Vermont's Amadis Has Awesome Cover Art

Have you ever looked at cover art so cool that it made you repeatedly think about a band whose music you have never heard? This happened to me with Amadis and the cover art for their promo-release "Hell Devil!" which is just so unbelievably metal that I couldn't get it out of my mind. 

Typically any manner of meta-metal raises a red flag that warns any potential listener that there may be stilted, cheesy, and lazy music ahead. Few other musical inclinations can be as problematic because once a band starts deliberately acting metal it can detract from the ultimate goal of writing good music. After all, when a band is just having some fun things can become an inside joke aimed at amusing either the band or metalheads as a whole. But being funny or amusing is completely different from making music that is engaging and interesting, although good music can be both.

I recently delved deeper into Amadis's Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/amadismetal, where I was nothing short of delighted to hear that the band didn't succumb to the cheap trap of funny yet forgettable. On their page you can watch a music video that while not nearly as over the top as the cover art is pretty fun and has the music to back it up. Amadis's brand of power metal comes across more like straight heavy metal from what little I have heard but it really works, be sure to check it out. I would group it along with the whole traditional metal revival movement based on the sound and 2010 release date.

With that in mind, the vocals are supremely important and vocalist Sid Distic can deliver despite the cringe worthy moniker. In short, the material you can listen to is powerful enough that if I could ever purchase anything by them I would without any hesitation. I wish I could hear more from the band other than what is on http://www.myspace.com/amadismetal but, in lieu of getting more into the music I will just talk about the cover art.

Now onto the cover art for "Hell Devil!" According to the band's Metal Archives page, the cover art was illustrated by Matt Dixon and wow! Here it is:

Where to start? A Tyrannosaurus Rex is a pretty good place. Notice that beyond being a hugely imposing predatory dinosaur, it also has a headphones that are undoubtedly blasting "Hell Devil" and more importantly a gigantic rocket launcher neck collar. Take a moment to let just this one part of the picture sink in. Good. Now consider that the T-Rex also has a scope manacle apparatus that we can only assume is part of an advanced ocular targeting system.

What is great about this T-Rex is that it encapsulates the awesomely excessive anachronistic juxtaposition of science fiction and fantasy elements in the work. A castle with a satellite floating above, a knight and a jet engine on a supercharged car with spikes in the front, guns and a birdlike creature that might just be that thing you ride in Joust. At this point you might be wondering who the sinister looking eyeliner-scowly-eyebrow gentleman is. I have no idea but I assume he is a bad guy from that look on his face. Yes! Hell Devil!

The great thing about all of this is that from what I heard, Amadis's music is just as awesome as their choice in cover art.

Eric Pellegrini - Volume I

Eric Pellegrini - Volume I

A Guitar Player’s Backing Track

What happens when you have music that is serviceable while simultaneously uninspired? If “Volume I” is any indication, then the result is surprisingly disappointing.

“Volume I” suffers primarily because Eric Pellegrini's songwriting is almost solely guitar oriented. However, this album is not a vanity piece. Rather, it is a genuine effort at balanced melodic death metal which fails to manifest itself as such because Pellegrini develops songs only through the instrument with which he is most familiar, the guitar. As metal is generally very guitar oriented, this makes for an inoffensive album, but one that is substantially flawed and derivative. While the drums, vocals, bass, and even rhythm guitar all sound passable; they do very little for the music other than serve as an enervated accompaniment.

This instruments-as-background-sounds problem exists even on the final outro, where one would expect the sense of direction on the album to be at its height. Instead, “The World is A Stage” features fine albeit programmed drums, acting as a mere accompaniment. It feels like there is no person behind the drums, no emotion even. We have various beats and fills that are there just without purpose other than making it sound finished. Instead of being slightly off in this respect and raising the question of whether a real drummer would do this, it screams loudly that no drummer would do this. “Volume I” is like this for much of its duration, and it isn't limited to the drumming. While nothing in the instrumentation crosses over into the realm of sounding overly offensive or bad in of itself, a real harm is still done because of how mechanical, routine, and predictable this backing-track style makes the album.

The exception is of course the guitar work and it is here that the album is at its strongest. Still, Pellegrini adheres conservatively to the scènes à faire of melodic death metal. Some chugged riffs, some harmonizing, some melodic tremolo riffing. Without being a backdrop like other aspects of the music, the guitars are still very predictable and routine with only rare signs of personal flair. Consequently, the album’s zenith is still a point far from excellence, which is important to consider because of how lifeless the remainder of the instruments are.

