Category Archives: Album Reviews

Poison Idea – Kings of Punk

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PISouthern Lord seems to be making its move towards becoming a hardcore label official. All jokes aside, the recent releases of material by Xibalba, Nails, Trap Them, and even d-beat lycanthropes Wolfbrigade is telling of the direction that the label wants to go in. But Poison Idea? Now there’s a throwback.

Reaching back in time to re-re-release the seminal classic, Poison Idea’s third release, not-so-subtly entitled Kings of Punk, so that we may educate ourselves on what actually defines the phrase Hardcore Punk in a world where tough guy crews like Crowd Deterrent wear proverbial Burger King crowns and refer to themselves as such with no irony. It’s raw, nasty, dirty, uncompromising, and pretty damn good. I’ve been late to the party as far as this band is concerned, and I even missed their recent show in Quincy, but better late than never, because if you never, then how can you at all?

Jerry A.’s drug and alcohol infused spit will get in your ears as he yells about cops, being angry, and leading different ‘Lifestyles’ (see what I did? I hope not). “Pig Champion” plays licks that are simple enough to be punker than you, but also tastefully executed and catchy so songs like ‘God Not God’ manage to stick around in your head while you imagine yourself drunkenly making room for yourself to slamdance. The rhythm section rumbles dutifully behind, but still has enough energy to feed positively off the guitar and vocals to create an atmosphere that lives up to the album’s semi-facetious name. I’m coming across as too academic here, but only because otherwise this review would be detailing what kind of foolish act I would partake in while listening to any given song.

While the original material on its own stands the test of time, there are also live versions of every track and beyond, intermingled with some chuckle-worthy banter by Jerry A., this being the product of altogether too much liquor and too few brains left intact from just being too “punk” to articulate linear thought. It’s an exercise in how many different ways one can huff glue and still be functional enough to say something negative. Also a completely original forgery of Motörhead‘s self-named jam which I can’t seem to remember the name of, and a hateful sampled piss-take where someone clearly is in need of Mr. Clean.

Taking the time to listen to Poison Idea has shown me just how important they were in the formation of hardcore punk as a genre, so I feel like even more of a nerd because I’m gonna namedrop them like everyone else when asked about the history of hardcore. It’s always good to learn things.

 

8.5/10

 

Poison Idea on Facebook

 

Sean Pierre-Antoine


A Perfect Circle – Stone and Echo

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51fRLi24+GL._SL500_AA280_The premise of the super-group is a always an exciting thought, especially when the members come from some of the most innovative bands in rock music history. However, combined forces don’t always pay off, with some groups failing to deliver collaborative goodness. A Perfect Circle is one of the super-groups to emerge from said crowd that actually have some substance behind their well-known names and with a new album looking unlikely in the near future, the band have decided to keep their name relevant with a box-set release featuring live recordings of all three albums, plus their 2011 performance at Red Rocks.

 

Whether or not you’re A Perfect Circle fan, listening to the live renditions of Mer de Norms, Thirteenth Step and eMOTIVe does allow you to both appreciate the love the band has from its fans, as well as the quality of their live musical output. On excellent form not twice but thrice, Tool front man Maynard James Keenan is superb for each of the album recordings here, as are Billy Howerdel and co behind him, with their alternative rock noise sounding as relevant today as it did when first recorded. As for their show, their covers of ‘Imagine’, ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’ and ‘What’s Goin’ On’ act as major highlights, as impressive new song ‘By and Down’ sees them recalling their more melodic days of recent times.

 

The question with this box set however still remains: is it a viable purchase? For fans, it’s a yes and for anyone who hasn’t seen the band perhaps it’s another yes but if you did’t enjoy A Perfect Circle before, there really isn’t much here that will sway your opinion or your credit card, regardless of the quality tunes at hand. An indulgence rather than a necessity, Perfect Circle Live: Featuring Stone and Echo features some fantastic music but it also sounds like the actions of a band that are trying to keep their fans, despite the fact that they haven’t offered anything (with the one song exception) new in nearly ten years. There’s a whiff of a distraction technique in the air with this box set and it’s a costly one too.

