I like Mark Hunter. I consider him a friend, and I’m pretty sure he considers me as a friend as well. That said, “what the fuck, bro?”
Maybe I’m just getting old and am no longer in tune with what the kids want to hear today. I get that. I understand that this whole Dubstep craze is in right now. I get that today’s kids are just as content to listen to the work of a DJ that never touches an instrument as they might be to an actual band that plays their instruments and creates their music organically. I get all that. I just don’t get why.
So look, there’s the long and the short of this review. I know I’m supposed to kill my friend Mark Hunter’s work to show some kind of integrity and willingness to say what I think, no matter if he is a friend or not. Fine. I, personally, don’t like this and won’t ever listen to it again. That said though, there’s a couple of things that need to be clarified here. First it was free; given away to fans with no risk or cost. If you hate it, it’s not like you got ripped off. It was experimental, and as such it was priced appropriately as it’s not, in any way, a representation of what Chimaira is. Secondly, for what it is, it’s not terrible. The meshing of Chimaira music into a darker, more evil version of Skrillex-heavy does not totally suck. If you are into this type of thing, then you won’t be offended. If you are offended, well…I’m sure Hunter as the perfect spot on his asshole sorted out for you to kiss.
PITRIFF RATING – 80/100 - It’s free. It’s cool for what it is. It’s not a representation of what Chimaira is or is going to be. I’m done with it and going back to THE AGE OF HELL in my IPod, but for those of you that are riding this new trend, you will probably dig this as it fits perfectly next to other bands of this style doing the same thing.
It took five long years, but seemingly those years were well spent away by Orange Goblin. Since HEALING THROUGH FIRE came out in 2007, the band has seemingly rediscovered themselves, which is a very good thing. That last album was almost the death of the band, as they nearly completely abandoned their stoner metal heritage and dumbed down their sound to become a typical metal band. Thankfully, those five years since then have seemingly reminded these guys of their roots. They are back with what might be the strongest album of their career.
From the second “Red Tide Rising” opens the disc, you realize that you are engulfed in an album that’s brilliantly produced, has all the earmarks of the best stoner metal available, and yet has that harder core metal edge that a band like Down has made so successful over the last decade. In short, A EULOGY FOR THE DAMNED is one of the best albums of this ilk in awhile.
Without question, the force behind this effort is guitarist Joe Hoare. His overall tone is thick and heavy, and yet his leads rip through each and every song. Listening to songs like “Acid Trial”, you can’t help but have your head bobbing and your tongue wagging along to the guitar line. It seems to have effected vocalist Ben Ward too, as he snarls right along with the riffs throughout. They reach back to their roots together on “Save Me From Myself”; an almost western metal sounding song that sounds a bit like an outtake from a Raging Slab song (albeit a heavy one). Ward’s dirty end vocal here before launching into a snarl on the chorus is fantastic, and portrays the shifting of emotion in the song that he was going for. Add to that Hoare’s great guitar lines here, and you quickly figure out why this song stands as one of the best in the band’s entire career.
Equally up to the task on this effort is the rhythm section. Bassist Martyn Millard and drummer Chris Turner make their mark throughout without ever overstepping Ward and Hoare. In short, the bottom end is think, steady and powerful. Turner is especially solid; nothing fancy but strong beats and a great drum sound that perfectly fits the rest of the music.
PITRIFF RATING – 95/100 - For me, probably the best Orange Goblin album they’ve done to date. At a minimum, the best one they’ve done since THE BIG BLACK, and that was 12 years and 4 albums ago. Heavy, thick and an amalgamation of stoner metal and more traditional metal, A EULOGY FOR THE DAMNED is one of the best releases from any band of this ilk in recent memory.
When it comes to power metal bands out there that a lot of people don’t know but should, Mystic Prophecy jumps right to the top of the list. Their albums are consistently excellent, with their SATANIC CURSES being a tremendous effort that’s still in steady rotation in my IPod almost 5 years after it was released. With every band though, when you set the bar extremely high, you have that moment where you fall back a little bit. Being fair here, I do really like RAVENLORD, but it’s simply not as good as their past releases. It’s solid, but probably the worst of their catalog.
Again, not a bad album by any stretch. There are times when these guys turn up the speed and just launch. “Die Now” is probably the fastest and heaviest song of the bands career; complete with vocalist Roberto Dimitri Liapakis snarling his way through the song instead of using his more clean vocal that he’s known for. As always though, Liapakis is the solid leader of this band. He roars throughout, reminding at times of Tom Englund of Evergrey in choruses.