In the solos, you can hear this all quite clearly, they are unimaginative yet competently played. The first half of the solo on “Discrepancy” isn’t far off from a guitar player practicing scales over a metronome. Some arpeggios also come in, as expected, but with a tinge of neoclassical influence showing some of that personal flair. This is a sign that Pellegrini is creatively trapped in the confines of melodic death metal. For example, the best and most creative bit of the album is the clean section in “Discrepancy” where we get nice neoclassical melodic layering. An earlier example is in “The Black Feathered Vixen” with a similarly influenced clean section that is a bit sloppy, but still one of the album’s high points.

While competent in the vocal department tonally, Pellegrini's delivery fails for feeling emotionally blank and constrained by the guitar melodies. The whispered style on “Ringmaster” and various flirtations with double tracking fail to improve this problem. The raspy style of vocals are very pedestrian for this kind of death metal, and it appears that Pellegrini can effortlessly maintain that sound. Unfortunately it sounds like he phoned it in. Moreover, the fact that the vocals are more intelligible than in most death metal is an enormous disservice here because it draws attention to the incessantly exasperating lyrics. To understate the problem, the lyrics are the weakest element on this album. It absolutely detracts from the music when you hear lines like: “I refuse to lie, I will keep my wits about me” “I fucking hate, you ripped my heart apart” and “I, want you back, in my life, come to me, mi amore.”

In essence, “Volume I” serves more as backing sounds for Pellegrini to play guitar over than as something meant to be listened to as an album. This would have been fine, were it not for the problem that the backing music supports some really generic guitar work.

Links:
Bandcamp - http://ericpellegrini.bandcamp.com/
Metal Archives - http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Eric_Pellegrini/3540330570 
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/EricPHeavyMetal?sk=app_2405167945

Cool Sangre Y Tierra documentary

The fine people over at http://blackmetalownsyou.blogspot.com/  recently had a post about a documentary, which you can listen to here: http://www.prx.org/pieces/89004-sangre-y-tierra-what-blood-what-earth 

This excellent documentary is about Marvin Quinones, the sole person behind the Massachusetts black metal band Sangre Y Tierra. Quinones comes across as both intelligent and affable. Still the piece doesn't shirk from sharing some of Sangre Y Tierra's aggressive music with us, and we get to hear quite a bit of it. The documentary also does a good job at letting Quinones speak and giving you a sense of the sorts of things that drive him musically.

Looking towards his own Puerto Rican ancestry as an influence, the raw yet atmospheric sounding Sangre Y Tierra (an apt name) broaches lyrical themes relating to the Taino people. This influence also extends beyond lyrics into instrumentation through the fantastic use of the cuatro, an instrument in the guitar family that is also the national instrument of Puerto Rico.

As both a guitar teacher and counselor, Quinones clearly has experience in communicating with people, and he is a very interesting person to listen to. That, combined with the really cool music is why I highly recommend listening to this documentary. As if that wasn't enough, we also get to hear a bit from Nicholas Holtz, the man behind another Massachusetts black metal band - Disguster.


Links abound:
Sangre Y Tierra on Metal Archives: Sangre_y_Tierra
Sangre Y Tierra on Bandcamp: http://sangreytierra.bandcamp.com/
Additional Downloads for Sangre Y Tierra: http://grindcorekaraoke.com/
Disguster on Metal Archives: Disguster

Local Band Review (New Hampshire): Black Norse - Real Mud Fake Blood

Black Norse - Real Mud Fake Blood

 In Need of Less Mud and More Blood

Muddy, messy, and mushy. With cover art showing peeling paint and women soiled (with what I think we may fairly assume is real mud and fake blood) a little dirt should be expected from this stoner doom band. And while I appreciate raw impassioned music as much as the next metal fan, Black Norse’s sloppiness here mucks up their music. The sound is so messy it is like the guitar player has down tuned a lot without using a heavier string gauge (this makes the strings really loose and easy to accidentally bend out of tune). A more pressing problem though is the way the songs are structured and how they come across.

Let me explain via anecdote. As I child I remember seeing a new school building that was constructed out of modular buildings. Each classroom had been constructed elsewhere as nothing more than a big rectangle with a finished interior and they were then all brought to one location and plopped down together and later deemed a school. Unfortunately, Black Norse’s approach comes off as if they have adopted the same philosophy in constructing their songs. Each riff is a suitable rectangle, not awful but nothing special, and the riffs are structured with the same mishmash between form a function. In other words the band has riffs but can not string more than three of them together to make a song. Part of this is how the riffs flow from one another, but the lack of an effective bass section is equally responsible. Bass lines connect rhythm and melody while also providing a backdrop for melodic change. To hear both problems, listen to “The Orc” from 1:30 to 2:00 - it builds up tension and the ascends to nothing and then listen to the lead riff parts where there is no backing bass melody. It ends up sounding choppy and aimless.

