With my final undergrad semester coming to an end, I've been kept pretty busy. Between working on term papers and searching for employment, I haven't exactly had much time to post here. Thankfully, there's a bit of a lull at the moment, so I've come to share some avant-garde metal goodness with you.
Hailing from Poland, Ketha play metal with prog sensibilities and a strong underlying groove. #!%16.7, the EP I've linked above, wastes nary a moment of your time, and clocks in at around 16 minutes over 12 tracks. In reality, it plays more like one song in twelve parts than a collection of short songs. The musicianship is excellent, the grooves are airtight, and the brass section is just right. I recommend it highly.
Today I'd like to introduce you to a fun little band that, unfortunately, never really took off: Dark Hall. Dark Hall is, or rather was, an instrumental jazz fusion group from the late 90's. They released a total of three demos, one with their original lineup and two more after changing guitarists. In the end, Dark Hall never actually released an album, and I've only been able to track down their last demo (their self-titled effort from 1998) and one track from their 1994 demo Solace.
You might be wondering why I'm so interested in this non-starter of a band from the 90's. One answer is that Dark Hall was simply great at what they did. For demos, the five tracks of theirs floating around are well mastered and impeccably performed. This wasn't exactly amateur night, and Dark Hall had a rather noteworthy cast of talent. Dark Hall started as a trio with Steve Di Giorgio on bass, Chris Dugan on drums and Flamp Sorvari on flute and saxophone, adding Eric Cutler on guitar in time for their first demo. Now, I haven't been able to find much information on Flamp Sorvari or Ken Schultz (the band's replacement for Eric Cutler on guitar in '95). However, the rest are associated with some fairly high profile acts of their own. Chris Dugan is known less for his musicianship and more for his work as an audio engineer, working with Green Day from American Idiot to Revolution Radio. That probably goes a long way towards explaining the high audio quality of the demo. Founding guitarist Eric Cutler (not to be confused with the opera singer of the same name) is also a founding member of Autopsy, a rather legendary death metal band. Steve Di Giorgio is probably the most prolific of the bunch, playing bass guitar for a slew of metal legends, from Autopsy to Death to Testament to Control Denied.
On the video I've embedded in this post, the first four songs are their 1998 demo Dark Hall, with the last track being from their 1994 debut Solace (meaning Eric Cutler is on guitar, rather than Ken Schultz). You can pick them up for free at the band's ReverbNation page here: https://www.reverbnation.com/artist/downloads/3622154. According to the band's write up, they're "in the planning stages for a new recording." I, for one, wouldn't get your hopes up too high, though. They've been in the "planning stages" since 2013, and we haven't heard a peep from them since. They could actually be making something new, but I dunno. It's quite possible that we'll have to content ourselves with their killer demo in the meantime.
By the way, if you have some obscure band that you think deserves a little more coverage, let me know so I can feature it. I can be reached at my email, askguitarman@gmail.com. Until next time, Guitarman out.
Well, it's been a hell of a year. Unfortunately, I mean hell in the biblical sense. 2016 has been pretty much a giant dumpster fire of a year, and it simply can't die soon enough in my opinion. If nothing else, I at least have some free (or, rather, name your own price) music for your listening pleasure. The following records have no minimum price on Bandcamp, but I suggest you at least pay something instead of just leeching. People have to eat, and all that. Anyways, here're some free* tunes I've been listening to lately.
Ah, blackgaze. Astronoid's Air is basically what happens when you supply a black metal band with antidepressants and switch their vocalist out for a pop-punk singer. The result is something uplifting and surprisingly accessible, even for those who aren't fans of metal. Not only is this album available for no minimum price, it's also one of my favorite albums to come out of 2016. There aren't really any excuses for not checking it out.
The Armed is a bit of an odd band. First off, yes, the album is actually named Untitled. Second, The Armed released Untitled as actually free on Bandcamp instead of as a name your own price option. In other words, there isn't a way to really pay the band for the album. This is a fairly strange move to be honest. If they simply wanted their music to be accessible, they could just as well have chosen the name your own price option as that (strictly speaking) carries no obligation of paying anything at all. Instead, they went out of their way to NOT receive any money for their work. As an econ major I find this somewhat baffling, but hey, that's punk for you I suppose. In any event, The Armed's Untitled is a fantastic slab of hardcore and punk that seems straightforward but ultimately isn't. It's all fairly conventional until the song Dead Actress, but I'd rather not spoil it for you. Just give them a listen if you're in the mood for frenetic energy and youthful aggression. Being a fan of The Dillinger Escape Plan would also help, as The Armed can be quite similar at times.