Regardless of Liapakis, Mystic Prophecy will always be a band that lives and dies with their guitar players. The band once featured legendary guitarist Gus G., and now features Markus Pohl and Constantine. They are equal to the task once again on RAVENLORD. They rip it up, specifically in the solo, on the album’s best track, “Eyes Of The Devil”. Constantine and Pohl are stablized by a rock solid underbelly created by bassist Connie Andreszka and fairly new drummer Claudio Sisto. They rip as a unit on “Damned Tonight”.
While most of this album is solid, Mystic Prophecy suffer a few bumps along the way, and one jarring misstep. That misstep comes with their over the top, pretty horrible cover of Ozzy’s “Miracle Man” from NO REST FOR THE WICKED. This one is just all over the place. The guitars are kind of out of control, centered around the excitement of throwing in pinch harmonics every two seconds a la Zakk Wylde, but with far less control. The guitars are not the issue though. The vocals from Liapakis on this song are terrible…and I mean really terrible. Simply put, Liapakis tries and fails at putting on an Ozzy voice, and it almost sounds like they didn’t put the effects on his voice that gave him the booming quality on the rest of the album. This song is horrible, sloppy, and really puts a bad ending on an otherwise solid to extremely good album.
PITRIFF RATING – 75/100 – Most of this kicks ass as power metal goes, but the ending is a total downer. RAVENLORD is a solid effort from a band that generally delivers far more than a solid effort, so it’s a bit of a disappointment. Still, it’s worth having. While not the best effort these guys have ever done, if you leave “Miracle Man” off your IPod, you won’t be disappointed with the listening experience at all.
To say the least, Lillian Axe continuing on must just be the mission of guitarist Steve Blaze. Certainly, even he would have to admit that the band has suffered it’s share of setbacks over the last few years. With five years of seemingly a new vocalist fronting the band for each release, it’s just been tough to get continuity as a band for Blaze and company. For THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW, they even had to switch albums mid-cycle when former Metal Church vocalist Ronnie Munroe left the band. Still, they have carried on.
XI: THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW is a solid effort from Lillian Axe. It’s not an effort that’s going to win the band a lot of new fans, but it won’t scare anyone away either. In short, THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW is a fairly standard release from “The Axe”. With the focus once again on a new singer, Brian C. Jones steps in and does an admirable job here. He shines brightest on “Death Comes Tomorrow”; a ballad built to showcase the smooth, strong voice that Jones possesses. Throughout the entire disc, Jones is solid. He’s not an overly dynamic singer by any means, but the music on THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW do not call for that.
One thing that’s highly noticable on THE DAYS BEFORE TOMORROW is the fairly standard, unflashy performance from Steve Blaze. While Lillian Axe has never been a virtuoso guitar band, they have always been a heavily guitar oriented band with a very dynamic sound coming from Blaze’s six strings. For whatever reason, that’s not really happening here. Sure, Blaze plays well, but the riffs and leads are just not as sharp and ripping on past efforts. Songs like “Gather Up The Snow” are a prime example. There’s a nice solo and a good crunchy riff throughout the song, but it’s just not powerful and dynamic. This may be a production thing and not a playing thing, but it just feels flat here. That’s far from the normal with Blaze. Faster numbers, like “Caged In”, suffer from this same quality, although this song is somewhat more biting with the leads that are tossed into the mix.
PITRIFF RATING – 70/100 - Being honest, I expected a bit more from Lillian Axe because I’m a big fan of Steve Blaze. This release is solid enough, but far from memorable the way even recent albums like WATERS RISING were. You won’t hate this, but you certainly won’t keep this in heavy rotation in your IPod either.
Unlike most metalheads, I think I’m somewhat sacrilegious when it comes to my non-appreciation of Venom. They are one of two acts that I know are just worshipped in the metal community, but I simply do not get the appeal at all (the other being King Diamond). That being said, I had very little expectation for a new Venom release, and yet, they came though with what is a fairly solid effort.
