Again We Rise: Children of Bodom - Follow the Reaper

True to Iron Maiden's promise at Madison Square Garden in 2000, the decade that followed has seen a resurgence of metal that not only obliterated the specter of death staking the genre in the 1990s, but makes previous heydays seem puny in comparison. Metal in the 2000s was all about proliferation: new styles emerged, old ones regenerated, and - thanks to the Internet - exposure spread like a virus. To highlight all of that success , we're launching Again We Rise, an occasional feature that will celebrate the releases that rose above the voluminous crowd to become classics. Today, Children of Bodom's Follow the Reaper.

As one of the primary musical exports from a country that has generated metal microcosms typical of a population ten to twenty times its size, Bodom were already not so much torch bearers as marchers to the beat of their own unique drum. Be that as it may: with Follow the Reaper they were solidifying their position as the generators of a weird but wonderful thrash/black/power metal hybrid that was simultaneously baroque, bleak, and brutal - with a nice dollop of catchy on top to seal the deal.

Though the album features concert staples like "Hate Me!" and "Bodom After Midnight" that seem born as staples through their use the chanting masses hook that metal and punk acts have exploited for years, it does not follow this formula exclusively: unlike more recent albums, which seem to have followed this arc to its logical conclusion to the exclusion of any other exploration, Follow the Reaper embraces the variety that made this band so interesting and wraps it up in a fairly cohesive package. The title track opens with a quote from a piece of English literature, explodes into Bodom-standard high energy, and riffs through blackened classical forms. "Children of Decadence" splits time between the barely intelligible nihilism in the lyrics and a smoothly-flowing melody line that lives as a constant - if shifting - companion through the song, eventually emerging as one Bodom's better guitar/keyboard duets during the solo. "Every Time I Die" is one of Bodom's slower experiments in the vein of "Angels Don't Kill" and "Banned From Heaven," but unlike later efforts it notches down the speed without getting shmaltzy. "Mask of Sanity," the album's proggiest effort, resting as much on the syncopated keyboard line as it does on the high speed guitars and double bass, but still ties things together for the hooky chorus.

For nine tracks, Follow the Reaper generally moves from strength to strength and - even though it's Bodom and the production sheen starts to blend things together to the point of indistinguishability - offers a worthy effort made more potent by its creation in tough musical times. As the palaces burned, in Follow the Reaper Bodom continued to create music that would catapult them to fame and fortune - albeit with a slowly dulling edge - in the years to come.

Album Review: Teitanblood - Seven Chalices

I'm listening to Seven Chalices, the new-ish release by Teitanblood that Seth digs because they sound like they're riffing off of Celtic Frost. The album definitely has two presences: on the metal tracks, a majestic oppressiveness heightened by its low-fi production and the slap echo on the singer's voice. Very quickly, his shrieks and growls become like the cries of a demon-infested grotto, drawing you in to where horrors dance in the malevolent half light, crying for your tasty flesh. The non-metal tracks are atmospheric interludes, where drones and Eastern instruments meld to create soundscapes; drug-induced fantasies where Lovecraftian horror lurks at the edges, ready to turn dream into nightmare.

I'm in the process of re-reading The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco's tribute to the Sherlock Holmes stories set in an abbey in northern Italy in the 1300s. It was a time when pretty much everyone believed that all of the stuff Teitanblood is trying to conjure up in Seven Chalices was out to get them on a regular basis and they made their art accordingly, so everyone would know what was what. At one point, the main character - an elderly monk chronicling his experiences as a young man - recounts the story of his younger self examining an entranceway into a church, where carvers had depicted scenes from the Book of Revelation. The carvings are vivid enough that his young mind is able to bring the details to life, thrilling in the promise of salvation and shrinking back in intense fear from the horrors spewed up from the bowels of Hell. When I listen to Seven Chalices, I get the feeling Teitanblood were trying their best to bring that same sort of demonic presence to life in auditory form.