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A Perfect Circle on Facebook

8.0/10

Emma Quinlan

 

 


Oranssi Pazuzu – Valonielu

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1185301_10151629766588553_312929272_nFor those in the know, Finnish quintet Oranssi Pazuzu have been one of the most exciting and talked about bands operating in the labyrinth depths of the black metal underground; their borderline unpronounceable name and freakishly weird take on an established sound has been a tonic to those left cold by the standard blood n’ puke splattered fare from the Land of a Thousand Lakes. 2013 sees the release of third album Valonielu (Svart Records) which in the words of the band themselves may well make good of their stated aim of making music “that invites all the arsonists and smokers to hold hands.”

The psychedelic element to Oranssi Pazuzu’s sound has always sat comfortably with their harder black metal basis, and these two forces weave and combine to great effect throughout the entirety of “Valonielu.” Opening track ‘Vino Verso’ is built around a repetitive mid-paced riff that you may find on a Satyricon B-side; clinical and basic, but it’s the swirling electronica that settles like a narcotic-infused miasma on the listener’s mind; the distorted Theremin creating a creepy, spacy atmosphere that elevates the track into something else altogether. The wandering bassline and rushing synth swells of ‘Tyhjä Temppeli’ take things to an even weirder plateau where warped prog structures meet harsh, strangulated vocals, minus guitars of course. At this point in time, reality already appears to be collapsing in on itself.

Languid dissonance is the order of the day on ‘Uraanisula’, again making use of repetition and eerie keyboards over the course of twelve increasingly harrowing minutes. This could be what happened if Pink Floyd had discovered a copy of the Necronomicon and decided to smoke the pages. The pace increases for the final few minutes with a jagged riff suggesting something truly unholy has been summoned as you feel your mind cracking under the onslaught, not helped by the nightmarish psychedelic vibe that seems to keep finding new ways to antagonise your ears.

Nerves are further frayed by the restless, swirling tones of instrumental Reikä Maisemassa’ and the dense, driving riffs of ‘Olen Aukaissut Uuden Silmän’, the latter of which finally throws in a bit of tremolo picking. It doesn’t last long however, as kaleidoscopic prog rhythms drench proceedings in awesome, alien murk once more. We finish off with a few moments of serenity at the beginning of ‘Ympyrä On Viiva Tomussa’ before a shimmering wall of noise hits home and we are off into the void again, flying helplessly away from earth and sanity. The pounding riff and other assorted noises could have been written by Beherit if they practised in a cave daubed by ancient astronaut hieroglyphs whilst off their tits on peyote and rum, and just in case you’re curious, that’s a good thing.

With Valonielu, Oranssi Pazuzu deserve to join the hallowed ranks of the weird that operate on the fringes of black metal, such as The Meads of Asphodel and A Forest of Stars. The level of originality, avant-garde oddness and raw talent is enough to render the panda-painted orthodox brigade as relevant as whatever Varg Vikernes writes on his blog these days. Is it black metal? Who knows what it is, and who cares? It’s in here now, with us, and that’s all that matters.

9/10

Oranssi Pazuzu on Facebook

James Conway


The Melvins – Tres Cabrones

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TresCover-5x5With their warped sense of humour, unique style and penchant for musically doing whatever the f-they want, (the) Melvins career has been a long and interesting one. From major label signings to being dropped to the present day, which sees them this year celebrating 30 years of being a band, Buzz and Dale at least, have seen it all.

Tres Cabrones (Ipecac), their 19th studio album, welcomes back original drummer Mike Dillard and it’s a record that once again proves why The Melvins’ long-standing career is fully justifiable.

 

As usual, the Washington four-piece have made an album that no-one should attempt to neat-pile into a generic category, mainly because Tres Cabrones has no such one to squeeze into. Ranging from 1 to 8-minutes long, the tracks have no time pattern, with long and sludgier tracks standing alongside shorter, satirical outbursts. For instance, ‘I Told You I Was Crazy,’ a slow and dense number, comes straight off the back of short parody track ’99 Bottles Of Beer,’ which sees the band chanting along to mostly abstract noise. Whilst expected, the latter of these types of songs (of which there’s 3) do become tiresome after your fourth hearing but everywhere else (the) Melvins bag of tricks is never-endingly brilliant to hear.

