King are an Australian melodic blackened metal trio consisting of David Hill, Tony Forde and David Haley, with Hill and Forde previously being band mates in goregrind band The Day Everything Became Nothing. Their debut album Reclaim The Darkness (Indie Recordings) was recorded over a two-year span, with a great attention to detail throughout the process. Combine that with the talent involved has resulted in one of the best albums of 2016. Continue reading
Witherscape is a Swedish progressive/melodic death metal band formed by Dan Swanö who has quite the pedigree in the metal genre, previously being part of the band Edge of Sanity who alongside Opeth helped pave the way for the blending of progressive rock elements with extreme metal as well as many other projects such as death metal supergroup Bloodbath and progressive rock band Nightingale, as well as fellow multi-instrumentalist Ragnar Widerburg, who is relatively unknown by comparison. Together they have produced one of the finest metal albums of 2016 in The Northern Sanctuary (Century Media Records), which serves as the follow-up to their 2014 EP The New Tomorrow and 2013 debut album The Inheritance.
Witherscape are a band who doesn’t just release albums for the music alone, they are creating a narrative that expands with each release. This is far from a new concept, with bands like Rhapsody on Fire, Coheed and Cambria, and King Diamond being well-known for their ongoing concept albums. This doesn’t make Witherscape any less intriguing though. From what I can tell, the story-line revolves around a haunted house of sorts, with The Northern Sanctuary taking place 50 years after The New Tomorrow EP, with a new person taking over the house. The underlying story is ultimately a bonus for the dedicated fans who will dig into the lyrics and embrace the narrative, but for the average music fan, this album gives more than enough to satisfy musically.
If you aren’t familiar with the work of Dan Swanö, you might be caught off guard with just how talented he is. On this album he handles all vocals as well as drums and keyboards. His ability to shift from melodic progressive rock style vocals to incredibly vicious death growls is truly impressive and keeps the album extremely dynamic. The keyboards add that timeless progressive feel to the album, and the drumming keeps the pace of the album in check. Widerburg handled the guitars and bass work on this album, and the incredibly riffs and solos alone make this an album worth checking out. He might not be as known as Swanö, but he proved to be equal in skill on this release. Tying everything together is a very clean production style that helps make everything sound very crisp and impactful.
Overall, there really isn’t much to not love about The Northern Sanctuary, as it’s simply a progressive metal masterpiece. Being a narrative focused album does make some of the lyrics a bit cheesy at times, and some songs are a can get a bit long-winded, no time feels wasted on this album. It’s another excellent release for the discography of Dan Swanö, and one of the best metal albums of 2016.
9.0/10
MATTHEW BLANCHARD
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Weekend Nachos are a band who I hoped I would have more fun with, as their name seemed to promise such a thing. A hardcore punk or power violence band who have had a fairly lengthy career, and Apology (Relapse Records) is set to be their final release as a group. This album is less of a swansong, and more of an all out attack to try to grasp the spotlight one last time for this band. A final spark before their fire is put out for a while.
Honestly, this release is a mixed bag. If you listen to it from start to finish, you aren’t gonna have a great time. It’s a poorly balanced album, starting with an absolute drag of a song. While ‘2015’ displays that this band has some elements of sludge metal in their sound with distorted guitars and attempts to build atmosphere, the almost 6 minute length makes it an absolute chore to listen to. But the song immediately after it; ‘Dust’, is one that shows how good this band can be, a 2 minute burst of pure aggression, that seems like it ends too fast, and then as short song after song comes your way, it all just kind of melds together into a very forgettable experience with no songs that stick out as memorable enough to make the listener want to come back for a second listen.
It’s at this point I need to praise the vocal delivery on this album as it has a nice level of variance and is the best part of this album. While the vocals are never exactly clean, they are fairly understand at times, and full of energy. They are arguably the one redeeming factor of this release because everything else is either a mess or just plain dull. The song writing just feels like a group of people being angry for the sake of being angry, or like they just needed to pad out the albums runtime. No song on the album is more guilty of padding then the final track ‘Apology,’ clocking in at over 9 minutes it was one of the biggest wastes of time I heard in music in a very long time.
Overall, Weekend Nachos is not a band I’ll miss now that they are finished. I suppose if you are a fan of hardcore punk you might find a couple tracks off this album that’ll appeal to you.
4.0/10
MATTHEW BLANCHARD
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