Seeing as how this is Decapitated 2.0, I don't feel bad for not having heard Organic Hallucinosis. With that said I'm very excited to have acquired a new batch of Decapitated songs. Carnival is Forever is the band's post Vitek offering, as it might as well be post-'anything resembling the original lineup'. Much like Vader, it has become sole original member Vogg's one man show with all brand new faces (hopefully not the first of a rotating door of hired guns). Fortunately, like Vader, Vogg has maintained a consistency in the bands sound. So while tere are a bunch of new faces, it still sounds like Decapitated.
The album's opener, 'The Knife', has an angular, Meshuggah circa Chaosphere feel. Think the more thrashy parts from The Negotiation, just more jagged. It shows Vogg's desire to try something new but stay within some kind of familiar boundary. Nonetheless it's a welcome opener.
Any doubt fans would have about new drummer, Krimh, should rest easy. While the new guy brings a slightly more straight ahead style, Vogg's song writing prowess keeps him in check. Much like Les Claypool, you can't play around Vogg. He forces you to react to his axe shredding without cutting corners. You have to keep up with him, you have no choice.
'Homo Sum' comes as the first real standout track as the band dives into more melodic waters while trying to somewhat recreated a rhythm pattern similar to 'Spheres of Madness'. 'View From a Hole' showcases the bands more blatant attempts with spacey/prog parts, but promptly pulls you back into the pummeling death.
The album's closer, 'Silence', serves as a calm from the ensuing madness. An homage to Vogg's fallen bandmate. Very touching, a bit out of place, but a good song for closure.
Vocalist Rafal Piotrowski seems to stand out the most as he does not possess a traditional growl but a more Piotr Wiwczarek/Vader rasp that, when played over the music, almost changes to outcome of the music. While not horrible, the vocals are a slight deterrent to the music's higher caliber.
Overall Decapitated's return is a relative success. While Vogg and crew seem to play it safe with the new ideas, it could suggest new sounds to come.
I feel bad for spreading gossip. I feel bad for going out of my way to talk shit or make fun of public figures, sometimes. Sometimes, however, people are just begging for it. Let's take Lars Ulrich of Metallica, for example. Since the Napster days Ulrich has become more of a punching bag the more he makes public appearances on behalf of himself or the band. Everyone loves to make a jab at him for reasons good and bad. I won't defend nor feast on his P.R. decisions, but sometimes things come along and you merely want to ask, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"
In A recent interview posted on Blabbermouth.net (which can be read here) Lars talks with Classic Rock magazine about the band and what could be their most controversial release, St. Anger. The album serves as enigma to most fans. Why? is a commonly asked question in regards to this period in the band's career. A movie, Some Kind Of Monster, was released and could possibly give fans some leads, along with countless interviews.
What puzzles me the most about the interview is this particular passage:
Classic Rock: Is it fair to say "St. Anger" is your worst album?
Lars: I think it's fair to say that some people think that.
Classic Rock: Would you agree with them?
Lars: I can't. The way I view the world, I can't rank them from best to worst. That kind of simplicity just doesn't exist for me. If I was 14, I could probably do it. Now, the way I see the world is nothing but greys, mainly.
According to Lars, he has no favorites. His age, his wisdom has allowed an inability to rank Metallica albums. Now I understand that bands remember their albums much differently than their fans, and his comment does not regard the importance of individual albums, per se. It would appear as if Mr. Ulrich's grey vision levels the playing field for all his musical efforts. That is to say, by using the logic from the afore mentioned passage, Mr. Ulrich sees no difference betwen St. Anger and Master of Puppets. Of couse I'm sure he could refute that easily and say his words were taken out of context. It's not juvenile to ranks albums if there are clear examples of a band's best efforts, and we can all agree, experiment or not, that Metallica has made better albums than St. Anger. The above comments come off as condescending than a diss to the mob of '14 yeard olds'. It's potentially immature and juvenile to rank things, but in the case Metallica's catalogue, it's pretty clear that there is a hierarchy in regards to quality. Your earlier material brought you fame and fortune. Your later material brought you fortune due to your longevity and established fan base. (I even bought St. Anger, and promptly traded it in for store credit)
Now I know Mr. Ulrich will not come across my writings anytime soon (unless he turns out to be a totally über-narcissist who google searches his name ever day to see what people think of him), but I have this one piece of advice, which you probably know already. Being in Metallica, you will likely come out victorious as even your biggest critics are some of your biggest fans. But as your albums, your achievements, are displays of your personal experiences, those albums do the same for us.