 

Straight-up punk fused with solos (‘Walter’s Lips’), noise rock mixed with acoustic endings (‘Dogs and Cattle Prods’) and metal chugs merged with grungy guitar strums (‘City Dump’), there’s no originality spared on Tres Cabrones. Often lyrically bizarre and, for the most part, well-musically crafted, (the) Melvins latest album may have a few downs but the innovative ups more than outweigh these small annoyances. Their career may be approaching its more mature stages, but hanging up their guitars in favour of golf clubs certainly doesn’t look likely in the near future, a situation we should all be thankful for.

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7.5/10.0

 

The Melvins on Facebook

 

Emma Quinlan

 

 


Ephel Duath – Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness

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hblsbdAs the man who IS Ephel Duath, Davide Tisso doesn’t believe in making easy choices. Following their 2000 debut Phormula they seemed poised to pick the leftovers from the appealingly-eccentric black metal with bits buffet that Arcturus were still keeping well-stocked, but instead Tisso has taken the bizarre choice of hitting the reset button (to abandon one over-stretched metaphor for another) after each album, starting again with a new line-up, new theme and a different take on a familiar sound.

It’s an approach which hasn’t always worked out for him, delivering misses as often as hits and at worst making Tisso seem like some Poundland Ihsahn, but HBL brings the success rate back up, constituting both a massive step-up from 2009’s heroically boring Through My Dog’s Eyes, and a genuinely rewarding album in its own right.

The biggest draw for non-fans is that Tisso’s wife Karyn Crisis handles sole vocal duties, the first full album she’s sung on since 2004 (save for 2012’s On Death And Cosmos EP). Her performance is initially disappointing, forsaking the rapid shift between extremes she used in Crisis for a middle-register audible rasp throughout, but once it settles in it’s a quietly engaging performance, simmering with pent-up resentment and a controlled anger which stands out from the shrieking and raging of most Extreme Metal.

The music this time around seems to take its cues from Karyn’s vocals, feeling at times like a more restrained and introspective take on The Hollowing era Crisis. This is not music that tries hard to grab you, there are no hooks or catchy melodies here, and equally no showboating tech-fests – though much of what Tisso does here is genuinely bold it’s quietly so, with little flash. Atmosphere and the building of tension are more important here than catching attention, and at its weakest the album can drift into the background and lose focus, but overall keeps the balance maintained.

Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness (Agonia Records) is a quiet, unassuming album that doesn’t bellow its qualities out loud, but whose hidden depths open up on multiple listens to reveal a genuinely rich and layered collection of songs.

 

 

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7.9/10

Ephel Duath on Facebook

 

Richie H-R


In Solitude – Sister

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While the scary costumes and whimsical 70s pop choruses of a certain other Swedish band may gain the most column inches, five other Scandinavian sons of heavy metal have been making waves in the underground for quite some time now. Uppsala natives In Solitude have already released two albums of Mercyful Fate meets Iron Maiden old school heaven but 2013 sees their sound both mature and advance significantly into other realms as elements of Goth rock and post punk rear their collective heads on Sister (Metal Blade Records).

 

It’s evident from the mournful, clanging chords of opening track ‘He Comes’ how much In Solitude has grown as an outfit since the release of The World. The Flesh. The Devil. (Metal Blade Records) three years ago. The galloping exuberance of before has been honed through a prism of sublime Classic Rock songwriting that gives each cut on the album a timeless quality. The surging hard rock vibes of ‘Death Knows Where’ have a commanding, muscular feel that while hinted at on previous releases is fully and gloriously realised here. As previously mentioned, outside influences have made their presences felt, as witnessed by the eerie refrains of ‘A Buried Sun’ that resembles The Cure covering mid-period Black Sabbath.

Each member of the band puts in an utterly stellar shift throughout, which is easily demonstrated by the infectious melodic riffing of ‘Pallid Hands’ and the quirky, marching rhythms of the title track. But the stand out performance has to be by vocalist Pelle Åhman, whose cold, commanding tones echo and soar all over this recording like Joe Strummer had he been allowed to really sing his lungs out. Add in a warm, husky production that gives each instrument room to breathe and we have a late contender for album of the year. So many more people need this band in their life and with any luck, Sister will be the record that does it.