Sweet Promo Photo There, Guys

The photo above is of the guys from Behemoth, presumably as part of the promo package for their new album, Evangelion, and its anime-inspired title (I suspect it's really a religious reference, but I'm enough of a nerd to think of Neon Genesis first). Looking closer - perhaps at the sweet Napoleonic officer meets Magi robe the dude on the right is wearing - you'll notice that the whole picture looks it was done up in CGI. How far do the alterations really go? It makes me wonder if Behemoth is actually made up of three guys who all look like Brendon Small done up in Photoshop to look like black metal bad asses.

Set List Geekery

That Mike Portnoy spends a lot of time putting together set lists is common knowledge among Dream Theater fans, but something about this quote makes me think of him running complicated algorithms through some fan-developed database program:

That is something that I personally spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy determining. I will send out a master song list to the band and crew to learn/program at the start of the tour with a few songs I've picked from each album...I then change up the sets each night depending on the city. I do a tremendous amount of research for every single show....looking at what was played in that particular city the last two or three times through the years and I will write a set that hopefully doesn't repeat anything to make each time a fan sees a show a unique experience. I also take into account if we are playing two or three shows within driving distance of each other, to make those shows different from each other as well. It's a ridiculous, obsessive compulsive process that I don't think anybody else in this business does for their fans, but somehow I make myself insane doing it. It's like trying to solve the ultimate puzzle each and every day!

Via Blabbermouth

Immortal Releases Cover Art for Reunion Album

If you're going to take the time - and elicit the fan response - to do a reunion album, you might as well do it right. While the album itself isn't out yet - and there's the philosophical question of whether a release after a six year hiatus is really the same as a reunion album is the more current sense - the cover art is pretty sweet. If I had a castle, you can bet I'd put doors like those at my gates.

Via SMN News

Video Review: The Metal Shakespeare Company - To Bleed or Not to Bleed

I love power metal in a completely straightforward and non-ironic fashion. I enjoy Shakespeare a great deal. I think the marriage of the two - as personified by The Metal Shakespeare Company, seen performing in the video above - is absolutely brilliant in its simple logic: power metal is full of guys running around in tights singing about warriors. Shakespeare is full of guys in tights acting as warriors. Convergence is almost primal in its necessity. In the case of The Metal Shakespeare Company, it doesn't hurt that their showcase song isn't half bad.

However, as is appropriate - theater being a performing art, after all - it's the video that really puts this band over the top. The mingling of tights and tennis shoes, the tongue-in-cheek posturing and goofy antics, the formal garden filming location; all might seem amateurish in the wrong hands, but The Metal Shakespeare Company has the stage presence necessary to make the video look fun instead of stupid. I'd love to see them replicate the act on a live stage.

I Can No Longer Listen to Amon Amarth Outside the Home

...Or outside any situation where I am either doing domestic chores or eviscerating my enemies. I've developed quite an affection for With Oden on Our Side over the past few months, turning to it a number of times to help distract me from the drudgery of cleaning the massive pile of plates I've ignored all week first thing on a Saturday morning. In the process, I've come to discover it's a really good album, but almost entirely because of the lyrics: every song is either retelling of a Norse epic, a story of a saga, or a description of a battle, and all unrelentingly bad-ass. They're also just intelligible enough to pick out the words and sing along. The music, on the other hand, is woefully generic, providing just enough of a vehicle to support the words and propel them along.

All well and good, but when I'm focusing on something, all I really get is the music, sitting in a layer just below my conscious thought. My forty-five minutes of Viking-metal-fueled rush wimps out in a memory of dullish high speed strumming, with sweet lyrics like "Bear skin on my back/Wolf jaw on my head/Valhall awaits me/When I'm dead" consigned to some mental dustbin so I can concentrate, ruining the whole experience. So, resolved: if I can't scream along to the lyrics, it's not a good place to listen to Amon Amarth.

Goatwhore at the Gramercy

Two days before my big move I decided to go check out the "Conquer and Curse" tour stopping off at the Gramercy. With Live Nation giving away $5 tix and my new found love of Goatwhore I couldn't refuse!

When I walk in Abysmal Dawn is playing. They had the same generic look and sound of so many old school death metal bands. We hopped into some seats in the back of the venue and watched them from afar. Snore.

