Waxed nostalgic over Kamelot's Roy Khan days and looked around the net for what they're up to. Circus Maximus' Michael Eriksen filled in for some shows and his voice is fucking amazing - sounded very much like Roy yet different at the same time.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZmKCxetdxo

 

Meh, he's alright, but I don't think his vocals were nearly powerful or emotional enough. I think someone with a vocal range like Kimberly Gross would be better, or maybe Simone Simons, of course they are both in bands that are touring already, but Simone does make frequent cameos already with them.

 

One of my current favorites:

Periphery and their self titled album.

Jetpack Was Yes

Icarus Lives

Another favorite as of late from Suicide Silence

Wake Up

Fuck Everything

Those are my two current favorites right now. I saw Suicide Silence live at Mayhem Fest this year and I also went to Summer Slaughter and got to see Black Dahlia Murder as well as As Blood Runs Black. Both are favorites of mine, if you want song/cd recs, I got more.

Quick Edit to remind people this is probably not for most people but if you click either of the Suicide Silence links I suggest you turn down your audio before clicking.

 

Aherusia is fairly obscure folk metal band that I used to listen to a lot, but forgot about completely for several months

They only have an ep and one album, but the album is very good, 10/10

1. Birth of Immortals - 7:45
2. Lux Occulta - 5:55
3. Methexis - 8:19
4. Beyond Death and Time - 6:27
5. Archangels - 5:54
6. Eros Aenaos - 11:19
7. To Our Ancestors - 5:20

 

Went to the Opeth / Katatonia show in Worcester, MA last night. My ride was ultra late, so I saw the tail end of the Katatonia set.

1/8 of 'Chrome'
July
Leaders

The 2.125 songs I saw were great, and made missing their set even worse.

Especially in light of how disappointing Opeth was.

The sound quality, the acoustics, the actual performances themselves were all good, however, of the eleven songs played, five were off the new album, which hadn't even been released in the US yet. As for the rest...

No death metal growls.

Zero. Nothing.

I actually started heckling them early into the set, seeing where it was going. I do have to say, I might have had the loudest voice in the crowd, and I'm pretty sure they could hear me. Anyway, the craptacular setlist:

The Devil's Orchard
I Feel the Dark
The Face of Melinda (sadly, the highlight of the show)
Porcelain Heart
Nepenthe
The Throat of Winter (I don't even know why they fucking bothered with this one)
Credence (even more sadly, second best song played)
Patterns in the Ivy II (I....what?)
Slither
A Fair Judgement
Hex Omege (this is a closer infuriated me, though not as bad as...)

Encore:
Folklore

Yeah, they couldn't even throw us a bone with a decent encore. A song I've never heard before, off the new album. Thanks a fucking lot, guys. Would it have killed you at least play one actual metal song?

Bleh. This new direction is concerning. The contrast of light and dark, serenity and aggression was always what made Opeth captivating. Without the dark...what a disappointing set.

 

I agree with Opeth sort of. My absolute favorite song by them is 'Ghost of Perdition' which alternates between haunting guitar riffs and death growls to slow, passive, melody. I don't like most of their songs though because a lot of them are boring, but they do have a lot of great ones.

 

Went to the Mayhem show in Worcester, MA Sunday night. One of the best shows I've seen in a while. Showed up early to catch the opener, Woe, though I still ended up missing the first song, due to the show starting early.

Woe setlist:
The Road from Recovery
Alone with Our Failures
Full Circle
some cover, Kill of the fucking nazis, or something
Condemned as Prey

Woe play a depressive, sorrowful form of black metal, which I'm quite fond of. They put on a great show. Ran into the vocalist, Chris Grigg between sets, and talked to him for a few minutes. Great guy.

Abigail Williams played next. I had never heard them before, but was pleasantly surprised. As opposed to the 'mallcore' sound I (mistakenly) associated with them, I got almost a doomish approach to black metal. Pretty good. I talked to the vocalist between sets, and he didn't seem too pleased with my preconceptions of their music. Ah well, they proved me wrong.

Hate I had never heard of, but were actually pretty good. They played a black / death metal hybrid, comparable to fellow Polish countrymen Behemoth.

Keep of Kalessin were really, really good. I've liked them for close to a decade now, but never got a chance to see them. Definitely not disappointed. Though they played mostly new material, it translates well live, better than I would have thought.