Black Norse still have some things going for them. The overall vibe is kind of cool even if it continually stops to move onto the next idea as if “Real Mud Fake Blood” was a jam session. The other highlight is that the vocals have a really nice timbre although the overarching composition problems are also evident in the vocal lines. The vocal style is what you would expect in stoner metal, echoey and chorus laden, and here the vocalist has a good voice for this. See for the first half of “High Elf” for example. Everything else drops away momentarily as we get to hear a few lyrics, neat.

The riffs themselves are really forgettable low chord strumming interspersed with rockingly trite guitar licks. On “Festival of Sin” you can hear that kind of Cathedral harmonizing that gives off that not-very-heavy but satisfactory stoner doom vibe. In the same song you can hear one frustratingly frequent motif, a heavy part followed by faster single 12th note triplets that the guitar player can barely manage to play (and faster than the drummer can do anything interesting with.) These sloppy triplets also happen at the end of “The Gallop” and the train wreck of the solo on “The Phoenix” which really breaks up that song’s pacing.

On a related note, other solos on the album are particularly illustrative of the band’s weaknesses. First, the guitar solo on Feast is really uninspiring, it comes way out of left field and is oddly dropped into the song. It also barely breaks through the bass in audibility because of the mixing and how the band chose not to use any particularly high notes. It comes off like the guitarist is most just meandering through a pentatonic scale and never really takes the melody anywhere. The end of “High Elf” has a similarly out of place series of solo flourishes, the last of which has a cringe worthy off note. A little feedback and the sounds of sliding and scraping can be great for creating a certain feel but Black Norse just goes too far with the sloppiness.

However, a stronger track is “Angel Women” but even there the band uses long rests to hide a jagged riff transition. Doing this breaks up the all ready short song on a 27 minute album and the band does the same thing with a rest on “High Elf” - building schools out of rectangles with riffs that do not follow one another.

Underlying these guitar riffs is drumming which is similarly boring and emasculated. I feel like the same 16th note fill is totally overused, but more problematic is how monophonic everything sounds. Bass, drum, guitar, vocals - they all fall on top of one another instead of adopting their own niches in the musical ecosystem. Examples of this happening are after the solo in “The Gallop,” how the vocals follow the guitar melody in the closing track, and how every other accented backbeat the guitar plays in the main riff on “The Phoenix” needs a snare hit. The instruments lack a distinctive identity.

“Real Mud Fake Blood” ends up sounding like a jam session. A forgettable one. My understanding is this was done by two people - if so, it may serve the band well to get new blood to help each instrument become more independent while forcing compromises to create a coherent whole for the band’s sound.

Have a listen for yourself - a digital version of this album is available for purchase and for listening at: http://blacknorse.bandcamp.com/album/real-mud-fake-blood

If you like the music, be sure to follow the band’s facebook page as they have live shows and a new album in the works: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Norse/160079360686298

Local Band Review (New Hampshire): Eerie - Amplifier theosophy

Eerie - Amplifier theosophy 

(I wrote about Eerie's live show earlier.)

In what is likely best classified as falling under the drone-laden side of doom metal, this pleasant demo is emotionally pensive with a twinge of remorse, rather than the solemn and mournful tone one might expect from music in this sub-genre. Indeed, Eerie’s “Amplifier theosophy,” while entirely without vocals, is quite a reflective piece of music. As each note rings out it makes you feel like you are at home remembering things that you wished had never happened. Although rather slow and drone influenced, it is still interesting enough to listen to in its own right because it never degrades into the realm of background noise. Also, despite having drone influences, the band wisely refrained from down-tuning guitars until they sound like churning stomachs.

“Amplifier theosophy” is a pleasant and relaxing listening experience primarily because the band conveys the negative themes discreetly - mostly through emptiness in the composition. This allows the for the intuitive composition and awesome guitar tone to shine through, take over, and sooth the listener. This guitar tone is wonderful throughout the entire demo. Rich harmonic undertones serve to heighten the relaxing feeling, and with the word “Amplifier” as part of the demo’s title such a high-quality timbre is not at all surprising. Here, chords almost glimmer, which is important because the riffs themselves are not always particularly memorable and having each moment sound so good helps make up for the fact that there melody does not develop very far. 