I was looking forward to Daath. At first listen of their record I thought they were also a bit generic but Eric really enjoyed it. So I gave it more of a chance and got very into their playing. I always like technical music and their drummer is phenomenal and the riffs are nice and big. Sadly the drummer was sitting out the tour and was replaced by Goatwhore's drummer. He did an admirable job but it just wasn't the same as their styles are different and really showed the weaknesses in the songwriting. Daath also has mediocre stage presence so the set fell flat.

Worried that this whole night was a wash I start mingling with the contingency of local Metal bloggers who made up about 60% of the audience. But the whole night was worth it for the majesty of Goatwhore.

Now they were also marred by a last minute lineup issue. For some reason their bassist was sitting out the tour and all the bassists from the other bands learned a couple Goatwhore songs. Thankfully this did not, despite their frequent apologies, affect their stage show at all. They come off a lot less like a Celtic Frost clone live, even though the guitarist was sporting an old school Hellhammer shirt. Not that I have any problem with Celtic Frost clones, I think the world needs a lot more of them, but their stage presence and sound came off a lot closer to the New Orleans sludge of their other bands. A large chunk of the set was from their new record "Carving out the Eyes of God" which was a good thing. A killer set and I can't wait to see them again in September with Obituary, Krisiun and Berzerker.

Abigail Williams was the kind of Hot Topic sponsored Black Metal that is making the genre even more of a joke than it already is. The only consolation to me was that they don't seem to have an audience built and many people walked out on them. They do not deserve the dignity of a bad review.

All pix are of Goatwhore.........

On Classic Album Tours

We've been in the thick of the reunion tour craze for some time now, with bands that threw in the towel years ago emerging from their mansions (or hovels, depending on their popularity) to (optimistically) get another taste of that roaring crowd spark or (cynically) milk a few more dollars from their success. Such is the success of these tours that I suspect that the market has reached saturation, because a new trend seems to be emerging: touring a classic album. Judas Priest is doing it, Bruce Springsteen is doing it, and now, according to a press release I found this morning, the Pixies are, too:

On this tour, the Pixies will perform all of the songs from Doolittle and its related B-sides, "Weird at My School," "Dancing the Manta Ray," and "Bailey's Walk" among them. Doolittle, the band's third album and the first to chart on Billboard's album charts, includes classics such as "Debaser," "Wave of Mutilation," "Here Comes Your Man," "Hey," and "Gouge Away."

I write this post more as a bemused commenter than anything else; in today's highly Balkanized music culture, these reunion tours don't seem likely to steal the segment of the music-loving public looking to listen to something new. Reunion tours in general - and classic album tours in particular - may not do much to advance the state of the art, but they don't seem to be doing any real damage, either.

Anaal Nathrakh: Sitting on the Proper Side of Intensity

I'm listening to Anaal Nathrakh right now for the first time (after reading a review snippet that sold the band enough to catch my attention) and it's intense. The first song went from a nice black metal texture to grindcore to a passage with "Thus Spake the Nightspirit"-type vocals and back again in a matter of minutes and the next few songs have had the same level of agility. It's rare that an album is so effectively brutal and evil-sounding that it makes me feel physically uncomfortable, but these guys have done the trick. Hats off to them: I'm loving it.

Video Review: Tyr - Hold the Heathen Hammer High

I have to give Tyr a lot of credit: despite what was no doubt a small budget and a bit of self-conscious acting, when they decide to make a video, they pretty much go all out. Never mind that the video is full of more rock god poses than a mid-80s Motley Crue video, that their drummer looks like he could be a replacement from any one of a 1,000 generic death metal bands, or that their bassist is using an instrument done up in a sparkly finish: these guys know how to make a fun video. Here they bring you such visual delights as four guys in armor with swords and axes, rocking out on board a Viking longship, and - no doubt for the benefit of anyone looking to piss off conservative friends or family - hacking down and burning a cross, all to the delightful soundtrack that is "Hold the Heathen Hammer High." Watch it: as over the top as it is, this video is a great part of why it's great to love metal.

