New year, same gig

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.

Thunder Down Under

No, I don't mean the erotic theatre group. Not that kind of blog, folks.

I was scratching my head for a while about what group to cover next. Should I look for some new-to-me group? No, I hardly have that kind of time a mere week before finals. Perhaps some more metal? Nah, I'm not interested in getting the blog pigeonholed into a single genre. ROTGM has done consecutive metal spotlights for too long now. How about some criminally unsung blues badassery? Now we're talking my language.

Introducing: The Blackwater Fever.

This Australian trio (formerly duo) have been steadily cranking out some of the darkest, most raw electric blues this side of...well, anywhere at this point, ever since their debut in late 2008. The Blackwater Fever are masters of their craft, namely the creation of languid, tar-black soundscapes. The instrumentation has this sort of effortless feel to it and a simplicity which belies the musicians' tremendous talent. The result is something truly hypnotizing while still often being as heavy as you can get without being labeled doom metal. There aren't self-indulgent guitar solos here, no frills or unnecessary motions, just pitch-perfect pitch-blackness. They've put out three albums and an ep of the stuff so far, with each effort getting progressively more polished and atmospheric. Seriously, if you're looking for something moody and down-tempo, give these folks a spin or two or fifteen. You'll be glad you did.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

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.


Until next time,
Guitarman

Sabaton

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.