The long running New England Metal And Hardcore Festival held its 19th annual event recently and the lineup was excellent. As usual, fans came from all of New England and even further reaches of musicdom to hangout and rock at the grand old lady of music venues in Massachusetts, The Worcester Palladium in Worcester, MA. Hillarie Jason covered the festival once again for Ghost Cult and shot the awesome pictures for this piece! Continue reading
Finland’s Tuska open-air metal festival is celebrating their twentieth anniversary in a very cool way. Continue reading
When Battle Beast guitarist and co-founder Anton Kabanen left the band in 2015 shortly after their third album Unholy Savior (Nuclear Blast) had topped the charts in their native Finland, it left the remaining members somewhat unsure of their future.Continue reading
The long running New England Metal And Hardcore Festival returns for a 19th time with Testament, Sepultura, Prong, Kublai Khan, The Last Ten Seconds Of Life, Varials, Left Behind, No Zodiac, and Precious on Friday and Sabaton, Katatonia, Hammerfall, Amorphis, Caspian, Delain, Swallow The Sun, Battle Beast, Leaves Eyes, and Circuit Of Suns.
. More bands TBD.Continue reading
Amorphis has finally announced their return to North America, and Swallow The Sun is coming with them! Continue reading
In a little less than five months, the 7th Editon of the 70000 Tons Of Metal Cruise will set sail from the Port of Miami, to Labadee, Haiti, and back on a cruise made of metal music and fun.
They have only been a fully functioning unit for a short few years, but in what has already been a busy and exciting life span which has seen The King Is Blind become a fast rising and important part of the UK extreme metal scene, there has seemingly been two themes. The first of which has been their boldness, specifically to be uncompromising in their vision and to not work at half measures. In part, this boldness is a result of the experience of the individuals whom, despite their refusal to rely on past glories, have seen tenures in UK extreme metallers including Cradle Of Filth, Entwined and Extreme Noise Terror. As important as the band of course see their previous experience, it’s a factor that vocalist Stephen John Tovey does not see as something the band itself need to rely on.
“I like the fact that the album (Our Father, out on Cacophonous) is so strong that the media are focusing on what we are doing, our experience might get mentioned in passing but it generally hasn’t been an issue. That’s how we wanted it to be, we wanted it to be this organic thing, we didn’t want to be seen as living on past names, and to be honest I it serves us well to have had that past, we are going into this with our eyes open, we know what we are doing in the studio which is a huge learning curve when you’re younger. We don’t go into detail about what our past histories are when it comes up because its important in how we do things now, but that’s about as far as it goes.”
What this experience has certainly helped to mould however is this aforementioned confidence and boldness to pursue their vision, a move obvious in the band’s conceptual tract that showed signs throughout their demo and EP releases, to date culminating in Our Father’s duality between fantasty and reality. When asked about this assurance concerning the debut album, Tovey seems reflective about the band’s decision, proving both devil’s advocate to the notion whilst revealing that it was a discussed decision: “The other part of it though is; my first metal album was Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, so coming in at the first album pick was a concept album, again on a mystical kind of scale. So when doing Deficiencies Of Man (Mordgrimm) and I was talking about lyircs, and I said to Lee (Appleton) that I always wanted to do the thing of telling the story of Satan but my interpretation of it and how I wanted to do it, but I felt it was probably something for album 2 or 3, and he was like we might not get an album 2, and that was a hard hitting comment because he was right, who knows what’s going to happen; at the time we didn’t have a label for the album. The other point was we had to the best we could do at this stage so we are going to an album, why not put everything we can in to it?”
The thought process the band took into bringing this concept to life saw them look in great detail about layout and flow, even delving in to the all time greats for influence and a blueprint. “We were really meticulous, when making the album we already had two or so songs written at that point, we sat down and mapped out our favourite albums and the flow and taking things, like with Master Of Puppets, ‘Battery’ being the first song, this aggressive, fast first song, SSOASS and ‘Stargazer’ on Rising side two in the old format, and having that king of thing in mind, ‘Mesmeric Furncae’, the long, last song like a ‘Cthulu’ or ‘Alexander The Great’, a question mark and challenge at the end, doing something different to the rest of the album but in a larger scale as well by having a more progressive song to finish with, so we were very aware of how we wanted to lay the album out.”