Is it black metal? Is it death metal? They call themselves blackened death metal, but I'm not sure I see this as a death metal record as much as it is symphonic black metal. Whatever you call it, Hyperion's debut album Seraphical Euphony is bloody impressive. If it weren't for a less than optimal level of audio compression, Seraphical Euphony would be very nearly perfect in my opinion. As it stands, these Hyperion newcomers have still managed to knock the ball out of the park with this one. Black metal fans, sleep on this one at your own peril. It's yet another quality offering from 2016, a year that's been as good for metal as it has been shit for all else.
Hopefully this triple post helps make up for my rather spotty posting record during last semester. I look forward to 2016 being over with in a few days. Until then, Guitarman out.
Hello, everyone. Today's post is going to be heavy on recommendations, but relatively low on content. I'm not going to go into much depth about each artist on today's menu due to time constraints, but I may go back and do a separate feature for some of the artists I mention in this post. We'll see.
In case I wasn't particularly clear on the subject before, I'm currently in my senior year of college. This means that much of my time is occupied by reading about Plato, or researching Mexico's 19th century foreign debt, instead of discovering interesting bands to pass on to you folks. Thankfully, my roommate (who will go unnamed for now, since I haven't asked his permission) is a fellow musician, and a music major to boot. Since our schedules don't have too much overlap (I'm stuck being an early-riser this semester, while he burns the midnight oil), we've set up a whiteboard in our dorm room for sharing bands we think the other might be interested in. I've decided to start sharing the fruits of this exchange with my audience (such that it is) at this blog. This time, we both selected three albums from different artists, so I'll be sharing a total of six different bands with you today (in no particular order). Due to the sheer quantity of music this time around, I'll be fairly brief with each band. I think the music should speak for itself, anyways. Without further ado, let's get to the music.
Guitarman's recommendations:
#1: Haken - "Affinity"
My list of recommendations starts off with Haken's release from earlier this year, "Affinity." The album is modern progressive metal with an 80's pop-ish flair. Great stuff, and very much on the lighter end of the heaviness spectrum. I may do a more in-depth feature on it later, because it deserves more than just a little blurb here. Give it a listen, and you'll see what I mean.
#2: Gygax - "Critical Hits"
I think the best way to describe Gygax is to call them a nerdy Thin Lizzy. Actually, that's probably all the description that the band really needs. Their sound is straightforward classic rock/metal with focus on guitar harmonies (did I mention that they sound almost exactly like Thin Lizzy?), and their lyrical themes are about what you'd expect from a band named after the creator of Dungeons and Dragons. Their album "Critical Hits" doesn't ask for much of your time (it's about 30 minutes total), and is well worth it. We don't get enough of this stuff these days.
#3: The Dread Crew of Oddwood - "Lawful Evil"
There's some context behind this recommendation. See, I live on a themed hall on campus. Specifically, we're the pirate-themed substance-free hall. Kind of a strange combination, I know. My roommate is one of the hall captains, which is what we call our leaders. Anyways, The Dread Crew of Oddwood are similar to Alestorm (a band I previously featured) in that they write songs almost exclusively about pirates. Unlike Alestorm, however, they aren't a metal band. Dread Crew of Oddwood are an acoustic folk band that takes stylistic inspiration from metal groups. They're a quirky lot, and their latest album "Lawful Evil" is certainly worth a look if you're into folk and have a functioning sense of humor.
Roommate's recommendations:
#1: JJ Doom - "Key to the Kuffs"
For the record, no, rap isn't really my cup of tea. My roommate recommended JJ Doom for his lyrics, which are villain themed and, frankly, great. However, I'm probably not going to be seeking out this album that often. While this is some of the best rap I've ever heard, I tend to focus much more on the instrumentation than the vocals when I listen to music. As such, I gravitate towards rap-rock like Rage Against the Machine, Pre-Fight Hype or Southpaw Swagger when I want my rap fix. Still, I'll probably be coming back to JJ Doom, which isn't something I can say about most straightforward rap outfits. I imagine anyone who normally pursues rap music will absolutely love this.
