Anthrax sets release date for For All Kings

by Gabe Kagan on December 4, 2015

Anthrax has always been vaguely relevant at best – selling not quite enough albums to be huge, but never really going away and always drawing some amount of media attention. Perhaps it’s lower expectations, but they seem to have aged more gracefully than most of their famous speed metal counterparts in recent years. 2011’s Worship Music must’ve paid the bills for a while, since the delay between that and the upcoming For All Kings is quite lengthy (albeit not as lengthy as the wait between WM and its own predecessor). So far, Anthrax has released the track “Evil Twin” as a single, which makes for an accurate if unnecessary imitation of the band’s past work. Anthrax has also promised that For All Kings will be “heavier” than its predecessor, perhaps due to the presence of Jon Donais from the metalcore band Shadows Fall. I wouldn’t stake any important bets on it, though.

3 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Pestilence releases The Dysentery Penance demo compilation

by Gabe Kagan on December 4, 2015

57-large_default
Pestilence’s demos have been repressed at least once before, most notably on some printings of Malleus Malificarum, but this most recent compilation of them may end up being of at least historic value to the band’s fans. The Dysentery Penance combines both of the band’s 1987 demos into one release, showcasing what we described about two months ago as the “formative years” of the band. Possible added value comes from some remastering work provided by Dan Swano, as well as some live material bolted onto the end of the album. Whether or not the remaster ends up enhancing this product, it’s still probably a better purchase than the band’s post-reformation studio albums.

2 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Upcoming tours – Gorgoroth, Kampfar, Gehenna

by Gabe Kagan on December 3, 2015

Blackfest Over Xmas 2015
This December, a few notable black metal acts are touring Western/Central Europe. Gorgoroth and Gehenna, at the very least had some fame and notoriety back in the 1990s and are still well known today, although the former has drifted quite far from their best days. On the other hand, I’ve never heard of Kampfar until just now, although a cursory look at Encyclopedia Metallum suggests they’ve existed since the mid-90s. Supporting acts are expected to vary, but in the UK, these three bands will be joined by De Profundis, who is at least tangentially related to the black metal focus this tour has. I’d like to label this a “tour of the fallen” like the recently covered Slayer/Testament/Carcass tour, but it seems less definite than in that case.

3 Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Dream Theater continues buildup for The Astonishing

by Gabe Kagan on December 2, 2015

dreamtheaterastonishingcovercd
Dream Theater’s upcoming album is certainly high concept, although I don’t foresee the results being anything other than the usual technically accomplished vaguely progressive power metal they always put out. As part of the buildup to the scheduled 2016 release of The Astonishing, the band has released a ton of visual and conceptual material, and most recently put up the tracklisting for the album. Other commentators throughout the internet are being psychically assaulted by the sheer 34-ness of the amount of tracks listed; when they recover they often end up claiming that the album will either be excellent or a colossal trainwreck. I’m personally expecting something in the middle, although visual art fans might at least find something of interest in these supplementary materials.

16 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Chthonic frontman running for congressman in Taiwan

by Gabe Kagan on December 2, 2015

By now, metal musicians and fans participating in politics isn’t entirely unheard of; even in Asia you can find such prominent examples as Joko Widodo (president of Indonesia). Freddy Lee, the frontman of the Taiwanese symphonic black/folk metal band Chthonic, is running for a seat in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, as reported by Blabbermouth. Lee has participated in his country’s politics for some time and is running as a member of the recently formed New Power Party, which advocates for Taiwanese nationalism. In the past, he’s apparently used his position in Chthonic to promulgate these political views. Part of his campaign includes a free concert in Taipei on December 26th, which admittedly may be a bit difficult for our primarily Western audience to participate in.

3 Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Youtuber “generates” technical metal with randomisation

by Gabe Kagan on December 1, 2015

So perhaps procedurally generated music and chance based (aleatoric) music isn’t either, but sometimes, it’s interesting (at least from a vague ‘intellectual’ perspective) to hear these ideas applied to metal music. In today’s case, we have guitarist Pete Cottrell playing “randomly generated” metal, which was created by using various sources of randomness (dice, Scrabble tiles, computerized pseudorandom number generation) to determine several properties of the music. In this case, however, only a song fragment’s tempo, time signature, and key signature were randomly generated; as far as I can tell, everything else was written and composed by the guitarist.