The second theme that seems to run through TKIB’s story is the idea of things coming full circle, and for things falling in to place at the right time. For Tovey and Appleton this would follow from their long term friendship from school, and their time together in Entwined and their connection and friendship with guitarist Paul Alan Ryan-Reader during his tenure in Cradle Of Filth’s early days. Adult life and commitments would mean band life was not thought to be on the cards, nor was it sought out as such; as Tovey explains, TKIB against the odds, just kind of happened organically: “None of us were looking to do a band specifically , and then ‘Mors Somnis’ happened with Lee writing it. He got in touch with me about putting vocals on it and did we want to see what happened, and that’s kind of where the process started, then other songs happened, we recorded them, Paul heard then, said if we were looking to become a proper band he would be interested, and we said let’s do it, we thing the stuff we’ve got and got coming is too good not to, and its just happened from there.”
In part, as well as adult commitments and the starting of families, Tovey explains that there simply wasn’t the headspace to be making metal music: “Some of it was just right time right place, we were all settled in life now we’ve got young families, I guess we were all secure in who we are and where we are and that helps, that plays a big part. And I think there’s a part in each of our lives when we moved away from metal in our twenties and early thirties, I know for me and Lee we just weren’t in that place at all. Gradually I think when you become happy in yourself you come back to what you love, I know I didn’t get OUT of metal but I definitely stopped being in to knowing what was going on and I think that was the case for Lee as well.”
Personifying the notion that you never truly stop loving metal once its grabbed you, Tovey explains the exact moment when his passion and love truly returned: “2009 or 2010, for no real reason at all I bought one of the magazines out of interest just to see what was going on, and I saw an advert for Amorphis playing London. I used to be a massive Amorphis fan back in the 90’s, Thousand Lakes and Elegy (both Relapse) were massive for me and I thought it might be a laugh. I bought the current album Skyforger (Nuclear Blast) and it was really fucking good, and the gig was brilliant, it all kind of connected. I can credit Amorphis, for me personally, for reigniting that spark and getting things going again.”
This inspiration from a stalwart band of the underground proves fitting considering the band’s signing to the returning, legendary Cacophonous label, founder of many pioneering and critically acclaimed acts from Dimmu Borgir to Sigh, and even the full debut Cradle Of Filth The Principle Of Evil Made Flesh (which included one Ryan-Reader). A signing which shows the band’s part in the Uk extreme scene, and further showcases the band’s, and Tovey’s lofty aspirations for what they can achieve: “We see it as a positive challenge, more than a negative pressure. Again, one of our own intentions , and trying not to sound arrogant, is to have an album that stands with that legacy of great British metal, more realistically like when you had Carcass, Napalm Death, Boltthrower, My Dying Bride etc. Theres a strong legacy of intelligent, interesting British metal which challenged people, and more recently Voices, who follow with a creative and dark album. We want to follow that with an album that people will talk about when they have those conversations.”
Lofty goals of wanting to find their place along some of the all time greats in other hands may seem beyond the realms of possibility, but this is a band that have thrived on pushing forward and a bold streak, and the potential seemingly limitless. Bow down to the King.
CHRIS TIPPELL
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As we dash towards the holidays and the end of the year Ghost Cult is feeling good about this season of giving. So we are giving our fans a chance to get to know our partners, peers, and friends from bands in the world of music. They will chime in with some guest blogs, end of year lists, and whatever else is on their minds as we pull the plug on 2015. Today we have Atli Jarl Martin, promoter and digital go to guy for Eistnaflug Festival, who happily lives with his 19 computers and has a huge affection for his ThinkPads, shared his list of favorite releases of this year with us.
