Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Obscura – Akroasis

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German technical death metallers Obscura have returned to produce a stellar album with their new release Akroasis on Relapse Records.

There are some really strong songs on display right from ‘Sermon of the Seven Suns’ which releases barrage of fast blasting beats, intense riffs and basslines. The songwriting does have a more notably Prog feel to it throughout. Tracks swirl around with the familiar alien feel with each instrument taking it’s turn in order to showcase the individual talents on display. Credit to some amazing production here.

Also in the mix are some Cynic-inspired jazzier elements thrown in, especially in ‘The Monist’ which serve to keep the listener interested and the use of slower sections and space demonstrate a confidence that allow the album to breathe. Throughout the album too as evident on title track ‘Akroasis’, and ‘Ten Sephiroth’ are the kind of blistering solo’s that make my fingers sore just listening.

‘Ode to the Sun’ opens up with some pumelling drums and percussion and a low end roaring vocals, taking a slow approach that the previous tracks it makes more use of syncopated drum rolls interspersed with the blast, slow sci-fi opera-esque breakdowns add depth and complexity to the already compositions which will appeal to their more proggier fans.

‘Fractal Dimension’ is a storming showcase of their tech side, there’s no doubting that Obscura are at their best when playing at full-throttle, the speed being emphasised by the contrasting slower elements in their compositions. ‘Perpetual Infinity’ is a good standout track with some strong sci-fi overtones, tight riffing, and spacey vocals which keep the foot tapping.

However, it’s the last track which takes the album which has up to now been a damn good and pushes it up a level. ‘Weltsteele’ seems the most solid realisation of the sound they are going for with the album as a whole. It really is the standout track by a considerable margin. A track which has a life all of its own, which breathes, and sways and tells a story. A mix of beauty and beast which stand apart from the rest of the album.

This is a great record, a mix of styles and a notable shift towards the Prog feel is welcome. ‘Weltsteele’ which steals the show to such an extent it could almost render the rest of the album irrelevant.

8.5/10

RICH PRICE

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Dark Moor – Project X

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If you take anything from the new album by Spanish outfit Dark Moor, it’s that they really believe in the existence of extraterrestrials. Flying at improbable speeds and covered in bright flashing lights, their latest flying saucer shaped release, Project X (Scarlet) will capture you in its tractor beam and transport you to an alternate dimension where cheesy ’70s and ’80s influenced Power/Prog rules the galaxy from its bejewelled, golden intergalactic space throne.

After the conclusion of short intro ‘November 3023’, the first proper track, ‘Abduction’ takes over, and although containing nothing new or hugely remarkable (and sounding a little too much like Within Temptation‘s ‘Stand My Ground’ for a while), is still a nice, pacey little number with just the right amount of keyboard and choral backing, while singer Alfred Romero‘s vocals are clear and earnest in their delivery. The opening piano strains of ‘Beyond the Stars’ may get people of a certain age picturing a denim clad Bill Bixby walking alongside a lonely highway, wearing a brown jacket with a backpack slung over his shoulder, trying to control the raging spirit which dwells within him. The track soon changes up a gear though, and with the help of some female backing vocals, quickly turns into a space age version of Grease, complete with a stupidly infectious ‘Greased Lightning’ chorus.

With mentions of Area 51 and Men in Black, ‘Conspiracy Revealed’ opens with a riff reminiscent of Adam Khachaturian‘s ‘Sabre Dance’ and you can almost picture Mulder and Scully putting their differences with the Cigarette Smoking Man aside for five minutes while they all dance their little socks off with big grins and hand jives. Things slow down for a while during ‘I Want to Believe’ as Mulder and Scully dance together slowly, staring into each others eyes, while The Lone Gunmen hold lighters in the air and The Cigarette Smoking Man trudges off into the darkness, alone and muttering threats about abductions and alien implants.

‘Bon Voyage!’ has another movie musical vibe, part Grease and part Rocky Horror Picture Show with a hand-clap section (which bizarrely works), Queen style backing vocals and the most Brian May of all guitar solos, with even a couple of jaunty “WOOOs!” thrown in for good measure, meanwhile probably the heaviest track on the record, ‘Imperial Earth’, features a beefy riff, powerful vocals, big drums and a couple of spoken voice sections reminiscent of those in ‘Flash’ by Queen when dialogue from the film occasionally comes crashing in. It would come as no surprise to absolutely anyone if ‘Imperial Earth’ was to suddenly erupt with cries of “dispatch war rocket Ajax to bring back his body!”

Blatantly stealing that tune from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, penultimate track ‘Gabriel’ is steady but unspectacular, and really only memorable for that bit of musical pilfery. Things pick up for the grand finale, though, and the album ends with ‘There’s Something In The Skies’, a wonderfully overblown eight minute Prog sandwich, literally dripping with cheese and melodrama.