To further prove my point, I conclude a viral video making fun of St. Anger. The snare drum is replaced with a steel folding chair.
Origin's musical ability has been top tier since day one. Every album has managed to outdo it's predecessor. To make an album better than Antithesis is no mere task. So how does a band that has set the bar for tech-death achieve new heights? The band's answer to this question is rather interesting.
Origin almost takes a "two steps forward, one step back" approach to their new album, and Nuclear Blast debut, Entity. Allow me to put an emphasis on the "one step back" part. To question how a sound so unique, so high caliber could advance, evolve could reach further limits. How Paul Ryan came up with the music that Origin plays alone sometimes is an anomolly. On Entity, Origin decends from the heavens and takes on the kind of death metal that other people play. Yes, they wrote parts that almost (gasp) sound like more 'straight forward' bands (But can Origin ever truly be considered straight forward). Instead of shredding in a way the band only knows how, they incorporate parts they seem to have passed through during, maybe, the first Origin practice ever. I'm talking break downs (that still sound better than any core band to date), Nile-esque guitar solos (what? No raking arpeggios?). But doubters, do not fret. Anything seemingly 'less than Origin' caliber has their sound dancing all over it. C'mon, do you really expect the band play anything normal? While this album in large parts more straight forward, the band's technical prowess still dominates. The band's decision to bring it down (to earth) works really well. Hearing human drum-machine John Longstrength play anything other than mind bending blast beats and otherwise (one trick pony?) makes this not just another Origin album, and potentially menoutenous but more diverse. There's still plenty of the band's signature sound all over this album, but trying new things has definitely paid off for this band. This is a band that has been relatively so ahead of the curve for them to retrace their steps and put their mark on the things other bands have been doing for a while now is amazing. And the fact that this album is going to be played live as a four piece (only one guitar) will surely be nothing short of mind boggling.
So when I first started this blog my intent was to provide a variety of literature, but ya know, shit happens. So here's part of that variety I was talking about. Hey, we all love beer and we should all love this beer!
2009 was the year I believe that Sierra Nevada made a tweak or two to Bigfoot's recipe. Up until this batch Bigfoot was a hop bomb. It was one of the beers that established a West Coast style. There was a presence of malt, but not enough to keep up with the hop overload. Polar opposites, but the hops always came out on top. In 2009 they boosted up the malt to mellow out the hop bite. Still big, still unforgiving to the pallet. It's 2011, let's see how this vintage holds up.
It pours a copper-reddish hue with a creamy, tan head. The head fades away after letting the beer sit for a few minutes, but leaves a nice dirty line of lacing around glass. Heavy hop aroma. Lots of grapefruit and citrus rind. Hints of vanilla frosting. A little, tiny bit of earthy notes. Lots of alcohol warmth. I don't find many beers at 9.6% alcohol to be this hot from alcohol.
The first sip is smooth, almost creamy, until the hops break down the door. Two and a years aged and this beer still puts up a fight! These's hops don't die, they just mellow out a bunch. Thick texture. No real intense opening notes. This beer lets you slide into the flavor before the hoppy finish kicks you on the way out, and leaves you with a bitter feeling in your mouth. Any really presence of malt is certainly not sweet. Letting this baby get some air brings some sweet flavors (hints of honey) to the front, but they don't seem to last long. The hops engulf anything that isn't hopped already. I could be easily mistaking this flavor for the hops. Maybe they didn't even change the recipe and my hop tolerance (more distinctly my West Coast style hop tolerance) has gone up and I just didn't think it was too hoppy. Bigfoot is a hop beast. This 2009 vintage as shown signs of significant mellowing, but it won't go down quiety.
Morbid Angel's new album, Illud Divinum Insanus, comes to us after a eight years. While Trey and David Vincent have been reunited for quite a few years, and playing shows, we're only now hearing new offerings. It's not safe to say that an album eight years in the making will blow minds and be perfect. A rejoining of one of the best duos in death metal also doesn't mean that the album will be perfect. The new Morbid Angel album is, well, um, it's new.