This is what I mean by intuitive composition, i.e. the melodies are essentially arpeggios of the underlying chords or arpeggiated chords interspersed with single note quasi-solo leads (in a slow way). Nothing on this demo is unexpected and it all sounds like it strictly sticks to a single key signature. Because of this, if the band did not do so well at creating a relaxing mood the music would end up sounding really hackneyed. Instead, the almost obvious melodies create that homey feeling without coming off as boring, but it comes close. It cuts both ways because without anything melodically jarring or abrasive you can just sit back and listen. Additionally, some riffs sound very rock influenced and the whole demo kind of melds together as one song.

The most obvious comparison I can think of is to Earth's “The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull” yet Eerie ends up sounding noticeably darker and heavier. Although musically soothing, there is a delicate sense of weakness/remorse in the music. For a exemplary example, listen to how at the start of “And Graciously...” that full enveloping sound momentarily peels away for the short part of the riff with the quick triplets. It shows the band using relatively empty sections to create a darker mood. These darker feelings are amplified by how sparse the drumming can be throughout the demo (e.g. transitions during “And Graciously...” and the first couple minutes of “Both in”). When Eerie decides not to have chords ringing out, the sparse drum work makes the music quite minimalistic. Considering that there are no vocals, it is surprising that the demo does not sound sparser but Eerie effectively uses relative emptiness as a compositional tool.

Despite the weaknesses, the demo is still good. Consistently full and engendering an enveloping feeling without having a single grating or unpleasant moment, Eerie is a band worth paying attention to.

- Eerie now has a full-length out and the band has instructed people to message them through their Facebook about it. 

- Ordering information for the demo can be found here: http://opalsoundstudio.com/about.
- You can listen to Eerie here: Eerie's Reverb Nation page.

New Release: Auspicium - For the World that Was and that is to Come (Maine)

Auspicium - For the World that Was and that is to Come

Atmospheric black metal band Auspcium, hailing from Maine, just released a new album on March 13, 2012. "For the World that Was and that is to Come" is the band's fourth full length album, and as of the time of this post Auspicium is providing it for free to download. The download link can be found at: http://blackmetalownsyou.blogspot.com/ (AKA Attila the Hun), which is a good website to check out and is run by Auspicium's sole member Patrick Hasson. Hasson is also the man behind the band Avulse and releases these works through his label First Church of the Left-Hand Path.

I am listening to it now and the majestic music aptly fits the album cover, so download it before spring rolls around.

Local Band Review (Massachusetts): Ehnahre - The Man Closing Up

 Ehnahre - The Man Closing Up

Waves and Mesas.

With Ehnahre’s “The Man Closing Up,” the traditional role of melody in metal is thrown out the window. This is true even comparing them to more experimental death metal bands. Instead of focusing on melody, the band crafts songs by varying the degree of musical intensity. This rejection of melody is accomplished through the use of combinatorial 12-tone technique which allows the band to create atonal music. To perhaps oversimplify, 12-tone techniques are a way to make sure that music is not in any particular key, i.e. no one note is emphasized. This approach results in a sound which many people may find melodically disorienting. But, does this sound have any value or is it just an academic exercise?

Well, “The Man Closing Up” ends up as a good but not great album. Yes, there are riffs in the sense that certain atonal melodies are repeated. However, the band’s alternations between fast, slow, soft, and quiet are the heart of the album’s compositional approach. Variations serve to replace the structural role typically played by melody. Unfortunately these variations are often too radical yet infrequent. Their inconsistent use erodes away the primary pillar of the album’s form. In short, Ehnahre are excellent when they subtlety alternate between low and high waves of intensity and range from good to boring when they have radical mesa-like changes and flat sections without changes. To illustrate this concretely it is helpful to compare Part II with much of the rest of the album.

At about 1:20 into Part II the band transitions from mid paced dissonant chords with guttural vocals to longer drawn out notes. These sections of long notes are interrupted with a motif from earlier in the song until the interruption becomes the norm and harsher vocals replace the earlier gutturals. Although chaotic and jarring in each part, the song as a whole has an unrelenting flow because of these transitions. The speed and intensity of Part II rises and falls like a series of waves with ever increasing peaks. So while the intensity is changing from soft to loud to create much of the songs structure, that same intensity is also rising. This build up leads to a remarkable point in the album - guitars tremolo picking a single note. Just as this melodic stripping and high speed picking enters we are introduced to clean vocals. As a coda, the band returns to earlier motifs in the song and ultimately closes with a solo vocal phrase. Brilliant.