#2: Danish String Quartet - "Wood Works"
And now for something completely different: traditional Nordic folk music. I'm not exactly qualified to assess the quality of a string quartet, but I must say that I'm enjoying what I'm hearing here. They're precise without sacrificing the inherent fun of the pieces they preform. If you enjoy folk half as much as I do, you'll enjoy them.
#3: Punch Brothers - "Phosphorescent Blues"
Full disclaimer: I'm still digging through their music, so this is more "first impressions" than "researched opinion." That being said, I'm really liking what I'm hearing from these folks. The Punch Brothers play progressive bluegrass, which is absolutely fantastic. I'm lacking in comparisons to draw from to describe their sound, but that's honestly a good thing in my opinion (just not when I'm trying to introduce them to you). They've managed to blend soulful bluegrass with classical inspirations, and it works bloody brilliantly. This is certainly my favorite of the groups my roommate recommended, and by a rather large margin. Definitely worth checking out!
So, there you have it: round one of the roommate music exchange. I'm clearing off the whiteboard to make way for more music, and I'll be sure to let you know what makes the list! Until next time, Guitarman out.
Well, it's a little later than planned, but better late than never. It's time for another music spotlight. Introducing: Shining, with their 2010 album Blackjazz!
Shining is a bit of a tough nut to crack, so let's start with the basics. First off, it would be helpful to clarify that I'm talking about the Norwegian band called Shining, not the Swedish band called Shining. The Swedish Shining is a black metal band ostensibly concerned with making listeners as suicidal and likely to self-harm as possible. On the other hand, the Norwegian Shining (hereafter referred to as just Shining) is...well, for starters it's far more difficult to describe via pithy statements.
Shining is, for lack of a simpler term, an avant-garde metal band. Avant-garde, however, is itself a fairly empty description. It would be better to call Shining's music the ungodly fusion of industrial and progressive metal with free-form jazz and electronica. On Blackjazz, Shining have created something that you aren't likely to fully appreciate on your first listen. My first time through, I found Blackjazz to be more exhausting than exhilarating. Part of that is likely a result of the album's run-time falling just short of an hour. Add to that an incredibly dense sound, manic tone, lengthy songs (particularly on the album's back-end, where a nearly eleven-minute song is followed by two songs just shy of nine minutes each), and counter-intuitive design choices ("The Madness and the Damage Done" is track one; "The Madness and the Damage Done, part one" is track six) and you get an album that's potentially draining for the uninitiated listener. I assure you, however, that Blackjazz is worth the extra effort required in its appreciation.
Do you like your music progressive and full of surprises, yet with a strong sense of groove? Does the idea of music made by madmen, for madmen, appeal to you? Do you think Meshuggah would be a more interesting band if they hired a saxophonist? If you answered yes to any of those, then you (like me) might be the target audience for Blackjazz! The album is funky, brutal and strangely satisfying. It's filled with intricate compositions formed around the simplest groove riffs. Ultimately, though, it's nearly impossible for me to describe Blackjazz without resorting to hyperbole and metaphor. At times, it's the sound of the apocalypse (a trite metaphor, but a fitting one regardless). At times, it's the sound of a jazz orchestra and a metal band attempting to bludgeon each other with their instruments. Either way, it's great fun for those of us able to appreciate music of this level of insanity. Don't take it from me, though. This is one of those albums that, love it or hate it, you owe it to yourself to experience.
Hello everyone. I've been running this little blog operation for a few years now, and I've been growing increasingly uncomfortable that it hasn't been living up to its name Ramblings of the Guitarman. Sure, I'm still Guitarman, have been since high school and will be until the day I'm pushing up daisies. However, I'm not sure I've done much in the way of rambling here. I didn't intend this blog to be just an intermittent stream of music recommendations (although I certainly enjoy doing those posts). Instead, I initially intended this blog to be a resting place for my musings that I could never (before) find an audience for. I'll still post band recommendations and music spotlights, but expect a few more unfocused posts on music, politics and philosophy from here on. I really like doing things like my political conversation etiquette post, so you'll be seeing more of that kind of stuff here. Now then, it's time I stopped beating around the bush. I promised I'd talk about "music and the generation gap" in the title, so here we go.
