olof Morck and fellow vocalist Elize Ryd. I first started listening to Amaranthe’s debut out of sheer curiosity in 2011 because you simply could not avoid hearing mention of this band that was cooking up this crazy melo-death/power metal/ pop mash-up. What became clear to me as I veered from somewhat agahst/mildly curious to rather appreciative of their frankly audacious metallic pop, was that Lundberg was a central figure in the formulation of their sound. He described his own contribution to the band’s sound as “melodic Bon Jovi type vocals” and he crafted vocal melodies in that vein that were able to both contrast and complement Ryd’s sugary pop voice. At times he would sing alongside her, in effect providing co-lead vocals that lent a needed earthiness to the melody, while he also had moments where his solo lead vocals would color however briefly the band’s sound with gritty hard rock energy. Of course the band’s two harsh vocal screamers in Andreas Solveström and since 2013 Henrik Englund Wilhelmsson were the melo-death element when Morck’s Soilwork-esque straight to the point riffing was taken into account. It all somehow largely worked, almost improbably so, a kaleidoscope of sound that was difficult to classify yet appealing beyond reason, particularly on 2014’s Massive Addictive.

That balance of elements that made everything gel together was disrupted when Lundberg’s role was gradually diminished on 2016’s Maximalism, the result being a sound that leaned too far in the pop direction and resulted in an album that was oddly disconnected, a jumble of random ideas. In my review for that record, which was written after Lundberg had already left the band, I predicted that his departure would be a huge blow for Amaranthe. When Lundberg resurfaced soon after in Cyhra with ex-In Flames guitarist Jesper Stromblad, their debut was loaded with the same kind of quality vocal melody writing that characterized Lundberg’s work in Amaranthe. It was a fun, strong, and ear-wormy album in a way that was in keeping with Lundberg’s desire to marry those aforementioned Bon Jovi type vocals to melo-death guitars. I mention that because it helps to put into context Amaranthe’s attempt to retreat into the style of the first two and a half (ish) albums, and why that attempt feels unfocused and often empty. That’s not to say that Helix isn’t at times successful, because a song like “Countdown” is every bit the satisfying merger of electro-pop and fuzzy metallic guitars into a direct, focused chorus that is packed as tight as a fun-sized Snickers. And Ryd reaches something approaching inspired on “Dream”, a song that borrows from the tempo and temperature of the quasi-power ballad “Burn With Me” from Massive Addictive, her vocals shining in a duet with new co-vocalist Nils Molin (who’s also in Dynazty, if that name was ringing a bell). Molin is a safe but misguided choice for the band, and that’s not a criticism of Molin as a vocalist, because he’s clearly a talented singer and his work in Dynazty is far better a showcase than what he delivers on Helix. The problem is that his style is all wrong for this band, far more suited to the soaring power metal of his other band and lacking anything resembling an actual rock voice that Lundberg provided.

But elsewhere on the album, its honestly hard to come up with anything resembling a successful example of why I started listening to this band in the first place. Things feel off all over the place —- the lead single “365” is a half baked version of “That Song” from Maximalism, and as controversial as the latter was upon its release, at least it had something interesting going for it with its Queen inspired stomp. With “365” the rhythmic strut never materializes, the vocal melody isn’t nearly as hooky as it should be, and everything just feels like a mess. Similarly unfocused is “Inferno”, which attempts to recreate the sound of the band’s first two albums, but again there’s not enough strength in the vocal melody to make it worth basing a song around it. Molin sticks out in a particularly bad way here, just this out of place voice singing an unconvincing lyric. And look I know, even when Lundgren was in the band Amaranthe’s lyrics hardly ever made sense, but his voice somehow sold what he was singing regardless. The intro verses for songs like the title track and “Breakthrough Starshot” really illustrate why Molin seems so out of place, when he’s forced to sing lyrics that are at best abstractions when he’s used to delivering relatively more literate lyrics in Dynazty. This might improve with his next album with the band, but I get the sense that he doesn’t quite know how to tackle these lyrics, how to get emotionally invested in them and in turn where to place inflection points.