Keep of Kalessin setlist:
Kolossus
The Awakening
Judgement
Dragon Iconograpy
The Divine Land
Come Damnation
Ascendant

Though the pits were pretty lively throughout the show, it was nothing compared to when Mayhem took the stage. The entire front half of the upstairs of the Palladium morphed into one pit. Mayhem was nearly perfect live, exuding a mechanical, deadly ambience that I would have thought impossible to recreate live. The very hope seemed to be sucked from the air, leaving behind only desolation.

Mayhem setlist (probably out of order, and wrong)

Silvestar Anfang
Deathcrush
Pagan Fears
Ancient Skin
My Death
A Time to Die
View from Nihil
Illuminate / Eliminate
Buried by Time and Dust
Funeral Fog
Carnage
Freezing Moon
De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Chainsaw Gutsfuck
Pure Fucking Armageddon

Awesome, awesome show.

 

I agree with you about the new direction. I saw this tour when it came through to Orlando, and I was so excited. I hadn't seen them since the Damnation/Deliverance tour, which is my favorite album. Most people go meh when i say that because it was two separate releases. But it was all done on one insanely hellish recording session. And to write songs that range from Masters Apprentices to In my time of need...just showed how awesome they were. Honestly I think Mike got too influenced with Per joining the group. Now he's a fantastic addition and truly fitting on Damnation and Ghost, but adding the keys and going prog was the start of the downward spiral.

I ended up walking out about halfway through because I just couldn't take it anymore. At least when they did Damnation they mixed in Deliverance and Blackwater Park to make it good.

And on a final note, I believe that part of the reason why Peter left was because of the new direction. I wouldn't want to play rhythm guitar to what they were becoming either. And like most opeth fans that i know, we think that Ghost was their signature album...as it was Lopez's last with the band.


OT

Other than the Stockholm based prog metal

My metal likes are Cradle of Filth up until Thornography
Abigail Williams
Whitechapel
Death
Between the Buried and Me
and the list goes on and on...

 

So yeah, bumping this thread with my combined reviews of the new albums from Within Temptation and Nightwish (well, not new for WT, but the album presents a great contrast). Warning, massive tl,dr; ahead. Short version is that both albums are great, with WT more accessible and Nightwish just going fucking nuts in glorious fashion...

Let me start with Within Temptation's album The Unforgiving, namely because it's a lot easier to talk about. For starters, this is a Within Temptation album through to the core, and den Adel's vocals have never been better. The instrumentation is tight as all hell (and I really need to make a point of mentioning the fact that the choice to allow the guitarist a chance in the spotlight was both risky and a great one), the minimal electronic elements are integrated tastefully, and the production is note-perfect. It has excellent standout tracks with 'Faster', 'Iron', and 'Sinead', my personal favourite being 'Iron' for the key-change that comes out of nowhere and raises the bar to new levels of epic prowess (and I must make a note here: one of the reasons Within Temptation gains points over Nightwish is that they have songs that work very well as singles that could actually achieve radio play without compromising, something Nightwish has never really understood all that well).

And here's where we get to the crux of why I truly hate Evanescence. For all of the tightly honed precision and production of The Unforgiving, it still manages to come off as sweeping and epic, to the point where you can brush aside some of the cheesier, sillier lyrics because it's just that damn awesome. And that ulitmately becomes a founding point of the symphonic metal genre: if the music isn't sweeping and epic and powerful, it has failed. That's why Evanescence has always failed as a symphonic metal band, because between Amy Lee's vocals and the sloppy instrumentation, none of their songs have ever been epic. They don't have that larger scope, that bigger power, that moment that sends a chill down your spine. And it's a real triumph for Within Temptation that they can take such a tightly focused and constructed album and still make it feel epic and big and powerful.

Now, granted, I do have a few problems with The Unforgiving. There are a couple weaker tracks, and I'm not entirely sure what den Adel was doing on some of the tracks. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, it's just strange to see them take a less-conventional vocal direction with some of the songs ('Fire And Ice' was the big one for me), when a more-conventional style might suit them better. But then again, it's interesting to see this particular brand of experimentation within the tight confines of the instrumentation of the album - they aren't adding new instruments or layering in interesting ways, but rather experimenting with different chord progressions. It really shows a technical sophistication that I found noteworthy, if a bit odd.

Thematically, it's clear that The Unforgiving is telling an action-movie story, and telling it in broad strokes, and it's here where I find the one real weakness of the album, because it feels that some of the lyrics were compromised a bit in favour of the story, rather than the actual song itself. It's a weird dichotomy, and while I understand it, I think I would have preferred a more abstract story with the album and slightly less-silly lyrics. Don't get me wrong, in symphonic metal, you're going to get your silly lyrics at points, but here it was noticeable enough to break me out of the experience.