First, some background to this discussion. I live in Washington state and go to college in Texas. Since food on campus is grotesquely expensive, I prefer to have my car with me when I'm at school. That way I'm not stuck with three dollar packages of instant ramen (those prices are basically highway robbery). I could whine more about Aramark's harmful monopoly on campus cuisine, but I digress. My home in Washington state is a good 2,200 miles away from my college in Texas, which makes for some rather extensive road trips. Every spring, my dad books a flight down to meet me and we begin the several day process of driving halfway across the country back to Washington. I pride myself in my car's music collection, so we can drive four or so days without listening to the same song twice. Choosing music for these road trips, however, is something of a challenge.
There's a rather large age gap between my father and me. Furthermore, my dad basically stopped listening to the radio sometime around 1980, as he came back from deployment in the navy to discover that radio stations developed a fairly unhealthy obsession with rap music. As such, it's a bit of a struggle finding music that we can both appreciate on equal terms. This isn't to say that I dislike the classics. My silver briefcase of CDs is filled with pages of the Doobie Brothers, the Guess Who, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, all that good stuff. My father also really appreciates AC/DC, which is a godsend on road trips since they make perfect driving music. The problem is that so many of my older albums don't make for particularly good driving music. If I put on something like the greatest hits of the Quicksilver Messenger Service, it doesn't matter how much we both like the band. When you're staring down three-hundred miles of straight road with no buildings or cars in sight, half an hour of that stuff and we're both out like a light.
Once I run out of classic hard rock, those albums with universal appeal and boundless energy, things start getting somewhat tense in the car. My natural inclination is to start playing metal. I have a large assortment of metal albums in my car since the stuff makes for phenomenal phenomenal night driving music. I don't think it's really possible to fall asleep to Carcass, after all. However, this is my dad I'm riding with. Death metal and black metal aren't going to cut it here. I needed something with clean vocals and melody, maybe a nice groove too. On this latest voyage back to the evergreen state, I put on some Goatsnake and Gloryhammer to serenade us with bluesy doom metal and cheesy power metal respectively. Here, I'll post some samples. Give them a listen before you continue reading.
It would suffice to say that these albums did not go over particularly well. However, to stop with such a cop-out description would defeat the point of this post. When both albums were done, my dad turned to me and started speaking with that most loaded of opening statements: "Now, don't take this the wrong way, but..." Oh boy, I thought, here it comes. What he ultimately said (after the usual cries of "where's the melody," "metal is too Satanic for me," and "that guy is just chanting 'I killed him' (was actually saying 'a killing floor', which is both the name of the song and a classic blues motif), etc.) was the inspiration for this blog post.
The general idea of my dad's argument is that we will forever gravitate towards the music that sounds familiar to us, which varies based on both life circumstances and one's date of birth. My dad prefers bands like the Beach Boys and Bob Seger because they remind him of his childhood. That kind of music was instrumental in developing his musical tastes, which have solidified with age. The end product is a sort of generation gap for musical appreciation. If something sounds too different to what we listened to growing up, we reject it as just noise and then precede to bemoan the state of the music industry. After all, he argued, we all just really pursue our comfort zone.
Unsurprisingly for longtime readers of this blog, I balked at his suggestion that I too would one day become a musical dogmatist asserting that music died the day it stopped sounding like the soundtrack to my halcyon days of youth. I certainly saw kernels of truth in his argument, what with my adamant rejection of things like dubstep and autotuned pop music. However, I have enough self-awareness to be able to identify this revulsion at modern music as something other than reluctance to accept the next generation. It's not that I dislike so many modern bands because they differ from what I listened to as a youth. In fact, many of the trends I so dislike in music nowadays have their roots in the stuff I listened to naively as a child, wondering why I wasn't able to "get" these artists so popular with my peers. I may be a musical dogmatist, but for reasons that have nothing to do with my musical generation.