Song Review: Ravage - Grapes of Wrath

The cover of Ravage's new album caught my eye because it's so over the top. It's done by the same guy - Ed Repka - who did the covers of Hangar 18, Peace Sells..., and Total Brutal, among many others, so the style was familiar, but I think it's the cover's over the top feel that I really enjoy. The freak out of the guy in the front is a touch of pure genius. Having a soft spot for things Boston - Ravage comes from Boston suburb Malden - and spurred on by their description of being "traditional, no-bullshit, American heavy metal," I decided to check them out, pulling up a song called "Grapes of Wrath" on their MySpace page.

I was in for a surprise: "traditional, no-bullshit American heavy metal" does not mean what I thought it meant. Perhaps I've become an unconscious victim of metal from the 90s, but I was under the impression that so many American bands had claimed either death or groove as their source of inspiration that traditional American metal meant something, on the very least, on the more brutal side of thrash. Instead, Ravage sound like a group of guys who loved NWOBHM so much they decided to be metal's version of the Amish and write their music like the following 30 years had never happened. It's as traditional as promised, but the "American" moniker might be a bit of a misnomer: if Ravage were around in the very early 80s and from the UK, we might be hearing their music on the first disc of Garage Inc.

That said, if you felt that the trend of bands ripping of DRI and S.O.D. was played out and were hoping for a new trend of bands ripping off Sweet Savage and Diamond Head instead, Ravage definitely gets the job done in an enjoyable if unoriginal style.

Via SMN News

Mid-Week Video Fun

Because it's Wednesday, no metal news has yet caught my eye, and unlikely mashups are funny. Presenting: Sesame Street playing Slayer's "Dittohead."

Song Review: Megadeth - Headcrusher

Remember your favorite parts of The System Has Failed and United Abominations? I'm thinking "Tears in a Vial," "Kick the Chair," "Sleepwalker," "Burnt Ice;" the songs with that desperate energy that pervades those selections of Mustaine's modern work where he's actively writing good music and not clearing the disease-infested phlegm from the lungs of his still-recovering composing body. I've listened to "Headcrusher" (available for the next 24 hours or so at this location) five times in the last hour and I'm happy to report that the first track from Endgame is firmly in the tradition of Megadeth's better tracks. The lyrics are a little on the cartoonish side of violence - a bit like the tales of sleep-borne murder in "Sleepwalker" - and the riffage bears more than a passing resemblance to other Megadeth songs, but that's never really the point with Megadeth: their best work moves quickly, shuffles riffs like magician, and puts enough twists on metal idioms to have mass appeal without becoming repetitive and be innovative without abandoning the core value of rocking out. "Headcrusher" moves in this proud tradition; if its fellow tracks follow in its wake, I'll be very excited to hear the results.

Lords of Chaos Becomes a Parady of Itself

How have I not written anything about the upcoming Lords of Chaos movie? Maybe I was just waiting for the idea to cross over from horrible to actually laugh-out-loud funny...and I think that time may have come. Some quotes from one of the movie's producers:

"It is a fascinating topic, a great visual world to depict, and a fun portrayal of Norway. Black metal is possibly the largest cultural export of Norway in the past twenty years."

Dude, you're totally going to piss off the Viking metal guys. They claimed the cultural export of Norway crown five years ago! Seriously, though: how is a movie about a group of alienated teenagers who took their subculture way too seriously going to be a fun portrayal of a whole country? Wouldn't that be like saying that Bowling for Columbine is a fun portrayal of the United States?

"It will be a story of youth and youthful energy, said Pollok, but he emphasized that the film will fall under the teen film category, and that it will be a psychological horror film."

Hence the casting of the lead from Twilight as Varg Vikernes. Not that I had any expectations about or desire to see this film, but my first thought after reading that sentence was that they should just turn the whole thing into a cartoon, Pixar style. Upon further reflection, however, that idea is ridiculous: why not exploit this whole thing to its fullest, take the horror idea to its fullest and make it a slasher film, replete with gore and the exposed flesh of the legions of mythical female black metal fans? It'll totally be a box office smash.