It’s been a strange year for me personally and a bit hard to keep up with as many releases I’ve done in recent years, Nevertheless I managed to build a list of some 70 releases which I have now filtered down to my final Top 10, whereas the top 5 releases could have all ended up in my top slot. I guess that most releases that made the cut won’t come as a surprise to anyone that knows me, but I hope that there are at least a couple that you haven’t listened to yet, and might give it a spin. 2016 is looking tremendously exciting already, first and foremost with the release of Rotting Christ’s new album Rituals early in the year. But for 2015, here goes…
1. Thy Catafalque – Sgúrr (Season Of Mist)
Definitely the most delightful surprise of 2015. Following the incredible 2011 album Rengeteg, I became a huge fan of the talent and musicianship of Tamás Kátai, as this is a one-man project, and his vast and diverse musical wizardry is way above and beyond what most other musicians present. The musical direction Tamás takes on Sgúrr is hugely different than what is presented on Rengeteg and the earlier albums, one might say colder, bleaker and harsher, where ‘f.e. Jura’, a straight forward blisteringly fast black metal track made my jaw drop, as it was wholly unexpected. I can really say the same about pretty much every track on the album, which is a phenomenal roller coaster ride through amazing variety of styles and sounds. Just listen to ‘Oldódó Formák a Halál Titokzatos Birodalmáb’, a 15:21 minute ride through a sublime variety of styles and a showcase track on just how multi-talented Tamás Kátai is. A beautiful work of art.
2. Lost Soul – Atlantis: The New Beginning (Apostasy Records)
Yes, they fucking did it again. These Polish wizards, led by mainman Jacek Grecki, pretty much blew everyone’s mind back in 2009 with their absolutely phenomenal Immerse In Infinity album, which shared the top-slot on my list back then with my favorite, and ever so lovable Finns in Amorphis (more on them later). Lost Soul are finally back after 6 long years, but the wait was so worth it. Atlantis is every bit as fast and brutal, yet Grecki and his merry men have managed to push their music further into the technical and progressive realms, bringing you one, if not THE pinnacle of technical death metal offerings of all-times. Listening to this album leaves me dumb-struck with awe, every-single-time, such is the wizardry performed here. Perfection!
3. Melechesh – Enki (Nuclear Blast)
5 years after the release of the fantastic The Epigenesis album, and after a plethora of lineup changes, Melechesh return with Enki, yet another masterpiece of an album. Uncompromising as always, adhering to their sublime Middle Eastern music influenced extreme metal concoction, Melechesh apparently can do no wrong. While The Epigenesis took a tad more progressive turn, with sublimely heavy and thundering songs, Enki returns back to the faster, more intense songwriting as presented on their earlier albums, such as Emissaries and Sphynx. I was fortunate enough to finally see the band on stage last May, and the experience was mind-blowing. Among the best musical entities on the planet. Period.
4. Amorphis – Under the Red Cloud (Nuclear Blast)
As a very, very long time fan of the band, their current lineup, starting with their absolute best album, Eclipse (2006), almost every album since has been a tour-de-force, showcasing the enormous capacity of the bands collective skills in songwriting and musicianship, as well as being one of the hardest working bands out there, as this is their 6th full-length album in only 9 years. Under the Red Cloud very much takes up the thread from the stellar 2013 album, Circle, but the band is in absolute top-form here, as every song on the album is outstanding. Songs like ‘The Four Wise Ones’, ‘Bad Blood’, ‘Dark Path’, and the phenomenal ‘Tree of Ages’, have made the album my most heavily rotated album from the band since 2006, and there is no letting up on how often I spin it. Masterpiece.