But still, a fantastic, excellently structured album. It's the kind of album where you can note and complement the careful build of the tracks, note how well the entire thing is mixed and produced and put together. And better yet, it doesn't lose that essential organic feel that made Within Temptation so damn good.

Nightwish, on the other hand, does not have control with Imaginaerum. This album is not constructed or built to show much sign of narrative cohesion. Following on the wake of Dark Passion Play, this album has gone off the deep end in a big way: it's wild, untamed, and more than a little insane, and it revels in it. This is easily Nightwish's biggest experiment and biggest risk that they've ever taken, and you can tell it's sprung fully-formed from the insane mind of Tuomas Holopainen. This is the kind of the album that either working or not, there's no coming back from it, and not much coming forward after it. You can clearly tell that Holopainen has intended this to be his magnum opus, and his brand of insanity is present in every track.

I honestly don't know where to start describing this album, because there's simply so much here. So many untapped dimensions, so many insane turns, so many bizarre choices. I still don't understand why there's a track with a jazz guitar and saxophone solo - this is something I usually expect from the Diablo Swing Orchestra (a jazz-metal band everyone should check out, btw), not from Nightwish. There are multiple bagpipes solos. There is some of the heaviest, craziest, hardest guitar I've ever heard Nightwish bring to the table, and you can tell that every member of the band is being pushed to the breaking point. It's honestly to the point where there is so much experimentation that it kind of feels like a gigantic mess of half-formed ideas, with little coherence or connection between the two.

In a way, I can understand this, given the themes present in the album, but I can't deny at points it becomes a real problem on the production. There are times where there is so much instrumentation, it's drowning out Olson and Hielata when they sing, which is a real problem with the layering. Granted, it means I can't catch any bad lyrics, but it's still not very excuseable. And some songs feel like they drag a little, extended just so Holopainen could cram in one more musical flourish. And, really, there's only one song I can see coming off this album getting any airplay whatsoever, and that's 'Storytime'. The song's great, mind you, but you're not going to see anything else like it on the album. Suffice to say, you can tell this is a work of artistic hubris. This isn't an album that has a hope in all hell of being preserved to be played live at a concert, which I think is a real damn shame, because Nightwish puts on great performances (same problem I have with Blind Guardian's 2003 'A Night At The Opera', to be honest). And really, there are points on this album that made me just shake my head and say 'I just don't get what Holopainen is trying to get across here’.

For any other band, I would throw up my hands and give up. But here… somehow, it works, and I think the way to explain it is to delve into Holopainen’s influences and mindset, which are fortunately very well-articulated, both throughout the course of his music and his interviews. The beginning context to be laid is the obvious film score influences, both in the creation of epic sounds and atmosphere – it’s clear that Holopainen’s trying to emulate the symphonic touches of masters like Hans Zimmer, but the real symphonic feel I pull from it is more in line with Clint Mansell, with the abundance of minor keys, harsh basso sounds, and discordant chord progressions. In a way, I really like this, because it sets a great tone for metal, but I can understand if some find it overly grandiose.

But delving deeper, this is also an album where Holopainen is delving into his most common themes: the progression of time, impending death, and the beauty/horror of the untapped imagination in the blended world of dreams and reality. In the execution of these themes, you can tell Holopainen’s trying to present a varied view contemplating multiple aspects, but ultimately the views circle back to Holopainen’s usual arcs regarding the ‘tortured artist’, a view that it’s clear Holopainen identifies with whole-heartedly. On the one hand, it does make segments of the album lack a certain innocence and humility that would convey the messages more clearly, and it can make certain tracts come off monstrously egotistical (pieces of ‘Slow, Love, Slow’, ‘I Want My Tears Back’, and most certainly ‘Song of Myself’).

But on the other hand, the only way you can present points of view with the gravity that Holopainen wants is with a certain amount of glorious ego. You can’t realistically convey grand statements about art and death without some of that sense that you have a uniquely insane world view that is, in essence, above everything else. In a way, I can identify with the intense feelings of isolation that comes from someone with a strange, twisted world view that might never be accepted by everyone else, and maybe that’s why elements of this album resonate so strongly with me and draw such powerful emotions from me.