Song Review: Alice in Chains - A Looking in View

I've listened to the new Alice in Chains track a few times now since the band announced yesterday it was available on their website. Alice in Chains has always been a very hit or miss band for me, their inconsistency due, no doubt, to having a partnership built on creative tension where one of the partners was on some pretty serious drugs, but I have felt enough of a connection in the past to give their new incarnation a shot.

The new song, a seven minute track called "A Looking in View" has a lot of the pieces of a Dirt-era track: a heavy, almost doomy riff that would fit in with songs like "Rain When I Die" while evoking some of metal's more recent developments; vocal harmonies that have more than a hint of Layne without completely disguising new vocalist DuVall's more nasal tones; a sense of desperation to the lyrics and the melodies that sharpens to a hook for the chorus. It's a good track, but while listening I find myself wondering it "A Looking in View" would stand out if it didn't have the band's famous name to back it up...until I get to the end of the song. For the last minute and a half or so, the guitar, drums, and bass shamble forward like a dying man one step into the grave and Cantrell and DuVall's voices tune to dissonant harmonies that moan like spirits of the damned, calling the dead man home. It's a ear grabbing dark place that Alice in Chains have only managed to really channel into their music on a few occasions in their career, but if they've found a way to do so consistently on their upcoming album, the results should be extraordinary.

Album Review: Goatwhore - Carving Out the Eyes of God

The first time I put on "Apocalyptic Havoc," the first track of Goatwhore's latest release, I felt something magical: that sonic kick in the head, sought by many, achieved by few, that denotes a truly heavy piece of music. The production on that track is a relentless pummeling of thrashy riffage that sits like a fat band choking the sonic spectrum, carrying rhythm section and Slayer-vintage guitar solos in its wake, while the dry crust of singer L. Ben Falgoust II's voice floats on the top like a dessicated leaf on a sea of blood. Even better, the effect is no one time wonder: junkie-like, I've returned to get additional fixes on a daily basis and continue to reap the reward of a Goatwhore-induced rush.

With a couple of breaks - the midtempo "Provoking the Ritual of Death" and the much slower, doom-laden "To Mourn and Forever Wander Through Forgotten Doorways" - the beating continues on through the album's remaining nine tracks, varying just enough to keep the ear interested without violating the basic layout of a slab of hard-hitting evil music. With such a consistently enjoyable result, I'm pegging Carving Out the Eyes of God as a likely inclusion on my year's best-of list.

Album Review: Dream Theater - Black Holes and Silver Linings

According to iTunes, I've now listened to Black Clouds and Silver Linings eight times, so I finally have enough perspective to give the album a fair review. I'm completely serious: I love the band, but there's something so manisfestly undisgestable about every album Dream Theater has put out this decade that it takes some serious listening time to form a consistent opinion. With Black Clouds..., for example, I blasted the band's Queen covers after my first listen, but after a few more listens I had a change of heart. Clearly, either I found more to like as time went on, or I'm just a fanboy with a large capacity for second chances. Either way, my thoughts on each of Black Clouds and Silver Linings' six tracks:

1. A Nightmare to Remember: Petrucci's tale of the painful aftermath of a car crash channels a lot of the feel of the songs from the first disc of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulance. There's the now-standard interplay of solos between Petrucci and Ruddess and an awkward use of sound effects to underscore the moment of the crash, but there are two memorable moments: the hospital scene where Petrucci rocks a very King Crimson arpeggio line and the bridge in the next scene where the tension explodes into some lovely soaring melodies and the vocal harmonies that the band has (unfortunately) generally eschewed in their more recent material.
   
   
2. A Rite of Passage: A catchy song with super-transparent lyrics (a common theme for this album). My feelings on this one haven't really changed since I first heard it in early May, except now I've heard a good 20 times and I'm a little sick of it.
   