5. Clutch – Psychic Warfare (Weathermaker Music)
Yes indeed, here‘s another super-hard working band which has been dishing out release after release of superior quality since, well, forever. Their 2004 album Blast Tyrant is perhaps my favorite rock album of all-time, and their subsequent albums, albeit all having different qualities, none really came close to it in overall groove and fierceness, until now. Psychic Warfare absolutely hits every mark of excellence that Blast Tyrant presented. Every song is superb, the lyrics are fantastic, and the whole album pops and clicks on every beat, every groove, and infuses that good old feeling of strapping on an air-guitar and do a bit of headbanging while singing along to Neil Fallon’s often hysterically funny rants and phrases. As I write this, there are only 2 days until I see the band onstage for the first time, and the anticipation for seeing the tracks from this album presented is making me all giddy. Woohoo!
6. Keep of Kalessin – Epistemology (Indie Recordings)
This is an album I actually had high expectations for, specially after hearing the 2013 EP Introspection, which was the first release from the band following Arnt “Obsidian C.” Grønbech taking over the vocal duties after Thebon‘s departure earlier that year. Their first full-length album in 5 years, I was supremely happy to hear that Keep of Kalessin is very much up to the task as a three-piece outfit, and musically, the album is a healthy blend of the more commercial aspect of 2009‘s Reptilian and the earlier fierce and blazingly fast Armada (2006) and Kolossus (2008). Stand-out tracks and passages on the album are many, but the pinnacle is most certainly ‘The Grand Design’, a track that easily rivals the best of their earlier works, and was absolutely amazing to witness on stage. The band is in top-form at the moment and I can‘t wait for the successor, just hope that I won‘t have to wait 5 years for it.
7. George Kollias – Invictus (Season of Mist)
This master of extreme metal drumming certainly has had a busy schedule in recent years, touring and playing with Nile, as well as releasing drum lesson videos and attending drum clinics, but there were a couple of his own songs available on YouTube, rough mixed and non-vocal demos. Very cool stuff, but nothing that really prepared me for the delicious death metal assault he put together on this first solo album of his. It is a showcase of enormous death metal talent, as Kollias plays every instrument on the album, as well as performing vocals, but the album also features guest performances from many prominent musicians, such as Karl Sanders and Dallas Toler-Wade (Nile), George Emmanuel (Rotting Christ) and Efthimis Karadimas (Nightfall), to name but a few. Overall a fantastic death metal trip, modern in technicality, speed, sound and feel, blended with a healthy dose of some old school riffing, but what really amazed me the most is Kollias‘ vocal performance, which ranks among the best I‘ve heard in a long time. Highly recommended.
8. Hate – Crvsade: Zero (Napalm Records)
Being a very early release this year, as it came out in late January, this album has had way more spins than many other albums on my list, but it is definitely to its credit that it ends up on my Top 10 list, as the re-playability of the album is phenomenal. Mainman Adam “ATF Sinner” Buszko and his band mates strengthen the already very impressive legacy of the band and their highly energetic style of death metal getting stronger with each subsequent album. One of my favorite bands for sure.
9. Nile – What Should Not Be Unearthed (Nuclear Blast)
Another album I had really high expectations for in 2015, and they were not betrayed. Nile have been on a remarkably consistent roll since the release of Those Whom The Gods Detest in 2009, followed by At the Gate of Sethu (2012) which has since then bulldozed its way to being my second all-time favorite album by the band. The band pulls no left hooks here, plowing onwards and upwards with their instantly recognizable brand of death metal mastery. Super-heavy, blazing fast and tremendously well executed, track after track just thunders through and the confidence and coherence displayed by the band is absolutely why they are one of the biggest extreme metal acts in the world today.
10. Malevolent Creation – Dead Man‘s Path (Century Media)
Aaaah, like a warm blanket, listening to a new Malevolent Creation, one of my all-time favorite bands, is always a very pleasant experience. I’ve been following these old masters almost since the beginning of their career, and despite the very turbulent history of band members, they always manage to land on their feet, providing me with that deliciously violent old-school death metal that I love so much. Dead Man‘s Path is pure Malevolence, and the band and the music sound better than they have done since the magnificent Envenomed came out in 2000. No-one can destroy this Malevolent Creation.