This walk through of what happens in the song should illustrate that as new elements are introduced, they are peppered into the song. Oftentimes this occurs as other instruments remain comparatively consistent, such as guitars covering for dramatic changes in the drumming. This is in stark contrast to how at many points in the album the structural transitions are more radical.

Picture courtesy of www.namastesouthafrica.com

Where Part II can be visualized as waves, much of the rest of the album is more like a flat desert spotted with a handful of mesas. To abandon metaphor in favor of definite examples, look at the cacophonous start of Part III. The first two minutes of the song are vicious and unrelenting but in a nearly uniform fashion. It ends up almost as a wash. Then when everything drastically stops we have nearly uniform low intensity. Much of the album follows this pattern, e.g. another “mesa” occurs about 2/3 of the way through Part IV. 

While these flatter parts with drastic cliffs are often still quite good, many of the quieter and slower bits can grow quit boring. Rumbling bass, random pick scraping, and weird noises all create a huge amount of tension and the sensation that the band is about to delve into another onslaught of sound. It creates an effect similar to that in horror movies: quiet high frequencies are used to build anticipation right before some loud crashing noise surprises you (a falling broom), only to have some other jarringly loud noise scare you again (the second time its the monster.) Take for example Part IV. At about 8:15 you hear a guitar strum so soft, weak, and alone that you almost feel bad for it. You hear it again. Once more. Then suddenly it jumps back loud as hell as an introduction to the song’s heavy part. However, the first 8 or so minutes of the song can be fairly boring just as boring as when the monster is not around in a bad horror movie. Moreover the introduction itself is really drastic despite this use of musical foreshadowing.

Some things in this unusual album somehow manage to stand out as unusual. With the overwhelming weirdness of the album, the vocals are remarkable in their conservatism. Although the rasps and growls are a fundamental part of how the band controls their intensity, the vocals are pretty standard for metal. While this foil serves an appreciated balancing function against the work’s overall weirdness, it may go a bit too far to the point where more straightforward vocals end up out of place. Additionally, the closing female vocals are eerie, but I can not at all see why they are there. It feels like a reversal, the band punted on their concept in lieu of something sounding more traditionally like an ending.

“The Man Closing Up” creates a mood through alternating between crushingly heavy and fast sections and slower quieter bits. This mood is thoroughly odd and creates a sensation of restlessness as the ear waits for a melodic or rhythmic resolution that will never come. Waiting through the silences also creates a strong tension in the music, as the bursts of remarkably technical musicianship are not always predictable. While this works for the band, the album can be quite flat. The atonality makes much of the music easy to forget - no hook, no chorus.  While it is remarkable for absences and silences, emptiness here is more interesting conceptually than it is musically. After stripping away traditional melody the band is left with texture and unfortunately that texture is oftentimes too flat. While it frequently leaves me impatient, this is an interesting album with spark of brilliance. It is entirely possible that this impatience is exactly what the band intended, but Ehnahre may have done too well conceptually for their own good.

New England Metal: Eerie, Inverticrux, Suicide Dream, Dark Passenger @ Milly's Tavern 10/15/11

It was just last month when Milly's Tavern in Manchester, NH experienced the fortune of hosting four New England metal bands. Below are my thoughts on the show. Though I do not pretend to be able to review any band with just one listen, I attempt to give a description of the music for anyone that may be interested. More importantly, I have attempted to provide a working link to each band's music so people can have a listen for themselves.

Eerie (New Hampshire)

Eerie is a doomy slower band, with a very nice wide sound. By this I mean the music felt like it was enveloping me with a blanket of notes ranging from high to low. Eerie's wide chord heavy sound stands in stark contrast to the approach of some drone influenced bands that sometimes harp on single notes. Alternating between drawn out chords and more melodic riffing while using that switch to slowly build energy, Eerie also supplied a compelling progression of volume. In pulling back a bit with this style for another song, the band showed more of its compositional range with a soft two chord intro, ripe with delay effects. Adding layers of droney chords between, the band's sound reminded me of the richness of Earth's "The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull" yet sounding noticeably darker. Eerie at one point used a recurring bimodal A-B song structure where the musical development occurred through layering and melodic alterations, creating a dynamic sound without loosing the overall atmosphere. The frequent pentatonic fills created a familiarity in the music while the wide chords served for the requisite heaviness. Intensity swelled and diminished tidally.