   
3. Wither: One of those dark ballads that the band occasionally enjoys writing, with lyrics by Petrucci instead of usual suspects Myung or LaBrie. Based on the artwork in the album and the wording, it seems to be about struggling with writer's block. There's a nice constrast between the size of the chorus and the subdued, subterannean feel of the verses, but if you don't like Dream Theater ballads, you aren't going to like "Wither," either.
   
   
4. Shattered Fortress: The end of Mike Portnoy's Twelve-Step Suite, where Portnoy attempted to translate the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program into music. The suite as a whole is full of the references that Dream Theater loves to use in their music, but as with "Forgiveness," the 12-step track from Systematic Chaos, "Shattered Fortress" is not a particularly inspired piece of song writing, stitching together harmonic lines from the previous tracks with an extended Portnoy voice over and - as has become the case far too often in Dream Theater's music - a reliance on the difference between Portnoy's barks and LaBrie's melodies to establish vocal contrast. I should note that even though I'm not a big fan of this track, it took me a good fifteen minutes to write this blurb and even now, I'm coming up with justifications: the song as a whole isn't that strong, but it has some nice component pieces (the riffs from the earlier tracks are among my favorites), the Portnoy barks might be there for consistency, as they're less prevalent on this album than they have been in the past, etc.
   
   
5. The Best of Times: Portnoy's other contribution to the album is a straightforward tribute to his late father that has about as much lyrical ambiguity as a child's picture book. Musically, it's a nice enough track - a combination of "I Walk Beside You" and "Octavarium" with a great coda solo by Petrucci - but by writing such naked lyrics, Portnoy seems to have missed the point of good song writing: ambiguity allows for individual interpretation, which, in the spirit of all good prog, allows the user to find their own way of relating to the song. "The Best of Times" could have been an anthem to anyone who grieves, as Petrucci did so effectively with "Another Day," but instead it's a cenotaph to one man's feelings that leaves me feeling cold.
   
   
6. The Count of Tuscany: By far the album's best track with a delicious mix of ingredients: Start with an introduction that mixes Rush, King Crimson, Dream Theater vintage 1992 and 1999 while building to a driving forte. Mix in lyrics that reprise Petrucci's brushes with the fantastic from Systematic Chaos, telling a story that could be cribbed from an Edgar Allan Poe notebook. Throw in one of those classic heavy Dream Theater verse riffs, a multipart solo section that transitions sections of the plot, and the kind of anthem-like ending that brings "Learning to Live" in mind and you have a great song that becomes this album's saving grace.

My Proud Moment for the Day...

...is that I can now identify metalcore within five seconds of hearing a song. How I made this momentous discovery: I kept seeing items about August Runs Red on the metal news sites I frequent, so I decided to check out their MySpace page. The first track in their player loads and suddenly, as if delivered by lightning bolt, a formula for August Runs Red's all too formulaic sound seared itself on the surface of my mind:

Gothenburg Sound + Hardcore Vocals + Breakdowns = Metalcore

The shock was so much that I had to turn off the music immediately and apply Tombs' low-fi sludge as a cleanser, but for that kind of enlightenment, the knowledge gained was well-worth the pain.

Revelations of the Black Flame: Not a Good At-Work Album

I am fortunate enough to have a job where I can throw on a pair of headphones and listen while I work, so the majority of my music listening - and concequently, my music evaluating - takes place during the working hours. While this arrangement generally works to my advantage, there are a few things I just can't listen to, because I'm not in the right mindset. Monotheist, for example, is a great album that I can't listen to at work because I start comparing my cube to a dark pit of despair where I labor ceaselessly on a treadmill for a pitiful reward and the knowledge that my death is a few hours closer. The result is a testament to Celtic Frost's abilities, no doubt, but not a great way to go through the work day.

Having just put Revelations of the Black Flame through a second listen, I have come to the conclusion that 1349's follow up to Hellfire deserves to be put on the same pedestal of respect: I just can't get into the album's murky soundscapes when I'm writing emails and updating spreadsheets. Instead, it seems that I'd be best served by saving Revelations... for a trek through a swamp - or a walk in the next heavy NYC rainstorm - letting the evil seep into me in a habitat closer to its creators' mindsets.