This latter point offers me a few bits of discussion. The first is that the next logical step would perhaps be to apply randomization to the actual riff-writing process, creating note and rhythm progressions that could end up difficult to play or simply very chaotic based on whatever algorithm was used. A synthesizer like Native Instrument’s Flesh might come in handy, although its timbral/textural relevance to metal is debatable. The other thing that occurred to me while I watched this video was that a ‘random’ compositional style on its own isn’t likely to create particularly well planned and arranged music. I wouldn’t be surprised if even the more fanatical devotees of the technique ended up using their own efforts to jam random fragments into a more sensible shape. Until the upcoming wave of strong generalist AI outpaces us at most cognitive tasks, though, there are limits to how much randomly generated we’ll hear.

Pete Cottrell has some other videos that may be of interest to metal performers, generally focused around equipment and recording technique.

4 Comments

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Autopsy – Skull Grinder (2015)

by Gabe Kagan on December 1, 2015

folder
On one hand, this is obviously a descendant of previous Autopsy material, but on the other hand, Skull Grinder is more conventionally structured and musical than the band’s formative work. You could make a case for my hypothesis based on the first single – i.e a lot of older styles of metal seem to be filtering into latter day Autopsy. Around these parts, this usually spells disaster and results in things like At the Gates releasing Slaughter of the Soul. Autopsy manages to avoid this fate by using these otherwise difficult to control elements in a way that actually fits their roots.

In general, Autopsy relies on a fairly simple formula to make their death metal – basic structures (not necessarily pop ones), limited technicality, and so forth. Perhaps the greatest reason Skull Grinder actually benefits from this is that Autopsy’s style always lent itself to having a strong vocal presence. Chris Reifert is on the top of his game here, successfully expanding the variety of vocal techniques he uses while remaining appropriate to the style of music on display. Similar expansions take place in the rest of the ensemble, including a more lead and solo heavy approach to guitarwork and more elaborate usage of melody in the rhythm guitar’s riffs. The downside of this more instrumentally interesting Autopsy is that it comes at expense of the band’s early mastery of song structure. In general, Skull Grinder is subtly, but definitely more haphazard in how it strings riffs together. This loss of organization skill is not drastic enough to ruin the record, but it’s an unfortunate shortcoming, and one that perhaps could have easily been avoided by giving the songwriting process a little more time to cook. Autopsy has certainly been releasing material quite consistently as of late, but I think the fans would tolerate a longer release cycle if it meant that the music was tightened up a bit and some of the more egregious filler was removed.

Despite this, Autopsy has created a better approximation of their early material than your average self-reviving band, and Skull Grinder does have a some material worthy of the band’s legacy in its short duration. There’s also some lessons to be learned here about how to expand your songwriting horizons; the best bands of the next few years will be those who can balance such wisdom with the more conventional truths Autopsy demonstrated in their past.

4 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Upcoming tours – Slayer, Testament, Carcass

by Gabe Kagan on November 29, 2015

Slayer-Testament-Carcass
A veritable tour of the fallen? Perhaps. Blabbermouth recently blabbed about these bands going on a tour of the US some time in 2016. According to them, a March 3rd performance at the Fillmore in Philadelphia has leaked, but little else has been officially revealed. If this does turn out to be an actual tour, and not just an attempt by record labels to entrap some sort of leak at Blabbermouth, it’s… probably worth noting, but far from the best lineup you’re going to see. Slayer and Carcass, at the very least, have strong legacies under their belts (although recent works fail to live up to such), but Testament’s career has been iffy at best, despite some musically proficient if not particularly inspired speed metal at the beginning of their career. As usual, it’s up to you, the reader, to determine whether this concert is worth your time.