The album's opener, Omni Potens, serves as an intro, but can easily be thrown away. The first real track, Too Extreme, is too extreme. Lets forget for a moment that Morbid Angel is the band that brought you such classics as Alters of Madness and Blessed are the Sick. The opening lines to this song are, "This is a warning." No shit. It's not secret that Trey Azagthoth has an affinity of electronic music, and it shows on this album, a little too much (sometimes you shouldn't bring you hobbies to the office). It sounds like Morbid Angel was listening to Ministry, a lot. The drums sound like they were sampled from a Berzerker album. Before this track is over you're scratching you head wondering why after eight years of waiting you get this. You feel like you've been wronged.
Don't fret, the next four songs will reassure you that the Florida deathsters haven't ran off the deep end. These are the tracks remind you of who this band is. Think Domination era, Vincent's vocals are as good as ever. However this moment of rejoicing is then broken up again by the song Destructos Vs. The Earth - Attack, an even worse attempt at industrial music. Radikult is even worse, take the lyrics from Body Count's Cop Killer and place it over really, really bad industrial rock. Hearing Vincent scream 'Kill a Cop' makes me uncomfortable, not that he'd kill cop, but a Morbid Angel album is the last place you'd hear something like this.
Nevermore has been well heard for the past few years, and should have been the album's opening. Vincent's roar is like a lion who has just reclaimed his throne. It's as if he never left. While videos of this song have been all over the web, hearing the studio version is welcomed with open ears. It served as insurance to the fans that we'd see another album. Unfortunately, Tim Yeung's fill in spot is not as exciting. As amazing as this Yeung is (winner of the fastest feet award), this guy was born and raised on Florida death metal. He does a great job sounding exactly like Pete 'The Feet' Sandoval'. He was hired because he could replicated Sandoval's work
I'm sorry to say it, but this album shows why musicians should start side projects. The industrial tracks are completely misplaced. If he has released them under another moniker, then we'd all be happy. This album is a mixed bag, the good tracks are good and what you'd expect. The problem is, it's a new album. Hearing this album is like seeing a friend who'd been away for years and is the same, but with a few new quirks from their travels. Why Trey and the gang decided the infused what should have been a good return with confusion is beyond me. This is not to be confused with the a fan's demand for the familiar and same old. Perhaps this was the only way These new sounds would get heard, and quickly ignored.
The video below was taken from Metalsucks.net
"A few years ago there was this popular internet meme in which people took a scene from Downfall, a movie about Hitler’s final days, and re-did the subtitles so that, instead of reacting to the news that he was losing the war, The Führer seemed to be freaking out about some horribly insignificant bit of nerdery (e.g., that the end of The Watchmen movie wasn’t exactly the same as the end of The Watchmen graphic novel, etc.).
Like most memes, it got old after awhile. But our friend Mark sent us the below one over the weekend, and, well… I don’t think I have ever typed these words before, nor am I likely to ever type them again:
From time to time there comes along an album that manages to find a happy medium. Too often are bands described using a shopping list of adjectives that really just covers up that fact that either a band lacks a focus (not always a bad thing) or are just beyond description. Too often are genere's mashed together to create something unique but still fall short of allure ( Folk metal and deathcore). The comes along a band that just gets it. Struck By Lightning does just that.
The debut album from these Ohio crushers, lead by former Mouth of the Architect Axeman Gregory Lahm, takes progressive sludge ala early Mastodon and adds 90s hardcore to conceive a post NeurIsis masterpiece (see what I did with that sentence? Hahahaha!). Serpents came to me shortly after its release. It took me to see them opening for Weedeater to witness their magic. Lahm's departure from MOTA only helped him. The sticker on the wrapper said something along the lines of "the soundtrack to a Blues Brothers style chase scene." Sold. This album has teeth. Heavy and complex. Lots of d-beat style hardcore, some melodic parts, lots of heavy crushing sludge. The complexity of Converge with the power of Tragedy and His Hero is Gone. Struck By Lightning seem to be more focused on writing fast and heavy rather than slow thick. You can't tell whether the hardcore is influencing the sludge or the other way around, but you don't care. You're too busy enjoying the music. This album comes at a time where a lot bands of a similar nature seemed rather lost. These guys have a good ear for what works and what doesn't. 'Becoming Earth', while on the sludgier side of the coin, opens with probably one of the coolest riffs I've heard in years, and displays some great rhythmic parts. They could have easily sped this jam up, but let it soak in the gravy just for a little longer. Having come up with music from the late 90s and the early 00s, this brings a lot to the table that I haven't heard in a while. You can tell why a lot of hardcore kids started listening to Neurosis and all that stuff.