Lets not glide past “Breakthrough Starshot” either, this being the sequel that the awful “Electroheart” never needed but we’re unfortunately getting. Its actually miles better than that atrocity ever was, with an actual memorable hook that will reverberate throughout your brain all day. When fellow metal critics sharpen their knives for this band, its because of songs like this, where for some reason Wilhelmsson is screaming out the lyric “My expectation is the accelerated / Another journey to the breakthrough starshot” —- just, WHAT NOW?!  Ryd’s vocal interjection in the hook via her “yeah yeah’s” reminds me of something I’d have heard from a Britney Spears single in the late 90s (and probably did), but that’s not the kind of pop Ryd should be evoking within the context of Amaranthe, who owe more to Euro-pop and EDM than American bubblegum dreck. Perhaps more awful than “…Starshot” however is the weirdly titled “GG6”, where Wilhelmsson takes the lead and delivers the most maddeningly non-nonsensical lyrics you’ll ever hear, complete with a baffling barrage of profanity that just comes across as lazy and dumb. Everything else on the album is just meh, ho-hum paint by numbers attempts at landing a chorus worth remembering; “Iconic” gets the closest but its still lukewarm, and the ballad “Unified” is where we feel Lundberg’s absence the most. Morck is a talented musician and songwriter, but its more clear than ever that Lundberg was the brainchild behind making the band’s vocal melodies work. They’ve lost the magic ingredient that made their weird metallic amalgam work, and that’s probably going to be news to many who think of Ryd or Morck as the heart and soul of this band.

Wolfheart – Constellation of the Black Light:

Wolfheart’s Tuomas Saukkonen has been releasing records at perhaps a nearly unrivaled clip since his Before the Dawn days from the early aughts onwards, at times with various side projects popping up throughout various years. There have been years where he’s released more than one album, and only two years since 2003 where he hasn’t released anything (2005 and 2014, although during the latter he did chair the producer’s role for a Rain of Acid record). That kind of staggering level of artistic productivity has yielded somewhere in the range of 15-16 complete albums and a host of EPs and splits/singles. I got introduced to him through his Black Sun Aeon melodic doom project, and soon after stumbled onto the fact that said project was already over and he’d forged a new band in Wolfheart, who are already at album number four since their inception in 2013. One of the things my MSRcast co-host and I had been raving about last year was the band’s brilliant release Tyhjyys, which was one of the host of folk-metal gems that 2017 unearthed in a nascent revitalization of that subgenre. I shouldn’t have been surprised that we’d get a follow-up so quickly in little over a year, given Saukkonen’s track record, but its still stunning to consider the turnaround time given just how different Constellation of the Black Light is from its predecessor.

Whereas Tyhjyys was a diverse album, full of songs with slower, more moody, shifting tempos and a utilization of silence and space that made songs like “The Flood” so hypnotic, Black Light sees Wolfheart making the leap into a more wintry, primal, furious style of blackened melodic death metal. I know its going to be an on the nose comparison for many reasons, but its their equivalent to Insomnium’s surprisingly aggressive epic Winter’s Gate. This is a level of aggression that Saukkonen has dabbled in before in brief glimpses and the occasional full song, but here he keeps it as his primary weapon, with only shades of Tyhjyys folkiness and quietude used as accents. The opening track epic “Everlasting Fall” uses a mix of both in its intro passages, but erupts into one of the more violent explosions I’ve heard Saukkonen unleash, propelled along by Joonas Kauppinen’s unrelenting blast beats. The song’s emotional pulse is heard in Olli Savolainen’s keyboards, producing a backdrop of sound that is more Porcupine Tree dreamscape than anything owing to orchestral impulses. I can hear a guitar in there mirroring what the keyboards are doing, and I think I caught sight of that two Saturdays ago in October when I caught Wolfheart live on their tour with Mors Principium Est and headliners Carach Angren. Its a ten minute opening piece, which isn’t shocking in this kind of metal anymore, but it is new for Wolfheart, their longest song to date though it certainly doesn’t feel like it. And its actually the most representative song on the record at that, showcasing the range that they’ll explore throughout the rest of the album and preparing us for the neck-snapping brutality that follows on “Breakwater”.

Its might seem surprising at first if you saw the Napalm Records backed lush music video for “Breakwater” being ushered out as the first single for this album, because this is as uncompromising a black metal attack as Wolfheart have concocted. Wildly spiraling tremolo riffing, blast beats, all with Saukkonen veering between death metal brutality and a blackened rasp in his vocal approach. Its not exactly the kind of insta-catchy single that Napalm is known for having its bands release first, but then they must have known what they were getting into before signing the band. This is Wolfheart’s first release for the growing “major” metal label, a sign that they’re moving up in the world a touch, and have the budget required to fly to Iceland with a small film crew and drones to shoot what is a spectacular looking Skyrim tribute. Things will make sense around the time Saukkonen first stumbles upon the waterfall in the video, when the song downshifts into something moodily mid-tempo, yet still shifting and undulating with its melodic guitar lines, ala Insomnium once again. Its on the far more subdued “The Saw” where we finally get a taste of that old Wolfheart sound, with its stop start riff sequences, thick vocal layers and a major key melodicism pouring through the lead guitar melody. I have detected a little impatience on my part when sitting through “Defender”, which isn’t a bad song by any means, being a straightforward melo-death affair, with a head-nodding worthy riff progression, but its lacking in impacts and surprises. It would’ve been the start of a lopsided album were it not for the rejuvenating ability of “Warfare” and the following “Valkyrie” to close out the album.