Is this great, no. But it is Venom doing what they do and yet being a touch stronger than normal for them in my eyes. First and foremost, kudos to them for finally figuring out how to capture their sound in the studio. They have a career of bad recordings behind them, so it’s good to hear them recorded well. Secondly, these songs on FALLEN ANGELS are not the typical Venom dirges of anger and hatred surrounded by lacking musicianship. In short, these songs sound like songs played by professional musicians. Sure, listening to a song like “Beggarman” are still raw and raucous, but they are much tighter than this band usually sounds. The overall sound is a shade different than in the past too, as it sounds like there’s just a touch of a modern flair to the songs found on FALLEN ANGELS. It’s a good quality for them.
Individually – well, it’s Venom. Cronos is still a bad singer/ranter, but his dirges are expected and meet expectations throughout. He croaks it out with vengeance on songs like “Lap Of The Gods”. He also lays down a much more solid, less distorted bassline than ever before on this release. He and drummer Dante create a thick, yet somewhat raw and flattened foundation on songs like “Hail Satanas”. On guitar, La Rage is full of that early punk meets Metal sound that has defined Venom’s career. To listen to him play on songs like “Hammerhead”, it’s clear that he’s not the best player on the planet but knows how to craft his music to what is needed from song to song. Overall, these guys come together and create a decent enough effort from start to finish.
PITRIFF RATING – 68/100 - I’m well aware that this is more of a Cronos solo album than a true Venom album featuring the original guys. To be honest, I don’t care, as I’m not really a fan nor do I have any intention of ever seeing these guys live. That said, if you are into the spirit of Venom or just respect them for their contributions to the history of Metal, then you will probably appreciate this. It’s not great, but it doesn’t suck either. It’s Venom – based on that sentence alone you should be able to judge if you want to purchase it or not.
One of the most difficult things there is to do when reviewing power metal bands is to find the slight variations in the sound from band to band. While I’m definitely a fan of the genre, it is the most defined sound of all the subgenres of metal. Let’s face it – each and every song has a fast drum beat that rides underneath fast riffs which create a galloping sound to the music. In short, if you can listen to a power metal album from start to finish and you never tap out the “da da dum da da dum” beat on the table in front of you, then the music is probably not very good.
Freedom Call is what I’d call a typical power metal band. Their album, LAND OF THE CRIMSON DAWN, is pretty much what you’d expect from any German power metal band out there. Their music features big, sweeping gang style choruses, galloping paces on every song, a pretty clean vocal and music that’s pretty well within the framework of this musical style. In short, LAND OF THE CRIMSON DAWN is a pretty typical power metal album.
That said, I hope you don’t read it as a bad album at all. It’s not. Songs like “Rockstars” are as solid as anything Primal Fear or Blind Guardian have put out in years. Vocalist Chris Bay is not the greatest singer in that his voice is pretty indistinguishable, but he’s solid throughout. In a way, Bay reminds a lot of Joacim Cans of Hammerfall, particularly in his phrasing on songs. Listening to him on material like “Crimson Dawn”, it’s hard to be sure that it’s not Cans singing the song as a guest appearance.
Musically, LAND OF THE CRIMSON DAWN is pretty much typical. They fall right into my main criticism of power metal; each and every song being based on “the fight”, “the struggle”, “marching on” and “winning the great battle”. Sure, this kind of music has etched it’s place in the minds and souls of Dungeons & Dragons fans and annual Renaissance Fair participants, but the ever repeating message is somewhat of a downer in this genre. There’s no shortage of it here. Song like “66 Warriors”, “Valley Of Kingdom” and most others just emphasize this fairly typical storyline from which they write from.
PITRIFF RATING – 70/100 - Not bad, not great. Definitely not something that stands out much, but at the same time not something you would turn off if it popped on your radio or IPod. This is a solid effort from Freedom Call, although my bet is that if you aren’t a follower of them as a band you wouldn’t distinguish it from any of the other zillion just like them out there.
Sure, the 20 years later thing brought some interest to this release. Yes, the reunion of that classic lineup made you look up and think, “man, can they really bring it back the way it used to be?” Well, what’s forgotten in those initial thought are those 20 years; 20 long years where this lineup wasn’t together. Twenty years where the guys didn’t continue their growth together as a band. Two decades that saw this lineup go on very different paths as individuals. The long and the short of it – REBORN IN DEFIANCE is a decent release from an older and less angst filled version of a legendary hardcore superband.