As we dash towards the holidays and the end of the year Ghost Cult is feeling good about this season of giving. So we are giving our fans a chance to get to know our partners, peers, and friends from bands in the world of music. They will chime in with some guest blogs, end of year lists, and whatever else is on their minds as we pull the plug on 2015. Today we have Bidi van Drongelen, Dutch booker and manager who has worked with the likes of The Devil’s Blood, Saint Vitus, Ghost, In Solitude and many more. Every year a multitude of his bands get booked at the excellent Roadburn festival, and we have asked him what he feels were the best releases of 2015.
1. Klone – Here Comes The Sun
Great songwriting, amazing vocals, and a crystal clear though heavy production blending prog and post metal.
2. Ghost – Meliora
Ghost has it all to become one of the leading melodic heavy rock bands in the world
3. Bliksem – Gruesome Masterpiece
If you like Metallica’s Master of Puppets of Death Angel’s ACT III….with the a raw female voice like Doro.
4. Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors
Great atmospheric rock album with the amazing voice of Mlny Parsonsz
5. Tribulation – Children of the Night
Melodies of occult rock like The Devil’s Blood drenched with a satanic black voice which reminds of Satyricon.
6. Chelsea Wolfe – Abyss
Refreshing approach of doom & drone. ART with capital A!
7. Paradise Lost – The Plague Within
8. Steak Number Eight – Kosmokoma
9. Melechesh – Enki
10. Enslaved – In Times
11. Clutch – Psychic Warfare
12. Thy Catafalque – Sgurr
13. Amorphis– Under The Red Cloud
14. RAM – Svbversvm
15. BRING ME THE HORIZON– That’s The Spirit
16. Mgła – Excercises In Futility
17. Baroness – Purple
18. Leprous – The Congregation
19. Graveyard – Innocence & Decadence
20. Hangman’s Chair – This Is Not Supposed To Be Positive
With a career spanning 25 years, Amorphis are a true powerhouse in the Metal scene, and with the arrival of their twelfth album, it seems there is nothing that will stop them from going on for another 25. Under the Red Cloud (Nuclear Blast), is a testament to the skill and heart of these musicians. It is perhaps a tad heavier than most of their recent work, but it is once again filled with amazing licks, lyrics, and compositions.
The title track has an excellent intro with guitar and piano gently combined before diving face-first into the metal. Throughout the album the vocals switch the between a beautiful, crisp voice and deep grunts. There does seem to be more grunting than on the previous few albums, and this corresponds to the rest of the music. Much of the middle section of the album has a lot of elements of Black Metal, and Tomi Joutsen’s deep grunts are well suited to the style. ‘The Four Wise Ones’ is probably the blackest of the songs, while ‘The Skull’ combines Power, Progressive, and Black Metal into something heavy yet uplifting, with surprisingly sensitive twists. ‘Death of a King’ adds a delightful whistle over the grunts and heavy riffs.
But not all is heavy or blackened on this album; ‘Sacrifice’ is pleasant yet dark Power Metal, while ‘Tree of Ages’ is definitely barking up the Yggdrasil of Folk Metal. There is a spacy keyboard solo in ‘Enemy at the Gates’ and even a somewhat bluesy mini guitar solo in ‘Dark Path’, which also features a stunning intro with piano and acoustic guitar.
One of the absolute highlights is the album closer ‘White Night’, with its hauntingly beautiful female vocals and well as lovely melodies in the male vocals and guitars. Of particular note is how the beats of the drums and vocals alternate in the chorus to create a very unusual yet captivating sound.
One of the most impressive elements in Amorphis’ music is the flow of the guitar licks which, unlike in many other bands, doesn’t stop as soon as the singing starts. In ‘Under the Red Cloud’, for instance, the motifs continue behind the chorus. The effect is one of great vivacity. Another winning ingredient has to be vocalist Tomi Joutsen, because of the great variety and energy he brings to his vocals.
All in all it is clear that Amorphis have once again delivered an excellent selection of music.
9.0/10
LORRAINE LYSEN