In appreciating music, I am first and foremost a connoisseur of instrumentation. In particular, I greatly enjoy a well-played guitar part. I am, after all, a guitarist; can you blame me? This, not any generational divide, is responsible for my under-appreciation of so many modern artists. I go where the riffs are, and the riffs are often in music that predates me. I gravitate towards songs like Aerosmith's Walk This Way and Carcass's Heartwork because, man, those are some GREAT riffs! They aren't really my generation's riffs, they're just timeless. If I seem like a musical curmudgeon, shaking his cane at all the pop-rock and dubstep kids marching across his lawn, it's because I just can't sate my hunger for guitar riffage from those kinds of music. I don't think it matters quite what generation you come from, your first taste of Hendrix should still be something like a religious experience. I hunger to hear the next distant horizon someone will take us to through the guitar. Hopefully, when that happens, I won't miss it from wallowing in nostalgia. I don't want something like a generation gap to stop me from appreciating the next great step in rock, in metal, in blues. Admittedly, if the guitar ever stops being given its due as the king of instruments, as the face of rock, then you'll see me eating these words. I'm happy with whatever generation's music appreciates the guitar, and I want a rather large gap between myself and any generation that seeks to ignore it.
Happy intensely belated new year. Now that I have recovered from this weekend's shenanigans (flat tire repair, work gone awry, my 21st birthday), I'm ready to ring in the new-ish year a month late with some quality music. I have a lot of music to go through today and not quite as much time as I'd like, so I'll make this a bit briefer than I probably should.
Before I get to the music, though, I'd like to talk on the subject of harsh vocals in metal. You might notice that the music I'm featuring today is strewn with all manner of screams, rasps, growls, barks and snarls. This was intentional, and it's to make a point. It should come as no surprise to my audience at this point that I'm something of a metalhead. I can't help it; so much of the best guitar-work is found in metal, progressive rock, blues and flamenco. I simply listen to whatever has the most interesting or exciting guitar parts. Few genres these days are as guitar-driven as metal, from the treble-heavy blast strumming of black metal to the crunchy grooves of death metal. There is, however, something of a price of entry to the more hard-edged stuff in metal: the vocals. For the longest time, I simply chose to avoid harsh vocals in metal. Payoff be damned, I simply couldn't stomach screams or...whatever those black metal vocalists were doing (it just sounded like irritable stage whispering to me). I think the record that opened my mind a little was Lost in the Sound of Separation, by Underoath. It's not an album I return to often anymore, though. What really changed my mind to harsh vocals in metal was hearing Amon Amarth's single War of the Gods (from Surtur Rising) for the first time.
THAT was a gamechanger. I hadn't heard quality death metal before, let alone death metal with MELODY. The use of harsh vocals in music finally clicked with me. Amon Amarth was using the human voice (to great effect, I might add) as a percussion instrument, and not as an additional source of melody. It needed to be a gruff growl and snarl in order to not distract from the guitar lines in the treble. It needed to be abrasive to project any kind of power with that low of a pitch. The vocals took getting used to, but they made sense. I could accept that, and I'm glad I did.
What I'm trying to say here is that there is both logic behind these more abrasive vocals, and (more importantly) a MASSIVE payoff for acclimating oneself to them. Oh boy, is there ever a payoff!
Introducing Wilderun's sophomore album, Sleep at the Edge of the Earth.
This album is, without hesitation, my favorite of all the records I've encountered. It has folk instrumentation, beautiful clean vocals, blast beats, brilliant arrangements, excellent pacing, a sense of groove and of melody. It has harsh vocals. Basically, this is what would happen if we took Opeth, removed the 70's prog influences and replaced those with folk music. The result is majestic and should NOT be skipped over. This is the album I'd suggest for acclimating oneself to harsh vocals in metal. It's an extremely palatable blend of melody with black metal and death metal, and I'd recommend it to people who do not consider themselves metal fans at all. I have yet to show this to someone, metal fan or not, and have them dislike it. I could ramble on for hours about how much I love this album, but I'd rather just let the music speak for itself. It's not free, but it's worth every freaking cent and then some. You can pick it up from their Bandcamp page HERE. It's only $7 USD minimum, and it's worth so much more.
For someone looking for a bit less bombast and way more oomph and strange puns, we have Slugdge.
As much as I love these guys, I am not advocating using them as your gateway to extreme metal unless you're already fine with harsh vocals. Slugdge is freaking heavy, with a potent mixture of blackened sludgy death for your listening pleasure. No, they're more an example of the long-term payoff for acclimating yourself to extreme metal. They're also a pretty way to just jump straight into the deep end rather than sticking your toes in the water with Wilderun. If you're already a fan of the headier brews metal has to offer, then you'll feel right at home with Slugdge. They're creative, brutal, and highly entertaining. They also write all their songs about slugs bringing about the end times, which is frankly hilarious. Give them a shot at their Bandcamp page HERE. Their entire discography is available with a name your own price offer with no minimum price, after all, so there's no reason not to give them a shot if you (like me) are a fan of what they're peddling.