A more streamlined affair than a lot of Dark Moor’s previous work, some fans may be disappointed with how the band have dialled back the orchestral and female vocal side of things, but the record contains enough quality to keep most people happy and maybe even bring a few new fans into the fold because of it.

 

7.0/10

 

GARY ALCOCK


Bring Me The Horisont – Axel Söderberg of Horisont

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You can’t call yourself a proper prog band until you’ve attempted those two most indulgent of propositions… the ten minute long epic and the concept album. For their fourth album, Swedish retro rockers Horisont haven’t just attempted both, they’re brazenly flaunting it, kicking the Rise Above released album off with ten minute prog opera and title track ‘Odyssey’.

“The whole thing started when we were joking around saying “Let’s do a 10 minute song”,” laughs vocalist and keys man Axel Söderberg. “We really did think of it as a joke at first. But then we came round to it saying “You know, we should really do that, it’d be really cool”. So we proceeded from there, building the other songs around the same subject and it came together. It’s one of those songs where a 10 minute song doesn’t feel like a 10 minute song, so, then it’s a good 10 minute song!!”

And what a subject it is, too. Raiding such luminiferous source materials as an entire book-shelf full of sci-fi paperbacks, and a life-time worth of Blakes 7 and Buck Rogers ideals, via a touch of War of the Worlds, the story of Odyssey “concerns a supreme race of mysterious beings” confirms bassist Magnus Delborg. Of course it does… but just what do we encounter these beings doing? “(they) experiment with the creation of life and start to populate planets around the universe. This is the story of one of those planets…”

“The main theme of the album is Magnus our bass players story,” affirms Söderberg before explaining how the title track served to feed the rest of the album. “When we started with this 10 minute song, that started with me buying a synthesizer and trying out the main riff and finding something that the song was going to evolve from.”

The main keyboard lick reminds me of Magnum (a band I never thought I’d reference when talking a new release in 2015). “Ha, yes, I like them. Well, the first album only” grins the voice of Horisont, before diverging more about his additional input to the album; synthesizers… “I’ve always played the keyboards and we never got around to using them live before. So now I’ve bought myself 3 proper keyboards, so it’s going to be nice trying it out live. I can’t drink as much, anymore, though…” he muses on his new live responsibilities with just a pang of regret in his voice.

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The introduction of synthesizers has rounded out the Horisont sound, like the pair of Doc Martens that have finally stopped giving you blisters and now fit like a foot-glove. “I’m not really sure why it works better now”, is the shrugged reply. “It’s like, this album is more a mix of what we actually listen to. I listen to lots of Kansas. Not the “proper” prog groups like Yes or that, but more AOR prog-ish stuff is really what I like. So that shows on this album more than the others. We’re into UFO and Black Sabbath as well, obviously, but this one really reflects what we listen to.”

“We probably would have liked to have played this stuff before, but I don’t think we had the skills back then!”

It’s been a natural evolution, and a return to the music that is in their hearts. “We’ve played this kind of music for ten years now and genres and new kinds of music they come and go, but the classic rock sound is something that will always come back. Everyone that listens to rock in general always goes back to the classic bands.”

The amiable frontman gets sheepish about his love of the retro… “I started out singing in a Misfits and Danzig covers band! That was what pulled me into playing music, made me realize I could play music and it sounded OK! Then I proceeded from there, so I guess that’s my musical background – punk and hard rock.

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“I’m actually really not that good at listening to new bands, because there’s no other bands like the classic bands. I do try to check out newer bands, but it’s been a long time since I bought a new record, put it that way.”

Not content with breaking new ground with Odyssey, the upcoming tour will also see the band pushing their horizon(t)s (#SorryNotSorry). “Yes, I just came back from practicing vocal harmonies… and we’ve got a lot of work, as that’s something we’ve never done before! We’re rehearsing hard for the tour and realizing how much work we have to do in learning the songs!”

But it seems like it is hard work that’s paying off. There seems to be a genuine buzz and interest in Odyssey and the bands fourth, most organic and natural album, appears to be the one set to raise their profile all across the board.

“I can feel it; it all feels promising. Yes, it’s looking good! We had more time writing and recording this album than before. All the other albums were a bit stressful, this one, though, just feels really good.”

Odyssey will be released on Friday 18th September via Rise Above Records

WORDS BY STEVE TOVEY

 

 

 


Lonely Robot – Please Come Home

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It has taken John Mitchell several years to see his Lonely Robot project come to fruition, during which time Mr. Mitchell has been involved with a handful of gold-plated prog projects including It Bites, Frost* and Arena. Lonely Robot seems to be a very personal endeavor; one that Mitchell has been able to throw his unique insights and personality into. One gets the impression that when listening to Please Come Home (InsideOut) we are peering through a window into a man’s soul.