Even with later albums from the band, the one thing you could count on was that aggression that never quit. There’s just too many times when it’s not fully there. Take a song like “Reborn”. It has it’s typical Biohazard moments, but then has other points where it almost sounds radio ready and dull. This is followed by “Killing Me”, which might be the worst Biohazard song ever. This song just lays there and lumbers along. Vocalist Evan Seinfeld seems to either have a flat effect on his voice for this song, or he’s just particularly uninspired as he croaks out the lyrics. Even when Evan teams with Billy Graziadei in the chorus, it’s just not working. Graziadei also doesn’t have the voice that he once did, so a good amount of his screams are broken up and lacking.
This album hits with a thud musically as well. The return of the team of Graziadei and Bobby Hambel should have been able to produce more of that catchy guitar that powered albums like STATE OF THE WORLD ADDRESS. Instead, they provide a fairly murky, downtuned mesh of sound that doesn’t stand out at all or add that razor sharp quality to songs like “Countdown Doom”; a song that could otherwise have been a really good, familiar Biohazard song. It’s just disappointing, and seems as if the guys were trying to sound like Biohazard instead of actually just getting together and being Biohazard. I have no idea if that makes sense to many people, but to me, REBORN IN DEFIANCE is a parody of a band that I once saw destroy the stage night after night with Sepultura and Pantera. This is far from that band.
PITRIFF RATING – 52/100 - A major disappointment to open 2012…big time. I have always, always loved hardcore, and specifically these guys unique blend of hardcore and straight up metal. This just sounds, for the most part, like middle of the road downtuned modern metal with the occasional throwback to a band that no longer exists. Definitely far from great.
Being a fan of this band, it’s not easy to watch them disintegrate from a band that once had an edge and offered something very different from everything else to a middle of the road pop rock band. That’s exactly what’s going on here. By no means is this a bad album, but it’s just another album that proves the creativity that came up with “Heaven’s A Lie” and “Our Truth” does not exist anymore.
Again, DARK ADRENALINE is not a bad effort by any stretch. Every aspect of this release is polished to a bright, shiny gleam – maybe too polished. With all the edge of an orb, DARK ADRENALINE puts forth 12 tracks that are hardly memorable and really don’t do much for the listener.
As always, the focal point of the band is vocalist and primary lyricist Cristina Scabbia. She sounds as good as she’s ever sounded here. Her haunting, clean vocals are solid as always and set the mood for most songs. On songs like “End Of Time”, she croons with her flowing voice overtop of the song and in stark contrast to the band’s other vocalist; the more growly Andrea Ferro. She sounds fine, but a bit too polished and just lacking any emotion at all. While she’s never been one to really spew emotion into songs, most of the songs here are very paint by the numbers for Scabbia. For Ferro, he’s also tuned it back a bit, taking away the jagged opposite edge of the vocals that dominated early albums. Having given this 10 or 11 listens, it’s clear that something is missing here vocally, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. That said, songs like “I Don’t Believe In Tomorrow” are fairly tepid in their vocal mix.
To be fair, the band sounds really good here; specifically guitarists Cristiano Migliore and Marcos Biazzi. Unlike anything since COMALIES, the guitars are a lot more vibrant and loud in the mix. At times, like on the aforementioned “I Don’t Believe In Tomorrow”, they seem to have reached back a decade and channeled Korn for their tone and direction, but for the most part the guitars have a big, thick Drop-D sound that carries the bulk of the songs. Their sound on “Intoxicated” is remarkably similar to something Disturbed has done in the past, but don’t read that as a bad thing. It mimmicks Disturbed in that it sticks in your head a bit. They play well overtop the thick foundation laid down by drummer Cristiano Mozzati and bassist Marco Zelati.
As I stated before, the problem really isn’t the band for the most part. It’s the lack of edge to the sound itself. That’s a twofold problem. First, it really appears as if they are writing material with much less bite than they did on previous albums. There’s the occasional song with some energy (“The Army Inside”), but for the most part, the songs are all similar, all hard rock/pop metal instead of darker Gothic like they used to do, and seemingly written to give program directors a lot of choice on what to play. The other problem is that producer Don Gilmore has rubbed the edges of this band until it’s as sharp as a marble. Their unique cover of REM’s “Losing My Religion” is a great example of this. The arrangement was great, and the pattern between Scabbia and Ferro was well thought out. Yet, when you listen to it, it’s dull and more like a hard edged Madonna song than anything a metal band would have ever done. In short, song after song just comes off way too slick and polished.