I picked up Eerie's demo "Amplifier Theosophy" and will likely post a review of it here. For now, it suffices to say that I recommend you try to buy a copy. The correct ordering information appears to be here: http://opalsoundstudio.com/about

You can listen to Eeire here: Eerie's Reverb Nation page

Inverticrux (New Hampshire)

What immediately jumps out about this band is how the singer absorbs himself in the music. His entire body was shaking as he gesticulated toward the audience, cane in one hand, inverted cross microphone in the other, and all the while with an enormous grimace on his face. The music is a crunchy and heavy mix of enough influences to make it fairly unique and difficult to pigeonhole, but the black metal and Kind Diamond influences are clear.

Inverticrux opened up one of their songs bluntly telling the audience "I have a cautionary tale to tell you, and you're not going to like it, but you're gonna listen." Briefly ignoring the vocals, the cadence of the tremolo and the heavier riffs reminded me a bit of the post-Panzerfaust Darkthrone but, to reiterate, the influences are certainly varied and the band did not end up sounding too similar to anything else but had a macabre and spooky vibe. The vocals came through in what was often a baritone range, but frequently soaring above it in what to me sounded like the clearest Kind Diamond influence. However, Inverticrux also shared Kind Diamond's proclivity toward narrative type songs. Instrument wise, a few lightening fast solos acted more for purposes of energy than their melody, and the bass player was not at all afraid to walk the notes around freely. Dual guitars helped the bass become independent while also maintaining the rhythm against which the solos could contrast. The drumming was tactful and apt for music's mood.

I decline to spoil all of the stage antics I saw so that others may still be surprised. I will leave you with this visual though:  at one point the singer was riding on those toy horse things that are just a horse's head on a stick (kind of creepy now that I think about it, check this out: Vikings also used to put severed horse's heads on poles. Pretty Metal: The Nithing Pole)

You can listen to Inverticrux here: Inverticrux's Reverb Nation Page

Suicide Dream (Connecticut/Massachusetts)

Suicide Dream had a female singer with a surprisingly husky voice, high gain guitars, and martial drumming. Traditional metal influences abound, but the lead guitar lines repeatedly went into a very smooth sound. Utilizing a technique known as tapping, this created a drastic switch when the music turned to a faster thrash sound. As the first song sounded through the venue I again noticed rather sonorous ascending lead melodies. Synthesizers reinforced the song structures and along with the guitars, created a consonance that battled with the grittier vocals.  When higher pitched vocals stormed into the music, they blended in more so than the primary vocal style. These higher vocals were also more powerful. Suicide Dream then followed up with a Maiden cover, and it was here that the band illustrated how tight they were, particularly with the sharp clean drumming fills. Suicide Dream's guitar player clearly loves tapping solos and using legato slide technique. Next was a Type O Negative cover, and Suicide Dream successfully captured TON's heaviness while still incorporating their own sound into the song.

You can listen to Suicide Dream here: Suicide Dream's Website, with MP3s

Dark Passenger (Massachusetts)

Dissonant, diminished, and crushingly heavy. Dark Passenger's dual vocals simultaneously attacked with low gutturals and high screeching in a way that immediately grabs attention. Uncanny and almost soft melodic grooves alternated with rhythmic diminished flourishes creating a forward momentum complemented by furious and pummeling double-bass drumming. Surprisingly, the band even mixed in some clean vocals. Genre wise, the band was on the technical side somewhere along the hazy line between black and death metal. The black metal influence was very clear when the band quickly broke into a straight black metal outro for one of the songs. For each song, the riffs flowed into one another in a rather linear, as opposed to repetitive, fashion. Dark Passenger's dual approach to vocals was also echoed by their guitar work which was often polyphonic (more than one melody at once). Perhaps it is just my own ignorance of music but at one point I heard Dissection type melodies but without that Gothenburg style harmonization. Once again during this evening there was a band with a wide range of influences as far as genres go. Dark Passenger often reminded me of another local band, December Wolves, which is unsurprising as I believe one of the members of that band is involved with Dark Passenger. 

You can listen to Dark Passenger here: Dark Passenger's Facebook page, (scroll down a bit for youtube video link)

Metal Field Trip: KP Goes to a Show in Dover NH

Field Trip!

On thursday I was perusing New England's premier source of metal information and internet memes, Return to the Pit, and I noticed that there was a show going on that night and the following night! Being too lazy to drive to Worcester Massachusetts, the metal capital of New England, to go to Ralph's Diner for Metal Thursday I decided to wait until Friday and see what was happening in Dover, New Hampshire.


I made a mistake. 


Let me explain, Metal Thursday at Ralph's is 100% real metal, meaning they simply do not book fake metal. This has been going on for years and years, so the crowd is also just about 100% real metal. But Ralph's Diner is not the venue I just left a few hours ago. . .