Hello again, world. For a good while, I wasn't sure if I would ever post here again. Quite a few things have changed since my last post. I changed jobs, my mom is moving to a new neighborhood, my sister is living in a different country (follow her Irish escapades on her blog: The Novelest). I'm doing what I can to balance a full course-load, a ten-hour workweek and various forms of impending doom (midterms, papers, floods, etc.). Basically, the ol' blog got put on the backburner for far longer than I had anticipated. At the end of the day, though, I don't want Ramblings of the Guitarman to be some project I toyed with for a while and then abandoned. I may not get much in the way of traffic here, but I'm fairly fond of having my own little corner of the interwebs. I'm not going to do something irresponsible like promise regular updates and then leave you all hanging for another year, but I will do my best to keep the site updated. It might not be all band reviews, but I should find something to put here every now and then.
With that in mind, I have a treat for all two of my readership who comes here for music stuff and not just because they typed in "rotgm" instead of "rotmg" when looking for info on Realm of the Mad God (yes, I am aware that the similarity makes it really hard to actually find this blog; no, I am far too fond of the acronym to consider changing it this far in). Here's some free music!
While I admit to not actually finding them myself (I found them through Angry Metal Guy, and his excellent self-titled blog), Iron Thrones is too good of a band for me to skip over. This Minneapolis-based metal outfit disbanded back in 2012, but produced two killer albums back when they were still active. They somehow managed to combine prog-y melodeath with metalcore, of all things, and the result is far more coherent than you might expect. In case you were wondering which half of the equation is more responsible for the songwriting, take a gander at the track lengths. We're talking as long as 12 minutes in some cases, and they go by effortlessly (no small feat, that). This is a band that could transition with effortless grace from beautiful prog arrangements to crushing breakdowns and back again. Their second album, The Wretched Sun, features the usual clean/hardcore vocal transitions you might expect of this type of music, but their first album, Visions of Light, manages with only the hardcore half of the package. Oddly enough, the music doesn't suffer for it. You'd think that maintaining the same vocal delivery over such varied musical passages would in some way be detrimental to the flow of songs, but it actually works here. The vocals variously wash over or pummel through the listener, as called for by the song.
This is the part of the review where I'd usually try and justify my title of Guitarman by commenting on the axe-work employed by Iron Thrones. It's certainly impressive, but it's so far divorced from my area of expertise that I find it difficult to comment on. The playing is tight, and there are certainly some some memorable riffs here (the main riff from Heart of the Light, for example), but riffs really aren't the focus. This isn't a band that writes a riff, puts a song around it, and then slaps on a guitar solo for good measure. The focus is more on chord progressions, rhythms and the vocals than on any given riff. I suppose that might be a product of the band's metalcore influences, and I do appreciate that it keeps the prog half from getting too self-indulgent. Iron Thrones writes good songs, not just good riffs, which is a nice change of pace from the Dream-Theater-clone-of-the-week type of progressive metal we usually get. All in all, I highly recommend Iron Thrones to fans of progressive music looking for something a little more raw, and to fans of metalcore looking for something a touch more layered and complex. I'd recommend Iron Thrones to all of you, actually, so long as you don't mind harsh vocals. I get that they're an acquired taste, but one well worth the price of admission in my humble opinion. Give them a spin at their Bandcamp page, ironthrones.bandcamp.com, for free downloads of both Visions of Light and The Wretched Sun. Alternatively, if you're feeling particularly lazy, just use the widgets I linked earlier in this post.
Introducing Sabaton, a Swedish power metal outfit that almost exclusively draws upon military history for lyrical content. The track I've posted above, Resist and Bite, for example is dedicated to the Casseurs Ardennais. The Casseurs Ardennais (French for "hunters from the Ardennes") is a Belgian infantry outfit that, during WWII, was engaged in fierce resistance against German invading forces. The song's title, Resist and Bite, is the English translation of the motto of the Chasseurs Ardennais. This is probably more detail than I need to get into for a discussion of the band itself. It should suffice to say that Sabaton takes inspiration not just from themes of war, but from specific military groups, persons and events.