The noticeable trait of this album is the classic science fiction tone; it is permeable through each of the benevolently hewn songs. One of the aspects of space that has always intrigued humanity is the endless vacuum, the vast loneliness that engulfs its sparse inhabitants. While Please Come Home has elements of this, the spasmodic positivity ensures that the album isn’t too dense. Mitchell’s now distinct vocals bring a sense of comforting warmth, and are reminiscent of ‘Map of the Past’. Featuring the likes of Craig Blundell (drums) and Nick Beggs (bass) Mitchell and his comrades have the ability to tingle spines and reduce even the hardiest men to tears. ‘Airlock’ is an instrumental track steeped in classic sci-fi, with vintage synths from Frost*’s Jem Godfrey. Possibly the most captivating all the tracks on Please Come Home is the compelling ‘Man vs. God’.  It wouldn’t be out of place in a movie soundtrack, inspiring countless thought of rockets, celestial pioneers and something otherworldly altogether.

Please Come Home will no doubt feature on many Top 10’s at the end of 2015, and deservedly so. All music aficionados, no matter their musical leanings should give this a listen. It transcends categorization and showcases John Mitchell at his finest.

 

9.0/10

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SARAH WORSLEY


Scar Symmetry – The Singularity, Phase One: Neohumanity

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Part of the charm of being in the heavy metal community is the fact that it is a real community, a group of diverse people from diverse backgrounds, beliefs and ethnic origins bound by a shared love and appreciation for all things heavy and metal. It gives a real sense of belonging, a shared understanding – a belief that the music that you love can open hearts and minds and generally make the world a better place.

If you’re getting the distinct sense that I’m filibustering and not actually getting to the actual review of the sixth album from Sweden’s Scar Symmetry, then you’d be right because if you like Scar Symmetry, my suggestion is that you look away now.

The Singularity, Phase One: Neohumanity (Nuclear Blast) is the first of a trilogy of records. The Singularity is a sci-fi (in the loosest sense of the word) concept album that revolves around the rise of “artilects (artificial intellects) with mental capacities far above the human level of thought” and that “by the year 2030, one of the world’s biggest industries will be ‘artificial brains,’ used to control artilects that will be genuinely intelligent and useful.” According to the band, the album focusses on the divide between “those who embrace the new technology and those who oppose it” due to the social issues caused by the rise of artificial intelligence and the emergence of trans-humanists adding artilect technology to their own bodies.” Of course.

Let’s not get too carried away with the ludicrousness of the story – what we have come here to praise, or not, is the music, isn’t it?

Well, as you probably know already, what you get is fundamentally a melodic death metal record that is exquisitely produced and efficiently and energetically performed by a band that appear to have gotten themselves something akin to a second wind. The problem is the entire enterprise leaves me utterly, utterly cold.

Granted, there’s a bit more on the melody and a soupcon of prog thrown in but that’s it really. You know when the choruses are going to kick in, know when the growly vocals are going to get really growly. It’s all just a bit, well, obvious.  I thought the lyrics and subject matter in need of an editor and the overall effect of listening to this record was, I imagine, like being covered in a vat of cliché and self-regarding hubris. I’m sure there will be plenty of people that will praise this to the highest, revel in its supposed ambition and generally fawn around it like a sycophantic junior at an Elizabethan court: not me, though.

There’s two more where this came from, too.

You know, sometimes if it’s not doing it for you, then it’s not doing it for you. And The Singularity… is not doing it for me. At all. I can admire the effort here, the scope and the ambition, and I applaud the single-mindedness and the collective musicality. What I can’t do is pretend that I like any of it.

 

4.0/10

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MAT DAVIES


Heavy Metal Movies – by Mike “Beardo” McPadden

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Heavy Metal Movies (Bazillion Points), written by Mike “Beardo” McPadden is a project the likes of which any metal geek-movie geek fusion would be proud to have accomplished in their lives; proof that they have indeed seen more movies than you, and can tell you how headbangingly awesome each is in their own way. Indeed, this titanic titanium tome does indeed show, rather than tell the sheer amount of neck-snapping cinematography observed by one man needed to even dare a book of this lethal thickness. From A to Z, it’s an outpouring of movie mayhem and magick from teenage stoner boners to Nordic loners; rockumentaries and mockumentaries; canon appearances by the metal gods on screen and on record; from swords to spaceships, and from monsters to Manson (Editor’s note: both Charles and Marilyn), this book packs it all in, dating from the silent era Nosferatu (1922) to the modern Hollywood bombast of The Hobbit (2012) and a whole hell of a lot of stuff in between that inspired distortion, patched denim, leather, and poor hygiene worldwide. 

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