Those concluding two songs might actually be one long song, because they feel connected in sound and spirit. The latter has one of the more satisfying opening riffs, a percussive rhythmic piece that is the kind of battle call that a band like Suidakra likes to use quite often. That everything suddenly ends on a lone piano delivering a dirge-like melodic fragment is classic Finnish metal to a tee, from not only a melo-death perspective but also from legends like Sentenced, a Finnish calling card if you will. This is a quality, deep dive worthy album that was released at the perfect time because there’s just something extra special about hearing this kind of wintry music during the first breaths of autumn in the air. I got a big dose of cold Finland this past month, seeing no less than five bands from the country within that time frame. The Carach/Mors/Wolfheart gig was everything a great show in a dingy venue could be, shortcuts and all: The bands were traveling light on that tour, packed into one tour bus with notable cuts to band lineups to save on money. Wolfheart ran keyboards through a laptop, Mors ran their absent bassist through another laptop, and well of course Carach Angren could hardly afford to bring a string quartet with them so they too used the laptop. For all I knew it was the same one. That didn’t matter, and Wolfheart were as intense and crushing onstage as this album would have you believe, and well received for a band on their first North American trek. I was a little surprised that they didn’t play anything off Tyhjyys, leaning on two songs apiece from every other album including the new one. The hope is that with Napalm’s promotional engine supporting them, they’ll find their way back here on another few supporting tours. I’ll be there for sure.

Conception – re:conception:

I usually don’t review individual songs or single releases, with few exceptions, and Conception’s first new music in what, twenty-one friggin years certainly qualifies. Their EP is coming out in a few weeks and this single has two pieces of music that will be on that release and one exclusive track, “Feather Moves”. I’ll talk more about the songs at length on the review for the EP in the future but I just wanted to chime in here to talk about the stunning realization that we’re hearing Roy Khan’s vocals once again. Most of you have read that piece I did on Khan many years ago about the giant hole he was leaving behind not only in Kamelot but in progressive / power metal in general with his at the time retirement. The nature of his departure from Kamelot, the cryptic statement he released at the time —- everything really pointed towards a permanent exit, and I just couldn’t help but be a little selfish about it, thinking of all the great lyrics and vocal melodies we were being denied. When news broke that he was heard (literally) in a Norwegian rehearsal studio jamming with his former Conception bandmates, the classic lineup at that, I may or may not have gone into full on denial mode. But with April’s Pledgemusic campaign announcement, everything was confirmed and so was the utter joy at not having to watch another year tick by where Khan’s talents were being utilized.

He simply sounds excellent on these two songs (one instrumental, yeah… I know), his voice rich and full of that ability to inflect incredible amounts of emotion in a single phrase. To Conception’s credit, they’re really picking up where they left off on Flow, with heavily rhythmic, undulating (I sure love that word lately it seems) riff progressions and impassioned songwriting. Tore Østby is shredding all over the place, with little interjections and micro-solos to fill in the vocal gaps, and the rhythm section of bassist Ingar Amlien and drummer Arve Heimdal playing in unconventional, groove oriented, almost poly-rhythmic patterns. But wisely, Khan is left to direct traffic with his vocal melodies, singularly able to shift the tone of a song from dark and stormy to angelic and uplifting as we get to hear on the chorus to “Grand Again”. There’s a filter on his voice in select moments on this song, nothing that’s distracting, in fact it actually adds to the song but I would like to hear something on the EP that really sees him cut loose. His range does not appear to be diminished in the slightest, I’d even say he sounds close to Ghost Opera era Kamelot here. Hopefully the time off did him good in that regard, to lay off the heavy touring and simply rest his vocal chords. There’s folks voicing concerns about the future of Tommy Karevik’s own golden pipes due to Kamelot’s touring schedule, but I think that’s a long way off, being that he’s almost a decade under Khan in age. There’s a morality tale here for career bands, to reconsider making a living from being on the road and go the semi-professional route like our guy Tuomas Saukkonen from Wolfheart. At the end of the day, its about an artistic legacy right?

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