It’s also an album that has a strange sense of history – throughout each track, if you’ve been a fan of Nightwish for a long time, you can recognize the chord progressions or subtle moments that harken back to other great Nightwish songs of years past. Even on the strangest tracks, you can find callbacks to classics like ‘Wishmaster’, ‘The Kinslayer’, ‘Planet Hell’, ‘The Poet and the Pendulum’ (in fact, you could argue this entire album is a sequel to that fantastically epic song), ‘Last of the Wilds’, and more, while still twisting them into a new direction. If anything, this is the sign of a band that has matured to a point and refined its craft from everything that worked in the past before mutating it into something entirely unique. On the one hand, this isn’t a great thing, because I really think it limits this album’s overall appeal to new listeners. You’re not going to get all the little things that make this album special if you haven’t listened to Nightwish’s entire discography from the beginning. But on the other hand, if you’re going to make an album eclectic and filled with continuity nods, you might as well make it your magnum opus.

So, yeah, I can’t give you any standout tracks off of Imaginaerum – it’s like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon or the Who’s Quadrophenia or Ayreon’s The Human Equation, it’s meant to be listened to as one glorious piece of music. And yeah, I’m equating Imaginaerum with those albums – it’s an incredible piece of unique symphonic metal that we’ll probably never get again. If anything, it kind of makes me a little sad, because I honestly think Nightwish as a band has nowhere to go after this. This is the kind of record that ends careers, simply because I don’t think they can realistically top it.

In summary, while Within Temptation produced a fantastically accessible and workable album of symphonic metal this year with The Unforgiving, Nightwish unfortunately blows them out of the water – I haven’t seen this kind of insane genius since Ayreon’s last project. Imaginaerum is the best album Nightwish has ever made, and it’s currently the top contender for my album of the year. Yeah, I know it’s inaccessible and more than a little overwhelming if you’re not used to the sound, but I get the feeling that’s the point. Nightwish didn’t write this album to entice new fans or win back old fans – that’s what Dark Passion Play was for. This is the epic, glorious symphonic album for hardcore fans, musicians, and the dreamers.

My recommendations: if you’re looking to get into symphonic metal, check out Within Temptation’s The Unforgiving. As much as I raved about Imaginaerum, Within Temptation has delivered a masterful product that would have easily topped my best albums of the year. It’s accessible, it’s powerful, it’s epic, and it’s one of their best albums. But if you’re already into symphonic metal, check out Nightwish’s Imaginaerum. I won’t guarantee you’ll love it, but you’ll certainly remember it.

 

I've never been a huge fan of Nightwish. They have always seemed like a poor man's version of Within Temptation or Epica, and this album is slightly better, but still not great. Which is a shame, because they are better known than those two bands, although WT does get some radioplay and even some exposure in tv shows (Uhg, vampire diaries).

Imaginareum was... interesting. You were right in that there is a lot of directions the music took, every song was radically different, but that doesn't necessarily mean good. The female singers vocals are unimpressive to say the least, and I do realize that it is a new singer. They are not that powerful, epic, or overwhelming. When the guy sings his supporting growly vocals, it reminds me a bit of earlier Epica albums, but that is very hit or miss. Mostly miss on this album I feel. But hey, Nightwish has been around for 6 years longer, so they can't claim that. I do like the band well enough to where I don't mind when a track comes up on Pandora, but I don't go out of my way to listen to them too often.

Mostly, I was underwhelmed. Most of the tracks were very tame, barely qualifying to be in whatever genre they are proscribing it to be in. The first one that stood out was I Want My Tears Back and that's the fifth track on the album. Not a very good start I think, and it's just because it has some catchy, fast riffs that almost seemed to jump into folk metal territory, and reminded me hugely of Eluvietie.

Scartale had some promise. I love epic-length metal symphony tracks and as that goes, it was quite good.

Turn Me Loose was interesting. It shows that the singer does have what it takes, if they would just give her the opportunity more often. I think the trumpet playing in the background was a bit overkill though, but I did like the track alot.

So while their are some good songs, there was way too much filler, and to consider an album to be great, there needs to be more than a handful of good songs. It's just too tame. I can appreciate that they were 'experimenting' with 800 different styles, but it didn't really feel cohesive as a whole, but it's still decent. And I will concur with what Silens said with smothering the vocals, a lot of the tracks have the guitar and drums cranked up, but in most of the cases, neither are very spectacular and are just basic slow beats.

I'm not sure if it's better than Within Temptation's new album though. Sharon is an amazing vocalist, and fits in with her band flawlessly. Her vocals are powerful, energetic, and mesmerizing, and her live presence is fluid, and the vocals can really make or break a band.

Both albums are definitely worth checking out.

-edit- Also, the stand out song of Imaginaerum is "The Last Ride of the Day" I think. Beautiful song.