8.5/10

In Solitude on Facebook

James Conway

 


Ghost B.C. – If You Have Ghost (EP)

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CDI have been asked more about the Ghost B.C. the last few years , and what I think of them as a legitimate band than any other question about music. Insanely catchy, totally blasphemous, and seemingly playing a joke on all of the humorless hipsters and elitists who hate them more than a tech death fan hates emo kids moshing at a show. While part of me says all of Ghosts entire being is gimmicky, and the band would be just solid if it were a bunch of dudes, there is no denying the quality of the players, or the songs. When the dust settles years from now, I believe they will be remembered for the impact they made on this era of music, and not the aura and schtick that makes people discount them.

 

This EP is really not that much different than their other recorded covers, or really any of their recorded output. Except that this EP was produced by Dave Grohl, and these are some of the best and most fun covers the band has done to date. The title track is the Roky Erickson song ‘If You Have Ghosts’ which is pretty evil sounding compared with the original. They give it their own bombastic treatment, as you’d expect them to, and it works well. Despite the hilarity of the idea of this band covering ABBA, I can’t really get past the fact that I hate ABBA deeply, as every self-respecting metal fan ought to. Still, ‘I’m A Marionette’ works as a cover, and I suspect this will be the big hit that carries this album. Army of Lovers‘ ‘Crucified’ has no irony at all actually, and is also one of the top songs herein. The best cover, and perhaps the best cover the band has done is Depeche Mode’s ‘Waiting For The Night’. This rendering is down right bliss inducing, whether you count yourself a DM fan, or not. The live version of ‘Secular Haze’ from Infestissumam is solid. Sonically the cross between the carny vibe and church music is great, and just cements the intelligence of the band to me. Once again, nothing new from this band, but still enjoyable.

 

 

8.5/10

 

Ghost B.C. on Facebook

 

Keith (Keefy) Chachkes

 


Black Bottle Riot – Soul In Exile

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1274678_621010464588189_353064638_oIt’s Friday night. The streets are awash with dickheads and slappers. You’ve had a couple of beers with your mates and fancy a couple more but you’d rather insert raw, chopped scotch bonnets into your eyeballs than hit [Generic Local Nightclub], so you end up at the pub. The one that has live bands on, and to be fair, the band that’s on are alright. They’ve just done a decent version of Zeppelin’s Rock n’Roll. This was a good choice. And then the singer utters those fateful words; “OK, we’re going to do one of our own songs next…” The groan from your fellow punters drowns out the name of the track, but it’s probably called We’ll Be Rollin’ or Backseat Boogie.

Soul In Exile (Suburban) is an entire album of those songs. It even has songs with those exact names. Which would be fine if they were AC/DC. But they’re not. The best thing about Soul In Exile is that it only lasts 33 minutes.  The worst thing about Soul In Exile is pretty much everything that happens within those 33 minutes.

I don’t really even want to hear pub-rock when I’m in a pub, let alone hand over cash for an album of it. I was sick of shit pub-rock bands by the time I was 17, let alone (mumbles) years later. Tattered ‘n’ Torn (never an “and”), who used to play the Oliver Twist and had a singer that looked like Dog The Bounty Hunter, would shit on this.

“But Steve, it’s a tribute to the great rock bands and the southern rock movement…” Who cares!? Black Bottle Riot (who are as close to a fucking riot as a hat-knitting contest in an old people’s home) are safe, boring, ploddy, obvious and above all pointless.  And they’re signed?! When many much-more deserving bands aren’t! You want to pay tribute and indulge in some Southern Rock? Do it properly, like Black Stone Cherry, don’t play fat old Dad music (and, for the record, Fat Old Dad are waaaaay better…).

2/10

Black Bottle Riot on Facebook 

Steve Tovey


Dethklok – METALOCALYPSE: The Doomstar Requiem – A Klok Opera

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klok doomstar reqDethklok is a show/band that you either hate or you love that has never been more apparent than with the release of The Doomstar Requiem – A Klok Opera (BS Records). Brendon Small’s rock opera is something that needs to be seen to be believed. I don’t say that because it is a masterpiece, but because the soundtrack falls flat without our favorite animated metal band’s shenanigans.

The Doomstar Requiemtakes everything great about Metalocalypse, its humor, metal, and kooky hijinks, and tries to turn them into a tale larger than life itself. In doing so, the musical misses the mark. The television show’s toilet humor doesn’t mix well with the sound of a fifty piece orchestra and feels as though it is trying entirely too hard at times. The storyline itself is also nothing to write home about. Time that could have been spent developing it further is instead devoted to elaborate musical numbers. This works out well for a few scenes, most notably the flashback detailing Toki’s guitar duel with Skwisgaar and his subsequent recruitment into the band.