PITRIFF RATING – 64/100 - Over the last two albums, Lacuna Coil has transformed themselves from the better, edgier femaled fronted goth metal band to the “other band like Evanescence”. For some, that may be a good thing. For me, it just doesn’t feel right. If you were happy with SHALLOW LIFE last time, you will probably enjoy DARK ADRENALINE as well. If you were disappointed with it, don’t expect much of a rebound. It’s technically decent, but far from great.
Here’s a fun fact for you. Earth is a band that, at it’s core, features the ideas of one Dylan Carlson. What exactly is Dylan Carlson’s claim to fame? Well, he’s best known as the guy that purchased the gun Kurt Cobain used to kill himself with. I’ll bet you didn’t hear that one on your wacky morning show just prior to playing “Come As You Are” for the 10 millionth time.
Sadly, Carlson is forever linked to Nirvana because of that fact instead of appreciated for the music he’s created over the years with Earth. This nearly instrumental, slow moving music is what I would call aura-setting music. In many ways, it’s kind of like a modern day Pink Floyd without the vocals. It’s total soundscape for exploring one’s inner soul, and it’s magnificent through and through. With ANGELS OF DARKNESS, DEMONS OF LIGHT I, Carlson and company do what they’ve been doing on and off for 20 years now – creating dark, slow, rhythmic tones for exploring one’s inner demons in your mind.
Unlike previous releases, ANGELS OF DARKNESSS, DEMONS OF LIGHT 1 has a feeling that you would expect behind a Rob Zombie horror film, or even behind the action that was going on in Kevin Smith’s RED STATE. At any given moment, you can explore your own inner fears, habits or demons while stretching out mentally with a track like “Father Midnight”. The guitar work is so much like that of David Gilmour in an ambient setting sort of way. The basslines follow the guitars because of their lack of any speed, and the drumming is barely more than tapping out a very slow 4/4 time for Carlson to keep pace with. Still, it’s terrific.
PITRIFF RATING – 90/100 – I haven’t done acid in a really long time now, but should the urge to go back ever come over me, you’d better believe I’ll be pulling this release out as it’s backdrop. If you close your eyes while listening, you can visualize big, slow moving lava in a lava lamp that every once in awhile forms the face of Satan to simply scare the shit out of you. In essence, I think that might be EXACTLY what Earth is going for.
I guess it’s just not a good thing to adapt your sound from your heroes of the past and fuse it with the sounds of modern day. Apparently, that’s a bad thing to do, depending on which message board you read. To read it from Blabbermouth, you’d think that the Black Veil Brides were the the spawn of everything evil because they a. stole their look from Motley Crue, b. are a bunch of homos, and c. are just a bunch of poser nu-metal faggots that should be extinguished from the Earth. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a band take more shit for doing what they do for no other reason than to be ENTERTAINERS. Still, it seems that for every hater there is out there, they won an award for being great in 2011, as they won at least 20 awards last year from everyone from Kerrang to Rock Sounds to Alternative Press. Apparently SOMEONE is digging what they do.
As far as their most recent three song EP REBELS is concerned, it’s not likely to move you one way or the other on the band, but it is a nice tip of the cap in tribute to music that helped the band develop into what they are. The songs are all three solid, with the covers taking center stage. Their cover of Kiss’ “Unholy” from REVENGE is the perfect song choice for these guys; specifically vocalist Andy Biersack. While his voice is not as raspy as Gene Simmons’, Biersack’s sound fits perfectly on the track. The same can be said about their much ballyhooed cover of Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”; a track that is perfectly fitted for BVB’s musical style of modern meets 80s metal. It is interesting that Zakk Wylde decided to lend his immense guitar sound to these guys. To be blunt about it, the Black Veil Brides just doesn’t seem to be the kind of band that you’d expect Wylde to perform with.
As for the lone new track, “Coffin”, it would have fit just fine on SET THE WORLD ON FIRE, which if I had to guess was where it was slated to go but didn’t quite make the cut the first time around.
PITRIFF RATING – 84/100 - The haters will hate, and the worshippers will worship. I don’t think I’m either to be honest. I’m not enamored with Black Veil Brides, but given the choice of them or their contemporaries like Asking Alexandria or most of the screamo bitchcore bands out there, I’ll take what these guys are serving. REBELS is a nice holdover release until another album can be recorded and put out there. It’s probably also the last release we’ll get from these guys before they are a very big band.
Chimaira
Orange Goblin
Mystic Prophecy
Lillian Axe
Venom
Freedom Call
Biohazard
Lacuna Coil
Earth