Editor’s note: The tour was later confirmed. As of December 3rd, here are the dates:

2/19 – Riviera Theatre, Chicago, IL
2/22 – War Memorial, Nashville, TN
2/24 – The National, Richmond, VA
2/26 – House of Blues, Myrtle Beach, SC
2/27 – The Ritz, Raleigh, NC
2/29 – The Fillmore, Charlotte, NC
3/2 – Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY
3/3 – The Fillmore, Philadelphia, PA
3/5 – The Fillmore, Silver Spring, MD
3/6 – The House of Blues, Boston, MA
3/8 – LC Pavilion, Columbus, OH
3/9 – The Orpheum, Madison, WI
3/11 – Myth, St. Paul, MN
3/12 – Civic Auditorium, Fargo, ND
3/14 – MacEwan Hall, Calgary, AB
3/15 – Shaw Centre, Edmonton, AB
3/17 – Revolution Event Center, Boise, ID
3/19 – The Paramount, Seattle, WA
3/20 – Roseland Ballroom, Portland, OR
3/22 – Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA
3/26 – The Joint, Las Vegas, NV

10 Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Old Funeral briefly reunites at Bergen BlekkMetal festival

by Gabe Kagan on November 28, 2015

My own experience with Old Funeral went through three quick stages – excitement as I discovered it was home to musicians who would later go on to play in famous black metal bands, disappointment as I learned none of the famous members were in the band at the same time, and finally, cautious appreciation of their interesting but admittedly scatterbrained demos. For whatever reason, the first lineup of the band (featuring Abbath of his own solo project and formerly Immortal) briefly reunited earlier this month to play a quick concert in Bergen. The band played four songs – the Abduction of Limbs demo and a cover of Celtic Frost’s “Procreation of the Wicked”. Most likely, this brief reunion is a historical footnote at best, but I’m sure the locals had a good time. If you want to experience the band’s recordings, seek out either a copy of The Older Ones (a demo compilation) or the more recent Our Condolences (which essentially contains The Older Ones as its second disc).

No Comments

Tags: , , , , ,

Al-Namrood – Diaji Al Joor (2015)

by Gabe Kagan on November 27, 2015

artwork
Al-Namrood is so kvlt that they can’t even turn down their projects’ master levels a few decibels. While simply nudging everything down a bit so it doesn’t clip as much might not be the best way to go about it, the fact that this completely insane brickwalling that’s apparently been dogging the fellows throughout their career goes yet unresolved on Diaji Al Joor does not exactly fill me with hope. As previously mentioned the last time a DMU writer took notice, Al-Namrood’s big gimmick is that they’re from Saudi Arabia and are theoretically risking more to get their content out. Remove their background and the absolute garbage mixing job, and you’re left with an okay but generally underwhelming folk metal album with some black metal influences.

On a scale of Orphaned Land to Melechesh, Al-Namrood leans closer to the latter for keeping a greater amount of metal technique in their formula. For whatever reason, they end up consistently midpaced in all instrumentation and otherwise lean towards a consistent sound. From a musicological perspective, their consistent use of Arabic maqams (a seven tone system of tuning and intonation) makes for a great selling point in the Western world and, amongst other things, leads to some dissonant/microtonal droning sections that I barely hear in metal; I furthermore believe that more ambitious and proficient musicians could do great things with such. On Diaji Al Joor, this potential is squandered and turned into tedious filler that adds little of value. This is best described as more of a vocal-driven album, anyways – the vocalist (who goes by the pseudonym of “Humbaba”) barks and rattles his way through these tracks and seems to have some idea of how to vary up his inflection and pitch to make himself more interesting and prominent. I’m cynical enough to call him a case of wasted potential given the lack of direction that manifests below him.

I’d probably go as far as to say this is, in spite of its clear flaws, ever so slightly better than Melechesh’s recent effort (Enki) was, since it’s a bit less openly streamlined and digs a hint deeper into its respective reservoir of musical ideas. That judgement may, however, be too subjective for your tastes. Even if it isn’t, the fact that Diaji Al Joor fails to rise beyond a basic level of competence makes it an irrelevant comparison.

6 Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Classic reviews:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z