Musically, the album leaves much to be desired. Dethklok is marketed as a metal band and this production is more of a taste of Broadway with some electric guitars thrown in. There are a few interesting riffs that I would have liked to see pan out but it is primarily filled with softer ballads. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in the right context, I was just expecting something decidedly more brutal than what was delivered.

Having the visuals to accompany the music definitely makes the soundtrack far more tolerable than it would be on its own. Listening to The Doomstar Requiem album sans animation is actually pretty boring unless you’ve seen it at least once. I wouldn’t bother with the soundtrack unless you have seen the special a few times and can’t live without it. That being said, the scene featuring the song ‘Partying Around the World’ should be a national treasure.

Stand Alone Soundtrack – 6.5/10

Musical Special – 7/10

Dethklok online

Aleida La Llave

 


Avenged Sevenfold – Hail To The King

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 Juxtaposing the careers and fortunes of Avenged Sevenfold and Metallica showcases a multitude of similarities. Both had early releases (Sounding The Seventh Trumpet/Waking The Fallen vs Kill ‘em All) that, while their respective genres (metalcore and thrash) were in their formative years, set the template for others to follow. These were followed by seminal recordings that took each band beyond the movements they’d previously been attached to (City of Evil and Avenged Sevenfold vs Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets) by creating anthems and developing their distinctive sounds and styles, nodding to the scenes that had spawned them, while moving (way) beyond them. Both bands suffered tragedies by losing much-loved and respected band members and responded with dark albums, littered with lengthy complex songs (Nightmare vs …And Justice For All).

And then Metallica released Metallica (aka The Black Album) which, for those who don’t know the story, established its protagonists as the most popular metal band on the planet, bar none, and far outsold any other metal album. By millions. At the same stage of their career, 22 years later, Avenged Sevenfold may have released The Black Album II.

Taking the same approach that Hetfield and Co did on their eponymous album, Hail To The King sees A7X simplifying their songwriting and focus on massive, straight-forward big riffs, powerful choruses, cavernous 4/4 drumming and producing great Rock/Metal songs. Much has been said of the way Hail To The King wears its influences on its sleeves, and much of what has been said is fair, but to write off Hail To The King as a covers album, or to undermine what A7X have done here, is missing the point. This is an incredibly strong album.

In an age where fillers populate mainstream metal albums that are structured like pop releases around a couple of singles, there are no weak moments amongst the 10 songs, with tracks as deep as #8, the Clairvoyant-esque ‘Coming Home’, a highlight with its melodic headbanging guitar refrains inducing the involuntary Claw as it builds to crescendo. Then track 9, ‘Planets’, wades in, dark and crushing. Hail To The King is littered with anthems at every turn, from the fist-pumping, stadium-filling title-track, the GNR sleaze of ‘Doing Time’, the black crunching slabs of the sinister ‘Requiem’, the riff every new bedroom guitarist will learn first, ‘Shepherd of Fire’ and the saccharine tones of the piano and strings led radio-hit-in-waiting ‘Crimson Day’.

Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance pull off that oh-so-elusive feat of meting out leads and solos that are both memorable and enhance the song, in a way Mustaine and Friedman did in their prime, while M Shadows convinces, dominating the album like Axl Rose or Sebastian Bach used to, putting in the strongest, most genuine performance of his career.

There are more than clear nods to Metallica (‘This Means War’ is a re-write of Sad But True), Guns N’Roses (‘Doing Time’), Countdown To Extinction-era Megadeth (‘Heretic’) and Iron Maiden – there are full on headbangs in their directions – but through it all, this is undeniably an A7X album.

Until now, I’ve never been much of an A7X fan, but credit is more than due, it’s been earned. They set out to write a classic metal record and they’ve not only succeeded in doing that, they’ve written the classic metal album of their generation. Underground and extreme this isn’t. Big, mainstream and filled with metal anthems for a new breed of the wretched and divine, this most certainly is.

Avenged Sevenfold on Facebook

8.5/10

 

Steve Tovey