I went to see Thou, The Body, VAAST, and Condensed Flesh at Kaleo Coffee. I went to the Metal Archives to see what these bands were like and only found The Body and Thou. I thought to myself "O neat it will be interesting to see some sludge and drone." I was getting ready to attend the show by doing push ups and breathing in the air from a brown paper bag with a dead raven inside like Dead from Mayhem used to do. Mid-breath I got a text message on my really cool iPhone 6 from a complete maniac friend of mine. He was asking what I was up to and was clearly very bored. When I told him I was going to a show he asked "where do I sign up" even though he had no clue what metal was.


After speeding over to Dover on our motorcycles, my friend and I  arrived at the venue and took off our pickelhaubes. This is what we were greeted with:

I am no photographer so let me describe the scene inside: gauged ears, "Be the change you want to see in the world", kids, Ulver patch, Baroness shirt, excessive piercings, trucker caps, thick rimmed glasses, Southern Lord shirt, skinny jeans, sleeve tattoos, and absolutely no one that could beat me in an arm wrestling contest. It was a weird mix between hardcore punk and hipster.


I turn to my friend and say "this is not the usual crowd for the shows I go to" as I was internally telling myself that I was not at Ralph's. We go in and at this point I am still optimistic, even though my friend says "lots of girls looking like men here. I don't like that." Naturally I was worried about him having a good time. 


The first band starts, and I can not even tell you their name because we left to get some drinks. I came to listen to metal, not something that sounds like Converge but mixed with a ton of punk and sound like mud live. You might think that leaving to get drinks when you are in a coffeehouse means that I went out for a latte. Let me correct you:

So we come back for the second band, The Body, and they were pretty cool. Haling from Providence, Rhode Island, It was just a drummer and a guitar player/vocalist who was more audible than any other vocalist I heard that night. This was impressive because the guy did not use a microphone. They were kind of like Sunn O))), but more stripped down and really primal feeling. It was a great live experience but there was a long line for their merch and I am not super into drone so I did not pass anything on for Apteronotus to review. Still, I would recommend seeing this band live if you have nothing else going on.


After The Body played we got to hear Thou, which was the band I was most anticipating. Though their vocalist, Bryan Funck, was completely energetic fun, the band did not really sound great live. When he lost the microphone he kept going without it, but unlike The Body's vocalist, you could not hear this guy at all. I could tell my friend was getting bored at this point even though he was being a good sport and headbanging and moshing (remember this guy does not listen to metal, but is an awesome maniac) so we decided to back to the bars at home.


The lesson here is to do research before you blindly go to a show. Even though I kind of just wanted to get out of the house, I acted like live music was a commodity that I could easily substitute one venue over another when really I would have been more happy at Ralph's Diner. On the other hand, this evening I was exposed to Thou and The Body which are band I would have been unlikely to come across during my own searches to the decision is almost a wash. I say almost because I had to deal with pretentious hipster bullshit. Below I give two examples but there were way more that I failed to record.


Example 1: Hoity-toity high contrast black and white art in the bathroom

Example 2: I overhead the following asinine conversation (this is an accurate verbatim description)
Hipster 1 "Our Shortest song is like 30 seconds"
Hipster 2 "Yeah, we need one that's like 10 or 15"

Local Band Review (Massachusetts): Planet Gemini - Cauldron of Fuzz: SiX”

Though it may not be the most prudent of ideas to have the first local band review be fairly negative, we hope readers will understand that we are not pulling any punches just to help out locals. So when a local band gets a great review, you will know I mean it. Furthermore, everyone has their own set of musical tastes.

Fans of heavy/doom metal that are into local music should probably give the band a listen for themselves as the album can be downloaded for free from the band’s official website here: http://www.planetgemini.net/

Anyways, here is the review:

Cauldron of Cheese

Planet Gemini’s “Cauldron of Fuzz: SiX” has the same level of quality as part six to some horror movie is likely to have. Possibly satisfying for hardcore fans, but ultimately, generic. This comparison is particularly apt, given that the fourth installation was titled: “Cauldron of Fuzz IV (The Finale).”

So, what happens two Cauldrons after the finale? Not much. We have some remarkably straightforward and average heavy metal with doom influences. If you have heard any amount of heavy or doom metal before, then listening to this album will not provide you with any new experiences or memories. The band’s own official blog provides listeners with a revealing description: “An album that was basically written and recorded within a week or so and done with a BROKEN WRIST none the less.”

Having the album done in only a week does seem entirely plausible given the lackluster songwriting. The broken wrist part however belies the fact that everything on the album is actually professionally executed.