As for the music itself, it's pretty standard power metal fare. For the record, I mean that as the highest praise. Power metal is great, and Sabaton is a shining example of everything I enjoy about the genre. Power ballads? Check. Choir chants? Check. Symphony and organ perfectly accenting guitar and vocals? Check. Excellent melodies? Clean vocals soaring over the mix? Epic lyrical content? Check, check and check. Having listened to both their older and newer content, I can assure you that, based off of their latest album Heroes, they don't seem to be running out of steam any time soon.
Bottom line: in a genre where epic fantasy tropes are employed to the point of becoming passe, it's refreshing to see acts like Sabaton attacking completely different subject matter. At the same time, Sabaton feels fresh while staying close to the stylistic roots of the genre. The end result is a group that, in its current incarnation, is a well-oiled musical machine that simultaneously cuts its own niche while reminding me why I enjoy the power metal genre as a whole. Bravo.
You can find Sabaton's works for download on iTunes.
As I sit here at my kitchen table, typing away on my laptop, I can hardly believe what a crazy summer this has been. I've put on a garage sale, worked in a government cubicle, washed cars, and even received a car of my own. More importantly, I'm adjusting to the reality that my family is finally selling my childhood home. I've known for a while that this would happen eventually, but foreknowledge has done little to ultimately lessen the strangeness of the situation. Moving out of the home I've lived in for as long as I can remember is a frankly surreal experience, and certainly not one I know how to process. Getting ready to move has occupied my time and thoughts this summer, but now that the house is actually going on the market I think it's time I try and get on with my life. For all the memories I associate with this house, it's still just stuff in the end. No sense in getting so hung-up about it, I suppose. Anyways, on with the music.
Introducing Alestorm, a Scottish metal band with a pirate fixation. There's a curious tendency of some metal bands (especially power and folk metal groups) to intentionally restrict their lyrical and thematic content to a single topic. From what I've seen, that topic is generally either the medieval ages (the typical setting of high fantasy) or vikings (which makes sense considering how many great Scandinavian metal bands there are). Alestorm, on the other hand, is the only metal group I've seen to have pirates as their central thematic element. The group hammers out well polished power/folk metal, with accordion synths adding to the band's pirate-esque feel. There are more straightforward metal numbers (the guitar harmonics on the track Heavy Metal Pirates reminds me of some classic Judas Priest numbers), but the vast majority of Alestorm songs are littered with faux-accordion, Bowes' gruff Scottish accent, and a certain lightheartedness that separates Alestorm from the crowd. The lyrics, despite being limited to pirate-y things, are genuinely clever and often hilarious ("You put your faith in Odin and Thor, / We put ours in cannons and whores"). At first glance, Alestorm has put themselves into a very narrow box by restricting themselves to songs about pirates. In truth, the band exercises more flexibility than most metal groups I've come across, switching freely between tropes of power metal, folk metal, thrash metal, and even death metal without leaving the listener behind. Alestorm brings well-polished production, creative lyrics, and enough love of fun to the table for me to heartily recommend them. They just released their fourth album (Sunset on the Golden Age) little more than a week ago. Give it a listen, and you might see why I love this group so much.
It's been a while since I've been this completely floored by free music. Remember my previous post about Sonorant? It seems that its frontman (also only-man), guitarist Chris Catharsis, has been busy with his more recent project, Soul Cycle. This time, however, Chris brings more than Meshuggah-esque djent rhythms and alternately looming or brutal melodies. Soul Cycle's modus operandi is a bit harder to pin down than that. Take the opening of the song Heartless from Soul Cycle's eponymous debut album. The first minute or so features cheery, chorus-soaked arpeggios of the sort one generally does not expect to find on an album this heavy. While similar elements are present in some of Sonorant's works, here these interludes feel more strongly integrated into the music, and with spectacular results. Chris Catharsis has matured as a songwriter, and it shows. The music on Soul Cycle and Soul Cycle II is thoroughly splendid throughout, with brutal rhythms, searing leads and spectacular melodies. Moreover, the music reaches emotional heights previously lacking from Chris' work in Sonorant. Rather than simply beating down the listener with brutal riffs, the offerings here feel significantly richer and more dynamic. As an added bonus, Soul Cycle and Soul Cycle II are full length albums, as opposed to the EPs produced by Sonorant. While the music is available free, I must say that audio quality is fantastic with. One. Glaring. Exception. I understand that not every group can afford to staff a drummer. Really, I get it. Soul Cycle is, after all, only two people: Chris Catharsis doing triple duty on lead, rhythm and bass guitars, and Mark Hawkins also on lead guitar. However, there are moments when my ears feel violated by the sheer tinniness of the programmed drums. These moments, while few and far between, manage to seriously detract from the guitars, which are the obvious main attraction of Soul Cycle. Don't let my criticism dissuade you from giving them a listen, however. Soul Cycle is packing some of the most blisteringly intense and searingly delicious shred I've heard in a while. Not too many groups can actually pull off that magical combination of impressive guitar chops and songs actually worth hearing. Either you get "good enough" guitar-playing or "merely passable" songs. I certainly am not hearing compromises from Soul Cycle. The melodies are strong, well-executed, and leave your guitar-nerd of a host feeling absolutely ecstatic. It's just that good.
All in all, Soul Cycle offers some stupendous guitar carnage for the low, low price of free. The music is incredibly precise while also being emotive. The recording quality is, for the most part, top-notch. The songs are diverse and technically impressive. This, ladies and gents, is some grade-A face-melting material we have here. You can find Soul Cycles two currently-released works here: http://soulcyclemetal.bandcamp.com/. You can choose how much (or whether) to pay them for both albums. If you enjoy the music (I certainly do), then please support the artists responsible. Until next time!
Guitarman, out.
Well, it's certainly been a while since I've last posted. School and personal matters have been holding my attention fairly firmly lately. Anyways, I only have a few more weeks left before I head back home for the summer. It's certainly been a long first year of college, with plenty of unforgettable (for better or worse) memories. I hope to return to a more frequent posting schedule once I no longer have to worry about schoolwork hanging over my head. In any event, I should probably spit out what I came here to say. Well, Slayer...
...wait, Slayer? Yes, Slayer. Slayer apparently has some new material in the form of the single "Implode." This is the first piece of new content they've released since the tragic death of Jeff Hanneman. I'd give you my opinion of the track, but I'd much prefer to have you judge it for yourselves before I taint your view of it. There's no sense biasing you beforehand; enough people are already angry at Slayer for moving on past Jeff. Anyways, you can download the new track "Implode" from here: http://www.slayer.net/us/implode. Just sign up for the mailing list, and they'll send you a download link. For the record, the track has absurdly high audio quality. The song file is about 50MB, and it's not even particularly long! Anyways, I'll try and get some more posts out before too long. See you then!
I promised posts, so here's some more free music. Introducing Sonorant (AKA Chris Catharsis), a Georgia-based metal guitarist well worth keeping an eye on. These days, metal bands can often be divided into either melodic or rhythm-focused groups in terms of their instrumentals. The more melody-based metal acts (Bullet For My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, etc.) tend to have a wider appeal than, say, rhythm-centric (and, in my personal opinion, fascinating) groups in the vein of Meshuggah. This is arguably all the more reason to appreciate acts like Sonorant which manage to strike an even balance of melodic and rhythmic craziness. Not only displaying a keen ear for melody, Sonorant appears to be heavily influenced by none other than the mighty Meshuggah, as evidenced by the cover of Meshuggah's song Sane on the band's Myspace page. For those of you unfamiliar with Meshuggah, they are essentially the masters of rhythmic displacement, polyrhythms, polymeters, and inordinately heavy guitar grooves. As Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thorendal once told Guitar World magazine (quoted from the September 2012 issue), "I understand why people hear odd meters in our songs, because we group our notes in different ways. But just about all of them are 4/4." The band's tracks tend to focus more on creating a groove than a melody. Sonorant's songs, however, combine the interesting rhythmic elements of bands like Meshuggah with some fantastic melodies. As an added bonus, Sonorant's songs don't have vocal tracks, allowing them to appeal to those who would be repulsed by the menacing barks, snarls and growls of Meshuggah's singer. As usual, more of Sonorant's tracks can be found for free at their Jamendo page. Enjoy.