Despite being well done, this album has a few types of cheese. Cheddar, Swiss, and I believe there may even be some Roquefort. It ends up not mattering a whole lot because the end result just comes off as supremely cheesy. Silly samples from what I assume are B horror films are dropped into the album with the same care that someone salts icy walkways in winter. There is a general purpose, but no real thought into where each piece lands.

It does not stop with the samples though, cheese continually cascades down the Cauldron. The worst part is a close tie between the trashy pentatonic melodic runs and the almost glam rock sounding tapping used in place of proper guitar solos. It does not end there, the Cauldron that is dripping with cheese is also, unsurprisingly, filled with cheese.

When a male vocalist chooses to sing particularly high notes, he will go into what we call the falsetto register. Here, Planet Gemini tangentially approaches that range, but rarely pushes through. The result is an at times irritating reminder of the glam bands of past, the most bitter of cheeses in metal.

While the vocal double tracking helps a bit, this sound merely reveals that Planet Gemini’s influences in metal are perhaps more mainstream and older than other bands in the genre. This theory comports with the almost rock-like song structures and pentatonic phrasing that appear throughout the album. The band’s conservative approach makes it so that the songs are satisfying, in so far as they are predictable.

Given that the album is well done and fairly close to metal’s tradition, it ends up being somewhat enjoyable as a whole. Though there is not a ton of replay value, the guitars have a nice and thick tone and the songs are heavy. “Cauldron of Fuzz: SiX” is perfectly suitable for background metal. There are satisfactory uses of flange effects, appropriate drumming techniques, and consistent songs. Yet the songs are consistent to the point where it almost becomes a chore to carefully listen to at times.

Take “To Conjur the Silver Sunset” as an example. A bar or two of music before the solo, which is several minutes into the song, and the listener has genuine cause to be frustrated. Luckily, the song works as a representative sample for “Cauldron of Fuzz: SiX” and a fine solo pops on in to keep things interesting. But even in that moment, the solo is only enough to maintain momentum in the same way that an obese person may cross the finish line of a race and still be no where near first place. Still, some momentum is there and that deserves some credit.

The best song on here is probably “The Offering.” The interplay between basic strumming and slow crushing riffs works perfectly for the band’s style. Even here though, the lyrics still come off as something a person who hates metal would write as a parody. Planet Gemini rises above this deficiency through spot on vocal work. Even though the moment is fleeting, those mostly irritating vocals fit perfectly with the song and everything briefly fits together.

Next time you are walking through a crowded street and see a caricature artist, contemplate whether that person could draw something genuinely wonderful if they sat down and put more than a hour or so into their work. For now, we are stuck with similar speculations about Planet Gemini taking more than a week to write this album.

Vomitron: Vapid Excellence

When I first read the name Vomitron I was expecting to once again hear one of the millions of death metal bands out there that somehow expended the time, money, and energy needed to make a band while still not managing to do anything remotely creative.

Vomitron is not one of those bands. This is technical, almost symphonic metal, and all of the music is created by one person, Peter Rutcho. The musical influences are fairly clear but also a bit unexpected. Covers of video game theme songs litter the band's myspace page and even in the original music you can tell that video games are a large part of what makes up the Vomitron sound. Not everyone will enjoy this. At times, the cheesy MIDI type instruments grind against your ears with their over processed and artificial din. You can almost sense a nauseating chemical smell because the music is so sanitized but the music is also performed flawlessly, leading me to question whether it is programmed or not. It sure sounds programmed. However, Vomitron is still heavy and fun. Fans of power metal or Super Nintendo should find something here worth listening to.

When you look at all of the "metal" versions of video game music out there you can not help but rate Vomitron based on those terms. This is the real problem with the compositions, they are excellent but they are excellent video game metal songs. The fact that Vomitron only does instrumentals helps highlight the fact that the band has nothing to say with its music. Though it is somewhat unique and well done music, Vomitron seems to fail to transcend the video game influences. While I have only heard what the band offers on its myspace page, the decisions to have more covers than originals on that page shows me that there is more ability than creativity going on here. I will still try to get ahold of Vomitron's only full length, the self titled Vomitron. It probably will not make me think, but sometimes people just like to listen to high energy fun music.

Listen to Vomitron here:

http://www.myspace.com/vomitron

I recommend listening to "The Fuck Patrol" first because as far as I can tell that is the only original song available. The band prudently abandoned myspace and you can find promises of more video game covers coming this summer on the official webpage here: http://www.vomitron665.com/

-Apteronotus